Brewmaster Monk Tank Guide — The War Within (11.1.5)

Patch 11.1.5 includes almost no direct class changes or tuning. However, in the case of Brewmasters, there have been multiple tuning passes throughout the hotfixes of Patch 11.1.0, which include the following buffs:

• All ability damage increased by 3%.
• Opportunistic Strike (from Monk Brewmaster 11.1 Class Set 4pc) increases the damage of your next two Blackout Kicks by 250% (was 150%).
• Brewmaster's Balance Armor bonus increased to 55% (was 45%).
• Mastery: Elusive Brawler's dodge bonus increased by 5% (in other words, receiving 0.924% dodge chance per percentage of Mastery, up from 0.88%).
• Tiger Palm damage further increased by 15%.
• Rising Sun Kick damage further increased by 15%.
• Celestial Brew's absorb increased by 20%.

These adjustments have brought tank balance closer, though all tanks still remain capable of tackling the toughest content out there.

Beyond this, Patch 11.1.5 includes additional catchup gear and the return of Horrific Visions. From these, you may eventually acquire unique Corruption Enchants for your Helm-slot items to gain additional power. More information on which Corruptions to pursue can be found on our Enchants page.

Patch 11.1.0 features a small number of changes to Brewmasters, largely in the form of quality of life updates. These include the following:

• All ability damage increased by 15%.
  • This is meant to offset DPS players gaining more damage over time from increasing item levels than tanks, keeping threat in check.
• Purified Chi stacks reduced to a maximum of 6 (previously 10), but each stack now increases the size of your next Celestial Brew by 35% (was 20%), for a net total of +210% at max stacks (was +200%).
• Paralysis now breaks after a small threshold of damage (was any damage).
• Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox now redirects 40% of the damage taken from Stagger while active (was 25%).
• Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox Stomp damage increased by 22%.
• Alpha Tiger (PvP talent) removed.

Of these changes, the increased strength of Purified Chi per stack should help out with creating stronger Celestial Brew shields in content where your Stagger is frequently low and less stacks are created per cast of Purifying Brew. Of course, a free damage buff is also welcome, though since all tank specializations received a similar 15-20% damage buff, this does little to impact their standings. Instead, Brewmaster remains in its usual position of strong enough for anything, but rarely the absolute best at something.

With a new Season also comes new gear, dungeons, and even a new raid to conquer, alongside a new tier set to find. Be sure to visit the relevant guide sections to see the latest recommendations for what to pursue in Patch 11.1.0!

Blizzard has made another attempt at reshaping how the tank role interacts with healers in Patch 11.0.2 of The War Within. This resulted in a large amount of tuning to each tank specialization's self-healing, including Brewmaster's. However, these adjustments also included some buffs to general survival, giving healers more time to react to a tank being in danger.

While there were too many individual adjustments to list them all here, below are a few highlights from Patch 11.0.2 to demonstrate this change in tank design that will be present throughout The War Within:

• Stagger's strength has been increased by 5%, and the percentage of Magic damage Staggered is now 58% of your regular Stagger value, up from 45%.
• Celestial Fortune's bonus healing is now 70% of the triggering amount.
• Yu'lon's Grace now generates an absorb equal to 1% of your maximum health every 3 seconds, rather than 2% every 2 seconds.
• Brewmaster's Balance (the core tanking passive for Brewmaster Monks) increases your Armor by 45% (was 25%).
• Pretense of Instability now grants 10% dodge while active, down from 15%.
• All Brewmaster Monk ability damage has been increased by 15%.

Overall, these changes should result in feeling slightly safer against bursts of damage due to a larger average Stagger percentage against them, particularly against Magic damage. However, the many small nerfs to self-healing talents will be felt in how reliant you may end up being on your healer to help recover from mistakes. Fortunately, in skilled hands, these downsides can be mostly mitigated, resulting in net-buffs to playing a Brewmaster!

If you would like to see the full list of ability tuning, please consult the official Patch 11.0.2 patch notes below.