Brewmaster Monk Battle for Azeroth Guide

by

Welcome to PeakofSerenity's PvE Brewmaster Monk Guide. This guide is designed to be a basic, quick guide for Brewmaster Monks with just the information you need. For more in-depth, advanced, information follow the links to those pages in the "Further Reading" sections or in the "Advanced" section in the menu above. Navigate quickly to the section you need using the sidebar on the right.

 

This guide has been updated for Patch 8.0.1 and is regularly updated when discussion, theorycrafting, or testing yields new information.

Talents

War Mode Talents

The only impactful War Mode talent for solo content is the Incendiary Breath talent when combined with the Spitfire talent.

Further Reading About Talents

 

Ability Priority

Brewmasters operate on a priority system. This means that you use whatever ability is available that’s highest up in the priority. With certain talent combinations, following this priority will result in a fixed rotation. For more information on how priorities are generated, read Babylonius’s Understanding Priorities article (This article was originally written for Windwalker monks, however the methodology holds true for all specs).

Single Target

  1. Black Ox Brew (if talented and <1 Brew charge)
  2. Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox (If talented)
  3. Tiger Palm (If the Blackout Combo buff is active)
  4. Blackout Strike
  5. Keg Smash
  6. Breath of Fire
  7. Tiger Palm (If capped or about to cap on energy)
  8. Rushing Jade Wind (If talented and not active)
  9. Chi Burst (if talented)
  10. Chi Wave (if talented)
  11. Tiger Palm (If energy > 55)
  12. Rushing Jade Wind (If talented)

3+ Targets

  1. Black Ox Brew (if talented and <1 Brew charge)
  2. Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox (If talented)
  3. Keg Smash
  4. Breath of Fire
  5. Rushing Jade Wind (If talented and not active)
  6. Chi Burst (if talented)
  7. Blackout Strike
  8. Tiger Palm (If the Blackout Combo buff is active)
  9. Chi Wave (if talented)
  10. Tiger Palm (If energy > 55)
  11. Rushing Jade Wind (If talented)

 

Brew Charge Usage

  • Ironskin Brew – Keep this ability active 100% of the time when actively taking damage. Use only enough to maintain the debuff without wasting duration. Multiple uses of Ironskin Brew stack duration up to 21s, for this reason you should avoid using this ability if more than 14s remains on your buff.
  • Purifying Brew – Use any remaining charges after maintaining Ironskin Brew on this ability. Purify timing is most of the nuance with BrM and knowing when to use it will largely come with experience. You should use this ability to control your damage intake and keep it to a manageable level for your healer or healers. This ability should never be used at the expense of Ironskin Brew uptime.

Further Reading About Ability Priority

Gearing

“Best-in-Slot”

The concept of “Best-in-slot” lists is mostly obsolete with the advent of War/Titanforging and sockets. Gear should be assessed on a case-by-case basis rather than as a whole, using tools like SimCraft or Raidbots.

 

Stat Priorities

Defensive Stat Priority

Agility > Versatility = Mastery = Critical Strike > Haste

Defensive stat priority for Brewmaster is extremely encounter dependent and can change for your character depending on your current gear and stats. For these reasons, we generally advise a balance of Versatility, Mastery and Crit. Due in part to the scaling nature of Stagger in Battle for Azeroth, you will always want to use the highest item level piece in any non-jewelry slot, regardless of secondary stats.

Offensive Stat Priority

Agility > Versatility = Mastery = Critical Strike > Haste

Offensive stat priority for Brewmaster will depend very heavily upon your current gear, talents, and Azerite traits. While the above stat weights will hold true for most players, it is recommended to sim your Monk using SimCraft to obtain accurate, personalized weights.

Further Reading About Stat Priorities

 

Trinkets

Offensive Trinkets

DPS trinkets will depend very heavily upon item level. You should always sim yourself to determine the best setup among your available options. Bloodmallet maintains a list of recent sims showing a ranking of each trinket at various item levels. This can be used to identify which pieces to target with bonus rolls or trades.

