Brewmaster Monk Frequently Asked Questions — Dragonflight 10.0.7

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 you and your raid get more confident, you can begin to switch to dealing more damage if you like. Otherwise, the impact of your own damage contribution before you are nearing the end of a fight's progression 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. Adjust your talent build for more damage by opting out of some additional defensive choices.
3. 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.

Among the many choices present in the Brewmaster talent tree, Rushing Jade Wind and Special Delivery is both one of the first and also one of the most difficult. This is because the two talents remain very competitive with one another across many different target counts and types of content. With that being said, both options have their pros and cons.

Rushing Jade Wind is a useful option for providing a continuous amount of damage to all enemies around you, thus helping out with managing threat. It also is an ability on a low cooldown that has no Energy cost to press, making it very helpful as an additional "filler" so you do not end up spending too much Energy on Tiger Palm or Spinning Crane Kick while waiting for the cooldown of Keg Smash. However, because there are a lot of other abilities that have no cost and also have a low cooldown, you may have a hard time maintaining the ability's effect and miss out on damage.

Special Delivery, on the other hand, is a passive talent that activates any time you use one of your many "Brew" abilities (particularly Purifying Brew). This means that it is frequently dealing damage, while also applying a hefty 50% snare and not dealing reduced damage against multiple targets. However, as this ability has a long delay between activating and dealing damage, it can miss enemies or even accidentally hit a target that had been kept in crowd control, causing potentially costly mistakes.

Overall, choose the talent out of these two that you have an easier time playing around. If you are especially concerned with maximizing damage, Rushing Jade Wind will be better in low target counts (2-5), while Special Delivery will be better against 6 or more. In pure single-target, the two remain effectively identical!

The choice between Charred Passions and Dragonfire Brew continues the trend of having proper decisions to make in nearly every choice node present within your talent trees as a Brewmaster Monk. However, like with Rushing Jade Wind and Special Delivery, there are certain times where one will generally be better than the other.

Charred Passions again acts as the option that makes a larger impact on your rotation as a Brewmaster by encouraging you to make use of Spinning Crane Kick, even in single-target! In addition, due to our general talent recommendation of Sal'salabim's Strength, its effect will always be active due to the low cooldown of Keg Smash resulting in always being able to cast another Breath of Fire before the Charred Passions buff expires. However, this does result in a slight defensive loss over a long time due to Tiger Palm essentially being removed from the rotation entirely, along with its small amount of cooldown reduction to your Brew abilities. In addition, due to Spinning Crane Kick dealing reduced damage after hitting 5 targets, it will be more potent against small groups of enemies.

Dragonfire Brew, meanwhile, acts as the "passive" option between the two, minimally impacting the rotation beyond potentially encouraging you to use Breath of Fire when beginning a pull (assuming you are using the always-recommended Sal'salabim's Strength talent) rather than Keg Smash. The unique strength of this talent, likewise, comes from its damage not being reduced until hitting 20 targets or more. This makes the talent very powerful in larger AoE while still remaining competitive in specifically single-target scenarios.

Overall, choose the talent out of these two that you have an easier time playing around. If you are especially concerned with maximizing damage, Charred Passions will be better in low target counts (2-5), while Dragonfire Brew will be better against 6 or more. In pure single-target, the two again remain effectively the same!

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, 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.