Brewmaster Monk Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents — 12.0.5

Brewmaster Monk is a specialization that offers a fairly firm foundational set of talents across all builds. You will rarely be picking up or dropping core components of your overall rotation, instead using your talent points to flexibly adjust your available cooldowns or defensive needs to match the content being run. Make no mistake, there are still plenty of points available to move around; you just get the benefit of your gameplay staying fairly consistent no matter what it is you are doing.

With that in mind, there are a few starting builds you can begin at for the main activities of Midnight, modifying a few talents here or there as needed. These are the following:

• Raiding (Defensive) — In raid environments, you will generally want to be more defensive and optimize for single-target damage while opting out of certain utilities. The Master of Harmony Hero Talents are best for this, though regular add spawns favor a Shado-Pan Brewmaster seeking to "pad".
• Mythic+ (Standard) — Mythic+ dungeons are where you will need to be the most flexible with your talents, switching your damage focus between AoE and priority-target based on the group or dungeon, along with your defensive choices. Here, the Shado-Pan talents excel, though Master of Harmony is just as effective and gains value at higher key levels. Ultimately, you have a lot of personal preference.
• Delves/Open World — The standard content of Midnight rarely requires a tank to focus much on their defense, allowing you to opt into more damage. Due to this, the Master of Harmony Hero Talents are most useful for their single-target focus.

Brewmasters are somewhat rare among specializations in that their Hero Talents tend to be fairly interchangeable across all content. Both are completely passive and have plenty of helpful effects for both damage and defense. What really separates them is in the way you engage with each. Shado-Pan Brewmasters emphasize dealing damage in bursts revolving around the Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox cooldown while gaining lasting damage reduction after dodging attacks. A Master of Harmony Brewmaster, meanwhile, will deal more consistent amounts of damage that are focused on a single foe while buffing the normal defensive abilities of Purifying Brew and Celestial Infusion/Brew in your rotation. You are free to use whichever you enjoy more, knowing that both are viable and have seen play in the toughest content available!

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The builds listed above are popular recommendations, covering various different loadouts suited to each style of endgame content. Each Talent Build will have its own rotation, and can also be manipulated further for specific types of content and to better benefit your group.

Combat Information

Rotations and Mythic+

Want to dive deeper? These guides will teach you how to utilize our Talent Builds in endgame content!

RotationMythic+

One of the key new developments for all specializations in Midnight is the introduction of Apex Talents. These are new, isolated talent nodes accessible from the specialization tree beginning at Level 81, and you can spend up to four points on them to gain a series of effects with increasing strength. However, you must spend all three earlier points if you want the effect of the fourth; it is sequential. Alternatively, you can make use of these four additional points elsewhere in your specialization tree for greater build flexibility. The choice is yours!

The Apex Talent for Brewmaster Monks is called Bring Me Another, and focuses on empowering your Keg Smash spell when you make use of your "Brew" abilities. As you continue to invest points in it, you will also unlock substantial Energy savings, improved Physical damage, and even a consistent source of extra healing for both you and up to two nearby allies! These four versions of the talent are below.

1. Bring Me Another — Using an ability with Brew in its name has a chance to generate an Empty Barrel (max 1). When you next cast Keg Smash, your Empty Barrel will also be thrown at your target to deal bonus damage and can ricochet to up to three additional enemies. These bounces will not occur in single-target.
2. Bring Me Another — Increase all Physical damage dealt by 10/20%. In addition, the cooldown of Keg Smash is reset and the Energy cost of its next cast reduced by 50/100% whenever you generate an Empty Barrel.
3. Bring Me Another — Whenever you cast Fortifying Brew or Celestial Brew/ Celestial Infusion, you and up to two nearby allies gain a Refreshing Drink, along with an Empty Barrel for yourself. Upon taking damage, Refreshing Drink is consumed to trigger a substantial heal-over-time effect. The damage of Empty Barrels is also increased by 100%.

For the most part, Bring Me Another is entirely passive in how it is used, but it also is a key element that ties your entire rotation together as a Brewmaster. In particular, the cooldown and Energy cost reductions to Keg Smash add up to a substantial amount of casts over time. Where a Brewmaster may have opted into a talent like Rushing Jade Wind before to fill in the "empty" space of the rotation rather than waiting around or spending extra Energy, these bonus casts from the middle points of Bring Me Another can now fill the same role while also dealing a lot more damage! Finally, the guaranteed Empty Barrels from Bring Me Another's final point means that you will fully invest into this talent at all times, especially when the only alternative talents in the specialization tree are (mostly) weaker defensive ones.

3.

Choice Talent Cases

Brewmasters have access to more choice nodes among their talent trees than many specializations. While most of them have an ultimately small effect on your total damage or defensive breakdown, changing multiple at once can create large swings in the Brewmaster playstyle despite mostly being passive in nature. Some of the most important choices are broken down below, and their individual use-cases.

