Kallil was a surprisingly fun reroll that (relatively) quickly made it to cap. I had previously tried a couple Tauren Monks, and though I still like their animations, something about this Troll just stuck. I had all XP heirlooms and two agility maces, so that plus Monk's daily XP buff made cakework of grinding out dungeons. I already posted recently about my Monk, so I'll just make this a quick update.
I put together the red version of the Riverblade armor and I'm using the Staff of Ox-Hoof Thunder
from the final Monk quest. It's an especially lean looking set on a troll, making me look kind of gangly, and the staff with it makes for a very slim profile overall. I like it.
My gear still has two 476 slots I want to replace before I start pugging into Flex. I'm at 499 average, so just getting a good weapon and shoulders should make it just fine. I use the default stat priority from Ask Mr Robot, which prioritizes Haste over Crit until 8000 Haste. This has me swimming in energy, so I can generate a lot more chi. I'm going to also be trying Mastery stacking, which has more passive mitigation, and Crit stacking, which increases Elusive Brew uptime and has more DPS. I like trying different methods. That said...
I get kicked from LFR's fairly frequently because some nosy noobs want to inspect and criticize my gear. I'm always fully gemmed and enchanted with a good reforge, but that's not good enough for some people. Invariably is starts with some comment about my health level. Apparently I don't have enough. I stacked Stamina on my Pally and would get kicked for it. I stack secondary stats on my Monk, and I get kicked for it. What gives? Monks are low health tanks. We deal with damage taken differently than other tanks.
Some take it further and tell me stacking haste is wrong. I'm pretty sure it's another viable way to gear. It's not one of the recommended priorities on Icy-Veins or Noxxic, but it is on Ask Mr Robot and Elitist Jerks has interesting commentary on it, calling it the "'safety net' of stats, as no other stat will help you recover from your mistakes as effectively as Haste." There's different gearing options, is what I'm saying.
I call these naysayers noobs, because while everyone is a newb at some point, not everyone then transitions into a know-it-all that becomes some sort of self-appointed police force, instructing other people how to play. To me, that's a noob characteristic. I know what I'm doing, and I have yet to hear a proper healer complain.
I'm looking forward to finally having a proper alt, and I'm happy that it's also a tank with a fairly similar tanking method. Since Flex is out, I'm up to 4 nights of raiding on my main right now, LFR, 10 man, Flex, then more 10man. That's already a setup for burn out, but since most of my Pally's gear is 430 or better, I'll probably be dropping LFR and Flex soon enough. I only really need Vial of Living Corruption, at any ilevel. For my Monk, almost everything in LFR is an upgrade, so I'll probably be phasing him in as I discontinue LFR and Flex on my Pally. I really want to be careful to avoid burnout, especially since both are tanks. I'll probably also start Flex with my guild on my Monk, either as a way of letting someone else tank, or to just change it up and avoid bad PUGs.
I like the look of your monk. Gangly works well for trolls in my opinion. :)
ReplyDeleteSince I'm leveling up a Brewmaster of my own, it's interesting to me hearing what you say about the secondary stats. I might try haste too when I do a bit more with him. Good luck with your monk. I'll be keeping an eye out for more updates on how tanking with him goes.
It will probably go a lot better when I start Flex on him with my regular group instead of just LFR.
DeleteBy all means try Haste, just be warned. People will call you a noob. The effective difference between stacking different secondary stats is small, much smaller than the difference playing well makes. It's not a huge deal, it's just something easy to nitpick over.
Easiest way to try to avoid the gear criticism is just to use a pair of Stamina trinkets when you're running LFR... that'll jack your health up an appropriate amount.
ReplyDeleteOn my monk I typically tank in my dps set which means haste to 6K or so and crit>mastery otherwise. I don't gem Stamina, ever, unless there's a blue socket with a socket bonus that I want when I'm already so far over hit cap that I can't reforge enough off (I'm currently in that situation).
I find that particular stat combination to be as enjoyable for tanking as I do for dps so even if I had a separate, equivalent tank set, I'd probably go with something similar but haste-heavy is more or less viable up to a certain point that'll be different for everyone (the AMR cap, in my opinion, is for folks who can instantly hit every button as a keybind, including cooldowns... the haste cap for someone not at that competency level will have a lower functional cap which is where my 6K personal cap comes from, even that may be a bit higher than it needs to be). I'd fully support a crit- or mastery-heavy build as well, though, depending on personal preference, content being run, quality of healers, etc. Monks have amazing stat flexibility, pretty much anything can be viable.
Stat flexibility is one of Brewmaster's major design successes, I think. Pallys share this level of success as well, since they can stack Stamina, Haste+Hit/Exp caps, full Haste, Mastery, Haste/Mastery balance, or even Dodge/Parry and still play well.
DeleteI'm hesitant to use a Crit build on my Monk since right now I'm using Elusive Brew as a short cooldown, rather than part of my active mitigation rotation. I think that as I get better gear I'll be able to use it more often, but I also still would be concerned about how much of Crit's survivability is diminished on tank swaps, having 15 stacks just hanging there while not tanking. It's not a simple issue.
That's awful about LFR! I never queue as tank by myself, but last week I tanked two bosses anyway because we never got a new tank in when one left. Last tier I would queue together with my guild and tank. Those kinds of runs generally have higher success rate, and I mostly got positive whispers. With item level of around 540 I don't really get complaints though. As you say you can definitely decide for yourself what gearing strategy you go for, so just ignore "the inspectors". I like high haste and high crit myself. I know low haste and high crit is preferred by others, and low haste and high mastery preferred by others again. So just go with what you like! Good luck with Flex etc. :)
ReplyDeleteI stick with guild runs whenever possible, especially with my co-tank, and some of our healers and DPS. It's like everyone else is just along for the ride as our players top the meters, quelling the opportunity for some punk to talk smack. I don't think I've ever been kicked when co-tanking with a guildie, now matter how undergeared. I would even say that such a team is unkickable.
DeleteI like high Haste so far because it matches my Pally experience well, generating and spending as much Holy Power/Chi as possible. I anticipate a point where I get 100% uptime of Shuffle with as much Chi leftover as I need for using Purifying Brew. Maybe that's what the 8000 Haste is about.