Monk Leveling Guide 1-120 Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1
Table of Contents
1. General Battle for Azeroth Leveling Tips
Welcome! While this leveling guide is specifically made for the class and specialization(s) listed, we also have a general Battle for Azeroth leveling guide that focuses on the specific features of the Battle for Azeroth expansion including preparation of your mission table that will be used to unlock new areas, progressing on your faction's War Effort to save time at Level 120, and a reminder to keep ALL of the gear you find for the Scrap-o-Matic 1000 or Shred-Master Mk1, which will greatly increase your resource generating capabilities. Please visit our 110 to 120 leveling guide for this information and more (including Heirloom and War Mode advice that also applies to players who are not yet Level 110.
2. Leveling 1-120 as a Windwalker Monk
2.1. Gear Options
Currently, Windwalker Monks can only cast Fists of Fury when they
are dual-wielding, making it impossible to level efficiently with a two-hander.
When leveling up, you should usually choose the piece of loot with the highest item level.
2.2. Level by Level Rotation and Talents
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
2.2.1. Talents to Level Up as a Windwalker Monk
Your first talent row unlocks at Level 15.
- Level 15:
Chi Wave
- Level 30: any talent, preference-based
- Level 45:
Fist of the White Tiger
- Level 60:
Good Karma
- Level 75:
Dampen Harm
- Level 90:
Rushing Jade Wind
- Level 100:
Whirling Dragon Punch
We recommend Rushing Jade Wind as the level 90
talent of choice, as it will make it extremely convenient for you to engage in
combat with any nearby enemies. Alternatively, if you are not having issues
with this, you can use
Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger as a convenient
way to kill tough encounters quickly.
Whirling Dragon Punch is the default level 100
talent for leveling.
It grants you an additional spell with good AoE damage, as well as keeping the
flexibility of
Storm, Earth, and Fire, which is very good for leveling.
2.2.2. Rotation to Level Up as a Windwalker Monk
Your initial abilities are Tiger Palm and
Blackout Kick. You should use them in combination to generate and
spend Chi.
- Cast
Touch of Death if your target will live at least 8 seconds.
- Cast
Fists of Fury off cooldown.
- Cast
Spinning Crane Kick on 3 or more targets. This ability will grant you AoE capabilities when
Fists of Fury is on cooldown.
- Cast
Rising Sun Kick off cooldown.
- Use
Storm, Earth, and Fire to keep it on cooldown.
- Use
Tiger Palm to generate Chi.
- Cast
Blackout Kick to use excess Chi.
2.2.3. Summary of Unlocked Abilities for Windwalker Monks
You unlock your first ability of interest at Level 10.
- At Level 10, you get the ability
Rising Sun Kick. It is an efficient, single-target damage ability.
- At Level 12, your
Blackout Kick costs one fewer Chi.
- At Level 13, you get
Provoke. It taunts your target, forcing it to attack you, and increases its movement speed.
- At Level 14, you get
Resuscitate. It allows you to bring an ally back to life when outside of combat. You will also gain access to
Zen Pilgrimage, which teleports you to the Kun-Lai Summit. Using it again will teleport you back to your starting position.
- At Level 16, you get
Disable. It will allow you to apply a slow on specific targets. When applied to a slowed target, it will snare them completely for 8 seconds.
- At Level 18, you get
Crackling Jade Lightning. It is convenient to get into combat from afar, but does not serve any relevant purpose otherwise
- At Level 20, you unlock
Fists of Fury. This is your highest priority spell for both single and multi-target encounters from here on.
- At Level 22, you unlock
Detox, which allows you to remove poison and disease effects from a friendly target.
- At Level 28, you get
Afterlife. This ability will help you in sustaining yourself when fighting alone.
- At Level 32, you unlock
Touch of Death, a strong single-target ability on a two minute cooldown. It will help a lot on any enemy you would take 8 or more seconds to defeat.
- At Level 35, you unlock
Spear Hand Strike, your standard melee interrupt on a 15-second cooldown.
