Brewmaster Monk Raid Guide

Welcome to the Brewmaster Monk raid guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.0! This guide covers everything you need to know to understand your character! Are you starting out and leveling up from 70? Check out the leveling guide!

Brewmaster MonkRaid

Single-Target

Strong

AoE

Strong

Utility

Average

Survivability

Excellent

Mobility

Excellent

• Master of Harmony and ‍Shado-Pan are both very competitive with each other when it comes to damage output.
• Master of Harmony influences your gameplay with Endless Draught and Mantra of Purity, while Shado-Pan is almost fully passive.
• Master of Harmony provides great defensive value and flexibility in raids hence this guide is currently only recommending it for the first few weeks of raiding.

Tier Set

• 2-Set: Blackout Kick and Keg Smash deal 20% additional damage, and Shuffle also grants 3% damage reduction.
• 4-Set: Blackout Kick increases your damage dealt by 1% for 15 sec, stacking up to 3, and has a chance to reset the cooldown of Keg Smash and make its next cast cost no energy.

Opener

• We want to gain a good amount of Shuffle through Keg Smash and Blackout Kick while also getting our debuffs rolling. This results in a long opener weaving in a lot of different spells.

Priority List

Make sure to keep this list in mind, unless some bosses or scenarios require you to hold some abilities listed here

1. Use Touch of Death whenever possible.
2. Cast Blackout Kick on cooldown.
   • If talented into Blackout Combo consume it with Tiger Palm.
3. Cast Keg Smash on cooldown especially if Flow of Battle (4-Set) is active.
4. Cast Breath of Fire on cooldown.
5. Cast Weapons of Order on cooldown.
6. Cast Rising Sun Kick on cooldown.
7. Cast Exploding Keg.
8. If talented, cast Chi Burst.
9. If talented, cast Rushing Jade Wind.
10. Cast Tiger Palm.

AoE Priority Changes

• Blackout Combo should be consumed with Breath of Fire on 3+ targets.
• Replace Tiger Palm with Spinning Crane Kick.
  • An important tip here is to keep enough energy for Keg Smash since it has a higher value.
  • Casting Spinning Crane Kick more than once is very costly on energy so watch out!

Defensive Cooldowns

• Celestial Brew
  • Provides big on-use absorb. This is your main defensive ability against tank hits.
  • Purified Chi increases the absorb amount by up to 200%.
  • Gains cooldown reduction from Keg Smash and Tiger Palm.
  • Now has 2 charges with Master of Harmony's talent Endless Draught.
• Diffuse Magic
  • Your best tool against big magical hits. It offers a 60% magical damage reduction for 6 seconds.
  • This also self-dispels and, in certain cases, reflects the spell back to the caster.
• Dampen Harm
  • Amazing tool for big hits and dots.
  • Offers a 20% to 50% damage reduction based on the hits taken, that's why it's quite strong against a big hit and weaker on multiple smaller hits.
• Fortifying Brew
  • Crazy long cooldown of 6 minutes that gets reduced by Keg Smash and Tiger Palm.
  • Gives 30% max health and 30% damage reduction, which makes it your most well-rounded defensive.
  • Used mainly against big hits and early on so the cooldown reduction can start working on getting it back.
• Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox
  • Used when your Stagger is particularly high since it suffers 25% of your Stagger damage instead of you.
• Zen Meditation
  • With a 60% damage reduction, this is your best tool against 1-time big hits.
  • The downside is that you can't move or use any ability without canceling the spell.
  • Mainly used to soak a mechanic or tank a big dot while you are not getting actively hit.

Offensive Cooldowns

• Weapons of Order
  • 10% increased Mastery and Keg Smash inflicts 8% increased damage taken for 10 seconds, stacking up to 4 times on the targets hit.
• Exploding Keg
  • Causes melee attacks of targets hit to 100% miss you for 3 seconds.
  • Throw a keg that amplifies all your damage with bonus fire damage. Pair with Spinning Crane Kick on AoE.
• Touch of Death
  • Clears up to 200% Stagger when casted. Touch of Death is very good to cast on cooldown for both damage and defensive value.

