Brewmaster Monk Tank Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.0.5

Welcome to the Rotation section of our Brewmaster Monk guide. If you came here without first checking over the Spell List/Glossary, it is recommended that you do so. Understanding what your spells and abilities do will make it easier to consider where they stand in the topics discussed here.

If you are not interested in learning the smaller details of how to play as a Brewmaster, then the Easy Mode version of this guide may be more along the lines of what you are looking for. It will briefly summarize the core of what you need to do as a Brewmaster, but it is still highly recommended that you read the other sections as well to gain a full understanding of how to maximize your character's potential.

In addition to your rotation in general content, there is also a separate section of this guide devoted to how your playstyle may change in Mythic+. Please take a look at it if you would like to learn more about how to play there.

The rotation for Brewmaster Monks is based on a priority system. That is, you are not using abilities in a strict order so much as you are casting the ability that is highest on the list when it is available for use. However, we will still be using the term "rotation" to describe this behavior throughout the remainder of this guide.

This priority system will not account for your active mitigation abilities (which we discuss in depth in a dedicated section) or your survival cooldowns (also discussed separately).

To begin, please select the options on the following table that represent your chosen active and passive Talents. For convenience, all talents suggested in our "default" build have been pre-selected. Other options not shown in this list will not alter the rotation enough to be mentioned:

Active Talents	Passive Talents
Rushing Jade Wind	Special Delivery
Chi Wave	Charred Passions
Chi Burst	Dragonfire Brew
Exploding Keg	Walk with the Ox
Summon White Tiger Statue	Stormstout's Last Keg
Bonedust Brew	Eye of the Tiger
Weapons of Order	Bountiful Brew
Black Ox Brew	Blackout Combo

1. Activate Rushing Jade Wind before entering combat, and use Chi Wave as you are moving to your target.
2. Activate Black Ox Brew — it is off the global cooldown — if your Energy is low and all charges of Purifying Brew and Celestial Brew are on cooldown.
3. Use Touch of Death on an enemy if it can be used.
4. Cast Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox if you will not need to use it defensively.
5. Place your Summon White Tiger Statue if the enemies nearby will survive for 30 seconds or more.
6. Throw your Bonedust Brew to hit both yourself and your targets. Wait to use it if the enemy is already debuffed by an activation of Bountiful Brew.
7. Use Blackout Kick to trigger Blackout Combo. Follow it up with Breath of Fire.
8. Use Breath of Fire.
9. Use Blackout Kick if the Charred Passions buff is present.
10. Use Keg Smash.
11. Use Breath of Fire.
12. Activate Weapons of Order.
13. Use Blackout Kick.
14. Use Breath of Fire.
15. Use Rising Sun Kick.
16. Use a spare charge of Purifying Brew if you are taking very little damage for additional Special Delivery procs.
17. Throw Exploding Keg at your targets. Remember to follow it up with two casts of Spinning Crane Kick to maximize the 3-second bonus damage window, and ensure Rushing Jade Wind is active beforehand.
18. Use Spinning Crane Kick if the Charred Passions buff is present; if you need extra defense, ignore this in favor of using Tiger Palm.
19. Use your second charge of Keg Smash to effectively "bank" partial recharge time when Keg Smash comes off cooldown in the middle of another ability's cast.
20. Activate Chi Wave.
21. Cast Chi Burst.
22. Use Rushing Jade Wind to maintain its buff.
23. Use Spinning Crane Kick if there is nothing else to do and you will still have enough Energy for your next Keg Smash.
24. Use Tiger Palm if there is nothing else to do and you will still have enough Energy for your next Keg Smash. This will also help you maintain Eye of the Tiger's effect.

It is absolutely imperative that you save Energy to cast Keg Smash on cooldown, as this is a large source of damage and the main source of both cooldown reduction for your Brew-based abilities and Shuffle to empower your Stagger.

Brewmaster is a somewhat unique specialization in that your rotation will mostly stay the same whether you are in single-target or multi-target combat.

