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Latest Updates

May 5, 2013 - Updated gem table. Reevaluated stat priorities.
Apr 9, 2013 - Fixed typos, added macro and addon section, edited gem section, rewrote rotation section. Enchant table.
Mar 5, 2013 - Updated for 5.2 changes. Added Nimble Brew. Changed level 30 and level 60 talent evaluations. Updated rotations to include healing talent changes. Updated stat weights.

You can find all my previous blog posts about brewmasters categorized under ”Monk Info”.

Table of Contents

1. The Basics
2. Skill Overview
3. Rotation
4. Talents
5. Glyphs
6. Stat Priority
7. Weapons and Accessories
8. Gems
9. Reforging
10. Enchants
11. Professions
12. Consumables
13. Macros
14. Addons

The Basics

Brewmasters are a very fast-paced and mobile tank. They have a 1 second global cooldown, as opposed to 1.5 seconds like most classes. They wear agility gear, similar to guardian druids, and scale with traditionally offensive stats. Brewmasters can be squishy for the unprepared or unexperienced player, but if they’re managed correctly then they can be very powerful.

Monks utilize two resources: chi and energy. Brewmasters use energy to build Chi, and Chi to fuel defensive abilities. Monk energy functions almost identically to a rogue’s or feral druid’s energy, though it regenerates at 11 energy per second. It caps at 100.

Chi is stored on the character, like a paladin’s Holy Power, not on your target like a rogue’s combo points. Most monks have a maximum of four chi, though they can talent to increase the maximum to five. Chi skills require a specific amount of chi, instead of scaling with each point of chi. Energy consuming skills, like Jab, generate Chi. Chi can then be spent on powerful offensive or defensive abilities.

A brewmaster’s key mechanic is their ability to Stagger. At the basic level, Stagger shaves off 20% of the damage dealt to the monk and applies a damage-over-time effect which reapplies that 20% damage back to the monk. Without any interference, stagger does not reduce overall damage taken, but it does smooth out damage. Brewmasters also have skills to remove the stagger after effect, which greatly reduces the damage they take. Every physical attack that is not parried, dodged, or otherwise avoided by the monk is staggered. Brewmasters have a base 20% stagger, plus another 20% from Blackout Kick / Shuffle, plus however much you gain from mastery, which leaves you at around 45% to 50% stagger in entry level gear. You can push that number even higher with Fortifying Brew.

Unlike bear tanks, brewmasters can parry as well as dodge. While monks get a passive damage reduction through their tanking stance, they do not get a passive armor increase. The ability to stagger every attack alleviates this weakness.

A brewmaster’s strength is their active mitigation. They have excellent control of their damage intake over the entire duration of the fight, and many options to deal with boss attacks. This is balanced by their relatively few big defensive cooldowns and their overall damage intake, which is high when not actively mitigating it. For these reasons, a brewmaster is not ideal for someone who is new to tanking in World of Warcraft.

Skills

Primary Chi Generators

	Keg Smash This is a brewmaster’s signature ability, and the one you should use whenever it is available. It provides the 10% damage reduction debuff, grants you two chi, cleaves, and applies the Dizzying Haze debuff. Keg Smashed can be missed, parried, or dodged, and you do not gain chi should that happen.
	Expel Harm Expel Harm does more damage than Jab for the same cost (40 energy), plus heals you for a healthy amount. You should try to use this heal as often as possible (unless you know you should save it for an upcoming attack), while keeping in mind that if you’re at full health it won’t heal you or deal damage. Scales with attack power.
	Jab Use Jab to generate chi when Keg Smash and Expel Harm are on cooldown.

Defensive Chi Consumers

	Blackout Kick, which provides Shuffle Primary defensive ability that increases your parry chance by 20% and increases your stagger amount by 20% for 6 seconds. You should try to keep this buff up most of the time, especially when you expect any significant physical damage. Shuffle stacks duration, such that if you have 4 seconds remaining on Shuffle and use Blackout Kick, that will add another 6 seconds to the duration, for a total of 10. The duration of the buff can stack infinitely. For Brewmasters, the damage from Blackout Kick can miss, but the Shuffle effect will always be applied.
	Purifying Brew Clears all of the stagger damage that is ticking on you. It has no cooldown, though you will often have to decide whether to spend your Chi on Blackout Kick or Purifying Brew. Use Purifying Brew whenever your stagger reaches red or high yellow levels and when you need to reduce your overall damage intake. Synergizes with mastery. This ability does not see much use in 5 man content, but it is vital in raids.
	Guard While on a longer cooldown than your other defensive abilities (30 seconds), Guard is your best defense against magic damage and your best proactive damage mitigation on a short cooldown. Also increases the effect of your heals on yourself by 30%, though this buff only lasts as long as the shield is not consumed, which means it will only be in effect for a manner of seconds. You can use whenever it is off cooldown, but usually it’s best to save it for an unexpected dive in health or upcoming burst. Scales with attack power, synergizes with Tiger Palm.