Special Delivery or Rushing Jade Wind Celestial Brew or Celestial Infusion Dragonfire Brew or Charred Passions

3.1.

When to Use Special Delivery or Rushing Jade Wind

Despite being a very early choice node in the Brewmaster specialization tree, your decision between Special Delivery and Rushing Jade Wind will make a large difference in the pacing and feel of your rotation. Indeed, this node represents a very real choice, where one option is sometimes better than the other depending on how well you can use either of them and how many targets are being fought.

Special Delivery acts as a "simpler" option between these two talents, being a passive damage increase that also offers a hefty 50% snare to targets that are hit by all of the falling kegs. It is also somewhat unique among AoE damage sources in that it does not deal reduced damage until hitting a massive 20 targets or more. The main thing to bear in mind when using this talent, however, is that you may have more "empty" moments in the rotation where you will need to not press any abilities while waiting to restore Energy. In addition, there may be times when a crowd-controlled enemy is accidentally freed by a stray falling keg.

Rushing Jade Wind, meanwhile, is the much more "active" option of the two talents, requiring you to press its button very frequently in the rotation. However, in exchange, it provides a useful amount of passive damage and Threat, particularly in the opening moments of a pull; note that compared to Special Delivery, this talent instead begins dealing reduced damage beyond 5 targets. It is also uniquely powerful with effects that trigger from dealing damage, as each of its hits may count as activators.

Overall, this makes the choice between Special Delivery and Rushing Jade Wind rather complicated. If you are having a hard time managing your rotation or just want to deal damage without any fuss, then Special Delivery will usually be better, though you will have to be more careful about managing your Energy. On the other hand, the continuous AoE threat of Rushing Jade Wind can still be an advantage, especially in open-world content or areas where you are concerned about Threat. You will not be able to activate it very often with all of the free Empty Barrels created by Bring Me Another. Still, feel free to experiment and use which of the two you prefer, based on your own comfort level!

3.2.

When to Use Celestial Brew or Celestial Infusion

Brewmaster Monks are one of the more unique tank specializations in that they have a lot of customization in their mitigation abilities. In particular, you are given the choice between two very similar spells in Celestial Brew and Celestial Infusion. Both of them have times where one is better than the other, and this is also often linked to whether or not you are using the Niuzao's Resolve talent (with its use-case discussed earlier).

Celestial Brew is a fairly traditional defensive tool that generates a large, damage-absorbing shield for up to 8 seconds or until it has reached its damage cap. This shield is often large enough to handle many dangerous mechanics on its own without you needing to commit an extra defensive cooldown. However, it comes with the downside of "wasting" a lot of the passive healing a Brewmaster often receives. Any time, for example, where you reach full health with the absorb still present, then all of the mitigation effects against damage are tied to that one absorb and you become vulnerable when it expires. If your healers were giving you less attention because of this, they may now be playing catch up as your health unexpectedly starts to rapidly fall again.

Celestial Infusion is an alternate choice that is meant to help address this potential problem. While its shield size and cooldown are the same as Celestial Brew, this ability lasts for up to 16 seconds instead, but will only absorb a portion of the damage you receive at while it is active. To look at it another way, rather than the "100% damage reduction" of Celestial Brew's absorb, you instead have "20% damage reduction" for a longer time. By spreading out this mitigation, you end up being easier to heal by allowing more passive sources to continue to help offset the damage you take compared to the "all or nothing" approach of absorbing everything for a short moment. Although the amount absorbed from any given hit will be smaller, you still have Stagger and other mitigating abilities to fill in the gap and not be in serious danger from single, massive hits.

With all of this in mind, which defensive talent is better? For most players, Celestial Infusion will be the better default choice in the majority of content, especially in combination with Niuzao's Resolve. Using it inefficiently will not create as many opportunities for mistakes as poor usage of Celestial Brew might, but there is still a limit to its relative strength. If you are contending with overwhelming sources of single spikes of damage, or will be punished for losing any health at all, then Celestial Brew could be just what you need instead. Moments where it may be more useful than Infusion are also likely to be times for you to consider dropping Niuzao's Resolve and opting for more traditional Healing Sphere behavior with Expel Harm as well.

3.3.

When to Use Dragonfire Brew or Charred Passions

Continuing the trend of many choice talent nodes representing genuine decisions, both Charred Passions and Dragonfire Brew are each viable talents where one may be superior over the other in certain circumstances.

Dragonfire Brew again acts as the "passive" option between the two, minimally impacting the rotation. The unique strength of this talent, likewise, comes from its damage not being reduced until hitting 20 targets or more. This makes the talent very powerful at all target counts while still remaining competitive in specifically single-target scenarios.

Charred Passions, on the other hand, makes a larger impact on your rotation as a Brewmaster. More specifically, it further emphasizes the use of Blackout Kick on cooldown, regardless of target count. In addition, due to standard recommendation of Sal'salabim's Strength, its effect will almost always be active due to the low cooldown of Keg Smash resulting in always being able to cast another Breath of Fire before the Charred Passions buff expires. However, this does result in a rotation where you are heavily punished for failing to reliably press Blackout Kick.