Stagger

Brewmaster Monks rely on their Stagger mechanic to passively reduce the damage they take which is an essential part of their damage mitigation.

Stagger Phases

Your Stagger is split up into 3 different phases.

• Light Stagger
  • Total Staggered damage amount is equal to 1-29% of your maximum health.
• Moderate Stagger
  • Total Staggered damage amount is equal to 30-59% of your maximum health.
• Heavy Stagger
  • Total Staggered damage amount is equal to 60% or more of your maximum health.

Using Purifying Brew cleanses 50% of the staggered damage thus reducing your Stagger phase and serving as your main mitigation ability. Purifying Brew is best used right after receiving a lot of damage to cut the Stagger damage in half.

Managing Celestial Brew & Purifying Brew

Juggling Celestial Brew & Purifying Brew is your main task and gameplay when it comes to your survivability on Brewmaster Monk.

• Purifying Brew is your main tool to cleanse Stagger like described above.
  • Important to note: Purifying Brew is not on the global cooldown, so it can be pressed while using any other ability.
• Celestial Brew is your defensive tool that is empowered by cleansing your Stagger.

Here are some tips and tricks on what to keep in mind when using them:

• Purifying Brew has a few rules you want to keep in mind when juggling your charges:
  • Avoid having both charges ready, you are wasting both defensive value and cooldown reduction value from your abilities.
  • Use a charge when your Purified Chi is about to expire you don't want to lose your absorb increase on Celestial Brew
  • Make sure you always get full cooldown reduction on this from Keg Smash.
• General rule on when to use Purifying Brew the most efficient way:
  • After a big hit so you get the most Stagger value cleansed when it is new and at the highest point.
  • The other option is to almost fully cleanse yourself of any dangerous Stagger after big hits, this is achieved by getting a very big stagger and then using 2 charges back to back.
• Overall, if you follow a natural flow of gameplay, you should use it quite frequently just to avoid Heavy Stagger and not overcap charges.
• The biggest mistake you can make is to use all charges on cooldown and then end up with none when the Stagger becomes dangerous.
• Celestial Brew is more straightforward to use:
  • It's your most frequent active defensive and should be used on most mechanics whenever possible.
  • Try to not hold it for too long since you are wasting cooldown reduction, which results in more damage taken in the long run.
  • However, you have to hold it for dangerous tank mechanics in certain scenarios, so keep that in mind.

Shuffle

Brewmaster Monks need Stagger to live any mechanic and what enables it to a large extent is Shuffle.

• Shuffle is passively generated by pressing Keg Smash, Spinning Crane Kick and Blackout Kick.
• If you don't stop pressing buttons, Shuffle should never drop and you don't need to pay any attention to it. But there are some scenarios where the buff might run out:
  • When mechanics force you out of range and you are unable to reach the boss you might end up dropping it, resulting in a lot more damage taken so watch out for that!
  • Starting combat with Keg Smash and running in fast can result in death. Since Shuffle is triggered by the damage of Keg Smash and not the cast, if you are faster than the keg flying, you might get hit without Shuffle up and you die.

Blackout Combo

• Blackout Combo provides you with a variety of options to empower your spells after using Blackout Kick, which happens very often so taking this talent makes it quite difficult to play well.
• Blackout Combo has a number of buffs it can provide but only 2 of them are really worth using:
  • Tiger Palm, which gains 100% increased damage
  • Breath of Fire, which gains 50% increased damage and 5% additional damage reduction
• The hard part of using Blackout Combo is that you always want to pair it with Tiger Palm. This is very easy to mess up since any other ability consumes Blackout Combo.
• Using the buff on Keg Smash to gain extra 2 seconds of brew cooldown reduction is not the worst but not worth it most of the time.
• Using the buff on Purifying Brew is almost entirely worthless.
• In order to avoid wasting your Blackout Combo, you need to fill the time until your next Tiger Palm with abilities that deal good damage but don’t consume the Blackout Combo, such as Rising Sun Kick, Rushing Jade Wind, Spinning Crane Kick (watch your energy!), and Chi Burst.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

The following tips are mainly applicable to Heroic Bosses. Mythic tips are going to be released after our progression concludes.