1. Activate Rushing Jade Wind before entering combat , and use Chi Wave as you are moving to your target.
2. Activate Black Ox Brew — it is off the global cooldown — if your Energy is low and all charges of Purifying Brew and Celestial Brew are on cooldown.
3. Use Touch of Death on an enemy if it can be used.
4. Cast Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox if you will not need to use it defensively.
5. Place your Summon White Tiger Statue if the enemies nearby will survive for 30 seconds or more.
6. Throw your Bonedust Brew to hit both yourself and your targets. Wait to use it if the enemy is already debuffed by an activation of Bountiful Brew.
7. Use Blackout Kick to trigger Blackout Combo. Follow it up with Breath of Fire.
8. Use Breath of Fire.
9. Use Blackout Kick if the Charred Passions buff is present.
10. Use Keg Smash.
11. Use Breath of Fire.
12. Activate Weapons of Order.
13. Use Breath of Fire.
14. Throw Exploding Keg at your targets. Remember to follow it up with two casts of Spinning Crane Kick to maximize the 3-second bonus damage window, and ensure Rushing Jade Wind is active beforehand.
15. Use Spinning Crane Kick if the Charred Passions buff is present.
16. Cast Rising Sun Kick.
17. Cast Blackout Kick.
18. Use a spare charge of Purifying Brew if you are taking very little damage for additional Special Delivery procs.
19. Cast Chi Burst.
20. Activate Chi Wave.
21. Use your second charge of Keg Smash to effectively "bank" partial recharge time when Keg Smash comes off cooldown in the middle of another ability's cast.
22. Use Rushing Jade Wind to maintain its buff.
23. Use Spinning Crane Kick if you do not need more cooldown reduction on your Brews and will have enough Energy available by the time Keg Smash is available. Use Tiger Palm instead if more Brew cooldown reduction is desired.

Although Spinning Crane Kick deals enough damage to normally justify being a high-priority ability, it is too expensive on Energy to use when there are plenty of other abilities that are free.

Brewmaster Monks rely on a specific ability (Stagger) to smooth out the damage they take throughout fights. This is a somewhat complex ability, and we will explain it in depth in the sections that follow.

In addition to dodging and parrying attacks, Brewmaster Monks have an additional means of mitigating the damage that they take, called Stagger. This is a key element in your survivability as a tank, so it is important to understand it correctly.

Stagger causes Physical and Magic attacks made against you to have their damage split into two portions:

• An instant portion, will immediately deal its damage to you in the moment of the attack.
• A Staggered portion, which does its damage to you in the form of a 10-second DoT.

The amount of Physical damage Staggered is based on your Agility, while only 45% of that amount applies to Magic attacks. While you are Staggering damage, you will have one of three debuffs to represent how intense the DoT is: Light Stagger, Moderate Stagger, and Heavy Stagger. If you are in Heavy Stagger, then that means you are taking at least 60% of your Maximum Health as damage over those 10 seconds. However, you are likely to regularly exceed 100-200% of that amount in some forms of content!

Beyond that, the division between the instant and Staggered portions of damage your damage taken depends on other factors, namely whether or not you have the High Tolerance talent — which increases the Staggered portion — and whether or not you have Shuffle or Fortifying Brew with the special Fortifying Brew: Determination talent active.

As you might have noticed, Stagger does not by itself provide any form of damage reduction, mitigation, or avoidance. This is where Purifying Brew comes into play. Purifying Brew has 2 charges with a 20-second recharge time, and using it instantly removes 50% of the Staggered damage (the damage you are due to take over the next 10 seconds).

A simple example, assuming a Stagger amount of 40%, is as follows:

1. An attack of 1,000 Physical damage is performed against you.
2. 600 damage is dealt to you instantly.
3. A DoT is applied to you, which deals 400 damage over 10 seconds.
4. You cast Purifying Brew after 2 seconds, removing 50% of the DoT's 320 remaining damage.
5. After 10 seconds, you have sustained 600 instant damage, and 240 in Staggered damage. The remaining 160 damage has been removed by Purifying Brew.

The other ability that has a close interaction with Stagger and Purifying Brew is a passive called Shuffle. This buff increases the amount of damage you Stagger, and you are given 5 and 3 seconds of it when you Keg Smash or Blackout Kick, respectively. Shuffle can be extended until it reaches 15 seconds. Note, however, that Shuffle has no impact on "old" damage you have already Staggered, instead affecting new damage you take while the buff is active.

Finally, there is one more ability that indirectly works with your Stagger: Celestial Brew. Although the absorb it provides for only 8 seconds may seem small at first, it can be increased to up to three times its original size with the Improved Celestial Brew talent! This is caused by the buff Purified Chi, which you will gain stacks of from every use of Purifying Brew: One stack gained from Purifying while at Light Stagger, two stacks from Purifying in Moderate Stagger, and three from Heavy Stagger. Each stack increases the size of your next Celestial Brew shield by 20% per stack, going up to +200% at the stack cap of 10.