Defensive Trinkets

The defensive trinkets in BFA are generally extremely lackluster. The relatively low impact of the trinkets is such that you will generally be best served with an offensive option. In the event that you need a defensive trinket for a particular use, your best options are Lustrous Golden Plumage and Darkmoon Deck: Blockades

 

Azerite

The Azerite Trait setups listed below reflect what is considered optimal for general use with current available data. Note that most Brewmaster Monk traits are very close together in value (with limited exceptions) and as such item level differences can often trump the difference in power between individual traits. For more information about the Azerite system and how it relates to Brewmaster Monks, see the Brewmaster Azerite Guide in the Further Reading section below.

Credit to Emallson for the quick reference below.

General Purpose

This trait setup is a solid all-around starting point to aim at. It won’t excel at DPS, but incidentally also doesn’t sacrifice much for the defensive power it gives.

Row 1: Elusive Footwork + Boiling Brew + Training of Niuzao >  Fit to Burst = Staggering Strikes
Row 2: Azerite Veins and Crystalline Carapace in any combination.
Row 3: Gemhide and Impassive Visage in any combination. Bulwark of the Masses is excellent in M+.

Note that the defensive benefits of Elusive Footwork and Boiling Brew do not stack! There is only value in more than one copy if you want them for DPS.

Heroic/Mythic Uldir

The bosses in Uldir tend to have very large auto-attacks, and the encounter designs follow through with the stated goal of making tank mechanics Physical. This means that traits that provide percentage reductions to auto-attacks and/or Physical damage are exceptionally strong in this instance.

Row 1: 3x Training of Niuzao unless you aren’t being auto-attacked (e.g. Fetid Devourer off-tank). The other traits listed for General Purpose use are serviceable replacements.
Row 2: 3x Crystalline Carapace
Row 3: 3x Gemhide. Gemhide is our best trait; given equal ilvl pieces you should always take the one with Gemhide when tanking in Uldir as long as rows 1 & 2 have reasonable traits.

Also note that while in Uldir, you will generally want at least one copy of either Archive of the Titans or Laser Matrix solely because they enable the zone-wide buff Reorigination Array.

Since trait DPS depends heavily on item level, there is no BiS list for DPS traits. You should always sim yourself to determine the best setup among your available options. Bloodmallet maintains a list of recent sims showing a ranking of each trait. This can be used to identify which pieces to target with bonus rolls or trades.

Further Reading About Azerite

 

Enhancements

Gems/Enchants

  • For gems and ring enchants, follow the stat priority for your character.
  • Weapon – Deadly Navigation (or any non-haste equivalent) for general purpose use

Consumables

 

Miscellaneous

Racials

Race selection will have negligible impact with the exception of a few specific racial abilities. The Blood Elf racial Arcane Torrent and the Dwarf racial Stoneform are the most impactful utility racials. In general however, pick whatever race you prefer. The difference between the races will be largely negligible.

WeakAuras

There are very few required WeakAuras for Brewmaster. The most commonly used are to track Ironskin Brew duration and current Stagger damage.

Macros

AoE Taunt on Black Ox Statue with modifier

#showtooltip Provoke

/tar [mod:shift] Black Ox Statue
/cast Provoke
/targetlasttarget [mod:shift]

This macro will taunt your target or if shift is held (or any other specified modifer) will AoE taunt around your statue.

 

Dismiss Black Ox Statue

/click TotemFrameTotem1 RightButton

This macro can be used to dismiss the Statue from Summon Black Ox Statue

 

Changelog

  • September 9th, 2018 – Updated Azerite Recommendations and Trinket Recommendations
  • August 11th, 2018 – Guide to Stagger and Brews added to Further Reading
  • August 11th, 2018 – Removed Legendaries and Tier Sets sections, Added Azerite section, Revised Trinket section to reflect the status of current theorycrafting
  • August 6th, 2018 – Updated DPS priority, Updated Talent recommendations, added links for Weak Auras
  • July 15th, 2018 – Talent guide added to Further Reading
  • July 9th, 2018 – Guide Created