Brewmaster Monk Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within Pre-Patch
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Brewmaster Monk in World of Warcraft — The War Within Pre-Patch. We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
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.
Talent Cheat Sheets for Brewmaster Monks
Best Generic/Open-World Talents for Brewmaster Monks
While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent tree listed below will work well for general purposes such as world content and entry-level raiding/mythic+ content. It is still highly recommended to switch to a more specialized build if engaging in something specific.
Remember that you can easily import the talent tree below into the game with either of the two "Copy Export String" buttons:
Best Default/Defensive Raiding Talents for Brewmaster Monks
The following build is focused on your performance within raid encounters. As
such, it does not opt into utility that is rarely seen within a raid or can be
covered by another player instead. However, it also chooses to use a point of
High Tolerance for defense. If this is not necessary and you wish to
push your damage even further, drop it in favor of
Stormstout's Last Keg.
As the Awakened raids of Season 4 feature a variety of fight styles and mechanics to warrant swapping talents on a fight-by-fight basis, please visit our dedicated raid tips sections of this guide for separate talent recommendations on each encounter individually.
Remember that you can easily import the talent tree below into the game with either of the two "Copy Export String" buttons:
Best Advanced/Offensive Raiding Talents for Brewmaster Monks
Once you are appropriately comfortable with your playstyle as a Brewmaster Monk,
consider switching to this set of talents to fully maximize your single-target
damage potential. Be aware that it will require you to make use of Blackout Combo,
Charred Passions, and
Black Ox Brew in particular. As this build
is still focused primarily on raiding, it will similarly not have all of your
available utility selected. In fact, you may end up dropping further options,
such as
Peace and Prosperity in favor of easier
Touch of Death
usage with
Improved Touch of Death. If this build's choices seem too
daunting, you can even opt for somewhere in between it and our Default raiding
talents, keeping
Bob and Weave and
Dragonfire Brew.
Don't forget to still visit our dedicated raid tips sections of this guide for separate talent recommendations on each of the Awakened raid encounters individually.
Remember that you can easily import the talent tree below into the game with either of the two "Copy Export String" buttons:
Best AoE/Mythic+ Talents for Brewmaster Monks
Mythic+ features a lot more talent flexibility due to the variety of dungeons
you will be venturing into, such as whether or not you need an extra defensive
cooldown in the form of Dampen Harm compared to the passive Dodge of
Dance of the Wind, or if you want to opt for more passive damage with
Dragonfire Brew, particularly in combination with the
Monk Brewmaster 10.2 Class Set 2pc bonus.
To learn more about these flexible talent points and further tips on using your abilities there, we have an entire section of this guide devoted to further Mythic+ tips and tricks that you can quickly navigate to.
Remember that you can easily import the talent tree below into the game with either of the two "Copy Export String" buttons:
Best Legacy Content/Movement Speed Talents for Brewmaster Monks
Highlighting the unique amount of flexibility available through
talent trees, the following build is intended for trivial content that
you wish to get through as quickly as possible, such as old raids or previous
expansion features. It makes use of talents that are otherwise not taken during
your time in The War Within, though you should further complement it
with other speed-boosting effects such as a Charged Phial of Alacrity.
Remember that you can easily import the talent tree below into the game with either of the two "Copy Export String" buttons:
Brewmaster Monk Talents Explained
Due to the nature of 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 Rows 1-4
Noteworthy Talents
Talent | Description/Effect |
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A basic ability that deals a large amount of damage to a single target; has additional passives that interact with the larger rotation. |
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Your primary ability as a Brewmaster; to be used on cooldown. |
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A passive effect that gives your ![]() ![]() ![]() |
|
These two talents are on one choice node, and both provide nearly identical
damage; however, ![]() ![]() |
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Your main source of active mitigation. It
purifies 50% of the damage you are currently ![]() |
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Dispels all ![]() ![]() |
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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. |
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Incapacitates a target for 1 minute; any damage the target receives will break the effect. |
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Increases all healing received. |
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Increases the damage of ![]() ![]() |
Niche Talents
Talent | When to Consider |
---|---|
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Strong utility for offhealing and in content that is easier, like world questing. |
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Although it does result in a lot of ![]() ![]() |
Talent Rows 5-7
This section of the talent trees, in particular, is where you will find many utility and defensive abilities.
