Brewmaster Monk Guide for The War Within - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Brewmaster Monk.Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know aboutBrewmaster Monks in the forthcoming The War Within expansion,including class changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the stateof the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regularchanges expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to bea launch guide for Brewmaster Monk, but instead serves as aresource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, andwhat you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

At its core, Brewmaster Monk's main playstyle remains unchanged.You will continue to make use of the Stagger passive to convert a portionof your damage taken into a damage-over-time effect that you can then reducewith the help of Purifying Brew. Your entire kit continues to revolvearound this relationship, whether that's casting Keg Smash and Blackout Kickto increase Stagger's strength with Shuffle, or using Tiger Palmto reduce the cooldown of Purifying Brew. If you are familiar with this rotationalflow, expect no serious changes to occur here.

Where there have been major improvements, however, are in the talent trees. Boththe Monk class tree and the Brewmaster specialization tree have received majoroverhauls, adding new talents/pathing, making some effects baseline, changing2-point nodes into 1-point, and pruning some of the "dead" branches. Listedbelow are some of the highlights from this rework:

• Soothing Mist no longer has to be talented in the class tree, andadditional movement improvements have been added such as Lighter Than Air, Jade Walk, Swift Art, and Quick Footed.
• Paralysis can now remove Enrage effects with Pressure Points.
• Bonedust Brew and Summon White Tiger Statue have been removed,along with Chi Wave becoming a passive effect. This results in threeless keybinds to worry about, and potentially more if pathing around underwhelmingcooldowns such as Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox.
• Improved Purifying Brew and Improved Celestial Brew have becomebaseline effects.
• Further Stagger/ Mastery: Elusive Brawler interactions havebeen added, such as Ox Stance and Strike At Dawn.
• Potent healing talents have replaced the underwhelming Healing Elixir,in the form of Elixir of Determination and August Blessing.

Remember, these changes are not everything that has been alteredacross the regular Brewmaster Monk talent trees. Expect to find a few additionalsurprises on the final trees when they are available!

Although the core gameplay of Brewmaster Monk remains unchanged.The War Within still has major implications for all specs thanks to the HeroTalent Tree system, new tier sets, and the natural reduction in secondarystats when entering a new expansion. All this is in addition to the talent treeoverhauls discussed above.

For the new Hero Talent Trees in particular, Brewmaster Monk getsto choose between two known as Shado-Pan and Master of Harmony. Inthe sections below, we will talk more deeply about the implications of these HeroTalent Trees for the spec, and some thoughts on what looks strong and weak aheadof launch.

As a Shado-Pan Brewmaster, "learn from your forebears and stand proud againstyour foes in defense of your friends and family. Bide your time and charge upyour power before unleashing an overwhelming flurry of blows to overwhelm your opponents."This official description of the talents helps to sell what the Shado-Pan are allabout. With them, your focus will be on building up stacks of Flurry Chargefrom performing your rotation, before eventually spending them in a barrage of Flurry Strikes. In between all of this are additional talents to enhancethese strikes and your abilities to build your Charges.

Mentioned previously, this Hero Talent Tree focuses on Flurry Chargesand Flurry Strike as its key passive. By dealing damage equal to a portionof your character's Attack Power, you will accumulate one of these charges up toa cap of 10. Then, once you have spent enough Energy, these charges will all bespent at once in a burst of damage to your foes. Beyond this, you will find additionalmodifiers to your damage dealt so you can build charges more quickly, such asthe Martial Precision and Efficient Training nodes. Likewise, youwill also be rewarded for spending your Flurry Charges, such as through thecapstone talent of Wisdom of the Wall.

Interestingly, the major strength of the Shado-Pan Hero talents lies not in itsmajor Flurry Strike passive, but in the supporting nodes that enhancethe rest of your kit. Martial Precision, One Versus Many, Efficient Training, and Vigilant Watch in particular all buffthe three core abilities of your rotation ( Keg Smash, Blackout Kick,and Tiger Palm) by a noticeable amount. Your individual Flurry Strikes,by comparison, are underwhelming and mostly serve as a vehicle to buff everythingelse with Against All Odds.

More damage is not the only thing on offer in the Shado-Pan Talents, however,as there exist a few defensive nodes as well. Predictive Training, especially,is a powerful source of damage reduction, as you will more or less have 100% uptimeon its effect in any AoE scenario due to your Mastery: Elusive Brawlertriggering frequently.

Overall, you can expect the Shado-Pan talents to not substantially change howyou play as a Brewmaster Monk. Instead, they will passively offer you power tothe most important parts of your damage rotation, while granting additional damagereduction with no real downsides attached. This can make it very appealing toBrewmasters that are already overwhelmed by the spec's complexity, while stillrewarding those willing to play around its few areas of optimization.

