Brewmaster Monk Tank Mythic+ Tips — The War Within (Season 1)

This Standard Mythic+ is very similar to how you might play as a Brewmaster Monk in raid, making it easy to transition between the two and improve your skills in general. However, if you are looking for a slightly more advanced experience, you can always move the point of High Tolerance to Blackout Combo. Overall, this talent represents one of your biggest optional damage gain, but it does require you to be able to reliably press Blackout Kick on cooldown. Once you have gotten used to it, however, this talent is to be incorporated into all of your builds.

Although this build features the Shado-Pan Hero Talents, you can easily switch to Master of Harmony instead. However, its damage output will be a fair bit lower by comparison in exchange for stronger Purifying Brew casts and a second charge of Celestial Brew. Fortunately, Shado-Pan's Predictive Training is noticeably potent in AoE tanking, and Protect and Serve pairs nicely with Vivacious Vivification for additional self-healing.

Remember that you can easily import the talent tree below into the game with the "Export Talents" button:

As you grow more comfortable playing a Brewmaster Monk in Mythic+, this build can be switched to for a large gain in your damage output and only a small sacrifice to your defenses. This is done with the help of Blackout Combo, Face Palm, Scalding Brew, and the Monk Brewmaster Season 1 4pc bonus. Much of the talent flexibility from the standard Mythic+ build for defense and utility still applies, however. Make sure you are still willing to switch to Dampen Harm as needed, for example!

When you are using this build, your playstyle will also change slightly. With these talents, you will be consuming all of your Blackout Combo buffs on empowering Tiger Palm. This damage bonus is strong enough that you will not be casting Spinning Crane Kick outside of massive pulls! In addition, due to talenting Scalding Brew rather than Sal'salabim's Strength, you are unable to maintain the DoT effect of Breath of Fire without the help of Charred Passions. Fortunately, in smaller pulls, you can take advantage of Shadowboxing Treads's cleaving effect on Blackout Kick to keep the DoT active. With all of these changes combined, you will still maintain an active rotation with minimal downtime and achieve the greatest damage output possible from a Brewmaster.

As a final note, this build is meant to be played exclusively with the Shado-Pan Hero Talents. While there is nothing preventing you from trying its alternate playstyle with Master of Harmony, much of its additional damage is tied to passive effects found in the Shado-Pan tree. Playing without it will largely defeat the purpose of trying this build in the first place.

Remember that you can easily import the talent tree below into the game with the "Export Talents" button:

For the sake of mentioning the rare times these talents may be useful, the following table includes the remaining options available to you as a Brewmaster Monk. Be aware that you will very rarely need to switch to these talents, if ever. However, be on the lookout for these rare opportunities across the many dungeons in a Mythic+ season.

Talent	Usage Tips
Hasty Provocation	This enhancement to Provoke is unique among taunt effects due to the movement speed increase it temporarily gives the Provoked enemy. You can use this to reposition a threat that rapidly needs to move from one location to another, like avoiding a damage-reduction area on the ground. Be mindful of the speed boost, however. If you need to Provoke an enemy you are trying to run away from, they could easily catch up to you!
Spirit's Essence	You generally have enough mobility as a Brewmaster to easily kite away from enemies as necessary (discussed further in a separate section below). However, with this talent, you can make use of a pre-placed Transcendence to greatly extend how long you can do so.
Swift Art	Although you can already remove snares with Tiger's Lust, this talent may enable you to remove a dangerous effect from an ally while still taking care of yourself with a well-timed Roll. Remember, however, that this talent cannot remove roots.
Healing Winds/ Escape from Reality	These talents can be combined for some on-demand self-healing, particularly when you are in the middle of kiting enemies. However, the point investment is hefty and hard to afford in many scenarios.
Clash	Clash acts as a unique way to reposition an enemy, similar to a Death Knight's Death Grip. However, unlike Death Grip, you and the target meet in the middle rather than having them dragged to you. This can be a useful tool to get a stubborn caster or other slow enemies closer to the rest of the group, but be warned that Clash will root targets around the impact point. This root is also special in that it will not break from dealing damage to the enemies! However, Clash also has a minimum range that you must be away from the target to use the ability, much like a Warrior's Charge.
Staggering Strikes	If you are playing in sufficiently low key levels to not frequently reach heavy amounts of Stagger— such as +4 and below — you may consider obtaining Staggering Strikes to gain a more efficient source of Stagger reduction.
Quick Sip	Conversely, once you are playing in sufficiently high key levels to frequently reach heavy amounts of Stagger, Quick Sip can become an effective source of Stagger reduction. The hard part is deciding what talent to remove in favor of it, such as potentially Elixir of Determination.