Other Defensive Abilities

	Elusive Brew Increases your dodge by 30%. With every stack of Brewing: Elusive Brew (gained from critical auto attacks), you can increase the duration of the dodge buff by 1 second. Does not depend on Chi or energy, so this ability is incredibly useful in keeping yourself alive when you’re low on both. Ideally use it during periods of heavy physical damage or Shuffle downtime. Caps at 15 stacks, duration and availability scale with crit.
	Chi Wave Level 30 Talent If you are targeting an enemy, this talent will deal damage and then heal a nearby ally at low health, then deal damage to an enemy, then heal an ally until all 7 bounces occur. It can also be used to deal damage at range. At high vengeance, it can heal for a significant amount. However, you cannot guarantee that it will heal you. Use on cooldown, unless you know you’ll need a heal or ranged pulling tool in the near future. Scales with attack power.
	Zen Sphere Level 30 Talent This talent can be guaranteed to heal you if you cast it on yourself. Places a HoT on the target and deals damage to the target’s nearest enemy. If you drop below 35% health or once the HoT finishes, it deals a burst of AoE healing and damage. You can keep the HoT up indefinitely, though you have to keep in mind that it cannot detonate from expiration if you’re always refreshing it. Use on cooldown in most situations. Scales with attack power.
	Chi Burst Level 30 Talent This talent will always heal you and if aimed properly can heal others. It can also deal damage at range. You can dodge and parry while casting, but if you’re hit it will delay the cast. Best used as a mini-AoE healing cooldown, if you can aim it correctly. Use when you need AoE burst healing. Scales with attack power.
	Fortifying Brew This ability increases health by 20% and reduces damage taken by 20% baseline, and increases the damage shaved off by Stagger by an additional 20%. This is a brewmaster’s version of Shield Wall. Use when you are in grave danger, and be prepared to follow up with a Purifying Brew.
	Zen Meditation At first glance, this appears to be a raid cooldown. However, it is difficult to use while tanking and is best used for the personal 90% damage reduction. Keep in mind that this is a channeled ability, so you cannot dodge or parry while it’s active. If you use it while tanking, it will reduce the damage of the next hit you take by 90%, but will immediately cancel after the first melee hit. Because it is rarely consumed by raid magic attacks (which usually aren’t direct spell casts), I find it best to use this ability as a personal cooldown and activate it before things like dragon breaths. It’s also useful as a personal cooldown for raid damage if you’re not taking direct hits. Only helps your group avoid up to 5 spells, which in most cases will prevent five teammates from taking any spell damage and the remaining 5 or 20 people will take all the damage.
	Tiger Palm Tiger Palm is free for Brewmasters, so you should use it whenever there’s a lapse in your rotation (i.e. energy is low and you have enough defenses active). It only contributes to your defense in a small way by increasing the effect of Guard by 15%, which is a nice bonus but I wouldn’t say it’s necessary to use if you’re in dire need of an absorb immediately (the buff should be up in most cases since it’s your filler, anyway). It also provides a moderate damage increase, allowing you to ignore 30% of your target’s armor.
	Healing Elixirs Level 75 Talent Technically a passive talent, but active in that you control when the heal occurs. Healing Elixirs will heal you whenever you use a “brew” skill, which for brewmasters includes Fortifying Brew, Elusive Brew, and Purifying Brew, meaning it will proc quite often, though that doesn’t change the fact that 15% of your health is not much. However, since it does not depend on Vengeance it is very strong early in a fight. The 18 second cooldown starts when the Healing Elixir buff appears, not when you consume the buff, so you do not have to use a brew skill every 18 seconds to maximize this talent.
	Dampen Harm Level 75 Talent Dampen Harm is a very powerful damage reduction skill, but it requires you taking big hits and is useless in situations where you are taking damage from hits that deal less than 20% of your health. You will rarely see use for this talent against weak-but-fast hitting bosses/adds and in 5 mans.
	Diffuse Magic Level 75 Talent Diffuse Magic is very reliable against magic spells, though the reflection aspect rarely works in PvE. Use before you get hit by a big magic attack.

AoE Abilities

	Breath of Fire As long as you have the Dizzying Haze debuff up (which you will in most cases because of Keg Smash), this ability will apply a DoT on your targets. It’s a relatively narrow cone effect, so you need to stack your group of mobs directly in front of you. This is also a good ability to use if you don’t need to worry about your defenses and want to spend chi on AoE damage instead. Use when you need threat or multi-target damage as opposed to defense. The single target damage is sadly not so impressive, so only use it if there’s more than one target.
	Dizzying Haze This is your ranged pulling tool. It doesn’t directly deal damage, but it deals a huge amount of threat and places a debuff on your enemies which gives their attacks a chance to misfire. The misfire mechanic gives your opponents a 3% chance to miss you entirely and deal a small amount of damage to themselves. It will be up almost all the time due to this skill and Keg Smash. Because Dizzying Haze doesn’t do any damage, you can use it on crowd controlled targets without worrying about breaking the crowd control. Also a fantastic kiting tool because of the snare it provides. Beware that it has a rather significant travel time, which you will need to take into account if your target is moving.
	Spinning Crane Kick Spinning Crane Kick prevents you from using any other abilities for its duration, so you should use it only after you’ve used your other AoE abilities. It is useful if you want to deal AoE damage or pick up mobs Dizzying Haze might have missed. It grants 1 Chi as long as it damages three or more targets.
	Rushing Jade Wind Level 90 Talent This is a level 90 talent that significantly improves your AoE damage, but for a high cost of 2 Chi. For brewmasters, it provides 6 seconds of Shuffle. Similar to Breath of Fire, it only does damage in a narrow cone so you will need to position mobs well before using it.
	Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger Level 90 Talent Pronounced similar to “shuu-en”, this summoned tiger will deal cleave damage and taunt non-boss creatures off of you. Use when overwhelmed with adds, when you need to deal significant cleave damage, or as simply a dps cooldown.
	Chi Torpedo Level 90 Talent This talent will change the animation of your Roll and add damage and healing. Neither the damage or healing is significant, but the ability can be almost spammed, which gives it some value.

