Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Slow Down! The Current State of Brewmasters

Hello friends. There's been a lot of talk about Brewmasters and viability over the last week or so and I wanted to take the time to write down my thoughts on balance and where we are as part of our raid teams and where we are compared to other tanks.



So as for myself, I found myself an alright raiding guild, with whom I've been progressing fairly well. At least right now, I'm more or less your average joe raider. We're finishing up Heroic, and getting into Mythic. Despite my own confidence in Brewmasters, the general public opinion has affected me, ever so slightly, and when I went into the raid, I was very cognizant of my own health and tankiness. I talked with the healers, to make sure that both myself and our other tank were fine.

Turns out, we were.

My co-tank is a prot warrior. Despite myself taking a notable amount of damage more than him (probahbly 15-30% at most, maybe more), we were both fine in the eyes of our healers. We were both surviving fairly well. And despite that, I've noticed that I've generally died less often to certain points of burst.

Your first thought from reading that might be that things were extremely imbalanced... which isn't necessarily wrong, at least as far as player metrics are concerned. Warriors, with the admittedly limited data we had from last week's round of logs, were miles ahead of other tanks in performance. I want to say according to Warcraft Logs, they were about 40-50% ahead of Brewmasters, specifically (varying of course depending on the bracket you look at, but this was for the higher percentiles). But you have to remember, we were surviving. Both of us. We weren't dying due to healer mana issues. In fact, the biggest factor to wipes was simply that the team I'm on is fairly new, and we're still in the process of getting used to each other. Out of all of our wipes from the last week and a half, none of them were because I was a burden on the team because of my class. My internet, which strangely lagged a good bit last night, has had more of an effect on my performance as a tank than me being a Brewmaster.

Let me reiterate. A single night's worth of latency has caused more issue than my spec of choice.

I've read a lot of things over the last week in regards to Brewmaster balance... and honestly I can't help but think that a lot of it is over-exaggerating the issues that we have. And I say that we do have issues because the data I've seen does show that we're undertuned compared to other tank specs. But here's the thing: I don't necessarily have all the data. Nobody does but Blizzard, really. Player metrics are potentially an incomplete data set. And furthermore, being undertuned doesn't necessarily mean we're unviable. If I wasn't viable, I wouldn't have gotten a raid spot. Nor would I have been told that my damage intake and tankiness were fine. Nor would my lag be more of a problem than my spec. And my situation isn't unique. There are many Brewmasters who I socialize with who are in fact doing just fine. Those whom are at my level of progression and higher. I also realize that this isn't the entirety of the community's feedback and opinion. There's also a lot of you who do know that we are overall fine, but ask for some tweaks, minor buffs, and quality of life changes. I have no issue with that. I agree with some of it, even.

Plus, I really don't think we're at the end of tank tuning for the tier. This latest hotfix only really looked at two specs. One was warriors, who were notably nerfed largely because of how far ahead they were, and the other was Demon Hunters, who had by Blizzard's admission some whacky mastery scaling issues. This really strikes me as a hotfix that was less about definitive tank tuning as much as getting everyone into a very roughly equivalent place, for more specific changes to come. Warriors were a big outlier, and were brought more in-line. Demon Hunters had some scaling issues, they were fixed. I don't think we're done just yet.

We are not in such a bad place as a lot of the people you could find on certain websites would claim. We're able to tank just fine in MOST situations. Could we use buffs? In my opinion, sure. But I don't think we need something insanely radical. I think that we don't have a lot of people playing the spec, in no small part because of its reputation, but I think that those of us who have figured out the spec are doing very nicely. It's a spec that takes time to get used to. I don't believe a radical buff is necessary, nor would I want it.

Ultimately, what I want is for everyone to be able to play the spec they love without having to worry about being a problem for their team. I've gotten probably at least three people a day for the last month coming to the Brewmaster Discord channel and asking questions related to this, or expressing concern about their choices. Ultimately, even if we might be undertuned to a degree, my answer has always been that we are not so undertuned as to be unviable. We are a spec that takes time to get used to, that takes effort to play, but not to a degree that I feel isn't worth it. Obviously, I'm not necessarily everyone, and some people have said that the spec isn't worth the effort put forth to get the current results. That's something that can be fixed. Things can be improved. Like for example, out of combat stagger. It'd be amazing if there was a way to purify completely out of combat. I have no idea how easily that could be done, but it would be a great quality of life change.

Balance isn't this black and white picture that I see some people painting it as. Undertuned doesn't mean unviable. Nor does viability inherently mean perfectly tuned. There is always shades of gray in everything. Balance is an idea of rough equivalence. Sometimes its not as tight, but balance is liquid. If you feel undertuned, express that. Feedback will be heard, and will be counted. Try not to be frustrated by it, because sometimes I think we forget that it isn't sometimes that big of a problem. We're not all racing for the world first. We have the luxury of wiggle room. Admittedly, some more than others, but we have it all the same. And it's always important to remember that your skill with a class still matters. This game might at times seem like just a bunch of mathematical formulas, but there is the human element as well and it should always be considered.

I think its important to remember that. I hope that if you take one thing away from this post, it's the confidence to play what you want and to excel at it. Be that Brewmaster or another spec. See you next time.

7 comments:

  1. I'm happy with brewmaster gameplay, and while I feel we are both undervalued for a lot of content, we are also slightly undertuned (but aside from guardian and protection warriors, we seem to be right behind the other tanks).

    My biggest concern is the community at large deciding brewmaster tanks aren't viable, and so won't want to pick us up for content. Not because we aren't viable, but because everyone thinks we aren't. Which we are. Especially when people learn how it works.

