Brewmaster monks are in pretty good shape. As you know, their abilities will change with each expansion. But one important ability will always remain: Going into battle totally drunk.
Brewmaster Monks will lose and gain and change, as will everyone else, and also have the usual tweaks and such. Regardless of the changes, Brewmasters still retain their ability to be serious tanks.
Plus, you get to smash a keg on the enemy heads and breath fire on them. What could be better?
They use active mitigation to do their job and require a bit more attention to certain details than other tanks, but the reward is excellent tanking abilities, if you can handle that detail (I know you can.) Brewmasters can also be very effective at mitigating massive damage, which is always useful.
This page is for Brewmaster Monk tanking, in PvE. If you want PvP or some other flavor of Monkish activity, then see our links just below.
Have something to add? Comment below.
Brewwmaster Contents |
Our Other Monk Guides:
This Brewmaster Monk guide is primarily intended for dungeon/raid tanking. However, the principals will still apply during the leveling process and a few notes to that extent will be included below. If you want the same in-game step by step leveling guide that we use to get to the level cap as fast as possible, take a look at our favorite in-game leveling guide.
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Brewmaster Monk Tanking Talents
Certain talents are better for some situations, while other talents might be better at other times. You can adjust talents at any rested area, such as the big city or an inn.
Descriptions are below the image (comment if you want to discuss) and our picks are checked: 
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Brewmaster Monk Tanking Glyphs
Once upon a time the glyphs were actually useful, modifying various abilities. These days they are just cosmetic, changing the look of various abilities.
Brewmaster Monk Tanking: Stat Priorities
Your best stats are: Item Level > Agility > Armor > Stamina
All the rest are pretty much equal to each other.
Versatility = Critical Strike = Mastery > Haste.
They’re close enough that a piece with a a significantly higher item level is better. Period.
Also keep in mind diminishing returns. If you work to get a lot of one particular stat you will get less value from it as you get more. For example, if you get enough extra of a stat to normally give a 10% bonus, you might only get 5%. This is important only at higher levels.
Agility is #1 as it improves everything important: Damage and Dodge.
Armor is pretty easy. The more the better.
Stamina: Stam that you find on your gear will be sufficient, which is fortunate since you cannot gem or enchant for it. Want more? Get better gear.
Mastery: Increases your Stagger and your Attack Power, so is your most important stat (after Bonus Armor) for survival.
Crit: Arguably the best avoidance stat, since it powers your Elusive brew.
Haste should offer faster energy regen, cooldowns, etc., but scales badly and, as a result, doesn’t actually offer much.
Brewmaster Rotation Guide
You should always be in Stance of the Sturdy Ox and your Black Ox Statue should always be active.
As a Brewmaster, your tanking ability is based on generating and expending Chi to generate a variety of effects, heal, apply debuffs, etc. Additionally, a key part of your tanking ability is due to Stagger, an effect which splits the damage you take into both a certain amount of instant damage and the remainder which takes the form of a short DoT.
While Stagger doesn’t actually reduce the amount of damage taken, it does prevent you from taking full damage up front which is enough to help survive in a number of situations. Additionally, the DoT effect generated by staggered damage can be removed through use of Purifying Brew which allows you to effectively ‘drop’ damage that you would have otherwise suffered.
- XXXXX Shuffle increases the amount of damage staggered.
- Tiger Palm is your default melee attack used to generate Chi.
- Keg Smash should be used on cooldown save for when the 2 Chi it adds will be wasted.
Use Expel Harm when possible assuming you’re missing health so the self-heal will be beneficial. XXXXX Desperate Measures (level 45) removes the cooldown on Expel Harm when you’re below 35% health.
- Blackout Kick should be used once every 6 seconds to maintain XXXX Shuffle.
- XXXX Tiger Palm should be used quite often both as a filler attack and for the buffs it provides, the armor-ignore damage increase from Tiger Power.
When facing multiple targets, maintain the Dizzying Haze debuff and Breath of Fire DoT on all targets.
- Use Spinning Crane Kick if facing a large group of targets.
- Provoke is our standard single target taunt ability.
- Purifying Brew allows you to drop staggered damage, use it whenever the amount of staggered damage reaches a high level.
- Elusive Brew is a damage avoidance cooldown best saved for periods of spiking, heavy damage. Charges of Elusive Brew are built by your auto-attack critical strikes. You can have up to a maximum of 15 stacks of Elusive Brew.
