Brewmaster Monk Tank Stat Priority — The War Within (11.1.5)

As a Brewmaster Monk, your stat priority stays simple for whatever you want to do. This includes whether you are playing as a Shado-Pan Brewmaster, or a Master of Harmony. Regardless of your choice, the following stat priorities will not change with your Hero Talents!

1. Item level (Agility/Armor)
2. Versatility = Mastery = Critical Strike
3. Haste

Brewmaster stats are fairly close in defensive value. For this reason, you should wear the highest item-level gear you have available. Having more stats will often be more useful than having "better" stats for your defense. Jewelry slots are the main exception, as they do not have Agility or Armor on them. For these slots, you should focus on whatever provides the least amount of Haste when optimizing for defense.

Want to also know where to find pieces with these stat priority? Our gearing guide can make things easier.

1. Versatility = Critical Strike
2. Mastery
3. Haste

If you are trying to deal more damage as a Brewmaster rather than survive more of it, you should glance at our Simulation section to learn how to find out which stat is most useful based on what you are wearing. Just remember, as a tank, your job is to survive first and deal damage second.

As your Brewmaster reaches increasingly high item levels and gains larger amounts of secondary stats, you may reach a point of slight diminishing returns. Put simply, for Brewmaster, these points occur at 30% for Haste and Versatility, 37% for Mastery, and 40% for Critical Strike. However, this only applies to the stat ratings. The temporary 30% Haste from Bloodlust does not count against you, for example. With that being said, the impact of this diminishing returns effect is not strong enough for you to end up ignoring the stats you desire. Depending on what items you have received as upgrades along the way, you may never even hit these points on any of your stats.

Critical Strike increases your chance to deal double damage or healing on most of your spells. Moreover, thanks to Celestial Fortune, your Critical Strike also gives you an increased chance for any healing you receive to heal for an additional 70%. Celestial Fortune also increases the size of all friendly absorbs on you — such as Celestial Brew or Power Word: Shield — by 70% of your Critical Strike chance. There is also the August Blessing talent, which similarly converts a portion of all overhealing received into a HoT effect based on your Critical Strike percentage.

Haste increases your Energy regeneration rate, lets you auto-attack faster, and reduces the cooldown on Rushing Jade Wind, Keg Smash, Rising Sun Kick and Purifying Brew. Although this stat normally reduces your global cooldown as well, specializations that use Energy as a resource, including Brewmaster, always have a global cooldown of 1 second regardless of Haste.

Versatility increases all your damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken.

Your Mastery ( Mastery: Elusive Brawler) grants you a stacking buff that increases your chance to dodge every time you are attacked or cast Blackout Kick (and even Rising Sun Kick with the Strike At Dawn talent), which lasts for 10 seconds or until you successfully dodge an attack; multiple attacks at the same time can also all be dodged simultaneously before this increased dodge chance resets. Your Mastery also passively increases your Attack Power. Higher Mastery means a greater dodge chance with each stack of the buff and more Attack Power. Attack Power also increases your healing from abilities such as Gift of the Ox.

Agility increases your Attack Power, dodge chance, Stagger percentage, and even your self-healing. For the most part, you do not need to concern yourself with how much of this stat you have, as it should always be increasing as you opt for higher-item-level pieces to equip.

Most encounters have abilities that cannot be mitigated or avoided. Also, you need to have a decent amount of health, in order to give yourself the chance to be healed before a subsequent attack kills you. As such, you need a minimum amount of Stamina. This amount will, in most cases, simply come from the Stamina found innately on your gear. Therefore, item level is the determining factor in keeping your health pool growing.

Do not worry too much about your Stamina. Brewmasters naturally have low Health. However, more Stamina will increase the damage of your Touch of Death since it is based on your max Health.

As with Stamina, Armor is a stat you will acquire from most of your gear by default, with higher item-level pieces offering more. It has strong defensive value all the same.

In addition to stats from gear, you can obtain more by socketing certain gems, applying enchantments, and using various consumables. These will usually be similar to your chosen stat priority, but our dedicated page covers the topic in greater detail.