- At Level 38, you gain the
Windwalking passive ability. This 10 yard aura grants you and your allies a 10% movespeed buff.
- At Level 40, you unlock
Spinning Crane Kick. This ability will grant you AoE capabilities when
Fists of Fury is on cooldown.
- From level 42 onwards, your
Tiger Palm has an 8% chance to make your next
Blackout Kick free to cast.
- At Level 48, you unlock
Flying Serpent Kick. Ignore the damage part of this spell, as it is simply an extremely efficient mobility tool.
- At Level 50, you unlock
Storm, Earth, and Fire. This is your main DPS cooldown and should be used very often, ensuring you have at least one charge on cooldown as often as possible.
- At Level 55, you unlock
Touch of Karma. This will serve both as a defensive cooldown and an offensive nuke and will help you significantly in taking challenging enemies out on your own.
- At Level 70,
Storm, Earth, and Fire gains a second charge.
- At Level 78, you unlock the Mastery stat through
Combo Breaker.
2.2.4. General PvP Talents
Relentless is a passive ability, but it does not automatically remove crowd control abilities. Instead, it reduces the duration.
Gladiator's Medallion is an on-use ability that removes all movement impairing effects and all loss of control effects.
Adaptation is recommended; it is likely your most passive choice, since it will automatically remove loss of control effects over 5 seconds.
2.2.5. Windwalker Monk PvP Talents for Leveling
Wind Waker grants you and allies affected by
Windwalking an effect that makes them immune to slow and snare effects once every 30 seconds.
Reverse Harm is an instant heal of decent power, occurring every 10 seconds on you or a nearby ally. Additionally, it hits enemies within 5 yards for the same amount.
Turbo Fists causes
Fists of Fury to deal full damage to all targets hit and reduce their movement speed by 90%. It additionally grants you 100% Parry chance during the channel.
Fortifying Brew increases your maximum health by 20% and reduces incoming damage by 20% for 15 seconds.
Besides the utility provided by these four War Mode talents, other talent options have very limited PvE utility. Some can be occasionally useful, but you can default to these three.
2.3. Legendary Options
If you are just coming out of Level 110, you will probably have a number of different Legendary items to choose from. Your Legendaries' special effects will stop working at Level 116, but until then, they can be a very powerful addition to help you level up quickly. These are our Legendary recommendations for leveling as a Windwalker Monk in Battle for Azeroth:
The Sentinel's Eternal Refuge is an extremely potent mobility increase. It provides you significant in-combat movement speed and, even without a mount, you can maintain maximum out-of-combat movement speed. This allows you, as a Monk, to further use
Roll or
Chi Torpedo for extra efficiency. We highly recommend this craftable Legendary if you can afford it.
March of the Legion grants a significant movement speed increase to you and your party. This is the best choice for group leveling.
Sephuz's Secret is also exceptional, giving you passive movement speed and Haste, as well as an even stronger bonus when you use
Leg Sweep or
Paralysis.
Cenedril, Reflector of Hatred, when combined with
Good Karma, adds up to a huge amount of damage and should allow you to extremely quickly take out any challenging enemy.
Kil'jaeden's Burning Wish, just like
Cenedril, Reflector of Hatred, has a very strong on-use effect, this time for AoE. It is a very efficient way to quickly deal with a pack of enemies.
2.4. Quest Rewards
You should equip new quest rewards when their item level starts beating out your previous set of gear. If you are currently wearing Tier 21 gear, it is best to let the quest rewards significantly beat your existing item level before using them. With that said, you will unlock Azerite pieces early on, which are worth using over Tier gear in most circumstances.
If possible, we recommend holding on to all Quest Rewards you do not use. They can be scrapped at Level 120 for material resources used in profession crafting.
2.5. Consumables
There are several consumable items that can be purchased that will help you with your leveling speed.
Skystep Potion increases your movement speed by 150% (more than a mount!) for 8 seconds. It has a 1-minute cooldown. This is extremely useful and should be used often and aggressively for any travel that is more than ~100 yards long.
