The Brewmaster - An Examination

With the release of Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard is introducing only the second new class to be brought into the fold since World of Warcraft's 2004 release.  It's also the fifth tanking class, and the second to not wear plate.  The monk has been long-anticipated, and it holds an intrinsic aesthetic appeal that, at least for me, is enough to thrill me with the class.  Seriously.  You cannot possibly understand how badly I want to tank with a staff.  And not that lame druid staff stuff.  They pretend to use staves.  We're going to be going Donatello on these Chinese-themed mobs.

I understand that that's not necessarily enough for everyone, though.  "Stonepalm," I can hear you saying to yourself, "if that's all there is to look forward to, then I'm afraid your devilish good looks won't be enough to charm me into playing the class.  Though they do come close, you handsome beast."  Well, dear reader, fear not!  There are a lot of things to be excited about when it comes to the tanking monk.  Obviously, however, the monk hasn't been released, and very few people, such as those who attended Blizzcon this past year, have been exposed to them in any hands-on fashion.  How much, then, can we possibly know at this juncture?

What we know

A surprising amount, as a matter of fact.  First, there are the facts.  Blizzard's very own Q&A about classes was very informative about the (tentative) details.  WoW Insider made a nice compilation of the monk responses here. The monk will be able to tank, DPS, and heal.  As tanks, the spec we're interested in is the Brewmaster.  That's why the name of my blog is so clever, thanks for noticing.  We've been told that the monk will use a dual combo point resource system via the creatively named Dark and Light Force.  Some abilities will generate resources, and others will consume them.  Big Bad Blizz gave an example of an absorption shield for Dark and an avoidance boost for Light, and while you can't take such an example as set in stone, it IS helpful for getting into the heads of the devs.  This option system seems similar to the new talent design - they want us to be making a choice between two things that are both appealing.  Brewmaster monks are also planned to consume drinks as short-term buffs, which strike me as being evocative of tanking-themed, personal warrior shouts.  But with beer, so 25% more awesome.  Give or take.

We also know a bit of itemization, thanks to everyones favorite crab, Ghostcrawler.  Monks are going to use agility leather, for one.  To avoid a brand new intellect plate scenario (with only one spec in the game using a type of gear), we can infer that the monk is going to share its agility leather with Feral/Guardian druids and rogues of all flavors.  That means the monk is going to be built to operate with threat stats in mind (more on that in a bit).  That also means that rogues and Ferals will be our archrivals a la the mage/warlock debate.  I stubbornly refuse to hold a grudge against another tank spec, but I will persecute any DPS that take our gear with a smile on my face.  And a staff in THEIR face.  Because I'll be tanking with a staff.  As far as weapons are concerned, the concept is tanks using staves (YES), and DPS utilizing fist weapons among other things.  Aside from my staff obsession, I think it will be good to see another spec that uses fist weapons.  They've always been pretty cool, but too limited - maybe this way we'll see more that drop in dungeons and raids.

What we can predict

 

  

- Design Philosophy -

Now for speculation beyond the facts!  First, let's talk design philosophy.  Blizzard is shifting its tanks to a new paradigm, and this is one of the things that really excites me about rolling a monk.  Apparently, Blizz is pleased with Blood death knights and their "active mitigation."  While admittedly flawed (notably in being REactive, not PROactive), it gave reason for death knights to be concerned about whether or not their attacks hit.  That Death Strike connecting was important, so threat stats were important as well.  As a result, all tanks in Mists will be using a new-and-improved active mitigation design, where the idiom "a good offense is the best defense" will be put through its paces on a literal level.  This is where monks will shine.  I have a tank of every capable class, with my main at the moment being a paladin.  I stacked stamina in Wrath, and I stacked mastery in Cata.  Now, the paladin is going to be twisted around and turned on its ear to fit the new design.  NOT SO WITH MONKS.  

The Brewmaster will be designed out of the gate, from the ground up, to be an active mitigation tank.  Not even death knights will be able to match the elegance with which monks fulfill the tanking design philosophy.  In addition, we can likely extrapolate that the monk will be the best fit with Blizzard's encounter design in early Mists.  I would speculate that the first raid tier of the expansion might see monks actually being a bit overpowered.  I would also speculate that I will cry furiously when the nerfbat strikes.  Don't judge me.

