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State of Brewmaster Monk in Shadowlands - Tank Strengths, Best Covenants, Soulbinds and Legendaries
Shadowlands
Publié
09/11/2020 à 16:14
par
Llarold
Shadowlands launches on November 23rd / 24th and all classes will be getting new toys to play with -- from Covenant abilities, to Conduits and returning Legendary effects! This article, written by Llarold, will provide details on the current state of Brewmaster in Shadowlands, helping you to prepare for the upcoming expansion!
Introduction
Hi, I’m Llarold! I’m the Brewmaster Monk and Protection Warrior guide writer for Wowhead. I‘ve been tanking since Vanilla, and I began playing all the tank classes and writing tank guides in MoP. If you want a detailed guide on how to play Brewmaster Monk in Shadowlands,
here you go!
As it always goes with analyzing beta content, there are no guarantees. Big changes have already been made, and you never know when more will happen. Be ready for anything!
I will start by saying Brewmaster’s still good, and once again argue it’s more fun in Shadowlands than BFA.
Check out all our Shadowlands Launch Opinion articles by our Class Writers and members of the community! Click on any of the colored specs below to see what articles we've released so far.
These guides were meant to give you a preview of what's to come in the expansion, but don't worry -- our full Shadowlands Class Guides will be updated soon!
Blood Death Knight
Arcane Mage
Assassination Rogue
Frost Death Knight
Fire Mage
Outlaw Rogue
Unholy Death Knight
Frost Mage
Subtlety Rogue
Havoc Demon Hunter
Brewmaster Monk
Elemental Shaman
Vengeance Demon Hunter
Mistweaver Monk
Enhancement Shaman
Balance Druid
Windwalker Monk
Restoration Shaman
Feral Druid
Holy Paladin
Affliction Warlock
Guardian Druid
Protection Paladin
Demonology Warlock
Restoration Druid
Retribution Paladin
Destruction Warlock
Beast Mastery Hunter
Discipline Priest
Arms Warrior
Marksmanship Hunter
Holy Priest
Fury Warrior
Survival Hunter
Shadow Priest
Protection Warrior
What Has Changed for Brewmaster Monk?
Brewmasters have undergone a significant number of changes since the previous “Brewmaster Monk State on Shadowlands Beta” article, and here’s a comprehensive list of all the changes, followed by a list of all the bug fixes. You can find the previous iteration of the
that article here
, just in case you want more context.
Class Changes:
Armes de l’Ordre
was reduced to a 10% base Mastery buff.
Armes de l’Ordre
was massively buffed, with its max stack count decreased to 4, and stack effectiveness was increased from 5% per stack to 8%. This is a buff on multiple levels. First of all, 32% > 25%. Second, reaching maximum effectiveness now takes 21 seconds, down from 28. Finally, increasing the debuff duration to 10 seconds makes the debuff much, much, much less likely to fall off randomly while stacking it. It is a much stronger ability now.
Piétinement de ligne faë
was redesigned to spawn under your feet, meaning that it no longer misses melee-range targets due to spawning behind them. Also, you no longer have to move to be in it upon casting. Once you Stomp, you’re instantly on the Faeline.
Piétinement de ligne faë
was capped at 5 enemy targets, but also heals up to 5 friendly targets, including yourself.
Piétinement de ligne faë
also had its damage increased by 50% and its cooldown reset chance reduced by 40%.
Piétinement de ligne faë
had its damage reduced by 50% (lol) and it no longer applies
Souffle de feu
, instead it increases your Stagger value by 5% for 8 seconds, comparable to
Forte tolérance
.
Breuvage poussière-d’os
was buffed to be a ~12% damage increase while active.
Breuvage poussière-d’os
was buffed again, to be a ~17.5% damage increase while active.
Ordre des défunts
was fixed, so that summoned Monks last the correct amount of time. They had been lasting twice as long as intended, meaning they dealt about twice as much damage as intended.