Gunshoes are an Engineering item that increase your movement speed by 200% for 25 seconds. These will make you almost as fast as a Flying mount. We recommend having a lot of these, and using them whenever you are traveling more than ~250 yards.
Goblin Glider Kit is very useful for covering long distances from high places.
2.5.1. Gunshoes Macro
The Gunshoes will not let you stop moving for as long as they are active. Using this macro twice will click the buff off and allow you to stop.
- #showtooltip
- /use Gunshoes
- /cancelaura Gunshoes
2.6. Congratulations!
Congratulations on reaching Level 120! Now that you have hit Level 120 we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at maximum level. To get yourself prepared for the end-game content ahead, we strongly recommend this Battle for Azeroth Raiding Lexicon/Spreadsheet by Medivh. It is a gold trove of information that will help you when gearing up in Battle for Azeroth and more.
3. Leveling 1-120 as a Brewmaster Monk
3.1. Brewmaster Monk Leveling Gear
Brewmaster Monks should always wear Agility Leather gear, and use Agility
two-handed Polearms or Staves. You should simply wear the highest item level
gear while leveling. If you have access to legendaries at level 110, you should
use Sal'salabim's Lost Tunic and
Stormstout's Last Gasp. Their
effects will turn off at level 115, at which point you should replace them with
higher item level Azerite pieces.
3.2. Level by Level Rotation and Talents
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
3.2.1. Talents to Level Up as a Brewmaster Monk
Your first talent row unlocks at Level 15.
- Level 15:
Chi Wave
- Level 30: choose whichever you want, try out them all!
- Level 45:
Spitfire
- Level 60:
Tiger Tail Sweep
- Level 75:
Healing Elixir
- Level 90:
Rushing Jade Wind
- Level 100:
Blackout Combo
If you wish to pull many enemies at once and AoE them
down, Summon Black Ox Statue will help gather them.
3.2.2. Leveling Rotation for Brewmaster Monks
Your initial abilities are Tiger Palm and
Blackout Kick. You should use them in combination to generate and
spend Chi. When you choose your specialization you will no longer have Chi.
- Cast
Keg Smash on cooldown. This is your most powerful ability.
- Cast
Blackout Strike on cooldown.
- Cast
Breath of Fire on cooldown.
- Cast
Tiger Palm when you have nothing else to do, but make sure to keep enough energy for
Keg Smash. If you are using
Blackout Combo, try to follow every
Blackout Strike with a Tiger Palm.
At Level 16, you unlock Stagger, the defining
passive of Brewmaster tanking. It makes any damage you take get split into a
portion which you take immediately, and a portion which is dealt to you over time.
This makes you easier to heal. You will unlock more abilities to interact with
stagger later. While leveling, you do not need to pay too much attention to this
but you should keep it in mind, as it is extremely important at max level.
At Level 20, you unlock Ironskin Brew. This
increases the amount of damage delayed by
Stagger ("Staggered"
damage). You should make sure to have this up 100% of the time. Its cooldown is
reduced by
Tiger Palm and
Keg Smash.
Purifying Brew is unlocked at Level 28. It
shares charges and cooldown with
Ironskin Brew, and when you cast it,
the amount of damage you have
Staggered is reduced. You should use
this when you are taking too much damage from stagger, but make sure not to drop
your Ironskin buff.
3.2.3. Summary of Unlocked Abilities for Brewmaster Monks
You will gain various extra non-rotational abilities and passives as you level (starting at Level 8). They are listed here and quickly described. For more in depth information you may wish to check the Brewmaster Monk Spells page.
- Level 8:
Vivify. A small casted heal. Do not use this in combat, but between fights you can heal yourself up with it.
- Level 13:
Provoke. Your taunt. This causes enemies to run towards you faster, and attack you.
- Level 14:
Resuscitate. Your resurrection spell. If your party members die, save them time by using this. You should use it on healers first.
- Level 14:
Zen Pilgrimage. This will take you to the Peak of Serenity, where you can use vendors and get experience buffs. At level 100, after completing a scenario this will bring you to the Monk Class Hall instead.