It is important to remember that the recharge time of Purifying Brew — along with the remaining cooldowns of Celestial Brew and Fortifying Brew — are reduced by 1 second each time you use Tiger Palm and by 3 seconds each time you use Keg Smash.

The hardest part of playing a Brewmaster Monk is remembering to maintain 100% uptime on Shuffle while trying to find the best time to make use of Purifying Brew and Celestial Brew. The latter two abilities have extremely valuable effects but they, at first, have long periods between uses; however, as you continue to perform your rotation, their cooldowns will be substantially reduced. As such, you have to find an appropriate time to use them without letting the abilities sit off-cooldown and waste the cooldown reduction effects your rotation is naturally providing.

Fortunately, Shuffle is not too hard to keep up, nor is the decision on which Brew to use and when too complicated. So long as you are following the Single-Target or Multi-Target priorities above, you should have more Shuffle time than you are using. As for your usage of Purifying Brew, there is a fairly simple set of rules to follow:

• Do not have both charges of Purifying Brew off-cooldown.
• Keep one charge available for an emergency.
• Use a charge as the second charge is about to come off cooldown.

You may notice that this set of rules more or less involves you pretending that the ability has only one charge instead of two. This is intentional, due to how frequently Purifying Brew will be available during your standard rotation. What this also means is that there may be times where you end up having to purify in only Light Stagger or Moderate Stagger rather than heavy, and that is okay so long as you still have that second charge ready for a sudden spike of damage.

By having access to an abundance of Purifying Brew usage, you will also have built up plenty of stacks of Purified Chi from Improved Celestial Brew to give you larger Celestial Brew absorbs. As a result, this ability is also best used on cooldown. It will usually be better to create more shields over time rather than possibly wasting both Purified Chi stacks and cooldown reduction. There is one small thing to consider, however. You may not want to Purify any Staggered damage if you will not take enough to eat away at the entire absorb. Since Celestial Brew's shield only lasts for 8 seconds, any amount of absorb afterward is effectively wasted. Since this absorb can soak up any damage — including Stagger — you can think of it as a stronger form of Purifying Brew.

If nothing else, you only need to remember to never let your Purifying Brew or Celestial Brew be unused and off-cooldown.

There are potentially eight different active abilities that need to be considered in the rotation priority that can be chosen among your talents, and many provide very different effects.

• Rising Sun Kick should essentially be used on cooldown. Although it does not directly interact with any defensive parts of the Brewmaster kit, it deals plenty of damage and has no cost, making it an excellent ability to avoid running out of Energy.
• Chi Wave is another ability with no cost that will just be used on cooldown. Its "smart" nature will choose to bounce to injured allies over those with full health.
• Chi Burst also has no cost, but a longer cooldown than Chi Wave and exists as a secondary choice. While less useful in single-target, it has decent value in AoE and still allows you to dodge while casting.
• Summon White Tiger Statue allows you to place a statue anywhere within 40 yards that will pulse damage over a 30-second period. Due to this ability having a massive two-minute cooldown despite its somewhat low damage, you should aim to place it near enemies that will survive for at least 30 seconds to maximize its damage potential.
• Rushing Jade Wind allows you to passively deal damage around you and has no Energy cost to maintain, so long as you remember to regularly activate the ability due to its low cooldown.
• Exploding Keg operates as one of the few tools of burst available to Brewmasters. This is due to its secondary effect of dealing bonus damage on direct hits to targets that were originally hit by the ability for a 3-second window. Due to how this ability interacts with both Rushing Jade Wind and Spinning Crane Kick, it is possible to achieve 10 or more additional hits to an enemy during this time.

While Weapons of Order does reset the cooldown of Keg Smash, bear in mind that it does not reset the cooldown of both charges if using the Stormstout's Last Keg talent. In addition, there is functionally little difference in how you apply the bonus damage debuff. So long as Keg Smash is being used on cooldown, you can largely ignore the bonus damage effect, as it will not cause a major change in rotation.

