Brewmaster Monk Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents — Shadowlands 9.0.2
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Brewmaster Monk in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.0.2. 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 Choices for Brewmaster Monk
Level | Choices | ||
---|---|---|---|
15 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
25 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
30 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
35 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
40 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
45 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
50 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area
(such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Still Mind and
Codex of the Still Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change
talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.
Talent Cheat Sheets for Brewmaster Monk
While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent builds listed below work great for specific purposes.
Raid Encounters
This build is an excellent starting point as a "standard" raid setup. It is very highly recommended you read the individual talent points as Brewmaster Monks in particular can be pretty situational in their talent choices.
- Level 15:
Eye of the Tiger
- Level 25:
Tiger's Lust
- Level 30:
Light Brewing
- Level 35:
Summon Black Ox Statue
- Level 40:
Dampen Harm
- Level 45:
Rushing Jade Wind
- Level 50:
High Tolerance
Mythic+
- Level 15:
Chi Burst
- Level 25:
Tiger's Lust
- Level 30:
Light Brewing
- Level 35:
Ring of Peace
- Level 40:
Healing Elixir
- Level 45:
Rushing Jade Wind
- Level 50:
High Tolerance
In addition to having a talent 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. There is also a separate section of talents devoted entirely to Torghast.
Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Brewmaster Monk
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Eye of the Tiger causes
Tiger Palm to also apply both a buff (to yourself) and a debuff (to the target) called Eye of the Tiger. On you, it is an 8-second HoT, while on the target it is an 8-second DoT (dealing Nature damage). The DoT may only be active on one target at a time.
Chi Wave is an active ability with a 15-second cooldown. It is essentially a chain-heal that bounces to the 7 nearest targets (within 25 yards). The bounces target allies and enemies alternatively. Each target that the wave bounces to is healed or damaged (Nature damage), depending on their alignment. The healing portion of Chi Wave is a smart heal, in the sense that it prefers healing low health players.
Chi Burst is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown. It heals all friendly targets, and damages all hostile targets in a 40-yard line in front of you.
Eye of the Tiger is a convenient passive choice for both self-sustain
and for dealing more damage. However, remember that it can only be active on one
target at a time and requires
Tiger Palm to apply the debuff which can
sometimes be cumbersome outside of single target fighting.
Chi Burst is the best choice for AoE, providing a nice
burst of damage and healing. Using it efficiently requires some amount of
consideration, however, as the distance it travels can accidentally pull more
enemies. You can also help heal your allies with it if aimed appropriately.
Chi Wave can provide some decent self-healing, but typically only
for solo content. If you use it in groups, it will also bounce to allies and
barely end up healing you. Theoretically, it can result in slightly higher DPS
than
Eye of the Tiger. However, if you have to delay the casting of
Chi Wave over an encounter, its value rapidly declines. This means
Eye of the Tiger
is usually a better option than Chi Wave unless you are not casting
Tiger Palm enough to maintain its debuff.
Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents for Brewmaster Monk
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Celerity passively increases the number of charges of
Roll by 1, and reduces its cooldown by 5 seconds.
Chi Torpedo replaces
Roll. It causes you to roll a moderate distance in front of you (further than Roll), increasing your movement speed by 30% for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to 2 times.
Tiger's Lust is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown, which removes all roots and snares from the target, and grants them 70% increased movement speed for 6 seconds. It can be used either on yourself or on an ally.
In this tier that revolves around movement, the choice depends on your preference and on the requirements of the encounter.
Tiger's Lust is a great choice for a movement speed boost, since
not being linked to
Roll makes it quite versatile. Removing slows and
roots is excellent everywhere since these frequently show up in raids, dungeons,
Torghast, and the world. It can often negate plenty of damage over time effects
that also have a root or snare effect. For that reason, it is recommended to
have a mouseover macro to give it to a
friendly player that needs help every now and then.
Chi Torpedo is a strong choice for encounters that require you to
move a long distance for extended time, since it moves you further than
Roll before even accounting for the bonus speed buff. This speed
increase also stacks, so a high average speed can be achieved by using Chi
Torpedo near the end of the buff duration. Just be careful not to misjudge a
distance if you are used to Roll.
Celerity can be a good choice if you need to only move as far as a
Roll will take you and do so often. However, the total distance you can
travel over time with this talent is lower than either of the alternatives, so
it cannot be recommended most of the time.
Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents for Brewmaster Monk
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Light Brewing reduces the cooldown of
Purifying Brew and
Celestial Brew by 20%, setting them at 16 and 48 seconds, respectively.
Spitfire causes
Tiger Palm to gain a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of
Breath of Fire.
Black Ox Brew is an active ability with a 2-minute cooldown that instantly resets the cooldown on both charges of
Purifying Brew and the cooldown of
Celestial Brew, while also completely refilling your Energy.
