Chen Stormstout arguably has one of the most powerful abilities in the game, and no one seems to care. Karma is huge! Reroll ANY number of dice while attacking or defending, for any ally. You just need to get one little chi counter on the opposingfigures to get the benefit of Karma. Tack that on to Chen's base stats, a solid 2/2/10 with a 2 tick 5 dice attack and you have the ingredients for a great brew. The problem is, Chen has some serious drawbacks.
#1 Legendary: The obligatory 10 Honor and double VP's if killed. Admittedly 10 Honor isn't as hard to swallow as it used to be. But you cannot use Chen with any other Legendaries, and for double VP's you need some really good mojo.
#2 Classless: While the kung fu pandaren has plenty of class, he has no Class. This SEVERELY limits Chen's ABC's. Imagine Vashj without Boots of the Crimson Hawk, Soulseeker, Wrath of Air Totem, or Purge. Would Vashj still be Teir 1 material? Probably not.
#3 Melee: I am going to assume that you are already aware of the problems facing melee, and won't try to beat a dead horse here.
#4 Counters: Cleanse, Dispel, Mass Dispell, Frost Purification, Iceblock.
#5 Crit: Chen HAS to crit to justify his other drawbacks. Otherwise he is essentially worthless. OK, you say. There are lots of ways to get the job done. Not so fast. Chen is part of the Monster Faction. That means no Balance Druid for Moonkin Form and no Survival Hunter for Master Tactician. The other Problem is that Karma is so much better than Mark of the Wild, Strength of Earth Totem, Wrath of Air Totem and Blessing of Might (even of there were a monster Pally) that to run any of them as ABCs for team mates seems a little superflous. All that leaves is Arcane Flux, which isn't really a bad option, considering all that you care about is getting Chen to crit. The rest is gravy. Since Chen is Legendary that limits us to three monster mages: Blindlight Murloc, Bloodscale Wavecaller and Razaani Nexus Stalker. Out of the three I would take the Nexus stalker as the higer defense stats would be benefitted more by Karma. So for the purposes of this exercise, at least until SoV comes out, the Chen squad is CRX. We'll expore the X options in a bit. First come the ABC's of CRX.
Chen Stormstout
-Care for a Pint?
-Attack of Opportunity
-Fog of War
Care for a Pint?'s 2 ticks for 2 health that any ally can use, with Recharge, is not all that bad of a deal as far as I am concerned, although I cannot say that I have ever tried it out. Attack of Opportunity increases the number of dice rolled by 20%. there is that little precondition, but with Arcane Flux you are essentially rolling twelve dice in order to get one little crit. Someone else can calculate the odds, but they seem pretty favorable to me. Honestly there aren't any outstanding ABC's for Chen yet. Hopefully future sets will remedy that.
Razaani Nexus Stalker
-Arcane Flux
-Counterspell
-Flamestrike
Couterspell will hopefully help against bands with debuff removal. Flamestrike+Karma? Yes please!
The X factor: The goal here is to capitolize on having lots of dice to roll for one thing or another.
Enraged Fire Spirit
-Flamestrike
-Fireblast
-Silk bandage
Rethilgore
-Lycanthropy
-Silk bandage
-Fog of War
Crushridge Ogre
-Magma Totem
-Chain Lightening
-Grounding Totem
Deathwhisperer
-Bulwark of Azzinoth
-Doomfinger
-Red Havoc Boots
This is the monster version of the Great Wall I guess. Yeah, Doomfinger is a little silly, but not as silly as Hood of Primal Life+Silk bandage.
That's all I got for today, tune in next week for Anchorite Christia, yeah I guess I have a thing for Priests.
Sarcastic remarks should come in a different color. Then the forums would be more interesting to look at.