← Scroll for more Bosses →

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights as a Brewmaster Monk. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. This makes managing certain mechanics a lot easier.

In general, Leech is really strong for tanks, especially in AoE scenarios it can be by far the best stat you can have.
Avoidance is great but most of the time tanks are not struggling to survive the typical Area of Effect abilities.

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to our recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the raid boss.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Foul Behemoth's Chelicera
  • Strong trinket for both defensive and offensive value.
• Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg
  • A trinket that grants mainstat while standing still and highest secondary when moving.
  • 2minute on use with which you can walk around without losing the mainstat.
• Swarmlord's Authority
  • Haste statstick, that gives a good all-around absorb on use every 1min.
  • Due to having only haste as a stat, only recommended if the absorb is needed.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Ara-Kara Sacbrood
  • A strong trinket that provides haste baseline with mainstat proc, while also doing some damage.
• Empowering Crystal of Anub'ikkaj
  • RNG stat proc trinket.
• Dead-Eye Spyglass
  • Great passive crit stat stick, important to hit the marked target.
• Ceaseless Swarmgland
  • Another passive trinket that does damage and provides little damage reduction.

Embellishments

• Adrenal Surge Clasp
  • Provides good passive Agility at the cost of some Mastery.
• Writhing Armor Banding
  • Empowering your Adrenal Surge Clasp.
  • On Wrists, Boots, Waist, or Cloak depending on your available gear.

Remaining Sparks

• Crafted items are 636 item level and regular items are 639 on max item level, therefore, it's a small loss to equip crafted items outside of your 2x Embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• Phials
  • Flask of Tempered Aggression -- maximum DPS.
  • Flask of Tempered Versatility -- less DPS but more survivability.
• Food
  • Feast of the Divine Day
  • Feast of the Midnight Masquerade
• Combat Potion
  • Tempered Potion
  • Potion Bomb of Power -- group potion, this is a DPS loss for you.
• Health Potion
  • Algari Healing Potion
• Weapon Stones
  • Ironclaw Whetstone -- usable on Sword, Axe, Polearm.
  • Ironclaw Weightstone -- usable on Mace, Staff and Fist Weapon.
• Augment Rune
  • Crystallized Augment Rune
• Sockets
  • Versatile Ruby
  • Culminating Blasphemite -- Unique, use one of each gem colour to enhance your Blasphemite.
    • Deadly Onyx
    • Deadly Sapphire

Enchantments

For min-maxing a Brewmaster Monk in Raids, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Stoneform -- Dwarf
  • Is very valuable because you can dispel yourself or remove dangerous bleed effects.
  • On top of that using Stoneform gives you 10% physical DR which can be used as a small extra 8 second personal when tanking.
  • Use-cases:
    • Disembowel, Ravenous Spawn
    • Poison Bolt and Void Bolt, Skeinspinner Takazj
• Arcane Torrent -- Blood Elf
  • Strong racial to dispel or purge enemies, the value is very limited but sometimes can come in handy.
• Rocket Jump -- Goblin
  • Do a small jump in the direction your character is facing.
  • While you're in the Rocket Jump animation you are placed on a global cooldown until your character lands.
• Spatial Rift -- Void Elf
  • Spawn a shadow traveling into your facing direction, and activate again to teleport to the rift.
  • Maximum range of 100 yards.

Recommendation

As a tank picking a racial for damage is most of the times such a small gain that it's not worth it. If you care about min-maxing your DPS go with the highest DPS racial.