Black Ox Brew — when properly used on cooldown — offers
the most Brew usage per fight. It also provides a small damage boost by allowing
for more casts of
Tiger Palm,
Spinning Crane Kick,
and
Keg Smash throughout a fight due to the extra Energy that it
generates. Since it is a Brew, Black Ox Brew even has its cooldown reduced by
Keg Smash and Tiger Palm, but this means it needs to be monitored carefully. If
you encounter even a short period of being unable to attack, its value suffers
immensely. The talent can also struggle with giving you too many resources at
once, asking you to spend some energy right away along with using a charge of
Purifying Brew and your
Celestial Brew to get them back on
cooldown as soon as possible. Consider it a high-risk, high-reward option.
Light Brewing acts as a passive counterpart to
Black Ox Brew
for Brew availability. It is on par with Black Ox Brew in Brew generation
when both are played optimally, but any small mistake or any fight downtime
rapidly creates an advantage in Light Brewing's favor. However, since Light
Brewing no Energy it can result in slightly lower DPS. You should choose it in
raid fights with significant time where you cannot attack anything, dungeons, or
if you prefer a less-hectic playstyle.
Spitfire provides almost no defensive benefit and only a marginal
DPS increase. Players doing content that does not challenge them at all who
want a tiny bit more damage can use it. There is one extra benefit that applies
to players in War Mode, which will be discussed in the appropriate section.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents for Brewmaster Monk
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Ring of Peace is an active ability with a 45-second cooldown. It forms a ring at the targeted location, which lasts for 5 seconds. During this time, most enemies who enter the ring will be knocked out of it. Has no effect on bosses and certain enemies resistant to crowd control.
Summon Black Ox Statue creates a statue at the target location within 40 yards on a 10-second cooldown, and pulses threat to all nearby enemies within 20 yards. The threat belongs to the statue, so mobs will try to attack it if a more threatening target is not nearby. When using
Provoke on your Black Ox Statue, all enemies within 8 yards of it are taunted to attack you. Beyond that, the statue has its own Health bar equal to half of your maximum health and will last until it is destroyed or times out after 15 minutes.
Tiger Tail Sweep increases the range of
Leg Sweep by 2 yards and reduces its cooldown by 10 seconds.
Summon Black Ox Statue can be a solid choice for any raid encounter with
frequent adds that would otherwise be annoying to get the attention of. It will
usually be the focus of any new enemy that spawns, so you can easily pick them
up without stress. It can also be a solid way to pull packs in Mythic+, where
the AoE taunt is excellent to save overeager DPS players. You should always make
sure to be careful where you place your statue, since its threat pulse range can
be misleading. It is also recommended to track its Health with the aid of a
WeakAura.
Ring of Peace is a fairly unique ability, and is useful in several
areas of content. It can be used in raid encounters to stop enemies from getting
to where they want to be, or it can be placed under friendly players to stop
something from meleeing them, The knockback effect can even act as a makeshift
interrupt by forcibly moving mobs that are casting. In
Necrotic
dungeons, you can cast it around yourself to obtain a few extra seconds of time
to let the effect drop off. Be aware that some enemies are immune to its
effects, however.
Tiger Tail Sweep is a reasonable choice, but since
Leg Sweep is baseline the other two talents will usually be better.
Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents for Brewmaster Monk
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Bob and Weave causes the
Stagger to last 3 seconds longer, decreasing the damage each tick deals.
Healing Elixir is an active ability with 2 charges and a 30-second recharge time that heals you for 15% of your maximum health.
Dampen Harm is an active ability with a 2-minute cooldown. For 10 seconds, all damage you take is reduced by 20% to 50%, with larger attacks having their damage reduced by more than smaller attacks.
The choice in this tier is situational.
Dampen Harm is a good option if you find you need an additional
cooldown to stay alive, especially when you are unable to use external
healer cooldowns. Its damage reduction starts at a baseline level of 20%, but
gets stronger as the damaging hit increases and caps out at a 50% reduction for
attacks that would have hit you for 100% or more of your max Health. If you do
not have a planned use for it, however, consider an alternative talent.
Healing Elixir offers reasonable healing and can trigger
Celestial Fortune despite not being able to crit. It is usually the best
talent to take while out in the world or in content with only moderate spikes
in damage since your
Stagger will not reach quite as consistently
high a level. You may also want to consider using it when playing with a
less-experienced healer or in a dungeon with the
Grievous affix.
Bob and Weave is a simple, effective passive option when there are no
large damage spikes to worry about. Extending the
Stagger DoT by 3
seconds means that each tick does less, and each cast of
Purifying Brew
becomes a little more efficient by clearing more damage. However, the large
number of Purifying Brew casts available in a fight results in this Talent often
being inferior to its alternatives.
Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents for Brewmaster Monk
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Special Delivery gives your
Purifying Brew,
Celestial Brew,
Fortifying Brew, and if talented,
Black Ox Brew 100% chance to toss a keg at a nearby enemy which deals damage in an 8-yard radius and reduces the movement speed of those hit by 50% for 15 seconds.