Manœuvre d’évitement
was redesigned from a base Stagger value increase to a chance for Heavy Stagger to heal you instead of dealing damage. Because you Purify so often, staying in Heavy Stagger for long doesn't happen very often anymore. While this Conduit looks like it would be a terrific defensive bonus on paper, it generally winds up doing very, very little. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly up against great competition.
Soulbinds and Conduits have undergone literally too many changes to list here. It would triple the list.
The most significant of the above changes are the nerfs to
Breuvage céleste
and
Infusion purificatrice
cooldowns, and
Fracasse-tonneau
’s Brew cooldown reduction. These will make the defensive components of your kit less active and less powerful. Even so, the Brewmaster defensive toolkit still has more active damage mitigation than it did in BFA.
The buffs to
Armes de l’Ordre
and
Breuvage poussière-d’os
are also quite substantial, and put them a cut above the other Covenant options now.
Bug Fixes:
Monks can once again
Report
Magic damage, at the standard 35% rate as in BFA.
Persiflage
increases the target’s movement speed.
Dual-wielding was implemented.
Frappe du voile noir
correctly grants stacks of
Maîtrise : Combattant insaisissable
.
Piétinement de ligne faë
was fixed to once again hit targets multiple times per session.
The offensive component of
Breuvage poussière-d’os
works correctly.
Armes de l’Ordre
no longer double-stacks.
These fixes are all great -- and some of them you will already be familiar with from playing Brewmaster Monk in the pre-patch. They dealt with nearly all of the main bugs plaguing the class. While several new bugs have been discovered since these were fixed, they are much smaller in scope and impact than most of the now-fixed issues listed above.
Talents, Soulbinds, Legendaries, and Everything Else
Talents have not changed since earlier in the Beta, and the standard talent setup is virtually identical to the BFA setup. It’s simple and powerful. Why change?
For reference, this is the talent setup you should be nearly always be using in Shadowlands, just like in BFA and the pre-patch:
The most significant Soulbind nerf to affect Brewmasters was
Papillonnage
, a trait belonging to Dreamweaver from the Night Fae. It initially granted 5% Versatility to you, then passed that same buff to two allies for 5 seconds, then came back to you, and so on. The buff on allies was initially nerfed by 60% -- then the base buff was nerfed to only 3%, and the buff for allies was nerfed even further, so that it only grants allies a miniscule 1% Versatility. Boo. The Necrolord soulbind trait
Montrer l’exemple
was redesigned and functions as a ~33% uptime +15% Agility buff, which is very good. Unfortunately, the rest of the tree is pretty bad, as are all the Necrolord Soulbind trees. Aside from this, changes to Soulbinds have been largely insignificant in terms of their effects on Brewmaster Monk balance.
Monks finally received a fourth general Monk Legendary, and it’s essentially worthless in PvE. Here it is, in all its worthless glory:
Fuir la réalité
. To be as charitable as possible, it could be useful in kiting, especially for the self-heal value while kiting. Doesn’t that sound fun? Casting Vivify on yourself while you run away in fear? Doesn’t that sound tanky?
The good news about no changes to the other Brewmaster Legendary options is that you can craft
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
ASAP and then never bother making any of the others. Maybe in Patch 9.1 when players are allowed to wear two Legendaries at once, you’ll want to craft
Passions calcinées
or
Toucher fatal
pieces, but not until then.
In terms of affecting your gameplay,
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
and your chosen Covenant ability are the biggest difference-makers. No matter which Covenant you choose, you will want to use your Covenant ability on cooldown. Without
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
, you always want to keep Keg Smash on cooldown, and with
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
, you at least want to keep one charge on cooldown. It’s a simple adjustment, and it makes the class much more forgiving, since collisions between
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
and other ability cooldowns become much less likely to occur.
If you would like to read more, check out the
Baseline Class Changes Page
or the
Brewmaster Talents Page
.
Brewmaster Monk Leveling Perks
Brewmaster’s Leveling Perks are very simple, and largely pretty underwhelming.