- Level 18:
Crackling Jade Lightning. Use this to pull enemies from far away. It does very little damage and costs lots of energy, never use it in combat.
- Level 22:
Detox. You can remove Poisons and Diseases from yourself or party members with this. Not useful too often.
- Level 25:
Paralysis. Your Crowd Control (CC) effect. Stops an enemy from acting, and will break on damage. Usually used to single out dangerous enemies to deal with later in dungeons.
- Level 26:
Mystic Touch. A passive which increases damage you and any party members deal to any enemy you damage.
- Level 32:
Gift of the Ox. A passive which will occasionally drop small orbs when you take damage. Move through these to get healed.
- Level 35:
Spear Hand Strike is your interrupt. It stops an enemies cast and prevents them from casting similar spells for a short time. Use this often!
- Level 50:
Expel Harm. Use this to vacuum up all your
Gift of the Ox orbs at once, especially if they are far away.
- Level 52:
Leg Sweep. A long duration AoE stun.
- Level 55:
Fortifying Brew. Your most powerful defensive cooldown, it increases your health, increases the amount of damage
Staggered and decreases damage taken. It has a very long cooldown, but it is reduced by
Tiger Palm and
Keg Smash. Make sure to use it when you are in trouble!
- Level 65:
Zen Meditation. A somewhat strange cooldown that is channeled, stopping when you take melee attacks. Can be used to lower magical damage or a single melee attack.
- Level 70:
Celestial Fortune. Increases the healing you recieve based on your Critical Strike rating. Also works on healing you do to yourself.
- Level 78:
Mastery: Elusive Brawler. Your mastery. Grants some dodge each time you are hit by a melee attack or cast
Blackout Strike, which resets when you dodge an attack. Also increases Attack Power.
- Level 80:
Transcendence and
Transcendence: Transfer. With the first spell you place a spirit which you can switch positions with when you use transfer. Fun to use and good when you need to go back and forth to places quickly.
3.2.4. General War Mode Talents
Relentless is a passive ability, but it does not automatically remove crowd control abilities. Instead, it reduces the duration.
Gladiator's Medallion is an on-use ability that removes all movement impairing effects and all loss of control effects.
Adaptation is recommended; it is likely your most passive choice, since it will automatically remove loss of control effects over 5 seconds.
3.2.5. Brewmaster Monk War Mode Talents for Leveling
Double Barrel is an active ability that increases the damage of your next
Keg Smash by 15% 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.
Incendiary Breath alters
Breath of Fire, increasing its radius and damage greatly and disorienting enemies, but also doubling the cooldown. This is excellent, as often you will only get to use one Breath of Fire, so the increased cooldown will hurt less.
Niuzao's Essence clears snares when you drink
Purifying Brew. While tanks cannot be dazed, many mobs still have frustrating slows. Being able to get rid of these is excellent, and you generally have many free Brew charges while questing.
Fast Feet reduces the duration of slows against you and causes you to run faster for 3 seconds after being attacked. This is not game breaking, but a high-uptime run speed increase is nothing to scoff at.
Admonishment is also worth a mention. It causes your
Provoke to increase the damage a target takes by 3%. However, if the target takes damage from other people, they also add 3% to this up to 15%. Obviously, this is not useful while completely solo, but 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
Incendiary Breath,
Niuzao's Essence and
Fast Feet,
as these are totally passive.
3.3. Consumables
There are several consumable items that can be purchased that will help you with your leveling speed.
Skystep Potion increases your movement speed by 150% (more than a mount!) for 8 seconds. It has a 1-minute cooldown. This is extremely useful and should be used often and aggressively for any travel that is more than ~100 yards long.
Gunshoes are an Engineering item that increase your movement speed by 200% for 25 seconds. These will make you almost as fast as a Flying mount. We recommend having a lot of these, and using them whenever you are traveling more than ~250 yards.
Goblin Glider Kit is very useful for covering long distances from high places.