What the distinction between these two talents boils down to is primarily one of comfort with Brewmaster Monk's complex rotation. Due to the overall damage gap being small when both choices are played optimally, you can certainly get away with using Dragonfire Brew at all times if you wish, and will likely gain more damage in AoE. Charred Passions, meanwhile, acts as a choice to help gain every possible bit of damage-dealing you can in single-target while punishing you more heavily for failing to press Blackout Kick on cooldown. As such, you may generally choose whichever of the two you prefer, with one exception...

3.4.

Charred Passions and Scalding Brew

If you have talented into Scalding Brew rather than Sal'salabim's Strength, then you are no longer able to maintain the debuff from Breath of Fire at all times. This would also result in Scalding Brew losing value by not always having Keg Smash cast on enemies suffering from the Breath of Fire DoT. Fortunately, Charred Passions refreshes this debuff when it is active and you are casting Blackout Kick or Spinning Crane Kick. However, this means that you must select Charred Passions rather than Dragonfire Brew if you have opted into Scalding Brew!

In Midnight, Brewmaster Monks also have access to two unique Hero Talent trees to supplement gameplay with unique themes that let you really stand out from others. For Brewmasters, these Hero Talent trees are the Shado-Pan, which is all about unleashing unrelenting bursts of damage on your foes, and becoming a Master of Harmony by balancing damage and defense. Both are great for embracing the fantasy of playing a Monk, but you also need a reason to consider each of them.

The Shado-Pan Hero Talents excel at providing burst AoE damage and passive defense. Whether this is through the numerous Flurry Strikes triggered with every cast of Keg Smash (dealing further AoE damage with Shado Over the Battlefield), or empowering Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox with Wisdom of the Wall, there is plenty of power available. Tying it all together, a Brewmaster even gains passive damage resistance when dodging due to Predictive Training. Due to this playstyle, this tree is often tailored to the larger pulls of Mythic+, though it can still remain viable in smaller target counts, too.

A Master of Harmony Brewmaster still has access to some bonus AoE damage through Overwhelming Force, but mainly plays around generating vitality from all of their damage and healing. This is then spent when triggering Celestial Brew or Celestial Infusion to deal bonus damage for a short time. In addition, these Hero Talents offer a second charge of these abilities while also increasing the strength of Purifying Brew! Finally, with the help of Meditative Focus and Harmonic Surge, this set of Hero Talents pushes a Brewmaster's single-target damage to its highest level, making it an excellent overall choice for progression raiding.

PvP talents are PvP-centric options that activate out in the world when you enable War Mode in the talent pane or when participating in instanced PvP content. If you are comfortable with being flagged for PvP, some offer great benefits to questing.

You are permitted to choose three talents from the PvP Talents list. Here is a recommendation of those most helpful for questing.

• Double Barrel is an active ability that is off the global cooldown. When used, it increases the damage of your next Keg Smash by 50% and stuns enemies for 3 seconds. Note that its cooldown does not begin until this buff has been consumed. This is great for larger packs but requires a keybind, which is not useful in Raids and Dungeons. Fortunately, as it is off the global cooldown, it can be cast at the same time as Keg Smash with the help of a macro if you want to passively benefit from it.
• Hot Trub causes your Purifying Brew to also deal split damage to enemies around you based on 20% of how much damage you have Purified. While this is often a small amount of damage due to low Stagger amounts in world content, it is entirely passive and does not require any special planning.
• Microbrew allows you to use Fortifying Brew more frequently without reducing its strength as your most powerful defensive cooldown.
• Eerie Fermentation, while not offering a strong benefit most of the time, will allow you to gain increased movement speed and a little extra defense against magic attacks while questing. Magic damage from players or NPCs is normally a little more dangerous to a Brewmaster.
• Dematerialize acts as a form of stun protection, providing you with temporary damage reduction while stunned. However, its amount decreases with every second you are stunned, completely depleting after only three seconds.
• Admonishment is also worth mentioning. It causes your Provoke to increase the damage a target takes by 3%. However, this amount can increase all the way to 15% bonus damage for every unique player that attacks the target. While this is not very useful while completely solo, if you are taking on elites with other people who happen to be in the zone or questing in a group, it can be worth taking. Be careful using this on world Bosses — they will still attack you when you Provoke them!

For most situations, a solid combo is Double Barrel, Eerie Fermentation, and Microbrew, as these provide largely-passive benefits while increasing your damage-dealing and defensive potential.

Sinzhu

Guide Author

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This guide has been written by Sinzhu, a Mythic raider on US-Kiljaeden who has passionately played Brewmaster for the past ten years. He also contributes to the Peak of Serenity and is a Moderator of the Monk Class Discord.