That being said the recommended race for raid tanks is for sure Dwarf for the on-use physical damage reduction and the ability to self-dispel when needed. These features are insanely strong and should not be undervalued!

Discover recommended macros for Brewmaster Monk for Raids and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

Taunt Macros

Taunt Macro --- This macro either casts Provoke at your target or your mouseover (very handy to pick up mobs)

#showtooltip Provoke
/cast [@mouseover,exists,harm][@target,exists,harm] Provoke

Boss 1 Taunt --- Casts Provoke on Boss1

/cast [@boss1] Provoke

Boss 2 Taunt --- Casts Provoke on Boss2

/cast [@boss2] Provoke

Mouseover Macros

Tiger's Lust --- This macro either casts Tiger's Lust at your target or your mouseover

#showtooltip Tiger's Lust
/cast [@mouseover,exists,noharm][@target,exists,noharm] Tiger's Lust

Paralysis --- Casts Paralysis at your mouseover target

/show tooltip
/use [@mouseover] Paralysis

Mouseover Focus --- This macro sets your mouseover as your focus

/focus [@mouseover]

Focus Macros

Paralysis --- Casts Paralysis at your focus target

/show tooltip
/use [@focus] Paralysis

Focus Spear Hand Strike --- Casts Spear Hand Strike at your focus target

#showtooltip Spear Hand Strike
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][] Spear Hand Strike

Utility Macros

Ring of Peace Cursor --- Casts Ring of Peace at your cursor position without confirmation.

/cast [@cursor] Ring of Peace

Cancelaura BoP --- This cancelaura's Blessing of Protection on you, very useful to have when playing with a paladin.

/cancelaura Blessing of Protection

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Brewmaster Monk, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.

Addons

• Shadowed Unit Frames (SUF) -- Full User Interface replacement
  • Addon to replace your Unitframes and other UI Elements with a more clean look. Takes quite some time to configure but there are plenty of pre-done profiles that you can easily import and check out.
• BigWigs -- Generic Boss Mod
  • BigWigs is a boss encounter add-on. It consists of many individual encounter scripts, or boss modules; mini add-ons that are designed to trigger alert messages, timer bars, sounds, and so forth, for one specific raid encounter.
• Weakauras -- Jack of all trades
  • WeakAuras is a powerful and flexible framework that allows the display of highly customizable graphics on World of Warcraft's user interface to indicate buffs, debuffs, and other relevant information. This addon was created to be a lightweight replacement for Power Auras but has since introduced more functionalities while remaining efficient and easy to use.
• Plater -- Advanced Nameplates
  • Plater is a nameplate addon with an extraordinary amount of settings, out of the box debuff tracking, threat coloring, and support for scripting similar to WeakAuras and wago.io + the WeakAuras-Companion for Mod/Script/Profile updates.
• Details -- In-depth Damage Meter
  • Most powerful, reliable, handsome, damage meter for World of Warcraft.
• MRT -- Notes, Raid cooldowns, and more
  • Helpful addon for raiders, especially for raid leaders and officers.
• Echo Raid Tools -- Notes, Raid cooldowns, and more
  • Echo Raid Tools is a World of Warcraft addon designed by Echo Esports to enhance raiding efficiency. It offers "Echo Approved" WeakAuras for each raid boss accessible through an in-game Dungeon Journal interface, allowing easy import and customization.
• Bartender -- Action Bar Changer
  • Bartender4 is a comprehensive action bar replacement addon for World of Warcraft. It allows full customization of action bars, including scaling, alpha settings, and visibility based on macro conditions.

Weakauras

Stagger bar

Compact stagger bar weakaura.

Purified amount

Shows the amount of damage you purified.

Patch 11.0.2

Monk

• Healing Elixir now heals for 10% of maximum health (was 15%).
• Yu’lon’s Grace grants an absorb equal to 1% of your maximum health (was 2%) every 3 seconds (was 2 seconds).
• Healing Winds restores 10% of maximum health (was 15%).
• Clash is now a 1 minute cooldown (was 45 seconds).

