Posted on by Sunnier

7.2 Brewmaster Survival Guide

For the latest patch in late March.

Brewmaster Changes

Not many balance changes to brewmasters.

  • All tanks now get 0.65% damage increase per artifact point spent.
  • Player Taunts now increase all threat caused against the target by 400% (was 200%). Should be easier to grab threat and hold it after a taunt, even if your cotank has better legendaries than you.
  • All tanks no longer have a 10% damage decrease in PvP.

Artifact traits

At 35 points and after a questline you get after starting the Broken Shore, you unlock the 4th trait on older 3-rank traits and the new traits. The order to unlock new traits should be something like (with some variation depending on whether you focus on raids or mythics or personal preference):

Trait Unlock Order
Endurance of the Broken Temple -> Draught of Darkness -> Stave Off -> Quick Sip -> Hot Blooded -> Face Palm -> Overflow -> Potent Kick (and onward to the less interesting 4/4 traits)

The new traits unlocked in this order:

  • Endurance of the Broken Temple (1 rank) Increases damage by 10%, Armor by 35%, and Stamina by 10%. Standard compensation we get for “losing” our former paragon traits.
  • Draught of Darkness (4 ranks) Increases the damage of Blackout Strike by 5/10/15/20%. Pronounced “draft” for reasons. Clear damage boost, Blackout Strike still #2 in our single target dps rotation, same as before.
  • Stave Off (1 rank) Keg Smash has a 20% chance to trigger another Keg Smash. Both damage and defense boost. When Keg Smash procs, use it. It procs from Keg Smash itself, so it shouldn’t change your rotation too much, just Keg Smash x2 then continue onward into Blackout Kick and the rest.
  • Quick Sip (1 rank) Drinking Purifying Brew grants Ironskin Brew for 1 sec. Drinking Ironskin Brew purifies 5% of your Staggered damage. This is one I’m looking forward to playing with a while before I really understand the subtleties. On the surface level, it’s clear that both brews will continue to play into each other, such that purifying while taking lots of damage is especially valuable, and Ironskin while staggering will be more potent.
  • At 51 traits, you unlock the paragon trait, Concordance of the Legionfall, which grants a versatility proc.

Legendaries

  • Bad luck protection based on spec, so if you main brewmaster, getting a windwalker legendary will be more likely and won’t hurt your chances at getting another brewmaster legendary.
  • New BoE legendary crafted by Leatherworkers The Sentinel’s Eternal Refuge. If you don’t have many legendaries, this is a solid choice. Not the strongest, but if you primarily do solo content it’s just fine.
  • Sephuz’s Secret: Now always grants 10% increased movement speed and 2% Haste. When triggered, this bonus is increased to the current values of 70% movement speed and 25% Haste. Movement speed bonuses now stack with other movement speed bonuses. Makes Sephuz’s an even more solid choice for mythic dungeons, especially if you’re like me and frequently forget to CC enough to activate it. If you don’t have many legendaries, the passives make it at least passable in raids even if there’s nothing to CC/interrupt.
  • If you have either Cinidaria, the Symbiote or Gai Plin’s Soothing Sash, your odds of getting the other belt are significantly reduced. I’m not a fan of this change (mainly because I already have Cindaria, and I want Gai Plin’s), but the goal is clear: you won’t have to worry about getting two legendary belts.

Brewmaster Aesthetics

Artifact Skin

Once you unlock your empowered artifact weapon, you’ll become eligible for the solo artifact skin. You can access it via the Mage Tower (if it’s up) on the Broken Shore. Find more info on Wowhead’s guide. Here’s what they look like (pictures from Wowhead):

Defeat Class Challenge
Defeat heroic Kil’Jaeden
Win 10 Rated BGs
Defeat All Legion Bosses

Class Mount

This won’t unlock for another 11 weeks, after you complete the Legionfall campaign. You can read about the questline here

picture from wowhead

Once you unlock the mount and all traits on one of your artifact weapons, you can purchase the pet Ban-Fu.

Transmog

Tier sets will be cataloged in the UI, along with accompanying achievements for collecting the whole set. (more info)

T20 pvp recolors available via battlegrounds/arena strongboxes.

alliance color
horde color
elite color

T19 pvp recolors available for Mark of Honor purchase in Dalaran (Broken Isles) from Lieutenant Surtees and Apothecary Lee.

alliance color
horde color
elite color

Generic Content

Dungeons

  • Cathedral of Eternal Night — Brand new 5 man! Available after a short questline, in heroic, mythic, and mythic+.
  • New mythic+s: Lower Karazhan, Upper Karazhan, and Cathedral of Eternal Night
  • Difficulty increased, max item level gear increased  (details)
  • Longer mythic+ dungeons (e.g. Arcway, Halls of Valor) reward proportionally more artifact power than shorter dungeons (e.g. Maw of Souls).
  • Changes to affixes:
    • Bolstering reduced to 30 yards (was 45 yards). The intent of this change is to allow more opportunities for crowd control.
    • Necrotic will now expire after leaving combat. Duration reduced by 1 second. (This has been in the game, but it was hotfixed so you might have missed it.)
    • Tyrannical damage bonus has been lowered to 15% (was 20%).
    • Fortified damage bonus lowered to 30% (was 40%).
    • Skittish threat reduction has been lowered to 75% (was 80%). This is a bigger buff than it seems, so skittish should be a bit easier on your less offensive tanks.
    • Sanguine radius increased to 8 yards.
  • New affixes:
    • Quaking: Periodically, players will “Quake”, inflicting damage equal to 20% of the player’s maximum health pool and interrupting spell casts of themselves and nearby allies. This will probably require spreading out and being prepared for interrupted healers.
    • Bursting: When slain, non-boss enemies explode, causing all players to suffer 10% of their max health in damage over 4 sec. This effect stacks. You’ll want to limit killing trash all at the same time.
    • Explosive: While in combat, enemies periodically summon Explosive Orbs that will detonate if not destroyed. This will require quick target switching, so be prepared to drag mobs to new orbs.
    • Grievous: When injured below 90% health, players will suffer increasing damage over time until healed above 90% health. Tanks will have to try extra hard to keep their health high, either with extra self healing or extra preventative damage reduction.

Solo content