Mists of Pandaria Classic Brewmaster Monk Guide

Welcome to our Brewmaster Monk tank guide for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Classic. This guide covers everything you need to know about playing a Brewmaster Monk in raid encounters, with much of the information also relevant to normal and heroic dungeons. Make sure to come back to this guide, as it will be kept up-to-date with the newest information.

The Brewmaster is the tanking specialization of the Monk class, the new class introduced in Mists of Pandaria.

Brewmasters primarily mitigate damage by dodging and parrying incoming attacks. They also have a unique mechanic called Stagger, which causes 80% of the damage to be taken immediately, while the other 20% is delayed and applied over 10 seconds. This staggered damage can be partially or completely cleared by the Monk using specific abilities.

Thanks to this mechanic and their high avoidance, Brewmasters take damage in a steady and manageable way, making them easier to heal and highly effective tanks in PvE. They are a strong addition to any raid group. Unlike other tanking classes, Brewmasters don't have a single, powerful cooldown, that significantly reduces all incoming damage. However, they compensate with a toolkit full of versatile defensive abilities, offering strong mitigation through smart gameplay.

Brewmasters use Energy like rogues and Chi as their ressources in combat. The Chi is used for most of your main abilities, while Energy-based abilities are mostly used to generate Chi.

Strengths

• Outstanding survivability through absorption and Stagger mechanics
• Versatile toolkit of defensive abilities
• Powerful self-healing capabilities
• Very mobile
• Excellent (AoE) damage for a tank class
• Grows stronger with better gear

Weaknesses

• Has fewer movement abilities than other Monk specs
• Challenging ability managment
• Offers less utility than other tanking specializations

Alliance: Pandaren. Epicurean doubles the Agility gained from the Well Fed food buff, which means 300 extra Agility (Attack power and Crit chance increase) and makes Pandas the best overall Alliance raid in PVE. For PVP, Pandaren are also quite good, as Quaking Palm gives you an instant cast 4-seconds incapitating effect on a 2-minutes cooldown. Night Elves are considered slightly better in terms of survivability, due to 2 percent dodge from Quickness.

Horde: Pandaren are the best horde race for Brewmaster Monks, with benefits shown one paragraph above. Blood Elves can be useful, because their Arcane Torrent ability can AoE silence close-by enemies every two minutes and creates 1 point of Chi on demand.

In Mists of Pandaria, every crafting profession will grant you, on average, +320 of your primary stat, meaning you can pick whichever professions appeal to you the most. However, some of the professions will grant you Brewmaster-specific benefits:

Blacksmithing — Allows you to put two extra sockets in your gear via Socket Gloves and Socket Bracer. In the short term, this amounts to the same +320 primary stat bonus as any other profession, but it does come with the flexibility to opt into secondary stats like Mastery instead. Later in the expansion as secondary stats gain moree power relative to primaries, the value of being able to use your profession bonus on 640 Mastery instead of 320 Agility for example, may offer slightly more throughput than other professions.

Alchemy offers 240 of a secondary stata and 480 Armor when you are using two Elixirs and 320 Agility when using a Flask. Furthermore, it doubles the duration of your Flasks and Elixirs and gives you more flexibility with your stats. Due to Monks only wearing Leather Armor, the 480 Armor are a valueable addition for our tanking stats.

Engineering provides Synapse Springs, which provides 1920 Agility stat for 10 seconds. Besides the Synapse Springs, Engineering offers very useful tools like Nitro Boosts, explosives, teleporters or wormhole generators.

While all professions are kind of equal for Monks Blacksmithing and Alchemy have a small edge due to their boost for your secondary stats. Engineering (instead of Alchemy) is basically also a great option, but the other two professions are truly the best ones, while Tailoring and Mining should be avoided.

Here is a little summary of all professions and what they do:

• Tailoring: Provides a gain of 4000 Attack Power for 15 seconds through Swordguard Embroidery.
• Blacksmithing: Provides a 320 Agility gain through two extra sockets (Bracers and Gloves), in which you can fit two extra Brilliant Primordial Ruby.
• Jewelcrafting: Provides a 320 Agility gain through the ability of using two Delicate Serpent's Eye.
• Alchemy: Provides an 320 Agility gain to your flask through Mixology.
• Enchanting: Provides a 320 Agility gain through Enchant Ring - Greater Agility.
• Engineering: Provides +1,920 Agility for 10 seconds every minute through Synapse Springs.
• Inscription: Provides a 320 Agility gain through Secret Tiger Claw Inscription.
• Leatherworking: Provides a 320 Agility gain through Fur Lining - Agility and Primal Leg Reinforcements, a much cheaper version of Shadowleather Leg Armor.
• Herbalism: Provides a 480 Haste Rating gain in average through Lifeblood.

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