    That said, I think we have two big issues in the brewing community. The first is that everyone thinks you absolutely have to take black out combo or you are bad/will never be able to compare to other tanks. Which simply isn't true. The other lvl 100 talents are perfectly viable, and depending on gear and encounter mechanics, may even be extremely preferred, though still not required.

    The other issue is that a lot of the brew community thinks we absolutely need to be in the 35-60% range in order to be viable. Which is not necessarily wrong in its thinking, but in practice obstinate determination is more like a saving grace than a way to deal with mechanics, but people are trying to use it to cheese mechanics. This type of information needs to stop being spread, because people try and play with this in mind, which only scares healers who then don't want to heal brews because they think we are too squishy!

    All of that said, if we could get some minor qol changes I think we be perfectly fine (outside of tuning if blizzard feels we are too far from the pack). The first is keg smash on a 2 charge system, because with the short cool down, every time you fail to use keg smash on cool down means you have lost some active mitigation. And at higher levels of haste it is even more of a loss per second you don't use it. A charge system will allow people to not suffer for not having perfect timing.

    My second qol gripe is to have stagger drop after combat clears, if only so that good brewers aren't looked over for mythic+ because "you can lose time waiting for it," even though brews can be quite strong in timed content (smoother damage makes healing more predictable, and allows the healer to potentially throw dps in).

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  2. I'm happy with brewmaster gameplay, and while I feel we are both undervalued for a lot of content, we are also slightly undertuned (but aside from guardian and protection warriors, we seem to be right behind the other tanks).

    My biggest concern is the community at large deciding brewmaster tanks aren't viable, and so won't want to pick us up for content. Not because we aren't viable, but because everyone thinks we aren't. Which we are. Especially when people learn how it works.

    That said, I think we have two big issues in the brewing community. The first is that everyone thinks you absolutely have to take black out combo or you are bad/will never be able to compare to other tanks. Which simply isn't true. The other lvl 100 talents are perfectly viable, and depending on gear and encounter mechanics, may even be extremely preferred, though still not required.

    The other issue is that a lot of the brew community thinks we absolutely need to be in the 35-60% range in order to be viable. Which is not necessarily wrong in its thinking, but in practice obstinate determination is more like a saving grace than a way to deal with mechanics, but people are trying to use it to cheese mechanics. This type of information needs to stop being spread, because people try and play with this in mind, which only scares healers who then don't want to heal brews because they think we are too squishy!

    All of that said, if we could get some minor qol changes I think we be perfectly fine (outside of tuning if blizzard feels we are too far from the pack). The first is keg smash on a 2 charge system, because with the short cool down, every time you fail to use keg smash on cool down means you have lost some active mitigation. And at higher levels of haste it is even more of a loss per second you don't use it. A charge system will allow people to not suffer for not having perfect timing.

    My second qol gripe is to have stagger drop after combat clears, if only so that good brewers aren't looked over for mythic+ because "you can lose time waiting for it," even though brews can be quite strong in timed content (smoother damage makes healing more predictable, and allows the healer to potentially throw dps in).

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  3. I also enjoy the brewmaster and don't feel that I'm a problem in our raids (6/7 normal). But, I also don't feel that I'm an asset either. When I look at the guardian Druid toolkit or the size of prot Warriors' ignore pain, I just feel confused and a bit jealous.
    We are viable, but underwhelming.
    I would like to see purify clear more than 50% of the damage. Maybe 100% is too much, but 50% seems too low. I would also like to buff the healing spheres and have them proc more regularly. Just a slight tweak- I like playing the challenging tank spec, but at the moment we are just underwhelming.
    These two buffs would allow the talent tree to stay the same, but would put us on more level footing.

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  4. The issue hasn't ever been that BM can't tank, it's that BM has to work literally twice as hard as other tanks just to achieve the same results. People don't play BM not because it can't be used for mythics or even progression, people don't play BM because it's a massive pain in the ass for no justifiable reason.

    So the lack of attention in regards to hotfixes and 7.1, and not even being mentioned in the Q&A, is very concerning.

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  5. For a new comer to the game and enjoy challenging myself, I have enjoyed so far the spec. I am proud to be part of the minority of a challenging gameplay. I do have to agree with the comments made by David and that is the game is complicated and tough enough without the spec being played adding to woes! Alas, I do enjoy the BM only a low level 70 and I will continue to master the ways of this "underrated" character, as I know we will balance out soon and be leading the charge! :)

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    Replies
    1. Honestly, I didn't find his comments to be reasonable then, and I still find them to be an exaggeration now.

      We've gotten a lot of attention from the devs and the idea that we weren't mentioned in a Q&A is hardly worth worrying about.

      Besides, the idea that we're a "massive pain for no justifiable reason" strikes me again as massive hyperbole, even for the original date of this post. He's kinda the person I was talking about.

      I'm glad you're enjoying the spec. We're actually honestly in a fairly competitive spot right now and with 7.1.5 we'll be getting back even more toys to bring us to further competitiveness.

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  6. Having tanked on a druid for years, from BC through Mists, and having tanked on a pally shortly, warrior shortly, and the DH in the expansion, the monk is undertuned. This only means that it takes more effort to get the expected results needed. It also means you need to be more raid aware and cognizant of your healers. Are there things I would like to see improved? Of course. Are there areas that are fine? Of course. For me, the hardest part was going from a WOD tank spec to a Legion spec. They are 2 different play styles and it allowed me to learn a new class that I love over again. You can see that BM tanks are running +10 mythic dungeons and making the timers so they must be doing something right.

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