Brewmaster Monk Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — The War Within (11.2)
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Brewmaster Monk leveling guide for The War Within. Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Monk leveling guide.
Brewmaster Monk Leveling Guide for The War Within
Brewmaster Monk Leveling Playstyle
As a tank specialization, Brewmaster Monks excel at gathering
up large numbers of enemies and dealing large amounts of AoE damage as they easily
survive the onslaught of attacks with the help of Stagger. This makes
them ideal for questing with a friend in particular, as they are able to rapidly
move between groups of foes, keeping their attention with skills like
Rushing Jade Wind and
Keg Smash while their partner takes care of
defeating them. If you are questing solo, this can still be done, but it may
take a little longer due to your relatively reduced damage output. If you are concerned
about needing a healer during leveling, the
Recuperate ability can be used
to repeatedly heal yourself out of combat and recover after a large pull.
Brewmaster Monk is also an excellent choice for gaining experience through dungeon queues and quests. Tank players are always in high demand, resulting in nearly instant queue times. Fortunately, due to leveling quests increasing in level as you do, this means you can repeatedly join queues while traveling to and from questing areas without any disruptions to your overall experience gain!
Gear Options
During leveling, item level is even more important than normal on your Brewmaster. You should always pick the item with a higher level, with the possible exceptions of jewelry and trinkets. For these slots, you may wish to select the item that is providing more Critical Strike or Versatility. On trinkets, you have the opportunity to experiment with various effects, so pick whatever you desire if it is reasonably close to your item level.
Level-By-Level Rotation and Talents
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Brewmaster Monk Talents While Leveling
Talents are additional effects and abilities that can give you access to more tools in your spellbook. They are unlocked on a regular basis as you level.
You will unlock your first talent point once you reach Level 10.
Your talent setup should be as follows with each talent point as you unlock them. Note that these recommendations may differ from what is shown in our main guide for a maximum-level player.
Rotation/Ability Priority to Level Up as a Brewmaster Monk
From Level 1, your lone ability is
Tiger Palm.
- (Optional): Tag an enemy with
Crackling Jade Lightning to have it move toward you, provided you immediately cancel the ability after casting.
- (Optional): Use
Provoke to force an enemy to run to you or briefly "tag" them with
Crackling Jade Lightning, provided you immediately cancel its cast afterward.
- (Optional): Use
Provoke to force an enemy to run to you (at high speed if
Hasty Provocation is talented) or briefly "tag" them with
Crackling Jade Lightning, provided you immediately cancel its cast afterward.
- (Optional): Use
Provoke to force an enemy to run to you or briefly "tag" them with
Crackling Jade Lightning, provided you immediately cancel its cast afterward. If you are using
Summon Black Ox Statue, place it near multiple enemies to get all of their attention at once.
- Use
Rushing Jade Wind or throw
Exploding Keg before directly engaging your targets. If
Special Delivery is talented instead, you will passively deal damage from using "Brew" abilities.
- (Optional): Use
Touch of Death to instantly kill the target if it is usable. Recommended for tougher enemies or for quest bosses.
- Cast
Keg Smash as your opening ability when entering combat and on cooldown afterward.
- Cast
Weapons of Order, if talented to deal additional damage to your targets. Make sure you are standing near your enemies when casting
Weapons of Order with
Chi Surge talented to reduce its cooldown.
- Cast
Blackout Kick whenever it is available.
- Cast
Rising Sun Kick whenever it is available. If you have talented into
Chi Wave instead of
Chi Burst, this will also cause it to activate!
- Cast
Expel Harm as necessary to offset your damage taken.
- Refresh your
Rushing Jade Wind.
- Cast
Chi Burst, if talented, on cooldown to deal more damage and heal yourself.
- Cast
Tiger Palm as a filler, but do not go below 40 Energy.
- Cast
Tiger Palm as a filler if fighting one target, but do not go below 40 Energy. With
Blackout Combo talented, you will always want to spend its buff on this ability after every
Blackout Kick.
- Cast
Spinning Crane Kick as a filler time if fighting multiple targets, but do not go below 40 Energy.
- Cast
Expel Harm if you are in need of healing and to gather your
Gift of the Ox/
Spirit of the Ox spheres.
- In an emergency, you may instantly cast
Vivify once per cast of
Rising Sun Kick due to
Vivacious Vivification. This is largely to be used for convenience during leveling, though with
Protect and Serve, its healing is noteworthy even in combat when doing easier content.
Active Mitigation
- Maintain
Shuffle by continuing to cast
Blackout Kick and
Keg Smash on cooldown to smooth out your damage taken.
- Cast
Purifying Brew largely on cooldown when actively fighting an enemy and suffering damage from
Stagger, but save one charge for emergencies.
- Cast
Celestial Infusion after using your initial
Purifying Brew charges to increase its size with the stacks of
Purified Chi received. Use it on cooldown otherwise.
