I’ll go straight to the point.

I’d love to have a smoother reclear on this farm boss. I think we still have a problem for the damage taken from a non-dk tank. I think, and it’s only my personal opinion, that would makes things easier to:

• going back to guardian;
• running a more defensive setup for the non-dk tank;
• dog swap at buff change (minor and maybe even not needed at all with the above).

I know maybe it’s late to change that much but I wanted to share my thoughts on this anyway. We will outgear the fight soon enough that my worries explained below will fade.

I’ll try to recap my reasons to the above.

Back to guardian.

I’ve healed both guardian and brewmaster there, even thought only once each. I felt the guardian took less damage while doing the fights. Checking logs let me see that the difference wasn’t much. In fact BM took only 200k damage per second more than guardian. Keep in mind that guardian has a higher HP pool so the same damage taken shows more on a BM HP bar than a guardian one because of percentile. The same 200k difference was applied to the external healing required, BM required more tank hps.

Spikes of damage taken and healing required is when you start to see a bit more difference. Some 2mil damage per second spikes on both, few 2.5mil (keep in mind the percentile point explained above, same damage, less % of hp loss for guardian). Going to the spikes of healing required you see fewer 1.5mil hps and no 2mil hps required on guardian. Guardian has a more realiable reactive self heal in frenzied regeneration than the gift of the ox+expel harm of BM. The first heals you for a base 50% of damage taken in the last 5 seconds, the second you need to stack the spheres and then heal. You don’t have 3 charges of the self heal on the BM, you need to stack the spheres in order to get big heal.

More defensive setup.

This one comes after I’ve tanked this boss myself. Coming from a tank healer and seeing how much effort it took to heal a non-dk tank I was worried to not have enough gear for it, I’m only a poor 946 guardian, even thought it’s comparable to Epu’s druid on the kill at an ilvl of 949. So I’ve run a full defensive setup with the plan to mitigate physical damage with ironfur and juggle every Maw spike of magical damage with a defensive CD and heal back up after it with the reactive self heal of Frenzied Regeneration. 21% of versatility for a 10%+ of damage reduction, add 10.5% of damage reduction from the guardian Thick hide passive augmented by the chest leggo. Add another charge and reduce the CD of our most powerful defensive CD in survival instinct with the legendary ring. More or less same stamina, same armour, 8k more haste (decreases the cd of the self heal and let more rage genereation), 10k less mastery (gives you HP and more healing received, 6.4mil more healing received because of that for me), 4.3k less versatility, 660 more avoidance and 594 more leech for Epu’s guardian. Comparable ironfur uptime.

BM took almost 1.6mil damage per second, Epu’s guardian took almost 1.4mil and I took 1.1mil.

For example, with a comparable melee hits taken, the damage received is almost 40mil higher for Epu’s guardian.

BM needed 950k hps, Epu’s guardian 860k while I needed 536k (less than DKs).

Now, I did a shit low damage parse, but my healers were grateful and we were able to kill it after only 1 wipe (caused by my death).

I know that we’re going to outgear the fight soon and those problems will fade. The dog swap might be not needed for Epu’s guardian since he has already better gear than what I was forced to use.

Since I really hope to get this boss on a real farm boss, oneshot ideally, I think that going with some sort of a turtle setup will result in a dps loss. But since that is not an issue, the benefit of not being forced to heal actively the tank while healing the raid might result in a smoother and faster rekill.

Again, this is only my personal opinion on the matter.

Scabbrox wrote:

Thanks for the post Patrick. We’ve already discussed this after last week’s raid and came to a similar conclusion that sticking with the druid for all fights where a monk doesn’t offer large helpings of cheese (Argus basically, unless they change it before we get there which is entirely possible) is the most sensible option. Swapping has/is being considered, but the bottom line is that it’s not necessary as long as tanks use their CDs at the right time and either call for, or are automatically given an external at key times. Most of our earlier wipes did indeed feature tanking issues with the monk, however this did get sorted only for the next 4 or 5 to be screwed up by people dying to avoidable damage. So, it’s a little unfair to focus solely on tanking issues as a reason for failing to kill Hounds quickly again until the 13th try when in reality most of those also featured 5-6 players dead to avoidable damage as well. We could have both tanks not die and not make any mistakes and yet if people still insist on dying on a fight where death is almost a deliberate choice then we still won’t get it down before the overlap kills us all.

I didn’t mention the dps deaths issue because it’s not something you can solve changing tacticts, classes, talents or items used. It is indeed an issue.

If you’ve already discussed it then it’s all good. We can oneshot those dogs this weekend and get at least AHC down!

A a monk I have around 1 month of Brewmaster Experience:

Only 1 Bis Legendary,  I have to play with a “Dps” as a secondary legendary because I have no better one

No mythic experience on that Tank so even if i Know the fight I have to adapt it as the class

I do not have 4PT20 which is a big survability improve. And trying to have it on Pick up group is a pain every week

With the other Ring I can smooth mitigation between physical and Magic income damage + the Wrist legendary that I do not have

Except High Stack dead, I have to use some CD cause of “Griping” ‘s mate

I try to do the best as I can but it is not so easy and monk specificity required a balanced stat between Mast & Crit with a minimum of 15.6% haste.  And I do not have the balanced stat, survability is a pain

Relic except 1 I do not have Bis relic or Nethercrucible chance (except 1 trait)

For this Week I try with my Drood such as:

Nerf my output Dps

Play with Chest + Dual Determination Ring as legendary

Pulverize (Normaly to be more efficient I have to play with Leg legendary) for Magical Reduction

Put a  bit Versality

I did not check the log but I should not have be any difference on Physical Damage and I should have cause of pulverize a 9% of Magic Damage. As I am not an expert as Warcraft log. Letting you give me a number difference of incoming Damage.

I agree that “normally” the drood stat are: Poly >= Mast > haste > Crit if you are playing with all legendary but the best combo legendary are: Cloack + Shoulder (Balance Legendary) because your output Dps and your selfheal will be higher if your moonfire did a lot damage. But in order to playing with that combo your Priority change to:

Haste >= Crit >  Poly > Mast

So for all the incoming boss, I should have 2 set of items in order to face the different encounter. I know which item I should have but if I put a Bis on it I have to justified myself. And if I put situational it is not totally true, cause I have to equip that item on more than 1 boss.