Brewmaster Monk Tank Quick-Start Guide for WoW Patch 5.3 – Stats, talents and spec, glyphs, rotation, reforging and gems, priorities and tanking strategies

It’s time to show the world your Drunken Mastery! OK, that sounded bad – but as a Brewmaster Monk in Mists of Pandaria (Patch 5.3 – the Throne of Thunder edition), you will indeed be tanking with the power of drink. New classes are always confusing, and the Monk’s no exception – but the Melting Pot is here to help you out with a quick, no-nonsense guide to the basics of Brewmaster tanking from level 1 to level 90, including your stat weights, reforging and gems, glyphs, talent choices, and of course ability rotations from the starting zone to the end of MoP. Let’s get going!

Updated 22nd May 2013 for World of Warcraft Patch 5.3

Patch 5.3 Brewmaster Changes

No changes.

Tanking With A Brewmaster Monk

Like all tank classes in Mists of Pandaria, as a Brewmaster you’ll be using abilities to damage and aggro monsters, and then another set of abilities to mitigate the damage they cause you. Your damage/aggro abilities also build up Chi energy, which is what you use for most of your damage-reduction abilities, making the Monk play rather like a tanking Rogue.

Aggro generation and Damage abilities

At level 90 (we cover levelling Brewmasters below), you’ll use the following priorities to aggro monsters onto you:

Single Target

You can pull at range using Dizzying Haze or Provoke. After the pull, use Tiger Palm.

1. If you have 2 or less Chi and it’s available, use Keg Smash.
2. If you have taken any damage and it’s available, use Expel Harm.
3. Use Jab unless you have 0 or 1 Chi and Keg Smash is off CD. Otherwise, or if you don’t have Energy for Jab, use Tiger Palm.

Your taunt is called Provoke – use it to pull or otherwise as a standard tanking taunt ability. You can also Provoke your Black Ox Statue to make it cast an AoE taunt.

It’s unlikely to happen, but if your Tiger Power buff drops, use Tiger Palm immediately.

AoE

Pull with Dizzying Haze.

Use your single-target rotation for up to 4 enemies, but use Dizzying Haze and keep its debuff running (added to the priority list after Expel Harm).

For 5 or more enemies, simply spam Spinning Crane Kick.

Damage Reduction Abilities

You should use Blackout Kick frequently enough to maintain the Shuffle buff on yourself. If you have 3 or more Chi, use it to dump Chi.

Your Stagger ability transforms a lot of the damage you take into a Damage Over Time effect, which you can remove with the ability Purifying Brew.

Use Purifying Brew after you have taken heavy damage, and you have the Stagger DoT ticking on you. It will remove the DoT and effectively mean you didn’t take that damage.

Movement Abilities

Brewmasters are highly mobile even for tanks, with a number of fast-movement abilities:

• Clash – supremely useful ability half-way between Charge and Death Grip. You and the targeted enemy meet half way between your current positions. Use to pull or to get enemies off allies.
• Roll – Quick movement in whatever direction you face, a lot like a mage’s Blink.
• Transcendence – Pick a position then teleport to it at will. Supremely useful for kiting.

Cooldowns

• Guard – Use whenever available as soon as you have Power Guard.
• Elusive Brew – Consumes stacks of Brewing: Elusive Brew, which will generate semi-randomly as you fight. Gives 1 sec of high dodge per stack. Use when you’re about to take heavy damage, or otherwise to keep stacks of Brewing: Elusive Brew below 15.
• Fortifying Brew – reasonably powerful, reasonably short-CD, simple damage reduction cooldown. Use when you’re about to take damage!
• Avert Harm – CD to reduce AoE damage to raid or party members – use it when people other than you are taking heavy damage.
• Nimble Brew – Removes Stun, Fear and Root effects. Surprisingly useful for raiding – keep it on your bars!

Buffs

Cast Black Ox Statue before any boss or other significant fight. Make sure you’re in Stance of the Sturdy Ox.