At level 54, you gain
Fracas
, the buggiest skill in the history of World of Warcraft. It is not even 1% less buggy than it was during its Mists of Pandaria iteration. It is the same skill. Even when it works as intended, it usually doesn’t charge completely into melee range, leaving you 2-3 yards out of range from the target at the end of the Clash. It will consume the cooldown even if you and the enemy cannot reach each other, or if the enemy is immune. Sometimes this will make you charge halfway to them while they remain stationary. Sometimes this will consume the cooldown with no one moving. It’s a hilariously bad skill -- but hey, it’s more mobility, and more mobility is always cool.
Should it be on the GCD? Of course not, that would be idiotic. But it is!
The rest of the leveling perks are pretty small bonuses:
Toucher mortel
(Level 52) - Touch of Death gives you a free Purifying Brew. It’s a 3-minute cooldown. Purifying Brew is a ~7-second cooldown. A free defensive benefit isn't
bad
, but this is so small it barely even registers as a bonus.
Arts antiques
(Level 56) - This takes 15 seconds off the cooldown of your powerful, all-purpose crowd control skill. It's pretty nice in situations in which your ability to crowd control is useful, whether you’re using it as a legitimate crowd control or as an ad hoc interrupt.
Méditation zen
(Level 56) - Behold, the game’s least useful defensive cooldown is slightly easier to use! This actually makes Zen Meditation a pretty decent defensive tool for cutting through damage zones that you’re
supposed
to go around -- but you could just Roll through or around, so this probably still isn’t all that useful.
Invocation de Niuzao, le Buffle noir améliorée
(Level 58) - This bonus gives you free damage. It is a minor increase to an AoE DPS cooldown. Nothing game-breaking, but a little more damage is never a bad thing. No complaints.
Covenant Abilities for Brewmaster Monk
The changes to Monk Covenant abilities during the Beta have been largely numerical, not mechanical. There has been some retuning, but the Covenants still mostly do the same things. Balance has shifted significantly, but designs have not.
Let’s reassess the Covenant abilities through the lens of the base class changes, and the most recent rounds of rebalancing efforts.
Kyrian
Armes de l’Ordre
grants a 10% Mastery buff, resets the cooldown of Keg Smash (it resets 1 charge if you are wearing the
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
Legendary effect), and grants a stacking damage buff that applies to
all
of your damage. It takes 4 Keg Smash casts to stack up to full power. Assuming a 7-second cooldown on Keg Smash, that means you’ll need 21 seconds to get the debuff up to full strength without
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
. With
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
, that’s closer to 14 seconds, which is a pretty fast rampup for a 30-second (35 seconds with
Frappe de clarté
) debuff. Assuming you Keg Smash near the end of the buff duration, you will gain a ~45 second damage increase cooldown every 2 minutes. That's really, really good!
Frappe de clarté
increases the duration and Mastery value of the Weapons of Order buff. It’s simple, but a must-have.
Invocation de régisseur
provides a potion that can be used to clear debuffs, and it is on a separate cooldown from health potions available from Alchemy, so it’s easily the best defensive Signature skill available to tanks. The potential to remove bleed debuffs has been valuable in raid and dungeon testing, but that interaction with raid mechanics has been removed, right at the end of beta (lol). Even so, having a third instant heal (along with health potion and healthstone) is always valuable. The steward offers some helpful non-combat utility, such as free respecs and vendoring out in the world, which is cool. The steward is also very cute and friendly, and that’s always worth something.
Venthyr
Ordre des défunts
conjures a spooky portal that summons ghost Monks. They deal damage and heal, and that’s all. This skill has zero utility. It is, for all intents and purposes, a third DPS trinket on a 3-minute cooldown. There are some concerns among the community that it may be tuned to be the highest single-target DPS option, and that is certainly possible -- but is using a fire-and-forget cooldown every 3 minutes that has zero thematic connection to Monks (when is the last time in WoW lore you remember Monks summoning ghosts from a portal?) fun or interesting? Not really.
Reflets imprégnés
is about as interesting as watching soda go flat, but it’s a good DPS increase. It’s a must-have.
