Brewmaster Monk Frequently Asked Questions — Shadowlands 9.0.2

This is a question that unfortunately does not have an easy answer. The short version is that in general, if you are new to playing a Brewmaster Monk, you should definitely focus more on being defensive while you are learning everything you can do. The first and foremost job of a tank player is to stay alive.

As you become more comfortable and learn what you are capable of, it may be useful to focus on dealing more damage to kill things faster. If something dies faster, then it will not be alive as long to try to kill you! The hard part is figuring out what defensive benefits you can afford to give up as you pursue higher DPS. Ultimately this answer will change depending on the group you are playing with and even your healer.

It is also heavily recommended to play defensively when beginning to progress on a boss in organized raiding. If you ever die due to not being sturdy enough, then every other member of your raid just lost a chance to learn more about the encounter. As your raid and yourself get more confident, you can begin to switch to dealing more damage if you like. The impact of your own DPS before you are nearing the end of a fight is minimal!

Some choices you can make when deciding to provide more damage as a Brewmaster, starting with the smallest defensive losses are:

1. Optimize your stat priority for more damage. This includes gems, enchants, and consumables.
2. Use one or more DPS trinkets instead of tank-oriented trinkets. This is often a large DPS gain, but also the easiest to switch between defense and offense.
3. Choose a Soulbind path or Conduits for your Covenant that provide more DPS.

This question is a bit complicated, and is more thoroughly looked into on the Gearing section of this guide. However, in general, if both of the dual-wield weapons and the two-handed weapon are of the same item level, then dual-wielding will be better for you. Otherwise, choose the approach that provides more total secondary stats on the items you are selecting from. Remember to always have the weapon with higher Weapon DPS in your main hand!

Simming yourself is the best way to determine whether changing gear, enchants, Soulbind traits, conduits, trinkets, and anything else would be an upgrade to your DPS. Simulating defense upgrades is another matter entirely. Due to the variety of boss mechanics and situations out there, you cannot reliably simulate tanking and should be wary of anything claiming to do so.

We have a guide on how to sim yourself in raidbots produced by Azortharion.

A great place to get Brewmaster info beyond the scope of this guide is the Monk Discord, Peak of Serenity. The Brewmaster sections are friendly, and many knowledgeable Brewmasters monitor and participate including the author. Please make sure to read the introduction if visiting to better understand how to use the resources offered there.

You can also use the Monk section of our own forums to help get your burning questions answered.