Master of Harmony represents the other set of Hero Talents available to aBrewmaster Monk. These Brewmasters, per Blizzard's words,"chase physical perfection and the refinement of the body into pure strength,allowing them to tap into the flow of chi and natural cycles of power". With thesetalents, your damage and healing can be used to substantially fuel each other,building up a store of Vitality that can be drawn upon at will to bolster yourself.

Being a Master of Harmony is all about gathering "Vitality", which happensautomatically from the Aspect of Harmony keystone of the tree bankinga portion of your damage and healing done. You can store up to your maximumhealth in Vitality, with three separate buffs used to show how much of thismaximum you have accrued:

• Aspect of Harmony — 0-30% of your maximum health;
• Aspect of Harmony — 31-60% of your maximum health;
• Aspect of Harmony — 61-100% of your maximum health;

If you are familiar with Stagger's three debuff levels, you may recognizethat these percentages are identical to the thresholds for Light Stagger, Moderate Stagger, and Heavy Stagger.

When you are ready to spend your Vitality, simply cast your Celestial Brewability. At this time, your Vitality will convert to Aspect of Harmony,applying an additional damage-over-time effect to your damaging abilities, or anextra heal-over-time to your self-healing with a choice node. If you are familiarwith a Fire Mage's Mastery: Ignite, you can think of this effectin a similar way. This will continue until you no longer have any Vitalityremaining, or 10 seconds have passed. From there, this gameplay loop continues asyou keep performing your rotation, with additional talents existing to strengthenthe connection or emphasize the harmonious nature of your abilities acting inbalance with one another.

Even without considering Vitality and spending it on further damage, Mastersof Harmony also have access to further damage-enhancing tools. Among these, Overwhelming Force is especially useful in its power to make yoursingle-target Tiger Palm and Rising Sun Kick abilities cleave!In addition, there is the Balanced Stratagem passive, which increases thedamage of your next Physical or Fire/Nature ability by simply using the other typefirst — sort of like a Windwalker's Mastery: Combo Strikes. Finally,the Coalescence capstone causes any enemy afflicted with Aspect of Harmony'sDoT to take additional damage from all of your abilities, along with a chanceto increase the Dot's size by itself.

These talents are not without their share of defensive benefits, either. Inparticular, Endless Draught grants you a second charge of Celestial Brewto work with, both improving your uptime on Aspect of Harmony andgaining access to an extra burst of defense in an emergency. On top of this,a Master of Harmony's Purifying Brew is also improved with Mantra of Purity, removing more Stagger with each cast and evencontributing Vitality at the same time with Clarity of Purpose.

In comparison to the alternative Shado-Pan Hero Talents, a Master of HarmonyBrewmaster will likely have more to think about in their gameplay. Ultimately,however, all of its effects are similarly passive and will take place whether youare focusing on them or not. There is room to optimize, certainly, but you alsodo not need to feel forced to do so in order to make these talents work. Instead,there exists room for a true Master of Harmony to make themselves known.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Brewmaster Monk in The WarWithin. Any additional notes on their effects can be found in separate bullet pointsimmediately afterward.

• Monk Brewmaster 11.0 Class Set 2pc — Blackout Kick and Keg Smashdeal 20% additional damage, and Shuffle also grants 3% damage reduction.
  • Shuffle should have 100% uptime when playing a Brewmaster, meaninga permanent 3% damage reduction is present with this bonus.
• Monk Brewmaster 11.0 Class Set 4pc — Blackout Kick increases yourdamage dealt by 1% for 15 sec, stacking up to 3, and has a chance to reset thecooldown of Keg Smash and make its next cast cost no Energy.
  • The damage buff is shown through a buff called Flow of Battle
  • This reset chance is approximately 30%, and shown through thesimilarly-named Flow of Battle buff when it triggers.

For the most part, these bonuses need no further explanation. 20% additionaldamage to Blackout Kick and Keg Smash, two of your most frequentlyused Brewmaster abilities, is always welcome, and using them correctly translatesto always having the Shuffle buff active. This means you should alwayshave the extra 3% damage reduction provided by the Monk Brewmaster 11.0 Class Set 2pcbonus. Likewise, you can simply spend your Flow of Battle Keg Smash resetbuffs as they occur and there's an opening in your rotation with minimal adjustment.

However, although these bonuses are fairly simple and self-explanatory, they have thepotential to impact your talent choices as a Brewmaster. Due to being aspecialization that features a lot of smaller buffs to individual abilities,adding just one more can suddenly push entirely different talent builds to thelevel of being not only viable, but even preferred. In particular, it may bepossible to talent into usually "dead" options such as Anvil and Stave, Scalding Brew, or even Fluidity of Motion with this set bonusequipped. Ultimately, the final decision will come down to how tuning works outwhen The War Within Season 1 begins.

As a final note, be aware that the 3% Flow of Battle damage buff onlyapplies to damage from your abilities. It will not empower your trinket damage orany other gear effects'.