Porte des ombres
ranges from excellent to nearly-worthless. The cast time makes it mostly useless mid-combat, especially as a tank, but gaining access to a ground-targeted blink is exceptional for skipping trash packs when pushing Mythic+, or during mobility phases in which you need to run around damage pools. It can no longer be used to blink anywhere within line of sight, and now requires a direct path to the destination. Unfortunately, due to the nature of WoW’s pathing, this means you will encounter spaces in the world (such as in the Venthyr Class Hall, lol) through which you cannot blink despite having line of sight and a clear path.
Necrolord
Breuvage poussière-d’os
is the most powerful defensive Covenant ability, and its offensive power has been increased once again from its initial version in the beta. The 50% chance to deal 35% extra damage and healing equates to an extra 17.5% damage and healing while the debuff is active. If it’s active 30% of the time, that’s 5.2% more damage. This isn’t great, but it’s still way up from where it has been at points earlier in the beta. That’s a big improvement! When combined with the Conduit
Houblon à moelle
, it becomes a 24.5% damage increase while active, which is actually pretty respectable, and procs also trigger cooldown reduction, although that has been given a hard cap of only 2.5 seconds of CDR per cast. Consequently, this translates to an average cooldown of roughly 30-31 seconds, and it doesn't really perform any better in AoE than it does in single-target. While that's probably a good choice in terms of overall balance, it does mean that this Covenant's one big advantage has been totally eradicated. Ultimately, you now gain about 10% more cooldown reduction on
Breuvage céleste
and
Infusion purificatrice
from
Breuvage poussière-d’os
. Over the course of a fight, this translates to an average of around 3 seconds of cooldown reduction for
Breuvage céleste
, and less than 1 second for
Breuvage poussière-d’os
. Neither of those are really that large of defensive gains. Because Bonedust Brew is a Brew, it benefits from Brew recharge effects, in essence increasing its own uptime and effectiveness. It has positive synergy with
Breuvage du Buffle noir
and ultra-defensive playstyles that use
Combo aveuglant
and hold Blackout Kick for the Keg Smash combo.
Bonedust Brew no longer has any serious downsides. It is reasonably competitive in both single target and AoE. It's weaker than Weapons of Order as a burst cooldown, but it is available much more often (~30s CD as opposed to 2-minute CD). Bonedust Brew is not perfect, though -- as it is a GCD spent applying a 10-second buff that deals zero damage on its own. You have to aim it to ensure it hits everything in AoE packs! This can be pretty annoying if adds are not well-stacked! It’s a useful skill, and a good all-around cooldown, but it’s arguably the least fun of all the Monk Covenant Abilities.
Houblon à moelle
adds more damage, a 7% increase while Bonedust Brew is active, for ~2.5% more overall DPS on average. It's a pretty good bonus. The hard-cap on its cooldown reduction value substantially reduced its effectiveness as a bonus, but let's face it, it was a degenerate mechanic that absurdly inflated the value of Bonedust Brew. As it's currently tuned, it's a well-balanced, appealing bonus that is consistently valuable, but can't be manipulated to absolutely blast the value of Bonedust Brew through the Stargate. That's a good change for game balance -- despite being a little disappointing.
Chair recomposée
is a 4-second channel that generates an absorb shield equal to 20% of your max health. If you’re next to a corpse, the absorb shield can scale up to 50% of your max health. 20% of your max health is really not a strong defensive bonus, especially for Brewmaster. Channeling mid-combat is a terrible idea while tanking since you can’t block, dodge, or parry. Starting off combat with a 20% absorb shield is not a huge gain. It’s just not all that good for tanks. It's not bad in Mythic+, but it's not competitive with the Kyrian potion -- not even close.
Night Fae
Piétinement de ligne faë
is a basic AoE damage and healing skill. It no longer applies Breath of Fire, instead granting 5% extra Stagger value (like
Forte tolérance
), and that is legitimately good.
All of the problems that plagued this skill earlier in the beta have been fixed, and it works as advertised (it also heals friendly targets). It’s the perfect piece to add to Brewmaster’s rotation. Brewmasters struggle to deal consistent AoE damage. This adds consistent AoE damage. Brewmasters have a boring, static rotation. This adds rotational complexity. Brewmasters have limited self-healing. This adds… well, not a lot of healing, but a little bit is better than none. It’s one of the best-looking ability designs in WoW, and very, very blue.