Passive Abilities

	Mastery: Elusive Brawler Increases the amount of damage your stagger initially shaves off melee hits.
	Brewing: Elusive Brew Grants your brewmaster a way to scale defensively with crit. Whenever you crit with an auto attack (not a special attack), you get a charge of Elusive Brew, which you can later use through the clickable spell Elusive Brew.
	Stance of the Sturdy Ox A monk’s tanking stance. You should always be in this stance while tanking, and probably while dpsing since some of your core abilities can only be used in this stance.
	Vengeance Same as all the other tanks, this is a buff that scales with damage received. Skills that scale with attack power, like our heals and Guard, also benefit from Vengeance. Vengeance caps at your maximum health and takes into account damage you’ve avoided (so a string of dodges and parries won’t cause a drop in attack power), so this ability is vital to any dps you deal as a tank.
	Swift Reflexes This adds an offensive component to parry. It’s not a huge amount of damage (usually a little less than 5% of your overall damage), but it makes parry slightly more interesting than dodge.
	Gift of the Ox This passive ability will spawn small green spheres at your feet. The spheres are only visible and usable by you. It has a chance to proc off of auto attacks. If you find you need immediate healing, then you can walk over a group of these and receive a relatively strong heal. Heal scales with attack power, proc frequency increased by haste. You have to move on top of these spheres to activate them, which means you will need to strafe left and right while tanking. These orbs will not be consumed if you’re at full health, so you can preemptively stand on top of a group of orbs and they will immediately heal you once your health drops.
	Brewmaster Training Passive bonus that modifies a brewmaster’s major cooldown, Fortifying Brew, attaches Shuffle to Blackout Kick, adds a small bonus to Tiger Palm and makes it free, and removes the energy cost from Spear Hand Strike.
	Desperate Measures If you’re below 35% health, you should be using Expel Harm instead of Jab to heal yourself and generate chi. Expel Harm still costs energy so you cannot spam it as much as you would like.
	Leather Specialization This passive is here to convince monks to wear the appropriate armor class. It provides 5% stamina, like all other tanks.

Movement Abilities

	Roll Classic monk ability that utilizes a charge system. If you use up your two charges, you will have to wait a maximum of 20 seconds for it to recharge.
	Clash Works like a cross between Charge and Death Grip, where (usually) you and your target will meet in the middle. Has some unreliable behavior in that it will sometimes pull you halfway if the target is immune. Using it on any target will aggro that target. Try to use it like Death Grip, not charge.
	Transcendence This skill functions similarly to a warlock’s Demonic Circle, except every time you teleport, your teleport destination is updated to your current position. It has a small cast time so you cannot use it while moving, though it’s small enough to be safe to use while tanking.
	Tiger’s Lust Level 15 Talent This is a level 15 talent that functions similar to other sprint skills, except that it can also be applied to your teammates and it removes movement impairing effects.
	Momentum Level 15 Talent This talent applies a stacking movement speed bonus to the monk after each Roll.
	Celerity Level 15 Talent This talent reduces the cooldown and brings the maximum number of charges of Roll to three.

Group Utility

	Legacy of the Emperor The one raid buff brewmasters provide. It is the same as Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings, and it is provided by monks of any specialization.
	Avert Harm This raid cooldown is only available to brewmasters and reduces the damage taken by your nearby teammates by 20%, but redirects the damage reduced back to you. That may sound like a good way to kill yourself (and many times it is), but keep in mind that the redirected damage is reduced by stagger (even if the original damage was magical). You can use it while tanking, but you have to be careful because your health might dip very low. In most cases it is easiest to use as a minor cooldown for your co-tank, or in conjunction with a Hand of Protection from a paladin. It only redirects damage of people who are within 10 yards of the monk, so your raid needs to be right on top of you to benefit from the damage reduction.
	Summon Black Ox Statue Using this ability places a revolving ox statue wherever you wish. Placing it next to a mob will aggro that mob. For every x amount of damage the brewmaster deals, it places a shield (similar to Power Word: Shield) on an injured teammate. You do not have to do this much damage in one hit; it’s accumulative. The shield cannot be placed on the brewmaster. This statue should be active at all times.

Miscellaneous Abilities

	Provoke Standard taunt. The run speed increase for your enemy sounds strange, but it’s really there to get your target to you faster. If you’re targeting your Ox Statue, using this skill will taunt everything within a 8 yard range of your statue to you.
	Disable This is a cheap snare, though it’s unlikely you’ll be using it much for that purpose because you already have Dizzying Haze. It may be useful for the root, which occurs when you use Disable twice on the same target.
	Spear Hand Strike This is a brewmaster’s interrupt. It requires melee range, but it’s your only option against casters.
	Paralysis This is your primary crowd control, available to all monks. You can use it from 20 yards away. The cooldown is shorter than the duration, so you can easily refresh it by going behind a paralyzed target and using it a second time. It can be used in combat, but breaks on damage.
	Crackling Jade Lightning This isn’t a key ability of brewmasters, but you can use it as a single-target knockback or ranged way to deal damage / generate chi. There are a few raid fights that benefit from ranged damage, so don’t completely forget about this skill.
	Healing Sphere Consumes too much energy without granting chi to be a regular part of a brewmaster’s rotation, but you can use it while not tanking to prepare for burst or to heal others. This is the only heal brewmasters can use on others, with the exception of the level 30 healing talents.
	Nimble Brew Breaks stun, fear, and snares. Brewmasters are especially vulnerable during stuns, and this skills is useful for alleviating those moments. Fear is also surprisingly common in raid encounters.
	Grapple Weapon Provides a 5% damage mitigation buff for 10 seconds. Only usable on creatures with visible weapons.
	Detox Cleanses poison and disease effects for no cost. Basically like free healthcare.
	Zen Pilgrimage Similar to Teleport: Moonglade. Will take you to Serenity Peak in Kun-Lai Summit where you can find class trainers, monk-only quests, and vendors with monk-flavored gear. Clicking the skill a second time will teleport you back where you started, though you can also leave the peak by flying.
	Touch of Death Will instantly kill non-player characters that have less health than you do. Useful for scoring killing blows and killing low-health adds.