- Guard should be used as often as possible.
- Fortifying Brew is best used in anticipation of heavy damage when the damage mitigation will take full effect.
Gemming the Brewmaster Monk
Gemming has changed a bit over the course of the game. Used to be that you’d have several pieces of gear with 1 – 3 gem sockets. Now? They’re pretty uncommon, but do have a (small) random chance to appear on Raid/PvE gear.
Sockets will take will take any available gem and only one socket will appear on any given piece of gear.
Some gems will have primary stats and secondary, such as +AG and +Versatility. Try to get Versatility and Crit with your gems. For example:
- Resplendent Illimited Diamond – +75 Ag & +66 Vers. Unique, you can only have one total.
- Inscribed Illimited Diamond – +75 Ag & +66 Crit. Also unique.
- Radiant Malygite – +70 Vers and +33 Crit
- Radiant Alexstraszite – +70 Crit and +33 Vers
What do YOU need? Which area do you need a bit more help in? Gem for that. Some gems are “unique.” You only get one for your entire gear set.
Note: You can add up to three gems to your neck piece, using a Tiered Medallion Setting.
The lesser gems, as you know, are far less expensive than the better ones. See our gold guide if you need help picking up some extra gold to buy what you need.
Enchants for Drunken Brewmaster Monks
Short on gold? Most of the enchants below have similar enchants available, of lesser value, for less cash. We’ve linked to a couple of these. Check with the rep vendor or the Auction House for others. If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see if our Gold Guide can improve your situation.
These are the top versions of each enchant, for Dragonflight. Numbers listed assume you are level 70 and most of these cannot be equipped at a level lower than 60 or 61.
Cheaper versions are available, which will save you some gold. Or maybe you can get a friendly Enchanter to make them for you.
Note that if you dual-wield you get two items with enchants. Different enchants or the same, your call.
| So let’s see what we have here… | |
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| Weapons Main and off hands |
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| Cloak |
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| Bracers |
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| Belt |
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| Legs |
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| Boots |
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| Rings |
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| Neck |
This item comes in 3 qualities. and that will show on the item description. You can use the “one diamond quality” for the first socket, but will need a quality 2 or 3 for the second socket, and you will have to get a quality 3 for the final socket. Buy 3 at quality 3 and you have no worries. |
Brewmaster Consumables
Chow down!
Note that Pandarens get twice the food buff. All food buffs last one hour. Food buffs go away when killed, flasks do not.
Foods
- Sit down, have something to eat (for at least 10 seconds,) and gain back a nice chunk of health and some Agility for an hour.
- Grand Banquet of the Kalu’ak or Hoard of Draconic Delicacies — feed the whole team, get some health (and mana) back and +76 to your (and their) primary stat for an hour. Requires level 70.
- Deviously Deviled Eggs — Just for you, get a nice health boost over 20 seconds and +76 to your Agility. Requires level 70.
Flasks & Phials, level 61 required and generally last 30 min.
- Phial of Tepid Versatility — +746 versatility is probably the best overall.
- Need crit? Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage gives you 1120 crit, but you will eventually take 25% of your health in “overwhelming rage” damage.
- Fighting a group? Phial of the Eye in the Storm gives you +149 Agility for each (up to 5) enemy that has recently hit you.
Potions
- Dreamwalker’s Healing Potion is a nice heal with no downside. About 160k right off and another 160k over 6 seconds.
- Potion of Withering Dreams heals 636k up front but you suffer 477k over 30 seconds. Might be worth it in some situations. You can Stagger some of the damage, giving your healers time to catch up.
Rune
- Buzzing Rune increases crit rating by 310. If you are dual-wielding then use it on both weapons.
Other
- Feral Hide Drums will increase Haste by 15% for the entire group for 40 seconds, but then is nogo for 10 minutes.
- Draconic Augment Rune adds 87 to your agility for an hour. If you have have max renown with the Dream Wardens then Dreambound Augment Rune is reusable.
Which Race for Your Brewmaster?
Looking to start up a Brewmaster and tank your way to the level cap. Good decision. Want to switch to a new race, for whatever reasons? Here’s the list.
Any race can be a Brewmaster Monk, except Dracthyr. That leaves you with a bunch to pick from. Here are some highlights, relevant to tanking. You can see a more complete list on our Monk overview page.
