Dragonflight Brewmaster Monk Tanking Guide

Brewmaster Monk Overview

Brewmaster Monks are a leather-clad tank specialty with a potent array of offensive and defensive cooldowns, a strong base rotation, and damage smoothing. Brewmaster Monks have regularly ranked among the top tank specs in the game since Mists of Pandaria introduced them, and they are frequently well-represented at the highest levels of raiding.

 

Brewmaster Monk Talent Builds

For a more raid oriented talent build, you can use the following talent loadout.

You can import the Raid talent build with the following loadout code: BwQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQAAAAgUoUSSCkkUaRAAAASLUSiEJSCJJJJlEARi0SrEC

For a more Mythic+ oriented talent build, you can use the following talent loadout.

You can import the Mythic+ talent build with the following loadout code: BwQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQAAAAAloUSSCkkUaRAAAASLUSiEJkQSSSSJBcARi0SrEC

 

Brewmaster Monk Stats

Agility is your primary stat, found on leather gear. Agility is a direct survival stat, passively increasing  Stagger scaling rate, and contributing to self-healing via  Gift of the Ox,  Celestial Brew, and  Expel Harm. While Agility's effect on  Stagger scaling is a bit complicated, it has a pretty strong effect.

Here is how Brewmaster Monks feel about secondary stats:

  • Agility > Versatility > Critical Strike > Mastery > Haste
  • Critical Strike: Thanks to  Celestial Fortune, Critical Strike directly increases your healing taken, and is integral to surviving with Brewmaster’s limited self-healing toolkit. It's also an excellent offensive stat. Outstanding stuff.
  • Haste: Increases Energy generation and reduces the cooldown of  Keg Smash. 14.3% Haste is required to reduce the cooldown of  Keg Smash to 7 seconds (33.4% to reduce the cooldown to 6 seconds). Talenting into  Stormstout's Last Keg effectively eliminates all concerns regarding those two breakpoints. While Haste doesn't become good, it is a decent stat once you have that bonus. The up-to-10% Haste provided by  High Tolerance acts as a multiplier to your current Haste value rather than an additive boost. This is great! Haste is usually the lowest-value stat, but not by a huge margin. Its value is slightly higher in AoE than single target.
  • Mastery: Functions more or less like Dodge chance. It is a decent, reliable offensive boost as well, about on par with Haste. It has two major shortcomings that make it a second-tier stat option. First,  Blackout Kick can push stacks over the hard cap, resulting in wasted avoidance. Second, and more important, it does nothing to reduce damage that cannot be dodged. Despite those limitations, it is the strongest effective damage reduction stat against autoattacks. Mastery is a good stat, but you will want to prioritize Versatility and Critical Strike ahead of it.
  • Versatility: An excellent damage and damage reduction stat. It is a very strong stat, valued just slightly ahead of Critical Strike. Because Versatility is generally harder to find on gear than Critical Strike, it is typically a better option for gems and enchants. Sim yourself to be sure if you're trying to maximize your damage (and why wouldn't you be?)

 

Best Brewmaster Monk Consumables

Best Brewmaster Monk Enchants

Below is a list of the recommended enchants to use on your Brewmaster Monk gear in Dragonflight.

Slot Best Enchant Cheaper Version
Weapon (Main Hand)  Frozen Devotion  Frozen Writ
Weapon (Offhand)  Sophic Devotion  Sophic Writ
Cloak  Regenerative Leech  Writ of Leech
Chest  Waking Stats
Bracers  Devotion of Leech  Writ of Leech
Legs  Fierce Armor Kit  Fierce Armor Kit
Boots  Watcher's Loam  Plainsrunner's Breeze
Ring  Devotion of Versatility  Writ of Versatility

 

Brewmaster Monk Phials

 Phial of the Eye in the Storm provides a ton of stat budget when tanking in AoE, such as in Mythic+.

 Phial of Glacial Fury is an offensive option that provides no stat budget, only a damage proc. It's not good defensively, but will deal a lot of damage.

 Phial of Static Empowerment provides great stat budget when standing still for longer periods of time, and the burst of speed is nice for occasional movements. This is a good defensive option for some raid fights, but not as good for fights with consistent movement phases.

 Phial of Elemental Chaos is a decent fallback option in situations where the alternatives above are not good.

Brewmaster Monk Combat Potions

There are a couple different potions that have different useful scenarios for Brewmaster Monks:

Brewmaster Monk Weapon Buff

Brewmaster Monks should always use  Buzzing Rune as their preferred weapon buff item.

Best Brewmaster Monk Food

Best Brewmaster Monk Gems

You will want to equip gems that grant Versatility in any available gem slots.

Here are the best examples:  Resplendent Illimited Diamond,  Radiant Malygite,  Stormy Malygite,  Radiant Alexstraszite

 

Brewmaster Monk Rotation and Priority

Brewmaster Monk Opener

  1. Pre-cast  Rushing Jade Wind before the pull.
  2. Cast  Keg Smash before you are in melee range.
  7. Cast  Keg Smash again.
  8. Refresh  Rushing Jade Wind (if talented)
  10. Cast  Spinning Crane Kick twice!
  11. Cast  Rising Sun Kick, then  Keg Smash again, and continue the rotation as normal.

Brewmaster Monk Single Target Rotation and Priority

  1. Use your offensive cooldowns! There are literally too many to list here, just use them at the start of pulls, and re-cast them as they become available.
  2. Use  Tiger Palm to maintain  Monk Brewmaster Class Set 2pc if the remaining duration is <2 seconds.
  3. Keep at least one  Keg Smash charge on cooldown.
  4. Use  Expel Harm if you need healing!
  5. Use  Blackout Kick on cooldown.
  6. Use  Rising Sun Kick on cooldown.
  8. Cast  Breath of Fire as a filler.
  9. Use your second charge of  Stormstout's Last Keg.
  10. Cast  Tiger Palm as a filler.

Brewmaster Monk Multi Target Rotation and Priority

  1. Use your offensive cooldowns! There are literally too many to list here, just use them at the start of pulls, and re-cast them as they become available.
  2. Use  Spinning Crane Kick to maintain  Monk Brewmaster Class Set 2pc if the remaining duration is <2 seconds.
  3. Keep at least one  Keg Smash charge on cooldown.
  4. Use  Expel Harm if you need healing!
  5. Use  Blackout Kick on cooldown.
  6. Use  Rising Sun Kick on cooldown.
  7. Maintain  Rushing Jade Wind at all times.
  8. Cast  Breath of Fire as a filler.
  9. Use your second charge of  Stormstout's Last Keg.
  10. Cast  Spinning Crane Kick as a filler.

The main difference between AoE and single target for Brewmasters is that in AoE, you generally use  Spinning Crane Kick in place of  Tiger Palm.

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