Rotation

The rotation can be a bit complicated and difficult to learn in the beginning, so here is a tiered approach to figuring it out.

Beginner

This rotation will work for normal and heroic 5 mans. You won’t need to worry about Stagger at this point, just focus on the below priorities.

Spend energy on:

1. Keg Smash, whenever it’s available.
2. Expel Harm when you need a heal.
3. Jab.

Spend Chi on:

1. Blackout Kick. The buff it provides should be active almost all the time.
2. Guard whenever it’s available.

Other things to look out for:

1. Start AoE pulls with Dizzying Haze and Leg Sweep / Charging Ox Wave / Ring of Peace.
2. Elusive Brew when you have many stacks.
3. Use your level 30 healing talents, Chi Wave, Zen Sphere, or Chi Burst whenever they are available.
4. Pick up Gift of the Ox orbs for healing.

Intermediate

Once you understand the beginner rotation, it’s time to learn how to use your defensive skills intelligently, instead of whenever they are available. Once you understand the jist of the intermediate rotation, you’re ready for LFR.

Guard. Think of this as a cooldown, but with a short recharge time and a resource cost. Use it if the boss is about to use a high-damage ability, if your health dips low, or if your healers are unable to heal you. The beauty of Guard’s absorb is that you can use it to prevent damage as well as react to low health.

Elusive Brew. Because dodge isn’t a reliable way to reduce damage, you have to use it preemtively or in an attempt to smooth out damage intake. It won’t work against most big boss attacks, but it will hopefully smooth out the dangerous melee strikes before and after those attacks. Use it before a big boss ability to smooth out damage, if you’re taking a flurry of melee hits or if the boss buffs his melee attacks in any way, when your vengeance is low (because Elusive Brew is one of your few abilities that doesn’t require high attack power), and when you’re near the maximum of 15 stacks.

Spend energy on:

1. Keg Smash, whenever it’s available.
2. Expel Harm when you need a heal.
3. Jab.
4. Spinning Crane Kick for AoE situations, as long as other defensive abilities are active.

Spend Chi on:

1. Blackout Kick. The buff it provides should be active almost all the time.
2. Guard when you need a cooldown, such as if your health is low or you’re about to get hit hard.
3. Breath of Fire for AoE situations, for threat and defense if it’s glyphed, otherwise just as an AoE dps tool.

Other things to look out for:

1. Start AoE pulls with Dizzying Haze and Leg Sweep / Charging Ox Wave / Ring of Peace.
2. Elusive Brew when an avoidable flurry of special attacks is coming up, or when you need to smooth out your damage intake, or if you have many stacks.
3. Use your level 30 healing talents, Chi Wave, Zen Sphere, or Chi Burst when you or your raid needs the heal.
4. Pick up Gift of the Ox orbs for healing.
5. Tiger Palm when you don’t have anything else to do.

Advanced

Finally time to start thinking about Purifying Brew. I left it for this late because when you’re first starting in 5 mans and normal raids, you will rarely even reach moderate stagger. It’s just not that useful for beginner content, and makes learning how to brewmaster more complicated than it needs to be.

To get used to the feel, start using Purifying Brew when you reach moderate (yellow) or heavy (red) stagger. The faster you can purify a yellow or red stagger, the better, so practice saving one or two Chi in situations where you are taking significant physical damage so that you can use Purifying Brew quickly.

Once you master the above, you can try to use Purifying Brew more intelligently. You don’t need to Purify all yellow staggers because yellow stagger represents a very broad range of damage and your stagger will be moderate almost all the time once you start the more difficult normal raids. Eventually, you will reach content where you just don’t generate enough Chi to purify every yellow stagger and keep up Shuffle, so you’ll have to make decisions.

Also, understand how Stagger builds. If you know you’re going to take a big melee swing soon, it’s worth it to sit on a moderate stagger and get hit again, then quickly purify, instead of purifying twice and using up two Chi.

When choosing how to spend your chi, remember that Shuffle is proactive and should be used before big attacks, and Purifying Brew is reactive and should be used after big attacks. Guard is your wild card and acts as both proactive and reactive. If you’re prone to spikey damage (as many of us are), save Guard for those times.

Spend energy on:

1. Keg Smash, whenever it’s available.
2. Expel Harm when you need a heal.
3. Jab.
4. Spinning Crane Kick for AoE situations, as long as other defensive abilities are active.

Spend Chi on:

1. Blackout Kick. The buff it provides should be active almost all the time.
2. Guard when you need a cooldown, such as if your health is low or you’re about to get hit hard.
3. Purifying Brew when you are taking a lot of stagger damage.
4. Breath of Fire for AoE situations, for threat and defense if it’s glyphed, otherwise just as an AoE dps tool.