Spear Hand Strike is your "kick" and your most important bit of utility in Mythic+, used to stop enemy casts for the benefit of yourself and the rest of the group. It is highly recommended to use a Focus Kick macro for this.

• /cast [@focus,exists,nodead][@mouseover,exists,nodead] [] Spear Hand Strike

This macro will kick your focus target if you have one, mouseover if you have no Focus target, and your target if you have neither of those.

To quickly set a focus target in hectic scenarios, we also recommend a Focus Mouseover macro.

• /focus [@mouseover]

Make sure that your UI shows your Focus Target's casts clearly so that you are always able to kick it on cooldown or in coordination with the rest of your group.

Leg Sweep is your AoE stun effect as a Monk. With it, you can delay or negate dangerous abilities cast by enemies, or you can use it to survive a dangerous pull for a little while longer while you build up your defenses. Remember that certain enemies, such as minibosses, may be immune to its effects and other stuns in general!

Paralysis is a versatile crowd control ability that temporarily removes an enemy from the fight, it is best to cast it before you pull a group of enemies so that the effect will not be broken by a random bit of damage. In addition, you can use Paralysis as an extra interrupt effect in a pinch.

If your enemies are able to be knocked around, then Ring of Peace represents another form of disruption, bouncing them out of the summoned ring. Ring of Peace has a lot of possibilities for its application and is remarkably versatile: you can disrupt patrolling enemies, interrupt an enemy's cast, or keep a fixated enemy away from its target, among other uses.

Crackling Jade Lightning can be a useful tool for pulling a faraway group of enemies by casting it on one of them; just remember to immediately cancel Crackling Jade Lightning's channel by moving or performing another action! However, bear in mind that it will hardly generate any threat.

Roll, Lighter Than Air, and Tiger's Lust can all be used fairly often in a dungeon and are excellent options for repositioning yourself or making a quick escape from danger. Tiger's Lust, in particular, can often remove debuffs that deal damage over time or other negative effects if the debuff also snares or roots the victim!

The Windwalking aura works to provide you and any allies within 10 yards with extra movement speed. In Mythic+, where there is only one healer and the group tends to stay close to the tank, you can provide your entire group with this buff at nearly all times if necessary!

When running a Mythic+ dungeon, there may be times when the damage you or the rest of the group is taking becomes too intense for the healer to manage. During these moments, you can utilize kiting to help reduce your damage taken. This can provide precious time for your healer to restore some extra missing health or for you to get more of your defensive resources back.

There is no solid guideline for when in a dungeon; you may need to practice kiting as a Brewmaster Monk. Still, you must not forget it is an available option commonly seen in Mythic+ compared to a raiding environment. Fortunately, all the mobility available to Brewmaster Monks makes kiting reasonably simple. You could choose to Leg Sweep a group of enemies and Roll away afterward, throwing a Keg Smash to slow them down while you play keep-away. Or, you could place a Transcendence beforehand and quickly teleport to it later with Transcendence: Transfer. With the use of talents like Summon Black Ox Statue and Ring of Peace, the only thing stopping you as a Brewmaster from kiting endlessly is your ability to maintain threat on what is trying to reach you.

Brewmasters have a large number of abilities on hand that can counter the Cosmic Ascension casts from the orbs this affix generates. Among these are your Spear Hand Strike, Paralysis, Clash, and even Ring of Peace or Leg Sweep. However, you may want to avoid overcommitting resources to stopping this affix in favor of still having them available for the traditional trash pulls of a dungeon; choose your tools carefully.

Tank players will not be seeking out many of the Shattered Essence orbs from this affix, as chasing them down will disrupt enemy positioning, and the Void Essence buff tends to be a more useful damage buff for DPS players. Instead, consider using Ring of Peace or your own kiting capabilities to keep enemies away from the orbs longer if any are getting too close. In a pinch, you can even take advantage of your Roll, Lighter Than Air, and Tiger's Lust to grab any lingering orbs.

Void Rift's absorb can be removed after receiving 53% of your maximum health in healing, or instantly with Detox. If you have talented into Vivacious Vivification as well, consider dispelling yourself— due to tanks having more health to heal through otherwise— and using an instant cast of Vivify to help out another player if there are not enough dispels to go around.