- Stats -

While the above is something I would say we have a pretty good handle on (there's no doubt that monks are being born straight into the active mitigation era, of course), what follows is little more than pure guesswork on my part.  It's true that we will share our gear with rogues and druids, giving us some threat stats that tie into the active mitigation model.  However, I would have us make predictions a step farther than that.

1.) Dodge

First off, our appearance on the tanking hierarchy has a chance to bring tears of joy to our Guardian brethren.  With two tanks using agility, it's entirely possible that we'll see the introduction of leather with dodge on it.  Current Feral tanks have a tendency to reforge to dodge like madmen, so it makes sense from a tanking perspective.  The alternative, of course, is to make the stats that Feral DPS and rogues use more attractive to Guardians and Brewmasters.  I guess we'll see just how that active mitigation pans out.  If that's the way it works, then we'll have agility leather designed so that seven specs (three rogue, two druid, and two monk) can use it.  Frankly, that seems like too much to me.  Tank plate has three specs, and DPS plate has five, with no intermingling of the roles.  Clearly, my hope is for dodge leather, so we've got a comparable [two tank/five DPS] distribution.

2.) Parry

So where does parry fall into this?  I'm fairly certain we'll be able to dodge and parry, similar to death knights, but there's a catch to it.  We can't put parry on our agility leather, because Guardians can't parry.  For similar reasons, we can't put it on our weapons.  I think we're going to be giving a lot of our milk money to the jewelcrafters and arcane reforgers to build up our parry.  I also suspect that we'll see some parry trinkets that four of the five tanking specs will be able to use, giving a special nudge up to monks who are craving it.  There IS one upside I see to us pulling parry out of the woodwork, though.

Consider the protection paladin.  There's a metagame with this spec wherein parry and dodge are to be placed as close to each other as possible, to minimize losses to diminishing returns.  For us monks, that metagame will be a lot simpler.  If threat stats are indeed valuable, we can reforge some of our dodge to parry to try to keep them fairly close.  If they're less valuable than pure avoidance, then we keep the dodge on our leather (assuming dodge leather exists) and reforge the threat stat to parry.  The two will either be in direct competition (reforge one to the other) or not in competition at all (just try to maximize both).

Because that may be confusing, allow me to clarify.  Let's assume we'll have dodge leather.  You might get a piece that has 250 dodge and 250 crit rating.  If threat stats are valuable, then you could reforge your dodge to parry to keep them fairly equal.  If avoidance is more valuable, then you leave your dodge alone and reforge away from crit to parry.  My point here: ONCE WE KNOW WHICH IS MORE VALUABLE IN MISTS, then our reforging will follow one of those two patterns for every piece of gear you acquire.  You will either ALWAYS reforge from dodge to parry or ALWAYS reforge from threat to parry.

Again though, still speculation.  Perhaps Blizzard will make magic happen and have avoidance and threat be equally valuable and we'll be juggling a bajillion different stats.

What we absolutely don't know

We don't know talents yet, but I'm hoping this month's press tour will resolve that.  Still, we DO know that they should be well-balanced around the other ten classes.  Say what you will, Blizzard is good at balance in the end.

Glyphs, obviously.  We don't even know ABILITIES, let alone how we want to alter them.

Mastery is the big kicker here.  Our Brewmaster mastery (Brewmastery?) may be a fantastic game-changer, or it may be utterly worthless.  Pending that knowledge, which will ultimately take gameplay to truly learn, every single one of my stat predictions could end up being total bunk.  Still, I think the ideal here is a good mastery AND dodge leather, giving us the possibility of seeing a piece with dodge and mastery on it, both being valuable.

Looking ahead to the future is very exciting to do, though, isn't it?  We've got a brand new tanking class on the horizon, which will be so well-designed that the others will be jealous like we're the kid on the block who got a brand new bike.  We might see the direction Blizzard is taking our talents this very month!  And once the beta ships, I anticipate lots of monk face time thanks to my Annual Pass.  On the whole, it's a bright future to tank into.  With a staff.

- Stonepalm -