Summary of Unlocked Abilities for Brewmaster Monks
To avoid this summary becoming overly long, only key rotational abilities from talents and leveling bonuses unique to Brewmaster Monks will be shown. To see every ability, please visit the Spell Summary of the main guide.
- At Level 10, your
Tiger Palm and
Spinning Crane Kick now cost 25 Energy each rather than 50 and 40.
- Also at Level 10, your
Blackout Kick has its cooldown increased to 4 seconds from 3.
- Finally, at Level 10, you unlock access to the
Mastery stat and your
Mastery: Elusive Brawler. This gives you a chance to dodge attacks that increases until you successfully dodge. It also increases your Attack Power.
- At Level 11, you unlock
Keg Smash. This is your primary ability as a Brewmaster, and will grant 5 seconds of
Shuffle when used.
- At Level 13, you unlock
Stagger, which acts as your unique defensive tool. A portion of all Physical damage you receive will instead be turned into a 10-second damage-over-time effect.
- Also at Level 13, you unlock
Shuffle. This passive effect will cause
Blackout Kick to temporarily increase the amount of damage you
Stagger.
- At Level 15, you unlock
Spirit of the Ox, occasionally spawning healing spheres when casting
Blackout Kick or
Rising Sun Kick. Then, at Level 23 you will also start generating them from taking damage with
Gift of the Ox.
- At Level 19, you unlock
Purifying Brew. This ability acts as your main way to reduce the amount of damage you are taking from the
Stagger effect, and its cooldown is reduced by using
Keg Smash and
Tiger Palm.
- Also at Level 19, you unlock the
Brewmaster's Balance Passive, which increases your total Armor by 55% and Stamina by 45%.
- At Level 29, you can unlock
Celestial Infusion, allowing you to temporarily create a shield that absorbs a portion of all damage received over a long duration. Your
Purifying Brew also now generates stacks of
Purified Chi that increase the size of
Celestial Infusion's shield. Its cooldown is reduced by using
Keg Smash and
Tiger Palm. You may also select
Celestial Brew if you want a shorter shield that instead absorbs all damage while active.
- At Level 43, you unlock
Expel Harm Rank 2, reducing its cooldown by 10 seconds and causing it to also automatically pick up any
Gift of the Ox/
Spirit of the Ox spheres that are present.
- At Level 46, you unlock
Celestial Fortune, gaining a chance to increase all healing received by 70%, based on your Critical Strike.
- At Level 52, you unlock
Touch of Death Rank 3, which causes it to also remove
Stagger.
- At Level 71, you can begin to unlock Hero Talents,
which are an additional set of thematic effects to further expand your power.
For Brewmasters, you may choose between the
Shado-Pan and
Master of Harmony trees, though we recommend utilizing the
Shado-Pan tree while leveling due to its potent buffs to
Keg Smash and
Vivify.
War Mode Talents to Level Up as a Brewmaster Monk
If you are willing to utilize War Mode, the following PvP talents are recommended during leveling or for other open-world content. There may be times when you would like to use other options and are encouraged to experiment! PvP talents can be freely changed at any time.
Your first PvP talent slot will unlock at Level 20, your second at Level 30, and the final at Level 40.
Recommended Brewmaster PvP Talents
Double Barrel will allow you to frequently increase the damage of your
Keg Smash and also allow it to stun everything it hits. It can also be used in a macro to make it effectively a passive benefit.
Niuzao's Essence acts as a stronger version of the
Swift Art talent, allowing you to remove all snare effects every time you cast
Purifying Brew,
Celestial Brew/
Celestial Infusion, or
Roll. With leveling involving a lot of moving around, it is all the more important to be able to travel at full speed without any number of enemy debuffs hindering you.
Eerie Fermentation will passively give you additional movement speed and magic damage reduction no matter how little
Stagger you have.
Changelog
- 04 Aug. 2025: Leveling talent pathing overhauled for Patch 11.2.0 tree updates.
- 15 Jun. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.7; switched Dragonfire Brew for Charred Passions.
- 21 Apr. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.5.
- 24 Feb. 2025: Page reviewed for Patch 11.1.0.
- 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Added Hero Talent pathing recommendations, along with playstyle pointers.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 14 May 2024: Adjusted for consistency with MoP Remix Leveling.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Page reviewed for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Page reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Page reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Page reviewed for Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Page reviewed for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Recommended leveling build revised based on new talents in Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Incendiary Breath removed; replaced by Alpha Tiger and Eerie Fermentation.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Updated with new 10.0.5 talent trees.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for leveling to 70 in Dragonflight.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Monk Guides
Guides from Other Classes

This guide has been written by Sinzhu, a Mythic raider on US-Kiljaeden who has passionately played Brewmaster for the past ten years. He also contributes to the Peak of Serenity and is a Moderator of the Monk Class Discord.
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