Brewmaster

• Mastery: Elusive Brawler chance to dodge reduced by 12%.
• All ability damage increased by 15%.
• Brewmaster’s Balance increases Armor by 45% (was 25%).
• Celestial Fortune heals you for 70% of the amount healed (was 80%).
• Amount of damage staggered increased by 5%.
• Percentage of magic damage staggered increased to 58% (was 45%).
• Dance of the Wind chance to dodge reduced to 5% (was 10%).
• Staggering Strikes healing reduced by 28%.
• Spirit of the Ox chance to summon a Healing Sphere reduced by 40%.
• Elixir of Determination healing reduced to 30% of recently purified damage (was 50%), or a minimum of 8% of your maximum health (was 20%).
• Celestial Brew healing reduced by 10%.
• Pretense of Instability grants 10% Dodge (was 15%).
• Dance of the Wind chance to dodge reduced to 5% (was 10%).
• Detox now costs 10 energy (was 20).
• Chi Wave damage reduced by 10%.
• Chi Burst damage reduced by 10%

Patch 11.0.1

Monk

• All talent trees have had many talents move locations or have had their pathing updated.
• New Talent: Crashing Momentum – Targets you Roll through are snared by 40% for 5 seconds.
• New Talent: Bounding Agility – Roll and Chi Torpedo travel a small distance further.
• New Talent: Wind's Reach – The range of Disable is increased by 5 yards. The duration of Crashing Momentum is increased by 3 seconds and its snare now reduces movement speed by an additional 20%.
• New Talent: Ancient Arts – Reduces the cooldown of Paralysis by 8/15 seconds and the cooldown of Leg Sweep by 5/10 seconds.
• New Talent: Jade Walk – While out of combat, your movement speed is increased by 15%.
• New Talent: Pressure Points – Paralysis now removes all Enrage effects from its target.
• New Talent: Energy Transfer – Successfully interrupting an enemy reduces the cooldown of Paralysis and Roll by 5 seconds.
• New Talent: Quick Footed – The duration of snare effects on you is reduced by 20%.
• New Talent: Spirit's Essence: Transcendence – Transfer snares targets within 10 yards by 70% for 4 seconds when cast.
• New Talent: Peace and Prosperity – Reduces the cooldown of Ring of Peace by 5 seconds and Song of Chi-Ji's cast time is reduced by 0.5 seconds.
• New Talent: Swift Art – Roll removes a snare effect once every 30 seconds.
• New Talent: Celestial Determination – While your celestial is active, you cannot be slowed below 90% normal movement speed.
• New Talent: Martial Instincts – Increases your Physical damage done by 2/4% and Avoidance increased by 2/4%.
• New Talent: Healing Winds: Transcendence – Transfer immediately heals you for 15% of your maximum health.
• New Talent: Chi Proficiency – Magical damage done increased by 2/4% and healing done increased by 2/4%.
• New Talent: Lighter Than Air – Roll causes you to become lighter than air, allowing you to double jump to dash forward a short distance once within 5 seconds.
• New Talent: Flow of Chi – You gain a bonus effect based on your current health. Above 90% health: Movement speed increased by 5%. This bonus stacks with similar effects. Between 90% and 35% health: Damage taken reduced by 5%. Below 35% health: Healing received increased by 10%.
• New Talent: Rushing Reflexes – Your heightened reflexes allow you to react swiftly to the presence of enemies, causing you to quickly lunge to the nearest enemy within 10 yards after you Roll.
• New Talent: Transcendence: Linked Spirits – Transcendence now tethers your spirit onto an ally for 1 hour. Use Transcendence: Transfer to teleport to your ally's location.
• Tiger Tail Sweep has been redesigned – Increases the range of Leg Sweep by 4 yards. Now a 1-point talent.
• Elusive Mists has been redesigned – Reduces all damage taken by you and your target while channeling Soothing Mists by 6%. Now a 1-point talent.
• Chi Wave has been redesigned – Every 15 seconds, your next Rising Sun Kick or Vivify releases a wave of Chi energy that flows through friends and foes, dealing Nature damage or healing. Bounces up to 7 times to targets within 25 yards.
• Summon White Tiger Statue has been redesigned – Invoking Xuen, the White Tiger also spawns a White Tiger Statue at your location that pulses damage to all enemies ever 2 seconds for 10 seconds.
• Ironshell Brew has been redesigned – Increases your maximum health by an additional 10% and your damage taken is reduced by an additional 10% while Fortifying Brew is active.
• Escape from Reality has been redesigned – After you use Transcendence: Transfer, you can use Transcendence: Transfer again within 10 seconds, ignoring its cooldown.
• Fatal Touch has been redesigned – Touch of Death increases your damage by 5% for 30 seconds after being cast and its cooldown is reduced by 90 seconds. Now a 1-point talent.
• Improved Roll is now learned at level 14 (was a talent).
• Clash has moved to the Class tree (was Brewmaster).
• Fortifying Brew cooldown is now 2 minutes for Mistweaver and Windwalker.
• Vivacious Vivification now additionally increases the healing of your next Vivify.
• The following talents are now 1 point:
  • Save Them All
  • Bounce Back
  • Resonant Fists
  • Grace of the Crane
  • Fast Feet
  • Windwalking
• The following talents have been removed:
  • Improved Roll
  • Improved Vivify
  • Ferocity of Xuen
  • Hasty Provocation
  • Eye of the Tiger
  • Close to Heart
  • Generous Pour
  • Resonant Fists
  • Dampen Harm (removed for Windwalker and Mistweaver)
  • Summon Black Ox Statue (removed for Windwalker and Mistweaver)
  • Summon White Tiger Statue (removed for Brewmaster and Windwalker)
  • Summon Jade Serpent Statue (removed for Brewmaster and Windwalker)