If you are making use of the Call to Arms talent, then you need to make one small adjustment to your playstyle: you should not cast Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox if a copy of your celestial is already present from activating Weapons of Order. This is because the two celestials will be drawing from the same pool of recently-purified Stagger damage when Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox is talented, resulting in lower Stomp damage than if you had spread out their uses.

Bonedust Brew's effect to replicate damage and healing effects also applies to your own self-healing such as Expel Harm, Gift of the Ox, and even Celestial Fortune. Because of this you should try to also hit yourself with the ability on each cast to provide a nice source of additional healing. This replication also applies to abilities that deal damage-over-time like Rushing Jade Wind and Breath of Fire.

When making use of the Bountiful Brew talent, it is important to remember that Bonedust Brew's duration cannot be extended beyond 10 seconds. This means that you do not want to actually cast Bonedust Brew while the debuff is present, or at least only if it is about to expire. By doing this and with a little luck, it is possible to maintain Bonedust Brew for over 30 seconds at a time!

As a Brewmaster, you have a number of talented defensive abilities with long cooldowns. You also have two offensive cooldowns that also provide some defensive effects as a bonus. Compared to the reactive nature of Purifying any Stagger you have built up with the help of Shuffle, these cooldowns are best used before you have taken damage in the first place.

• Fortifying Brew should be used whenever you are about to take a large amount of damage. Alternatively, it can be used as an emergency cooldown when your health is low, although it is less effective used in this way.
• Zen Meditation allows you to greatly mitigate the damage abilities with a cast time deal in particular, since the cast time allows you to time Zen Meditation perfectly. Alternatively, it can reduce the first melee attack or boss ability that hits you while channeling it.
• Diffuse Magic is a powerful defensive cooldown that you can use counter magic damage in particular. One of its more unique effects is the ability to both dispel and reapply a variety of potent magic debuffs to enemies.
• Dampen Harm is a survival cooldown that you can use to mitigate the damage from powerful boss attacks. It is most useful if used preemptively. A further breakdown of its damage reduction can be found in the Spell Summary.
• Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox takes on a portion of the damage you are Staggering during the time he is present, while also dealing a small amount of damage. If you are not making use of the Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox talent, then this damage is negligible and the cooldown's defensive bonuses are more useful to consider.
• Touch of Death is to be used when an enemy's Health is low enough to allow it. While the damage it deals will also remove a portion of your Stagger, you are usually using it against something that is nearly dead and cannot harm you anymore. This cooldown is therefore more useful offensively, but you may rarely be able to plan around its defensive benefit as well.

The Vault of the Incarnates raid features a new tier set for you to collect, and comes with two unique bonuses when wearing at least two or four pieces of its equipment:

• Brewmaster Monk 2pc — Hitting an enemy with Tiger Palm or Spinning Crane Kick grants Brewmaster's Rhythm, increasing damage dealt and reducing damage taken by 1% for 15 sec, stacking up to 4 times.
• Brewmaster Monk 4pc — For each stack of Brewmaster's Rhythm, Purifying Brew clears 3% more of your damage delayed with Stagger.

For the most part, both of these set bonuses feature passive effects that are attached to abilities that were already massive parts of your general offensive and defensive rotation as a Brewmaster Monk. Because of this, you should not have to alter any part of your playstyle to accommodate or maximize their potential. At most, you will want to consider watching the remaining duration of your Brewmaster's Rhythm buff when moving between packs of enemies so that you may immediately begin a pull with four stacks rather than needing to start from none.

If you would like to learn more about which pieces of the tier set to focus on acquiring from the Vault of the Incarnates, please see the gearing section of this guide, linked below.

The information presented until now will allow you to tank successfully as a Brewmaster Monk, in the vast majority of situations. However, there are several aspects about your class and spec that require a very deep understanding if you wish to take full advantage of your character. Some of these explanations can also be found in our Spell List and Glossary, linked below.

Provoke is your single-target taunt. If you have taken the Summon Black Ox Statue Talent, you can also Provoke your statue to force all enemies within 8 yards of it to attack you. This constitutes a sort of AoE taunt. It is worth noting that taunting a target while talented into Hasty Provocation increases its movement speed by 50%, which is useful when you to more quickly change the positioning of an enemy. However, it can also be dangerous when you are trying to keep an enemy from attacking you but need to maintain your Threat against it.

Despite being a very early choice node in the Brewmaster specialization tree, your decision between Special Delivery and Rushing Jade Wind will make a large difference on the pacing of your rotation. Indeed, this node represents a very real choice, where one option is sometimes better than the other depending on how well you can use either of them and how many targets are being fought.