Alliance Monk Races
Human
- Your Will to Survive escape ability allows you to break out of all stun effects. It will have occasional use.
- Bonus to all secondary stats will add a bit to your survival and your DPS.
Dwarf
- Stone form washes away some effects (poison, disease, curse, and magic) and reduces damage by 10%, which will have occasional use when things get tough.
- Increased effect on crits.
Night Elf
- Shadowmeld lets you fade into the shadows. Don’t move. Nice when you want to avoid a patrol or let the boss wipe out your teammates.
- 2% Dodge is a fairly nice stat for anyone, you also move 2% faster.
- +1% Crit by day, which is nice, and +1% Haste by night, which isn’t so hot.
Gnome
- Your Escape, from speed altering effects, such as roots and snares, will find occasional use.
- A bit more Energy is always nice.
- Have a bit more Haste.
Draenei
- The 20% self-heal (Gift of the Naaru) is always useful, and can be used on others.
- Bonus to Agility is pretty nice, and it scales with level.
Worgen
- Can move faster, using Darkflight, every two minutes. You can also drop to all fours and run like a wild animal. Might be useful for rounding up the opposition.
- A slight bonus to Crit.
Void Elf
- Create a Spatial rift and travel through it, 30 yard range. Get creative with this.
- Occasionally deal an extra 5% damage. Happens randomly with a 1 minute cooldown.
Lightforged Draenei
- Can use Light’s Judgement to smite opponents, up to 40 yards away, with holy energy.
- Still leveling? You get +20% experience for killing demons.
- Explode on death, doing some damage to enemies and some healing to allies. It’s inconvenient when the tank dies, so try not to use this too often.
Dark Iron Dwarf
- Your Fireblood will remove poison, disease, curse, magic, and bleed effects and give you an Agility boost for each effect removed. Try to time this for bursty moments.
- Move a bit faster indoors.
Kul Tiran
- Haymaker briefly stuns and knocks back an opponent.
- A little more Versatility and heal back a bit of the damage you take.
Mechagnome
- Your Hyper Organic Light Originator can summon a pair of duplicates to confuse enemies for 15 seconds. Experiment with this.
- Your Agility increases slightly as you fight.
- Automatically heal a bit when you are badly injured.
Horde Monk Races
Orc
- Your Enrage is very nice for those times when you need a bit extra damage and threat.
- Resistance to stun effects will only be rarely useful in PvE.
Troll
- Berserking increases your Haste and so your attack and casting speed.
- Regeneration is generally useful, even it it is not a lot.
- Reduced duration of effects against your movement are nice.
- Increased XP Vs beasts will be helpful if you’re leveling.
Undead
- The ability to remove fear, charm, and sleep effects will be occasionally useful.
- Touch of the Grave is a small DPS add and also heals you for the amount that it drains.
Tauren – My mind boggles at Taurens doing spinning kicks.
- War stomp will have definite use against trash.
- Additional Stam doesn’t scale well at very high levels, but is still nice.
- +2 Critical effect for bigger crits.
- Leveling? You get more XP for killing beasts.
Blood Elf
- Your Arcane Torrent removes 1 beneficial effect from enemies within 8 yards, which is situationally useful, and it restores a bit of your Chi.
- Dispel some magical effects on enemies.
Goblin
- Can rocket jump forward. has its uses. Can also help with falls.
- Rocket Barrage launches rockets at an enemy, mostly just to get their attention.
- A bit more Haste.
Nightborne
- Your Arcane Pulse will damage and snare nearby enemies every 2 seconds, lasts 20 seconds. 3 min cooldown
Highmountain Tauren
- Bull Rush: Every 2 minutes charge forward and knock down enemies.
- Slightly reduced damage from incoming attacks.
- A bit more versatility
Mag’har Orc
- Ancestral Call: Invoke your ancestors and use a bit of their power. This increases a random secondary stat for 15 seconds.
Zandalari Troll
- Personal heal, regeneratin’, 100% over 6 seconds. 2.5 minute cooldown.
- Ask (nicely) for a personal boon from a Loa. These boons will occur 1-3 times per minute.
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Embrace of Akunda – Your healing abilities have a chance to heal their target.
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Embrace of Bwonsamdi – Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal Shadow damage and heal you for 100% of the damage done.
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Embrace of Gonk – Increase movement speed by 5%.
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Embrace of Kimbul – Your damaging abilities have a chance to cause the target to bleed over 6s. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
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Embrace of Krag’wa – Taking damage has a chance to grant you additional Health and 66 Armor.