Brewmaster

• New Talent: Elixir of Determination – When you fall below 40% health, you gain an absorb for 50% of your recently Purified damage, or a minimum of 20% of your maximum health. Cannot occur more than once every 15 seconds.
• New Talent: Strike At Dawn – Rising Sun Kick grants a stack of Elusive Brawler.
• New Talent: One With the Wind – You have a 10% chance to not reset your Elusive Brawler stacks on a successful dodge.
• New Talent: August Blessing – When you would be healed above maximum health, you instead convert an amount equal to 40% of your critical strike chance to a heal over time effect.
• New Talent: Ox Stance – Casting Purifying Brew grants charges/stacks of Ox Stance, based on Stagger level. When you take damage that is greater than 60% of your current health, a charge is consumed to increase the amount you Stagger.
• New Talent: Black Ox Adept – Rising Sun Kick grants a stack of Ox Stance.
• New Talent: Heightened Guard – Ox Stance will now trigger when an attack is larger than 40% of your current health.
• Anvil & Stave has been updated – Each time you dodge or an enemy misses, you reduce the remaining cooldown on your Brews by 0.5/1 second. Effect reduced for each recent melee attacker. Was 3 second internal cooldown.
• Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox has been updated – While Niuzao is active, Purifying Brew increases the damage of Niuzao's next Stomp, based on Stagger level. Damage is split between all enemies (was when purifying Stagger).
• Celestial Brew has an additional effect – Purifying Stagger damage increases absorption by up to 200%.
• Improved Purifying Brew is now learned at level 47 (was a talent).
• Elusive Footwork is now a 1-point talent.
• The following talents have been removed:
  • Healing Elixir
  • Clash (moved to class tree)
  • Graceful Exit
  • Bonedust Brew
  • Bountiful Brew
  • Attenuation
  • Fundamental Observation

Q: Why do I just get one-shot?

A: There is a high chance Shuffle ran out and you lost the ability to use Stagger properly.

Credits

Written By: Meeres

Reviewed By: Wolfdisco