Leveling as a Brewmaster Monk

In general, it’s recommended you level as Windwalker if you’re going to be questing or you want to level fast. Brewmaster is not a particularly good questing spec.

However, of course, it will let you tank leveling dungeons. Here’s how tanking as a Brewmaster changes through the levels:

• 14-25: You have no non-cooldown damage mitigation abilities at these levels. Don’t worry too much about spending Chi – just use Blackout Kick whenever you haven’t got anything else to do.
• 26-33: At 26, you gain Expel Harm – use it as above. Your aggro rotation doesn’t really change from here to level 90.
• 34-45: You now need to watch your Shuffle buff and use Blackout Kick to maintain it as above.
• 46-75: You get Spinning Crane Kick, making AoE tanking easier.
• 75-90: You gain Purifying Brew at level 75, and from here on use your endgame tanking priorities, as above.

Brewmaster Monk Talent Choices

Like all Mists of Pandaria classes, Brewmasters have flexible talents, and you should definitely experiment to find the best build in each situation. However, here’s a good general-purpose loadout to get you going:

• Tier 1: Tiger’s Lust – sounds dodgy, but grants a significant movement increasing CD.
• Tier 2: Zen Sphere – Gives you a healing spell usable on yourself or others.
• Tier 3: Power Strikes. Passive ability.
• Tier 4: Leg Sweep – gives you an AoE stun, very useful in dungeons or with add packs.
• Tier 5: Dampen Harm. Gives you a defensive cooldown of reasonable power.
• Tier 6: Rushing Jade Wind. Short-cooldown DPS effect that also maintains your Shuffle ability.

Tier 5 is very, very situational. Healing Elixirs is the easiest ability to use, but the other two are very powerful against raid bosses of various types, and you’ll almost certainly end up swapping this tier a lot.

Stats, reforging and gemming for Brewmaster Monks

The basic stat priority for Brewmasters goes Hit and Expertise to 7.5% each (2550 rating) > Agility > Haste > Crit > Parry > Dodge > Mastery.

• Reforging: Reforge to Hit first, then Expertise, then Haste. Reforge out of Hit and Expertise above the cap, then Mastery, then Dodge and Parry, then Crit.
• Gems: If you have to, gem for Expertise to hit the cap. Then use Quick (Haste) gems in all slots.
• Meta Gem: Agile meta gems.
• Getting one- or two-shot? If you’re dying before healers can heal you, you need more Stamina. Gem blue sockets with Stamina gems until it’s no longer a problem.

Brewmaster Monk Glyphs

Glyphs are a very personal choice in MoP – there aren’t many automatic must-haves. Having said that, here’s a good selection:

Major: Glyph of Leer of the Ox , Glyph of Touch of Death and Glyph of Fortifying Brew.
Minor: Your choice – they don’t affect your tanking.

Brewmaster Monk Enchantments

Use whichever enchantment works better with your level of reforging – in other words, don’t use Hit enchants if you’re over hit cap already! If a profession enchant gives you useful stats, it’s probably better than the equivalent generic enchant.

• Shoulder – Greater Tiger Claw Inscription
• Cloak – Accuracy or Greater Protection
• Chest – Glorious Stats or Superior Stamina
• Bracers – Greater Agility
• Belt – Living Steel Belt Buckle
• Gloves – Superior Expertise or Greater Haste
• Legs – Shadowleather Leg Armor
• Boots – Blurred Speed
• **Weapon Dancing Steel

Brewmaster Links

If you want to get more in-depth about your abilities, talent choices and so on, here are some excellent options for more information.

• There’s an excellent Brewmaster guide over on the MMO Champion forums
• Icy Veins also have a Brewmaster guide up to their usual high standards
• Finally, as a WoW player, you should really check out the latest and greatest from the blogosphere on World of Warcraft, here at the Melting Pot.

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