3.3.1. Gunshoes Macro
The Gunshoes will not let you stop moving for as long as they are active. Using this macro twice will click the buff off and allow you to stop.
- #showtooltip
- /use Gunshoes
- /cancelaura Gunshoes
3.4. Congratulations!
Congratulations on reaching Level 120! Now that you have hit Level 120 we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at maximum level. To get yourself prepared for the end-game content ahead, we strongly recommend this Battle for Azeroth Raiding Lexicon/Spreadsheet by Medivh. It is a gold trove of information that will help you when gearing up in Battle for Azeroth and more.
4. Leveling 110-120 as a Mistweaver Monk
Leveling as a Mistweaver in Battle for Azeroth should be avoided at all costs. The fastest way to level is by completing quests, the limiting factor of which is generally your mobility and how quickly you can kill quest mobs. Windwalker is strictly better than Mistweaver at both of those things, as well has having more self-sustain, and tankiness.
The one exception to this is if you are going to be leveling in a group. While I would argue that Windwalker is still the better option here, having a healer will allow your group to pull larger and reduce downtime between pulls. However, if your group has any other class that can heal, it is advisable you have them do it instead, as the damage potential of Windwalker in AoE is enormous.
If your goal is to go from 110 to 120 as fast as you can, then I recommend checking out our Windwalker leveling guide, higher up the page. However, if you just enjoy staying as a Mistweaver and are not bothered by the several additional hours that will be added to your leveling experience, then read on.
4.1. Gear Options
When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level, but 2 secondary stats on it instead of 1.
4.2. Level by Level Rotation and Talents
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
4.2.1. Talents to Level Up as a Mistweaver Monk
Your first talent row unlocks at Level 15.
Your talent set up should be as follows.
- Level 15:
Chi Burst
- Level 30:
Chi Torpedo
- Level 45:
Lifecycles
- Level 60:
Ring of Peace
- Level 75:
Healing Elixir
- Level 90:
Summon Jade Serpent Statue
- Level 100:
Focused Thunder
4.2.2. Rotation Priority to Level Up as a Mistweaver Monk
- Cast
Chi Burst at 4 or more targets.
- Cast
Spinning Crane Kick at 4 or more targets.
- Cast
Rising Sun Kick whenever it is off cooldown.
- Cast
Chi Burst at 3 or more targets.
- Cast
Spinning Crane Kick at 3 targets.
- Cast
Tiger Palm to stack
Teachings of the Monastery 3 times.
- Cast
Blackout Kick.
4.3. Gear
Below is a list of useful legendaries, trinkets and Azerite gear that you should aim to use when leveling.
4.3.1. Legendary Gear
If you are just coming out of Level 110, you will probably have a number of different Legendary items to choose from. Your Legendaries' special effects will stop working at Level 116, but until then they can be a very powerful addition to help you level up quickly. The best Legendaries for leveling are ones that either decrease kill time, make you able to run around faster, or a combination of both. These are our Legendary recommendations for leveling as a Mistweaver Monk in Battle for Azeroth.
Sephuz's Secret is a great legendary, both for speed and damage.
The Sentinel's Eternal Refuge is great for passive movement speed.
4.3.2. Trinkets
The best trinkets for Mistweaver leveling are ones that will allow you to take down large packs of enemies as fast as possible.
Umbral Moonglaives deals large AoE damage in a moderate cooldown.
Terrorbound Nexus causes melee attacks to have a chance to proc waves that deal AoE damage.
Ishkar's Felshield Emitter places a large shield on the target. Upon expiration the shield explodes dealing damage equal to the amount it absorbed, split among all nearby enemies.
4.3.3. Azerite Gear
Along with some general damage traits, Mistweaver also has access to a few Windwalker traits, which allow us to increase our damage slightly.
Sunrise Technique causes
Rising Sun Kick to apply a debuff to the target, causing your damaging melee abilities to inflict additional physical damage to the target.
Vampiric Speed causes you to self-heal and gain Speed for 6 seconds whenever an enemy you damaged dies.
