With the recent Brewmaster and Mistweaver buffs, is the class feeling a bit better these days?
I’m stuck trying to decide whether my Horde main character should be a Monk, which can be tank/healer/DPS, or a Priest with 2 healer types. I’ve mained a Holy Priest and Disc priest in the past, but I like the idea of Brewmaster and (Caster) Mistweaver.
Brew is fine. You will hear a lot of opposite opinions, but that’s mostly because brew is not an entry level tank.
It depends on what you are looking for.
Both Brewmaster and Mistweaver can perform well enough up to everything but the highest level of keys (25 area) where their innate weaknesses makes them fall behind others.
I currently do not play Mistweaver right now, so I leave others to answer that part of the question for you.
As for Brewmaster, as Zenergy mentioned it is not an entry level tank. The spec requires more knowledge of the mechanics of trash and bosses compared to other tanks, as you need to actively use your defensives in preparation for big damage spikes in order to survive it. Bleeds tend to hurt us a lot, as well as consistent magic damage intake.
Brewmaster also have a wide range of skills, which means you will need a lot of hotkeys if you want to make full use of your spec. By default you can pick up 5 cooldowns, 2 brews, 4 defensive cooldowns, around 4-6 active damage abilities (4 of which are talents) and around 4 utility abilities. This is on top of having a teleport ability (2 hotkeys) and roll and not taking into account active abilities/potions that you use throughout the fight.
I personally feel it rewarding to play, but that is a feeling of someone who has multiple years of tanking experience behind him. Unless you are up to taking your time in learning the ins and outs of a spec that has a lot of buttons to manage I can only recommend Brewmaster, for now, if you have some previous tanking experience. Starting out tanking as a Brewmaster will not be a fun experience, atleast not in dungeons.
Sheilun’s Gift has made M+ a lot more bearable as Mistweaver on higher keys. I don’t understand why we don’t gather clouds out of combat though. Edit: And you’ll still get completely outperformed by Evoker and Druid. On utility, damage and healing. While they’re at safe range rolling their heads on the keyboard.
While Sheilun’s Gift is decent in raid we have way too many talent choices there to make it a viable option I think. It seems that regardless of the build we go for, we’ll be outdone by the more powerful healers while we’re putting in twice the effort. And we still bring absolutely no worthwhile utility.
In PvP, I think Mistweaver’s caster build has been nerfed with the removal of Bonedust Brew and I just don’t see Sheilun’s Gift being good there. But I play Fistweaver there so someone playing the caster build at a decent rating would have to clarify… which isn’t a lot of people because Mistweaver in general isn’t very powerful and this for sure won’t have changed for the better.
Lastly, the lingering effect from Faeline Stomp while nice if you already got a reset is only a bandaid on a big problem if you didn’t. It should allow for resets.
Sheilun’s Gift isn’t that great in PvP tbh since you will get locked out easily. That’s a shame because I liked this ability when it was baseline
Good changes, makes life so much easier however our biggest enemy is the community perception.
I still get auto declined to anything that isn’t my own keys, even if I score 500-1k higher rating than grp.
I don’t hold it against them tho. We’re a wild card.
What Zenergy and Kyoth said: a Brewmaster is capable of doing the exact same content as any other tank spec rn but it just requires a bit of extra effort. Which, when succeeding, feels thát much more fun, rewarding and (most important to me personally) engaging to play, than any other tank spec ever <3 imo ofc.
Idk if you’ve played other tank specs (seeing as you mentioned maining healers beforein the past), but in my experience the BIGGEST thing I would’ve liked to know when I started is that ‘tanxiety’ really is a thing. That pressure that tanks feel, that’s starting to build when you wipe on the first pull in a dung. Plus the bullsh*t you get from people can be very demoralizing and demotivating. The best way I found to avoid this is to practice with people you know/ frequently play with and let them know you’re learning Brewmaster.
Anyway, on topic: the addition of 2 dps rotation spells generating healing orbs feels veeery welcome; as opposed to just having a chance to spawn one on damage taken. I can use Expel Harm a bit less restrained 'cause the orb counter suddenly chills at 5 (max) more often, whereas before the changes I could go half a pack pull sitting at 2 orbs, praying that it would crit me to full hp >.>
Last but not least (I talk too much I know, it’s my meds pls forgive), I wanna give a heads-up. Brewmasters need HEAVY Stagger for parts of the kit to work properly and to it’s intended potential. But during levelling/“low” keys you simply don’t take enough damage for that Stagger to build. But, unlike BDK for example, that part actually starts to feel like it’s working better once the content gets harder. Instead of it needing a certain % of haste or something like that.
TL;DR - Go learn Brewmaster, best decision you can make BUT you need to persist 'cause it’s not easy <3
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.