Brewmaster Monk Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents — Dragonflight 10.0.5

Within this page we will go over every single talent available to Brewmaster Monks. Many of them are only passive effects, but they all can have an impact on how the spec is played whether active or passive. To see how these choices fit into how you play as a Brewmaster, take a look at the Rotation section of our guide.

Remember that you can easily import the talent tree below into the game with either of the two "Copy Export String" buttons:

While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent tree listed above will work well for general purposes such as world content and entry-level raiding/mythic+ content.

Although the build above will likely be "good enough" for most encounters within the Vault of the Incarnates raid, we highly recommend visiting our dedicated raid tips section of this guide for separate talent recommendations on every encounter individually.

In addition to having a separate talent build and breakdown for Mythic+, we also have an entire section of this guide devoted to further Mythic+ tips and tricks that you can quickly navigate to.

Due to the nature of Dragonflight's talent trees, almost every talent is meant to be viable or have a desirable niche where you may want to select it. As such, we will cover some of the more favored talents that you will want to prioritize most of the time from the top of each tree on down, followed by mentioning some of the bigger niche talents that are likely only rarely useful. If you would like to see a list of every single talent's effect as well as the abbreviations they are often known by in the community, please consult our Spell List and Glossary section instead.

Talent	Description/Effect
Rising Sun Kick	A basic ability that deals a large amount of damage to a single target; has one extra, passive interaction with the larger rotation.
Keg Smash	Your primary ability as a Brewmaster; this is to be used on cooldown.
Spirit of the Ox	A passive effect that gives your Blackout Kick and Rising Sun Kick a large chance to generate a healing sphere that functions identically to Gift of the Ox.
Rushing Jade Wind Special Delivery	These two talents are on one choice node, and both provide nearly identical damage; however, Rushing Jade Wind is marginally better in all counts, though Special Delivery remains at its most competitive in pure single-target. If you would like to learn more about this choice, see our dedicated section of the rotation page.
Purifying Brew	Your main source of active mitigation. It removes 50% of the damage you are currently Staggering. It has a 20-second recharge that is reduced by Haste. Certain talents and abilities can reduce the cooldown further or grant additional charges.
Detox	Dispels all Poison and Disease effects from a target; 20 Energy cost, with an 8-second cooldown upon successfully dispelling an effect.
Paralysis	Incapacitates a target for 1 minute; any damage the target receives will break the effect.
Grace of the Crane	Increases all healing received.

Talent	When to Consider
Vivacious Vivification	Strong utility for offhealing and in content that is easier, like world questing.
Healing Elixir	While the healing scales with your own maximum HP and can trigger Celestial Fortune, it is mostly used in trivial content where damage reduction is less important than healing.
Staggering Strikes	Although it does result in a lot of Stagger removed from hitting Blackout Kick on cooldown, this talent is only useful in areas where your overall Stagger intake is rather low like world questing

This section of the talent trees in particular is where you will find many utility and defensive abilities.

Talent	Description/Effect
Transcendence/ Transcendence: Transfer	Place a spirit with Transcendence, then swap positions with your spirit using Transcendence: Transfer.
Breath of Fire	Deals damage in a cone in front of you and has no cost on a 15-second cooldown. Any targets that have already been hit by Keg Smash will be afflicted with a DoT that causes them to deal 5% less damage to you for 12 seconds.
Sal'salabim's Strength	Casting Keg Smash resets the cooldown on Breath of Fire.
Ring of Peace	Create an area on the ground within 40 yards that prevents any enemies from being within the zone for 5 seconds.
Diffuse Magic	Gain 60% damage reduction against magic damage for 6 seconds, while also dispelling any active magic debuffs and applying them to their original caster, if possible. 90-second cooldown.
Dampen Harm	A 2-minute defensive cooldown that reduces damage for 10 seconds depending on how hard the hit is. All hits will be reduced by 20%, and incoming damage exceeding 100% of your max Health will be reduced by 50%.
Fortifying Brew	Your main defensive cooldown, granting damage reduction and increased health on a long cooldown; gains additional effects from other passive talents.
Spear Hand Strike	Your interrupt. It stops a cast, and prevents similar spells from being cast for 4 seconds. It has no cost, with a 15-second cooldown and is not on the global cooldown.
Fast Feet	Increases the damage of Rising Sun Kick and Spinning Crane Kick by a truly massive amount for its talent point investment.
Celestial Brew	One of your main defensive tools, allowing you create a powerful shield that absorbs all damage. Note that this defensive ability is on the global cooldown.
Zen Meditation	A channeled defensive cooldown. For 8 seconds, you take 60% less damage, but cannot attack. It is broken immediately on receiving Physical damage or movement, and has a 5-minute cooldown.
Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox	While this 3-minute cooldown is active, a spirit of Niuzao will assist you for 25 seconds. During this time he will attack your targets, frequently Stomp all enemies around him, and will also take on 25% of the damage you Stagger.
Gai Plin's Imperial Brew	Purifying Brew heals you for a portion of the Staggered damage it removed. This is a choice node shared with Tranquil Spirit.
Light Brewing	Reduces the cooldown of Purifying Brew and Celestial Brew.
Bob and Weave	Stagger's damage now ticks over 13 seconds instead of 10.

Talent	When to Consider
Hasty Provocation	If a particular target needs to be quickly repositioned (such as a caster that has just been interrupted), the extra movement speed is unique among taunt abilities.
Black Ox Brew	This ability fully restoring your Energy is arguably more useful than the brew cooldown resets, as it is hard to maximize its defensive potential. Use if you want just a few more casts of Purifying Brew or Celestial Brew (or wish to give Special Delivery a bit more burst potential).
Chi Torpedo	If you are traveling for long periods of time and cannot mount, stacking the buff of Chi Torpedo can quickly add up; be wary of the longer roll distance, however.
Tranquil Spirit	You may wish to use this talent instead of Gai Plin's Imperial Brew (its alternate choice) when in content with limited amounts of Stagger or where you are more likely to press Expel Harm, such as world quest content or areas where you have a large item level advantage.
Fundamental Observation	Include this talent if you need to turn Zen Meditation into a more generally useful cooldown.