Filthy Transfusion gives your damaging ability a chance to do damage over 6 seconds to the target, healing you for the damage done.
Sunrise Technique synergizes very well with
Spinning Crane Kick, and with the use of
Thunder Focus Tea,
you can apply several debuffs very quickly.
4.4. Mistweaver Monk War Mode Talents for Leveling
In this section, we will rank the best PvP talents for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Mistweaver Monk-specific PvE talents.
4.4.1. General PvP Talents
Relentless is also a passive ability but it does not automatically remove crowd control abilities. Instead, it reduces the duration.
Gladiator's Medallion is an on-use ability that removes all movement impairing effects and loss of control effects.
Adaptation is likely your most passive choice, since it will automatically remove loss of control effects over 5 seconds. It is recommended to take this PvP talent for leveling.
4.4.2. Mistweaver Monk PvP Talents for Leveling
Way of the Crane is the only DPS upgrade that the PvP talents provide, making it a pretty obvious choice.
Chrysalis lets you cocoon yourself more often, giving more time to DPS;
Surging Mist has a 1 second global cooldown when cast with
Soothing Mist, allowing you to quickly top yourself if things get dicey.
4.5. Quest Rewards
You should equip new quest rewards when their item level starts beating out your previous set of gear. You will unlock Azerite pieces early on, which are worth using over Tier gear in most circumstances.
If possible, we recommend holding on to all Quest Rewards you do not use. They can be scrapped for material resources for profession crafting.
4.6. Consumables
There are several consumable items that can be purchased that will help you with your leveling speed.
Skystep Potion increases your movement speed by 150% for 8 seconds. It has a 1-minute cooldown. This is extremely useful and should be used often and aggressively for any travel that is more than ~100 yards long.
Gunshoes are an Engineering item that increase your movement speed by 200% and allow you to walk on water for 25 seconds. These will make you almost as fast as a Flying mount. We recommend having a lot of these, and using them whenever you are traveling more than ~250 yards.
Goblin Glider Kit is very useful for covering long distances from high places.
4.6.1. Gunshoes Macro
The Gunshoes will not let you stop moving for as long as they are active. Using this macro twice will click the buff off and allow you to stop.
- #showtooltip
- /use Gunshoes
- /cancelaura Gunshoes
4.7. Congratulations!
Congratulations on reaching Level 120! Now that you have hit Level 120 we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level. To get yourself prepared for the end-game content ahead, we strongly recommend this Battle for Azeroth Raiding Lexicon/Spreadsheet by Medivh. It is a gold trove of information that will help you when gearing up in Battle for Azeroth and more.
5. Changelog
- 18 Dec. 2018: Made some minor tweaks.
- 10 Dec. 2018: Updated for Patch 8.1.
- 13 Aug. 2018: Added Mistweaver.
- 12 Aug. 2018: Consistency updates to give all leveling guides a similar feel. Added Brewmaster.
- 09 Aug. 2018: Windwalker Monk Level 1-120 section added.



- Wintergrasp 8.1.5 PTR Testing: February 19th
- Rextroy's 40 Vs 40 Events
- Patch 8.1 Hotfixes: February 14th
- Patch 8.1.5: Kul Tiran Human Intro Cutscene
- Patch 8.1.5: Zandalari Troll Intro Cutscene
- PvP Hotfixes: Feb 13th - Massive Mana Regen Nerf
- Crucible of Storms Raid Testing: Feb 21st-25th
- Patch 8.1.5 Build 29352: Highlights


- Question on simming...
- Transmogrification Demon Hunters
- Affliction Warlock 8.1
- Fire Mage 8.1
- Frost Death Knight 8.1
- Marksmanship Hunter 8.1
- Destruction Warlock 8.1
- Demonology Warlock 8.1


- Fire Mage 8.1
- Frost Death Knight 8.1
- Affliction Warlock 8.1
- Question on simming...
- WHAT ARE THESE?!?!
- Demonology Warlock 8.1
- Destruction Warlock 8.1
- Marksmanship Hunter 8.1