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Embrace of Pa’ku – Your abilities have a chance to grant you +4% critical strike for 12 seconds.
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Vulpera
- Use a trick from your bag of tricks to help a friend or hurt an enemy
- Camp anywhere, and can return (hearth) to that camp.
- The first hit from an enemy does 5% less damage.
- You are very good at packing up, so your backpack has +8 slots.
- A bit of fire resistance.
Professions for the Brewmaster Monk
Professions now are for the gear and/or the gold. Most have something that can be used as starting raid/pvp gear or sold, such as 640 gear pieces.
Some of the professions, eg: Engineering, have really useful items for leveling and world events. They’re not usable in raids, however (sigh.. no firing rockets at the boss…)
Recommended? Leatherworking for the armor. Upgrade to the max. Or just buy the things from a friendly crafter or off the Auction House (expensive.)
| Useful (and not) Brewmaster Professions | |
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| Tailoring | Cloth armor, flying carpet, murlock chew toy and allows you to make nets (Embersilk Net) and battle standards (such as: Fearsome Battle Standard) |
| Leatherworking | will let you make entry level armor for raids (ilevel 640.) You can also make the items to reroll the stats and also to upgrade the items to 685, at a cost far exceeding that of the original piece. You can also make Drums of Fury for a Heroism type buff (25% Haste for 40 sec.) Through the Leatherworking hut in your Garrison you can make single use tents that will increase your agility by 10% for an hour. |
| Jewelcrafting | You can make useful rings and neck items, pretty gems, gemmed mounts. I recommend leatherworking for the crafted items, though. |
| Enchanting | Enchant all those items and you can cast illusionary enchants. These are basically transmogs for your current enchant. Want your current enchant to look like an older one? Then this is for you. |
| Inscription | Glyphs, some trinkets, caster weapons, fortune & Darkmoon cards, and more. You can also make and upgrade your staff, as well as some trinkets. |
| Alchemy | Chemistry is fun, unfortunately you can’t make acids or bombs. You can make flasks and potions to boost stats and cause other interesting effects. You can also make a very nice DPS trinket: Draenic Philosopher’s Stone. |
| Engineering | Nothing here for the raid, but will let you create a number of useful items, such as rockets, shields, a stealth device, etc. These cannot be used in rated PvP, but that can be used elsewhere, such as World PvP or in Highmaul Coliseum. |
| Blacksmithing | Nothing here for Brewmasters except for some blades. Can also craft Mail and Plate armor and weapons. Keys for locks. |
| Skinning | For gold gathering and for leatherworking |
| Herbalism | For Inscription, Alchemy, and gold gathering |
| Mining | Making gold and powering Blacksmithing and some engineering. |
“How to Brewmaster” videos
The Fast Monk Leveling Guide
Once upon a time, while leveling, you had to look up quest details on some website. There was no in-game help and you had to trundle along as best you could. That was when there were only 60 levels. Now we have the new(ish) Monk class, a few more levels, thousands of quests, and a bazillion mobs to kill. Whether or not you’re playing a Monk that’s a daunting task.
Here’s how to make it easy: Now you have a guide which sits in-game, in a small window, and shows you step-by-step where to go, what to do, and everything you need to know to make leveling easier. Zygor’s Guide shows you the best and fastest path to complete those quests and get yourself to the top levels ASAP.
Want to get a level, or several levels, in the dungeons or in PvP? No problem. Zygor will remember where you left off and then it will figure out where you should be at your new level and pick up from there.
Brand new to WoW? Decked head to toe in Heirlooms? Mixing up questing with PvP and/or dungeons? No problem, Zygor has your back all the way from level 1 to the level cap, or whichever level you start from.
Zygor’s in-game guide is always quickly updated for all patches and expansions, so it’s never obsolete. Grab yours here and get leveled fast. And then smile at your friends when they wonder how you got to the level cap before them.
Related Postings (AKA: Check out these pages next)
- Brewmaster Monk PvP – Yes, it can be fun. No, you won’t top the arena lists.
- Mistweaver Healing for PvE
- Windwalker DPS Guide – Kicking your way to the top of the DPS charts
- Windwalker PvP – Kicking butt and talking names.
- Monkish Postings – Our blog posts for Monks
- Monk Leveling Guide – Tips to get to max level faster