Other things to look out for:

1. Start AoE pulls with Dizzying Haze and Leg Sweep / Charging Ox Wave / Ring of Peace.
2. Elusive Brew when an avoidable flurry of special attacks is coming up, or when you need to smooth out your damage intake, or if you have many stacks.
3. Use your level 30 healing talents, Chi Wave, Zen Sphere, or Chi Burst when you or your raid needs the heal.
4. Pick up Gift of the Ox orbs for healing.
5. Tiger Palm when you don’t have anything else to do.
6. Fortifying Brew, Zen Meditation, Dampen Harm, or Diffuse Magic when you need a big cooldown.

A Few Additional Tips and Tricks:

1. Keep at least one of the following abilities active at all times: Shuffle, Guard, Elusive Brew.
2. If your health suddenly drops low, use one or more of: Guard, Expel Harm, your healing talents, Fortifying Brew, Zen Meditation, or Gift of the Ox.
3. Avoid spending energy or chi until you absolutely have to. It’s always good to have a buffer of some energy (for a quick jab, or to save up for Keg Smash if it’s coming off cooldown soon) or some chi (for a quick Purifying Brew, Guard, etc).

Talents

With the new talent design, most talents are extremely subjective and there’s usually no right answer. I find it best to reevaluate talents for each boss encounter, and since it’s so cheap to swap I recommend you do the same.

Tier 1 - Level 15

Celerity | Tiger’s Lust | Momentum
All three of these talents are fair game. Tiger’s Lust is a sprint that can be used on others. Celerity allows you to roll more often, and Momentum gives you a small speed bonus after each roll. If an encounter has a snare or benefits from controlled bursts of movement, Tiger’s Lust will be best. Otherwise, pick the talent you like best.

Top Choices: All three are good. Your choice depends on your personal preference and minor fight mechanics.

Tier 2 - Level 30

Chi Wave | Zen Sphere | Chi Burst
Three healing plus damage talents. All three of these could be useful for tanks, depending on the fight. Zen Sphere (10 second cooldown) places a small HoT on your target and detonates for a burst of healing and damage if your target’s health drops low or the duration runs out. It can be on two targets at once, which gives it a boost in tank swap fights. Chi Wave (15 second cooldown) is good for healing a spread out raid and dealing ranged damage. Chi Burst (30 second cooldown) is a cast, though you are still able to dodge and parry during the cast, and deals a strong amount of AoE damage and single target healing. It is hard for a tank to aim, but if you can put the raid between you and your target it’s pretty effective.

Top Choice: Chi Wave heals for the most on a short cooldown, so it’s the probably going to be the best in most situations (there is a handy macro to cast it on yourself first, guaranteeing the heal). Zen SphereChi Burst is still useful, but more situational.

Tier 3 - Level 45

Power Strikes | Ascension | Chi Brew
Three chi modifying talents. Power Strikes will provide the most chi, but often that chi comes when you do not need it and, while it is always up every 20 seconds, can seem unpredictable in the middle of an encounter. Ascension is surprisingly useful for saving up resources for burst, since it allows you to sit on 3 chi while still using Keg Smash or if completely full allows you to use Guard, Blackout Kick, and Purifying Brew all in quick succession (for those extra hard predictable hits). It also provides extra chi indirectly by increasing energy generation. Chi Brew is even more useful for preparing for burst, as you can pool up 4 Chi, use two defensive skills, then use Chi Brew and then another two defensive skills in a row, though you have to be fast and diligent in using all your chi before activating the skill.

Top Choice: Ascension is my personal favorite and the easiest to use, though all three talents are useful so don’t hesitate to use Power Strikes or Chi Brew if you prefer them.

Tier 4 - Level 60

Ring of Peace | Charging Ox Wave | Leg Sweep
Three crowd control abilities. Ring of Peace (45 second cooldown, 8 second duration) will disarm and silence PvE enemies near the friendly target it is cast upon, though you have to be aware that many mobs cannot be effected by either debuff. Charging Ox Wave (30 second cooldown, 3 second duration) is an awesome way to start a pull, especially given that monks tend to be squishy at the beginning. It’s also useful for ranged kiting, though the skill has to be aimed properly to be effective. Leg Sweep (45 second cooldown, 5 second duration) is better when you don’t need to stun as often or can’t afford to spend time aiming.

Top Choice: Leg Sweep will be useful in the most situations, but Charging Ox Wave is a close second. Ring of Peace will likely have a few situational uses.

Tier 5 - Level 75

Healing Elixirs | Dampen Harm | Diffuse Magic
Three tanky abilities. Healing Elixirs is not as strong as the other two options, but it will provide some benefit in every fight. Diffuse Magic will be very useful for fights with big magic burst or dots (note: DoT reversal rarely works against PvE bosses), while Dampen Harm will be more generally useful for big physical burst.

Top Choice: Dampen Harm in hard-hitting physical fights, Diffuse Magic if there’s any significant, predictable magic damage. If neither of those are worth it, Healing Elixirs is the default choice because it is useful in every fight, even though it might not be life-saving. Be prepared to swap this talent often.

Tier 6 - Level 90

Rushing Jade Wind | Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger | Chi Torpedo
Three mostly AoE damage abilities. Rushing Jade Wind provides brewmasters with 6 seconds of shuffle and buffs Spinning Crane Kick, and is also an excellent range pulling tool (as long as you have the chi to use it). After you summon Xuen, he will taunt your (non-boss) target off of you and tank it for as long as he stays alive, obviously preventing that target from directly damaging you. In most cases he cannot taunt bosses, though there are plenty of non-boss creatures in raids and he still does good single target / cleave damage. Chi Torpedo deals decent AoE damage and healing with moderate vengeance, and it’s great in situations where you’re moving around or picking up stray mobs.