Noteworthy Talents
Talent | Description/Effect |
---|---|
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Place a spirit with ![]() ![]() |
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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
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Casting ![]() ![]() |
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Create an area on the ground within 40 yards that prevents most enemies from
being within the zone for 5 seconds. This is a choice node shared with
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Gain 60% damage reduction against ![]() ![]() |
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A 2-minute defensive cooldown that reduces damage for
10 seconds, depending on how hard the hit is. All hits will be reduced by at
least 20%, and incoming damage exceeding 100% of your max Health will be
reduced by 50%. This is a choice node shared with ![]() |
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Your "big", traditional defensive cooldown, granting damage reduction and increased Health on a long cooldown; gains additional effects from other passive talents. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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 ![]() ![]() |
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Reduces the cooldown of ![]() ![]() |
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Niche Talents
Talent | When to Consider |
---|---|
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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. |
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Very rare situations where a distant enemy needs to be kept out of your
path for an extended period of time, and ![]() |
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Trivial content or areas that do not feature sporadic magic damage
dangerous enough to require a specific cooldown against it. Against continuous
magic damage, this talent can still prove valuable! It is a
choice node shared with ![]() |
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If you are fighting enemies whose main damage comes from auto-attacking,
such as in Mythic+, and you also will not be in need of an additional defensive
cooldown, as this is a choice node shared with ![]() |
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This ability to fully restore 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 ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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If you are traveling for long periods of time and cannot mount, stacking
the buff of ![]() |
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This talent may be used in areas where you are constantly being attacked by enemies, including Mythic+, and even raids. |
Talent Rows 8-10
Noteworthy Talents
Talent | Description/Effect |
---|---|
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Although this talent increases the cooldown of ![]() |
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Consuming charges of ![]() ![]() |
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This talent places a statue that pulses threat to all enemies within
20 yards, causing them to potentially attack it. In addition, you may cast
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|
Your choice between these two talents will have a large impact on your
rotation. In particular, selecting ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Toss a flaming keg with no target cap on a 1-minute cooldown. Every target hit will deal 99% reduced damage with their auto attacks for 3 seconds. In addition, all direct hits from your attacks will deal bonus Fire damage during this time. |
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Gain 10% Mastery for the next 30 seconds while also resetting the cooldown
of ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Niche Talents
Talent | When to Consider |
---|---|
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When you are in an environment where you need one extra class talent point
for some much-needed utility and will not be able to take advantage of
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If you are in content where you need more defense, these are perhaps the first talents to switch into. |
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So long as you are very confident in your ability to perform your rotation well, this talent can provide an additional 5% damage reduction on-demand, 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. |
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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. |
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Try these talents together in content where you are taking heavy amounts
of ![]() |
We recommend checking our dedicated rotation section if you want to know how to optimize the use of these talents.
PvP Talents for Brewmaster
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.
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 who 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,
Eerie Fermentation, and
Microbrew or
Alpha Tiger, 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.
Changelog
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Page reviewed for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Raiding talent builds separated into defensive and offensive options; Invoke Niuzao build removed due to limited applications; page reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Page reviewed for Patch 10.2.5
- 10 Nov. 2023: Slight talent adjustments to the Generic and Invoke Niuzao builds; wording cleanup on certain talent descriptions.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Added an additional talent build focusing on Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox for Patch 10.2; included discussion of Escape from Reality as a niche talent choice.
- 10 Sep. 2023: Added an additional talent build for Legacy Content/maximizing movement speed.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Page formatting adjusted; Open-World and Mythic+ talent recommendations slightly adjusted.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Default build adjusted to reflect new Patch 10.1.5 talents; additional talent notes added for possible choices.
- 02 Jun. 2023: Slightly adjusted the wording of Weapons of Order to reflect a recent hotfix.
- 01 May 2023: Added Song of Chi-Ji as a new niche talent; Incendiary Breath honor talent removed.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Talent trees adjusted based on 10.0.5 talent changes; added notes on Blackout Combo as a potential talent decision.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Build and talent recommendations slightly adjusted based on recent developments regarding Charred Passions, Dragonfire Brew, Special Delivery, and Rushing Jade Wind.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Adjusted general build to focus on world content and entry-level Mythic+/Raiding. See their respective guide sections for more tailored builds.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Monk Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Sinzhu, a Mythic raider on US-Kil'jaeden who has passionately played Brewmaster for the past nine years. He also contributes to the Peak of Serenity and is a Moderator of the Monk Class Discord.
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