Rushing Jade Wind is an active ability with a 6-second cooldown. It deals damage to up to 6 enemies in an 8-yard radius around you over its 9-second duration. Both the duration and cooldown are reduced by your Haste.
Exploding Keg allows you to toss a flaming keg on a 1-minute cooldown. Enemies hit by this ability will "miss" you with their autoattacks for the next 3 seconds.
Rushing Jade Wind is your standard choice here. It deals the
most reliable damage of the 3 talents and fits into your empty global cooldowns
nicely. There is also the major benefit of having constant AoE damage around
yourself to help maintain threat on enemies.
Exploding Keg sounds great in theory, but suffers from a technicality.
Rather than causing enemy attacks to miss for 3 seconds, their damage
dealt by autoattacks is instead reduced by 99%. This distinction means that
debuffs applied on successful attacks still work, such as
Necrotic.
With this in mind, along with its low damage, Exploding Keg becomes a fairly
situational choice depending on whether or not it can help reduce the damage of
a specific physical mechanic.
Special Delivery should be avoided unless a heavy slow is desired.
Outside of purely single-target combat, its damage is far below
that of
Rushing Jade Wind. It can also easily miss targets, due to having a
3-second travel time and you may even accidentally break crowd control abilities
by having a keg land on the affected enemy.
Tier 7 (Level 50) Talents for Brewmaster Monk
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
High Tolerance increases the amount of damage you Stagger by 5%. It also causes you to passively gain up to 15% Haste based on your current amount of Stagger damage — the higher the damage, the more Haste you gain.
Celestial Flames gives you a 30% chance upon using any Brew-named ability to receive a buff for 6 seconds and reset the cooldown of
Breath of Fire. While you have this buff, using
Spinning Crane Kick causes it to also apply Breath of Fire's DoT effect to enemies hit and reduce their damage dealt to you by by 10% rather than the usual 5%.
Blackout Combo causes your
Blackout Kick to empower your next ability (used within 15 seconds), as follows:
Tiger Palm has its damage increased by 100%.
Breath of Fire has its cooldown reduced by 3 seconds.
Keg Smash reduces the remaining cooldown of your Brews by an additional 2 seconds.
Celestial Brew pauses your Stagger damage for 3 seconds.
High Tolerance is recommended as the default choice for ensuring
maximum survival as the additional Haste in combination with the added
Stagger provides the most reliable and stable damage intake. It also
grants the largest damage increase of the options, as even in only
Light Stagger this talent provides a massive 8% Haste bonus.
Blackout Combo can provide a small defensive increase if exclusively
combined with
Keg Smash to give you more Brew usage, but currently
makes the rotation too awkward to use with
Blackout Kick's 4-second
cooldown being at odds against Keg Smash's 8-second, Hasted cooldown. The same
logic applies to trying to combo any of its other abilities at present.
Celestial Flames offers an interesting alternative form of both damage
reduction — particularly against magic damage — and additional DPS by
increasing the uptime of
Breath of Fire's debuff. However, as its ability
to reset Breath of Fire's cooldown is not on the tooltip, this may be
unintentional behavior. In addition, the random nature of receiving the buff can
make it somewhat unreliable. That being said, this choice can result in a
slight damage boost over
High Tolerance in low-
Stagger
areas, particularly for users of the
Charring Passions Legendary Power.
We recommend checking our dedicated rotation section
if you want to know how to optimize the use of these talents, especially
the intricacies of Black Ox Brew.
War Mode Talents for Brewmaster
War Mode talents are PvP-centric options that activate out in the world when you enable War Mode in the talent pane. 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 which increases the damage of your next
Keg Smash by 50% and stuns enemies for 3 seconds. This is great for larger packs, but does require a keybind that is not useful in Raids and Dungeons. It is off the global cooldown and 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 honor 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.
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
Spitfire and/or
Celestial Flames 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 a Brewmaster Monk's honor talents, if you are looking to PvP more seriously you will likely want to consider doing so as a Windwalker or Mistweaver.
Changelog
- 16 Dec. 2020: Updated Level 15 Talent recommendations.
- 24 Nov. 2020: Adjusted certain Talent recommendations and descriptions; added link to Talents for Torghast.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
More Monk Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Sinzhu, who currently raids in We Gucci on US-Kil'jaeden and has passionately played Brewmaster for the past seven years. He also contributes to the Peak of Serenity and is an active Veteran of the Monk Class Discord.
- An Excellent Class and Spec Pick Flowchart Meme (Or Is it?)
- There Are Worse Fates than Being Carried by a Kyrian...
- Players Manipulate Turn Speed Variable while Mind Controlling Others
- Patch 9.0.2 Hotfixes: January 15th
- How to Get Raid, PvP and Any Legendary Memories Without Doing the Related Activity
- How to Loot Faster in World of Warcraft
- How to Fool Bots With Toys
- Patch 9.1 Will Be Released in Spring 2021