Top Choice: Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger for single target or cleave, Rushing Jade Wind for multi-target. Chi Torpedo if it’s a heavy movement fight or you need help picking up waves of adds.

Glyphs

Glyphs are now highly situational and up to personal preferences. There are no required glyphs like there have been in the past. I am going to list the glyphs applicable to brewmasters in order of most-likely-to-be-useful to least-likely-to-be-useful.

Major

	Glyph of Breath of Fire (Breath of Fire) Even though the Disorient breaks on damage, it lasts surprisingly long and gives you a second or two of little to no damage while tanking adds. It also interrupts casting. This should be one of your default glyphs if you’re starting out.
	Glyph of Guard (Guard) Useful for fights with high magic damage. Also used to extend the healing buff since it will usually last longer when it doesn’t absorb physical damage. This shouldn’t be a default glyph, but it will be useful in many situations.
	Glyph of Expel Harm (Expel Harm) Increases the range of Expel Harm from 10 yards to 20 yards, which isn’t much, but if you ever need to do damage slightly out of melee range this glyph is useful.
	Glyph of Fortifying Brew (Fortifying Brew) Increases the damage reduction to 25% (up from 20%) and decreases the health gained to 10% (down from 20%). In general, increased health is better for surviving burst and increased damage reduction is better for reducing total damage taken, so keep that in mind when deciding whether or not to use this glyph.
	Glyph of Zen Meditation (Zen Meditation) Brewmasters typically only have Zen Meditation up for a few seconds, but if it’s critical you use it during a movement-heavy fight then this glyph is definitely the way to go. This is one of my default glyphs because I use Zen Meditation as a personal cooldown pretty often and I don’t want to accidentally cancel it early by moving.
	Glyph of Touch of Death (Touch of Death) I found this useful while leveling because without the glyph Touch of Death has a heavy Chi cost, and it might be useful for sniping killing blows.
	Glyph of Leer of the Ox (Black Ox Statue) To be honest, I can rarely get this glyphed skill to work. It won’t taunt bosses and most raid adds, and and sometimes won’t work on dungeon adds. I have heard it’s good for soloing in certain situations. It has a long range (40 yards) and can taunt a single target. Once your Ox statue is killed by that target, it will return back to the next highest person on threat.
	Glyph of Spinning Crane Kick (Spinning Crane Kick) A good glyph when you have to move while casting Spinning Crane Kick, though it doesn’t make or break your AoE abilities either way.
	Glyph of Clash (Clash) Clash already has a long range of 40 yards, and this glyph brings it up to a hefty 50 yards. I don’t often find myself trying to use Clash from that far away, but that impressive range could come in handy some day.
	Glyph of Transcendence (Transcendence) Transcendence has a range of 40 yards, and this glyph brings it up to 50 yards. Useful in fights where you use transcendence or have to move large distances.
	Glyph of Crackling Jade Lightning (Crackling Jade Lightning) This glyph will be useful in situations where you have to stay out of melee range of some mobs, though Crackling Jade Lightning requires you to be hit before the knockback occurs.
	Glyph of Retreat (Roll) This glyph effectively brings your threat down to 0 for a few seconds, then returns it to is original value. In most cases you will not want this glyph because it effectively prevents you from rolling while tanking, but as difficult as tank swapping with different levels of Vengeance can be, you might need a way to drop threat sometimes.
	Glyph of Stoneskin (Fortifying Brew) The reduction to bleed damage is incredibly situational, but there are a handful of fights that inflict bleed damage.
	Glyph of Paralysis (Paralysis) If you ever have to crowd control and compete with DoT classes, this might be useful, though it’s hard to justify using a major glyph slot for it.
	Glyph of Enduring Healing (Healing Sphere) Brewmasters don’t often use Healing Spheres, and we even more rarely need them to last longer.

Minor

Crackling Tiger Lightning
Fighting Pose
Honor
Jab
Spirit Roll
Water Roll
Zen Flight

Stat Priority

Each brewmaster secondary stat encourages a unique play style. High haste makes it easier to keep Shuffle up and to Purify more often. High crit gives you more opportunities to use Elusive Brew. High mastery is excellent at reducing physical burst and smoothing your damage intake. For more information on secondary stats, read this blog post.

The following is a description of what each of a brewmaster’s stats does:

Agility
Provides dodge, attack power, and crit. Good for avoidance and dps.

Stamina
Provides health. Best for survival.

Haste
Provides faster auto attacks and faster energy regen, which leads to faster chi generation and more uptime on defenses. Also provides more chances for Gift of the Ox to proc.

Critical Strike Rating
Increases your chance to proc Elusive Brew stacks, which in return increases your dodge when you use it. As a minor bonus, also increases the crit chance of your heals. Good for pure avoidance and dps.

Expertise / Hit
Decreases your chance to miss, or get dodged or parried. If Keg Smash misses or is parried, it goes on cooldown and you don’t get the 2 Chi, so it messes you up pretty badly. The soft expertise cap (no more dodges) is at 7.5% and requires 2550 rating for most races, while the hard cap (no more parries) requires an additional 2550 rating for a total of 5100, or 15%. The special attack hit cap is also at 7.5% and requires 2550 rating for most races.

Mastery
Increases your initial stagger amount. If you consistently use Purifying Brew, it’s roughly the equivalent of a passive damage reduction. Even if you don’t regularly use Purifying Brew, it has some value as a burst reduction stat. It’s becoming more and more popular due to many mechanics in Tier 15 than deal predictable, physical burst.

Dodge
Only the obvious benefit of increasing your chance to dodge incoming attacks.