Unfortunately, its damage has been nerfed to an absolutely embarrassing, confusing degree. It just cannot compete offensively with any of the other Covenant options, and it is a damage-oriented choice. Tragically, the tuning has made it non-competitive offensively, which is its chief purpose. It existed to do AoE damage and not much else -- and it doesn't even do that anymore. I like this skill and was legitimately excited to use it throughout the expansion, so this... sucks.
The Night Fae Covenant Conduit is
Voie des Faë
, and it’s yet another must-have, although it is weaker than
Breuvage bouillant
.
Forme d’âme
is a simple mobility cooldown. It grants an instant 15-yard blink upon casting it, and a 50% movement increase for 15 seconds. It can be reactivated to blink again, which makes it useful for skipping over dangerous raid mechanics. Unfortunately, it’s on the GCD and it will break if you cast most offensive skills, so it’s not great. Given that Monk already has an incredible mobility toolkit, adding this to it isn’t a big deal. Notably, you can Faeline Stomp while it is active without breaking the buff, which is neat.
Choosing a Covenant
Three of the four Brewmaster Monk Covenant options have merit. Seriously, they’re all useful. But there can be only one.
While Venthyr is the most boring, it’s still a very strong best burst DPS option, and they have good defensive soulbind options with General Draven, who offers
Inflexible
and
Pierre de service
.
Kyrian is the best all-around option. It’s a good offensive and defensive cooldown, and Pelagos has some of the best Soulbind bonuses across all four Covenants (
Méditation de combat
,
Renoncement au passé
). It's a terrific all-around option that is great for absolutely everything. It doesn't have the potential upside of Necrolord in AoE, but there is never a scenario where Kyrian isn't, at its absolute worst, a very good Covenant choice.
Necrolord is the best defensive option, and the obvious choice for a lot of Brewmaster Monks.
Breuvage poussière-d’os
adds the most defense. Tanks want defense. No-brainer, right? That makes sense, but I’ve never Staggered a boss to death, and Shadowlands isn’t suddenly going to change that. Defenses have diminishing returns, and damage doesn’t. If you have enough defenses to survive comfortably without Bonedust Brew, then tacking Bonedust Brew onto that is overkill. If Bonedust Brew is mandatory for Brewmasters to survive in Shadowlands, then the base spec is in serious trouble, and needs major buffs.
That being said, the latest round of buffs fixed the primary downside of Necrolord. It is comfortably the best offensive option in 3-or-more-target AoE situations now. It is decently competitive in single target and two-target cleave, although not entirely on par with Kyrian or Venthyr.
Montrer l’exemple
is arguably the best ability from Necrolord Soulbinds, granting ~40% uptime on 15% Agility in single target -- 100% uptime in AoE.
Night Fae fixed the biggest hole in Brewmaster’s kit -- its sustained AoE damage and boring rotation. Monk damage is low, especially in AoE.
Piétinement de ligne faë
helps with that, and the small trickle of healing is also not bad. It’s easily the most fun option of four Covenants, but unfortunately the damage it deals is undertuned, and it just isn't competitive at the only thing it's supposed to do well. The Night Fae Soulbinds are also really poorly-assembled now, forcing you through Finesse conduits to acquire appealing bonuses. It's a real shame.
Again, Kyrian, Venthyr, and Necrolord Covenants are all competitive options for Brewmaster.
Necrolord is the strongest defensive option, and if you
really
feel like you want to pack on defense -- go Necrolord.
If you want the most AoE damage in Mythic+ -- go Necrolord.
If you want the best all-around option, or you focus more on raids, Kyrian is a great option.
If you want to be a supreme parse machine in raids, Venthyr is also a competitive option, although it lacks the defensive value and some of Kyrian's versatility.