Special Delivery acts as a "simpler" option between these two talents, being a passive damage increase that also offers a hefty 50% snare to targets that are hit by all of the falling kegs. It is also somewhat unique among AoE damage sources in that it does not deal reduced damage until hitting a massive 20 targets or more. The main thing to bear in mind when using this talent, however, is that you may have more "empty" moments in the rotation where you will need to not press any abilities while waiting to restore Energy.

Rushing Jade Wind, meanwhile, is the much more "active" option of the two talents, requiring you to press its button very frequently in the rotation. However, in exchange it provides a useful amount of passive damage and threat, despite dealing reduced damage beyond 5 targets. It is also uniquely powerful with effects that trigger from dealing damage, as each of its hits may count as activators, such as with Resonant Fists.

Overall, this makes the choice between Special Delivery and Rushing Jade Wind rather complicated. If you are having a hard time managing your rotation, then Special Delivery will usually be better due to not maintaining full uptime of Rushing Jade Wind's buff, though you will have to be more careful about managing your Energy. On the other hand, if you are facing more than a single enemy at a time the continuous AoE (and activations of Resonant Fists) will allow Rushing Jade Wind to be better. Feel free to experiment and use which of the two you prefer, based on your own comfort level!

Continuing the trend of many choice talent nodes representing genuine decisions, both Charred Passions and Dragonfire Brew are each viable talents where one may be superior over the other in certain circumstances.

Dragonfire Brew again 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 all target counts while still remaining competitive in specifically single-target scenarios.

Charred Passions, on the other hand, 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 the general 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.

What the distinction between these two talents boils down to is how many targets you will often be fighting in the content you are tackling. If facing exclusively one target at a time, then you have complete freedom in your decision between Dragonfire Brew and Charred Passions, with the two being effectively identical. From there, when fighting two or more targets, Charred Passions will rapidly lose ground against Dragonfire Brew. Note that these guidelines are identical to when you should use Special Delivery or Rushing Jade Wind, making these two choice nodes operate in pairs that are usually taken together.

At first, choosing between Tiger Palm and Spinning Crane Kick seems like a decision with an obvious answer: use Tiger Palm against one target and switch to Spinning Crane Kick if there are two or more. However, the actual choice is not so simple. Spinning Crane Kick also generates additional Shuffle time with every target hit and attracts your Gift of the Ox spheres to you while Tiger Palm reduces the cooldown of your Brew abilities by 1 second.

Even though it is a channeled ability, Spinning Crane Kick deals damage longer than a Brewmaster Monk's global cooldown. In fact, if you use another ability as soon as you can, Spinning Crane Kick will finish its damage even though you have "stopped" channeling to cast something else. In addition, if using Spinning Crane Kick twice in a row, the two casts' channel times will combine to prevent any potential damage being wasted. Finally, when making use of the Walk with the Ox talent, its effects will trigger four times due to each tick of damage individually granting Shuffle.

Spinning Crane Kick is not without its downsides, however. While it may seem convenient for your Spinning Crane Kick to draw in Gift of the Ox orbs, this also means that you are not able to easily save them up for a large heal with Expel Harm in an emergency. You also already should have maximum uptime on Shuffle by using both Keg Smash and Blackout Kick on cooldown. In addition, while channeling Spinning Crane Kick, your autoattacks — which are still an important part of your overall damage — do not occur. This means that all of the supposed defensive benefits of Spinning Crane Kick do not really help you out as a Brewmaster, and it may actually reduce your damage if used inappropriately.

Knowing all of this, your actual choice between the two abilities becomes a little more complicated. Even if you do not need extra cooldown reduction on your Brews and do not need to use a stronger Expel Harm, Spinning Crane Kick will still not provide you with more damage unless you are fighting multiple targets or using Walk with the Ox. But even then, if you use it, remember that though the channel is longer than your global cooldown other abilities can be used without the channel being broken early! Using Spinning Crane Kick multiple times in a row will also combine the channel durations to avoid any of the damage being "wasted". On the other hand, if you need more defensive power or are fighting only a single target, then Tiger Palm makes more sense to use. Do not forget that Tiger Palm still needs to be used occasionally if you have talented into Eye of the Tiger!