Parry
Increases your chance to parry and increases your damage a bit through Swift Reflexes.

Smoothing Stat Priority

This is the priority I recommend for new players and for those who have trouble surviving (i.e. heroic bosses). The reason I recommend it for beginners is because it minimizes the effect of personal mistakes by guaranteeing at least some damage reduction with your mastery. It’s also useful for those attempting difficult content because mastery and stamina are the best stats for surviving strings of physical burst. This is currently the priority I use, and if you want to learn more please check out my post on my mastery/stamina gearing paradigm.

1. Expertise (15%) and Hit (7.5%)
2. Mastery
3. Stamina
4. Crit
5. Haste (many brewmasters with this build prefer to reach a minimum level of haste, around 3-4k, but beyond that it’s not as important)

Control Stat Priority

This priority focuses on haste. Haste is a well-rounded stat that is moderately useful for every situation. It may not be the best at most fights, but it’s good at all of them. Prioritizing haste helps with shuffle uptime, and this will probably be a good build for you if you have trouble keeping the shuffle buff active more than 80% of the time. It’s also good if you want to use Purifying Brew more often. There is a soft cap to haste that is simply your personal limit. If you ever feel like you’re generating energy faster than you can spend it, it’s time to reforge a little bit into mastery or crit.

1. Expertise (15%) and Hit (7.5%)
2. Haste
3. Crit
4. Mastery

Avoidance/DPS Stat Priority

This priority emphasizes crit, which increases your Elusive Brew uptime. It is also our best dps stat. If you have two-piece Tier 15, it also aids in smoothing. Avoidance gearing will reduce your total damage taken the most, but it’s not reliable and you’re vulnerable to unpredictable spike events. However, it’s a very good option if you’re raid is lacking dps and you want to help with that while also prioritizing tank stats.

1. Expertise (15%) and Hit (7.5%)
2. Crit
3. Haste
4. Mastery

There are many more valid configurations of secondary stats, so feel free to experiment with what you want most.

Weapons and Accessories

Trinkets need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but brewmasters will enjoy access to both agility trinkets that are traditionally for dps and tanking trinkets. Anything with stamina, agility, dodge, mastery, parry, crit, haste, hit, or expertise is a viable option. In general, start a fight with avoidance or damage reduction trinkets (agility, mastery, parry, dodge, crit, haste, hit, expertise) and swap to stamina trinkets if it feels like you need the extra health.

Traditional tank rings can be tempting, and while the dodge, parry and other secondary stats are useful, strength does very little for monks. You should equip agility necklaces and rings, just like druid tanks.

Gems

I list a few of the best options for each socket color and hit cap situation. Brewmasters are very flexible when it comes to secondary stat choices, so stick to whatever stat priority fits your playstyle best.

Meta Socket

• Austere Primal Diamond (+324 Stamina, +2% Armor)
• Effulgent Primal Diamond (+324 Stamina, -2% Spell Damage Taken)
• Agile Primal Diamond (+216 Agility, +3% Crit Damage)

If you have the legendary meta gem, Indomitable Primal Diamond, use that. Otherwise, you will want to use Austere Primal Diamond. Agile Primal Diamond, and the legendary equivalent, Capacitive Primal Diamond are useful if you want to increase your dps, though I don’t recommend them if you’re just starting out or if you’re dying a lot.

Reforging

Enchants

Professions

The Ideal Professions

The following professions all provide roughly identical stat bonuses. Blacksmithing has a slight lead due to the secondary stat gems, but since it provides no other perks to monks I generally don’t recommend it.

Alchemy: Elixirs and Flasks provide extra stats. Stamina flasks provide an extra 480 stamina; every other flask provides an extra 320. The armor flask gives 480 extra armor, other elixirs give an extra 250 (remember that when using elixirs, you can use armor plus an expertise/crit/haste elixir at the same time). Extra benefits include: doubled flask duration and the ability to make your own potions, flasks, and elixirs.
Blacksmithing: Provides 2 extra gem sockets for a total of 480 stamina, 320 agility, or 640 secondary stats. Extra benefits include: the ability to make your own belt buckles, rare-quality weapons.
Enchanting: Ring enchants grant 320 agility or 480 stamina. Extra benefits include: disenchanting unneeded items, providing your own enchants.
Engineering: Hand enchants (tinkers) provide an average of 320 agility or 480 dodge (depending on which tinker you use). You should probably macro them to a commonly-used ability to keep the uptime high. Extra benefits include: repair bots for your raid, epic goggles, fun toys like rocket boots and gliders.
Inscription: Grants special shoulder enchants which provide an extra 320 agility or 480 stamina. Extra benefits include: Darkmoon Faire cards, glyphs, raid buff scrolls.
Jewelcrafting: Gives you the ability to use three jewelcrafter-only gems, which provide a total bonus of 320 agility, 320 secondary stats, or 480 stamina. Extra benefits include: cutting your own gems, epic mounts.
Leatherworking: Grants you bracer enchants that are not only cheaper than the normal enchants but also give you 320 extra agility or 480 extra stamina. Extra benefits include: Cheaper leg enchants, epic leather armor.

Less Ideal Professions

These professions are still okay to use, they’re just not the best.

Herbalism: Grants Lifeblood, which provides an average of 480 haste and a very small heal. Extra benefits include: Farming herbs, good when paired with Alchemy and Incription.
Mining: Grants a passive 480 stamina. Extra benefits include: Farming ore, good when paired with Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting, and Engineering.
Skinning: Grants a passive 480 crit. Extra benefits include: Farming leather, good when paired with Leatherworking.
Tailoring: Grants an extra cloak enchant that has a chance to provide an extra 4000 attack power, which I’m guessing averages out to around 670. Extra benefits include: Not much that’s useful for brewmasters.