Talent	Description/Effect
Close to Heart	Provides an 8% increased healing aura to allies within 10 yards; the effect lingers for 10 seconds if they leave this range and is always active on yourself.
Resonant Fists	Attacks have a chance to deal additional Nature damage to all nearby enemies. 10% proc chance; 1-second cooldown between procs.
Dragonfire Brew Charred Passions	Your choice between these two talents will have a large impact on your rotation. In particular, selecting Charred Passions means that you will use Spinning Crane Kick, even in single-target. However, bear in mind that the decision between these two talents aligns with the choice of Rushing Jade Wind and Special Delivery: they will be nearly identical in single-target, Dragonfire Brew will perform slightly better in low target counts (2-3), and it will continue to become noticeably better from there. If you would like to learn more about this choice, see our dedicated section of the rotation page.
Exploding Keg	Toss a flaming keg with no target cap on a 1-minute cooldown. Every target hit will deal 99% reduced damage with their autoattacks for 3 seconds. In addition, all direct hits from your attacks will deal bonus Fire damage during this time.
Stormstout's Last Keg	Keg Smash gains a second charge and deals bonus damage.
Weapons of Order	Gain 10% Mastery for the next 30 seconds, while also resetting the cooldown of Keg Smash. In addition, targets hit by Keg Smash will take additional damage from you, stacking up to four times.
Bonedust Brew	Coat enemies and allies in a targeted location for 10 seconds. During this time, all of your abilities have a 50% chance to replicate 40% of their damage or healing done.

Talent	When to Consider
High Tolerance	If you are in content where you need more defense, this is perhaps the first talent to switch into.
Blackout Combo	So long as you are very confident in your ability to perform your rotation well, this talent will provide an additional 5% damage reduction at nearly all times, along with a substantial increase in your single-target damage. It is highly recommended to read the relevant section of our rotation page to understand how to correctly make use of this complex talent.
Bounce Back	Consider this talent when extra defensive power is needed against constant danger. Due to the effect triggering more or less on cooldown, it is not a replacement for another defensive option, but just a supplement.
Generous Pour	As Avoidance only reduces AoE damage, consider this talent in stacked group content featuring a lot of it.
Summon White Tiger Statue	Use this in AoE or Mythic+ environments where enemies will survive for at least 30 seconds and not be moving around.
Walk with the Ox Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox Call to Arms	Try these talents together in content where you are taking heavy amounts of Staggered damage.

We recommend checking our dedicated rotation section if you want to know how to optimize the use of these talents.

PvP talents are PvP-centric options that activate out in the world when you enable War Mode in the talent pane, or when participating in instanced PvP content. If you are comfortable with being flagged for PvP, some offer great benefits to questing.

You are permitted to choose 3 talents from the PvP Talents list. Here is a recommendation of those most helpful for questing:

• Double Barrel is an active ability that is off the global cooldown. When used, it increases the damage of your next Keg Smash by 50% and stuns enemies for 3 seconds. Note that its cooldown does not begin until this buff has been consumed. This is great for larger packs, but does require a keybind that is not useful in Raids and Dungeons. Fortunately, as it is off the global cooldown, it can be cast at the same time as Keg Smash with the help of a macro if you want to passively benefit from it.
• Incendiary Breath alters Breath of Fire, doubling its radius and damage, but also its cooldown. It will also disorient any enemies hit. This is excellent, as often you will only get to use one Breath of Fire, so the increased cooldown will hurt less. The Spitfire talent can be combined with this PvP talent for a noteworthy damage boost in open-world content. The Breath of Fire effect from Celestial Flames is also doubled by this option.
• Hot Trub causes your Purifying Brew to also deal split damage to enemies around you, based on 20% of how much damage you have Purified. While this is often a small amount of damage due to low Stagger amounts in world content, it is entirely passive and does not require any special planning.
• Microbrew allows you to use Fortifying Brew more frequently without reducing its strength as your most powerful defensive cooldown.
• Eerie Fermentation, while not offering a strong benefit most of the time, will allow you to gain increased movement speed and a little extra defense against magic attacks while questing. Magic damage from players or NPCs is normally a little more dangerous to a Brewmaster.
• Alpha Tiger provides a large amount of Haste when casting Tiger Palm on a target, though you cannot gain the buff more than once every 30 seconds per enemy hit. In open-world content where you are fighting multiple enemies for only a short amount of time, this talent is quite strong.
• Dematerialize acts as a form of stun protection, providing you with temporary damage reduction while stunned. However, its amount decreases with every second you are stunned, completely depleting after only three seconds.
• Admonishment is also worth mentioning. It causes your Provoke to increase the damage a target takes by 3%. However, this amount can increase all the way to 15% bonus damage for every unique player that attacks the target While this is not very useful while completely solo, if you are taking on elites with other people that happen to be in the zone or questing in a group it can be worth taking. Be careful using this on World Bosses — they will still attack you when you Provoke them!

For most situations, a solid combo is Double Barrel, Incendiary Breath — if you have Sal'salabim's Strength talented — and Eerie Fermentation as these provide largely-passive benefits while increasing your damage-dealing and defensive potential.

While it can be fun to use your PvP talents, if you are looking to PvP more seriously you will likely want to consider doing so as a Windwalker or Mistweaver.