If you have chosen to make use of the Charred Passions talent, the decision between Tiger Palm and Spinning Crane Kick actually does not change. While the Charred Passions buff is present after using Breath of Fire, even in single-target, your use of Tiger Palm will not be replaced with Spinning Crane Kick. You will still make use of Spinning Crane Kick once fighting two or more enemies. The main exception to this behavior will occur if you ever have both Charred Passions and Walk with the Ox talented. Should this be the case, you will continue to use Spinning Crane Kick, even in single-target combat!

Although Gift of the Ox claims to offer a chance to summon a healing sphere when taking damage, it actually follows a consistent set of rules. One of these spheres will spawn for every 100% of your maximum Health you have taken as damage. These healing spheres will persist on the ground until you either walk over them or they time out after 30 seconds and automatically provide you with their healing. There can only be up to 5 active spheres at a time. Any further spawns beyond that will cause the least-recent sphere to heal you and be consumed.

If you can predict when you will take higher than usual damage, you can save up some spheres around you and use them all when you need the extra healing.

Since they can sometimes be hard to spot, Gift of the Ox spheres can also be gathered using your Expel Harm ability. Expel Harm costs 15 Energy and will immediately heal you for the amount of all of your existing spheres, along with dealing damage to an enemy equal to 10% of the amount healed.

Your healing spheres are precious, and you should try to save up at least 3 of them before you either pick them up or use Expel Harm. With this said, you should only use the spheres when you are dropping low on health or need to get topped off before a dangerous hit occurs.

Fortifying Brew increases your current and maximum health by 20% while also reduces all damage taken by 20% for 15 seconds. You can further alter it with the Fortifying Brew: Determination and Ironshell Brew talents to increase your base Stagger amount by 15% or provide you with 25% Armor and Dodge chance while active. It has a 6-minute cooldown, but it is reduced by 1 and 3 seconds when you use Tiger Palm and Keg Smash, respectively. This cooldown can also be reduced with the Expeditious Fortification talent.

Fortifying Brew is your main defensive cooldown, and it is best used preemptively, such as before taking a large amount of damage from a boss ability. You can also use it reactively, to prolong your survival, since it increases your health by 20%. One thing to note about it is that because of the Stagger increase it can offer, taking full advantage of its defensive value also will also involve your usage of Purifying Brew.

Zen Meditation is a very powerful defensive cooldown. It reduces damage taken by 60% for 8 seconds, but the effect is canceled prematurely if you are the victim of a melee attack or move if you do not have Fundamental Observation talented.

The spell is most useful for reducing the damage of abilities with a cast time, since the cast time makes it very easy to time Zen Meditation perfectly. It can also be used to mitigate a powerful melee attack or other boss mechanic.

Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox is a fairly unique cooldown, providing both defensive and offensive benefits while active. When present, Niuzao will take on 25% of the damage in your Stagger pool, having it harm him instead. In addition, if you have talented into Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox, 25% of your Staggered damage you have removed with Purifying Brew in the last 6 seconds will be used to empower his next Stomp attack. This also includes the 6 seconds before you have even summoned him!

Although it may not seem like it, playing around Niuzao's empowered Stomp damage from your recent casts of Purifying Brew can result in some of the biggest swings of damage among Brewmasters in content where you regularly reach Heavy Stagger. It is not uncommon for some players to intentionally take more damage or to ensure they are being attacked by a boss while the cooldown is active to receive more Stagger that can be purified. If you are feeling confident, give it a try, but remember that a dead player will not deal any damage nor should you hold the cooldown when it is ready for very long. It is, after all, also a defensive cooldown.

If you have chosen Black Ox Brew, you should always make sure to have consumed both of your Purifying Brew charges and that Celestial Brew is on cooldown before using it. Remember that you will also need to use another Purifying Brew charge afterward to avoid wasting any cooldown reduction and will likely put up a Celestial Brew shield that does not have many stacks of Purified Chi improving it. Since Black Ox Brew also refills all your Energy, you may also wish to cast Keg Smash or Tiger Palm/ Spinning Crane Kick at the same time. If your priority does not allow for this, however, then it is okay to waste a little bit of Energy regeneration.

Ring of Peace is fairly unique among enemy-moving abilities, allowing you to deny access to an area they may be trying to reach or to use it as an emergency interrupt by knocking the target away. If placed in a corner, an enemy may be forced to bounce against the wall repeatedly. Be warned, however, that some enemies and all raid bosses are immune to its effects. Otherwise, you can find plenty of creative uses for this talent.