Consumables

Flasks/Elixirs

Elixirs are technically a little better than flasks for total damage reduction, but flasks are still great and a useful place to get more stamina or dps. If you are an alchemist, your elixirs will give you 990 of a stat instead of 750.

Guardian Elixirs: Mantid Elixir (2250 Armor)
Battle Elixirs: Elixir of Weaponry (750 Expertise, best choice if not capped), Elixir of Perfection (750 Hit, you should be capped through gear alone but in case you aren’t), Elixir of the Rapids (750 Haste), Mod Hozen Elixir (750 Critical Strike)

Flasks: Flask of Spring Blossoms (1000 Agility) or Flask of the Earth (1500 Stamina)

Potions

Virmen’s Bite: 4000 Agility over 25 seconds. Very good dps boost, decent avoidance boost. My #1 choice because with high vengeance this baby lets you deal a whole lot of significant damage.

Potion of the Mountains: 12,000 Armor over 25 seconds. This is a huge armor gain for a monk and very useful for surviving sustained physical damage, like frenzied bosses. Gives you better damage reduction than the agility potion, but obviously does not increase your damage.

Master Healing Potion: 60,000 Instant Healing. I know sometimes health pots don’t seem worth it, but don’t rule them out. That much healing can save you when unexpected damage comes your way. If you don’t have specific plans for the other two potions, then be prepared to use this one if you’re in a tight spot.

Food

Start with stamina food, but use agility when you need more dps. Raid feasts will only give you stamina if you’re brewmaster specced, so you either have to respec to Windwalker between pulls or use your own food if you want agility.

For cooking specializations, you’ll specifically want to level Way of the Wok for agility and Way of the Oven for stamina.

• Personal Stamina Food
  • Chun Tian Spring Rolls: 450 Stamina. his food requires a rare ingredient, Rice Flour, so you can only make it in limited quantities.
  • Twin Fish Platter: 415 Stamina
  • Wildfowl Roast: 375 Stamina
• Personal Agility Food
  • Sea Mist Rice Noodles: 300 Agility. This food requires a rare ingredient, Rice Flour, so you can only make it in limited quantities.
  • Valley Stir Fry: 275 Agility
  • Sautéed Carrots: 250 Agility

Macros

Chi Wave Macro

Targets yourself for the first heal, guaranteeing that it hits you. If you use a “ctrl” modifier, will hit your target first.

#showtooltip
/use [nomod, @player] Chi Wave
/use [mod:ctrl] Chi Wave

Combined Healing Talents

Uses the Chi Wave macro from above, but adds in your other two healing talents so you don’t have to move your skills around every time you change that talent. The bottom line changes the icon depending on which ability you are talented into. You have to change the bottom line “MacroName” to whatever you name this macro.

#showtooltip
/use [nomod, @player] Chi Wave
/use [mod:ctrl] Chi Wave
/use [nomod] Zen Sphere
/use [nomod] Chi Burst
/cast [mod:shift] Healthstone
/run local G=GetSpellInfo SetMacroSpell("MacroName", G"Chi Wave" or G"Zen Sphere" or G"Chi Burst")

Combined Level 90 Talents

Puts Xuen and Rushing Jade Wind on the same keybind so you don’t have to move your skills every time you respec. Change the “90Talents” in the final line to whatever you name your macro.

#showtooltip
/use Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger
/use Rushing Jade Wind
/run local G=GetSpellInfo SetMacroSpell("90Talents", G"Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger" or G"Rushing Jade Wind")

Combined Level 60 Talents

Puts all level 60 talents on one button so you don’t have to move them around when you respec. Replace “60Talents” with your macro name.

#showtooltip
/use Ring of Peace
/use Charging Ox Wave
/use Leg Sweep
/run local G=GetSpellInfo SetMacroSpell("60Talents", G"Ring of Peace" or G"Charging Ox Wave" or G"Leg Sweep")

Combined Level 75 Talents

Puts all usable level 75 talents on one button so you don’t have to move them around when you respec. Replace “75Talents” with your macro name.

#showtooltip
/use Dampen Harm
/use Diffuse Magic
/run local G=GetSpellInfo SetMacroSpell("75Talents", G"Dampen Harm" or G"Diffuse Magic")

Elusive Brew Cancel Combo

Use Elusive Brew when no modifier key is in effect. When using with a “ctrl” modifier, cancel it. Only useful when you want to game the Tier 15 two-piece bonus.

#showtooltip
/cast [nomod] Elusive Brew
/cancelaura [mod:ctrl] Elusive Brew

Taunt

Uses Provoke if no modifier key, AoE taunts off of your Black Ox Statue if shift modifier is used, taunts to your statue if ctrl modifier is used but only if you have Glyph of Leer of the Ox.

#showtooltip
/cast [nomod] Provoke
/target [mod:shift] Black Ox Statue;
/cast [mod:shift] Provoke
/cast [mod:ctrl] Leer of the Ox

Tiger Palm + Trinket

If I need a trinket to be macro’d, I usually tie it to either Jab or Tiger Palm. This macro temporarily turns off error messages so you won’t hear annoying sounds when you use this macro while the trinket is down.

#showtooltip
/cast Tiger Palm
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use Jade Warlord Figurine
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");

Focus Interrupt

Interrupts your focus if you have one, otherwise interrupts your target.

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,exists] Spear Hand Strike; Spear Hand Strike

Addons