Summon Black Ox Statue is a one of a kind ability that you should strive to play with. Having all of the mobs running to the same place makes everything so much easier when trying to get their attention. Do not forget that you can also use Provoke on your Black Ox Statue to taunt all the mobs near it. However, remember that the statue is killable and only has half of your max Health, so you should be quick to summon another one if it has been attacked recently. This WeakAura can help you keep track of your statue's Health.

Blackout Combo empowers your next ability, and therefore changes your rotation somewhat. However, it is a difficult talent to properly incorporate into your playstyle and maximize its effectiveness, particularly once you have acquired the Brewmaster Monk 2pc bonus and need to also maintain Brewmaster's Rhythm. Most importantly, you must continue to prioritize casting Blackout Kick on cooldown to maximize the amount of abilities empowered.

If you are feeling experimental, then the main thing that needs to be known is that every use of Blackout Kick should be followed by a Breath of Fire for most purposes, Keg Smash for additional cooldown reduction of your "brew" abilities, or Tiger Palm for more damage (particularly a Tiger Palm that has been empowered by either the Face Palm or Counterstrike talents). If you regularly are consuming your Blackout Combos on Purifying Brew or Celestial Brew — an easy mistake to make since Purifying Brew in particular is not on the global cooldown — then this talent will rapidly drop in value. Your survival will also suffer if you regularly cast a "normal" Breath of Fire rather than an empowered one.

As a final note, remember that Blackout Combo does not have an interaction with Spinning Crane Kick, Rushing Jade Wind, or Chi Wave/ Chi Burst, allowing them to be effective "gap-filler" abilities that can safely be used as necessary while still maximizing your casts of Blackout Kick to enable further combos.

Roll is an ability that allows you to quickly move 15 yards in front of you. It is a useful mobility ability, which you should use extensively for quickly traversing short distances. Here are a few facts about Roll:

• Roll has no resource cost and no cooldown. It is based on a charge system.
  • It has a maximum of 2 charges, and each charge has a 20-second recharge time.
  • The Celerity talent increases the number of charges to 3, and reduces recharge time to 15 seconds.
• Roll is off the global cooldown, but while you are rolling, you are unable to use any other ability.
• Roll will always send you in the direction that your character is currently moving (including backwards). If your character is stationary, Roll will send you in the direction your character is facing.
• You cannot roll through objects or obstacles. If you encounter an obstacle, your Roll is ended prematurely.
• Your movement speed while rolling is greater than while running, so rolling off a cliff will push you further than if you were just running and jumping.

Transcendence allows you to place a copy of yourself behind for up to 15 minutes. If you then use Transcendence: Transfer, you will be instantly moved back to the location of your copy. This can be useful in a wide range of situations, typically those where you know you will have to return to a certain location after moving away from it.

Transcendence can also be used to reset a fight. If placed outside the room before engaging the boss, you can taunt the boss and use Transcendence: Transfer. Should the boss follow you outside of its encounter area, it will despawn. This can save your raid a substantial amount of time and gold in a progression environment. As such, if Transcendence is not being used already in an encounter, this unique behavior can be very desirable.

Touch of Death offers a fairly unique way to execute a target at low Health, but the damage it deals depends on the target you are fighting. Although you are normally able to use this ability on any target that has less Health than your current maximum Health, Elite enemies and bosses are a little more resistant to its effects. Instead, if used against these types of enemies, the ability will only deal damage equal to 35% of your maximum Health, but may be used against them so long as they are at 15% Health or less (and only if you have talented into Improved Touch of Death). However, there is a useful, but risky, way to still deal full damage while having this talent!

If when facing an Elite enemy you instead wait for them to reach an amount of Health that is less than your current maximum, you can instead triple the damage your Touch of Death will do to them. Furthermore, any temporary Stamina buffs, such as a Priest's Power Word: Fortitude or your own Fortifying Brew will increase this threshold. Of course, when trying to use this technique against boss-level enemies, there is some chance of being worse off. Against a boss-level enemy, it is entirely possible that they will be slain before you can take advantage of dealing full Touch of Death damage.

If you are willing to take a chance, you can create a substantial increase in your overall damage by using Touch of Death in this way. However, if you are not comfortable with this approach, do not feel forced to try it.