Brewmaster Monk Soulbind Powers
The preferred Soulbind setup as Kyrian will use Pelagos, and look like this:
This grants
Méditation de combat
and
Renoncement au passé
. The Mastery buff from Combat Meditation is excellent, and lasts for a long time if you do a good job of picking up orbs as they spawn. Let Go of the Past is worth an automatic 5% Versatility. It's outstanding, one of the few legitimately powerful Soulbind traits remaining. The cooldown reduction on your Kyrian Potion from
Mantra de concentration
is also fine, but not a huge deal.
As for the final branch, taking a Finesse Conduit over an Endurance Conduit may seem counterintuitive, but it is legitimately a defensive gain to take Dizzying Tumble whenever possible in any situation in which you can stun mobs. If you are tanking enemies that cannot be stunned (such as raid bosses), then avoid the Finesse Conduit and grab
Effervescence céleste
in the second Endurance Conduit slot. The difference between them should not be very significant.
As a Kyrian tank, it's Pelagos or nothing. The other Soulbind options cannot compete.
But let's say you absolutely don't want to use Pelagos, just for the sake of argument. In that case, Kleia is a viable alternative.
Frappes vaillantes
is a pretty good reactive off-healing cooldown.
Mentorat
and
Flasque d’ascendant
are both okay, but nothing to go crazy about. Beyond that, her tree isn't very good, but the alternative is Forgelite Prime Mikanikos, and he might literally have the worst Soulbind tree in Shadowlands. It seems to be a PvP tree, full of random knockbacks and reactive AoE stuns. If I were personally tasked with building a tree of bonuses that tanks hate -- a life-or-death scenario to build the worst tree imaginable -- it still would probably be less annoying than Forgelite Prime Mikanikos' tree! I'm just not as creative as whatever evil Blizzard developer spawned this monstrosity!
If you opt for Necrolord, the best Soulbind setup is with Emeni:
Montrer l’exemple
offers a 20% Agility buff that can be maintained at 33% uptime in AoE situations. It rocks.
Peau sublime d’Éméni
adds some more defensive value onto using Fleshcraft in between pulls, and it isn't bad. The mobility increase from
Orteils calcifiés
isn't a huge deal, but more mobility never hurts, and getting a second Potency conduit is critical.
Jambes cartilagineuses
vs.
Néphrite de foyer
is just a matter of preference, since you don't usually take falling damage while tanking. If you do, the choice is obvious -- but otherwise a second Hearthstone is very convenient.
Now, there's arguably no reason to ever run any Necrolord Soulbind other than Emeni, but maybe you feel different. Maybe you feel like you need to be special. In that case, Bonesmith Heirmir is a usable option -- not because of any great pathing through the tree, or any useful defensive bonuses, but because of
Spallières dentelées
, which grants a pretty significant source of reactive damage. Is it good? That's debatable! It's certainly not good defensively, but it can add a lot of offensive value -- at the cost of losing out on Potency Conduits, which really cuts into its damage value. But hey, you're going your own way, and that's cool enough. Who needs to be good, when you're different?!
Brewmaster Monk Soulbind Conduits
Conduits come in three forms: Potency buff damage skills or the Covenant ability, Endurance buff defense and self-healing, and Finesse grant utility.
In the case of Brewmasters, Endurance Conduits add small, but non-critical defensive gains, the general Brewmaster Potency Conduits add small, but non-critical offensive gains, and the Finesse Conduits totally suck.
Let’s start with the Potency Conduits:
Breuvage bouillant
(Potency Conduit)
-
Fracasse-tonneau
deals an additional 7.5% damage to targets affected by
Souffle de feu
.
Marche du Buffle
(Potency Conduit)
- Abilities that grant
Virevolte
reduce the cooldown on
Invocation de Niuzao, le Buffle noir
by 0.5 sec, and Niuzao's Stomp deals an additional 25% damage.
Frappe de clarté
(Kyrian Potency Conduit)
-
Armes de l’Ordre
's duration is increased by 5 sec, and the Mastery bonus is increased by 31.25%.
Reflets imprégnés
(Venthyr Potency Conduit)
-
Ordre des défunts
monks deal 36.3% more damage and healing.
Houblon à moelle
(Necrolord Potency Conduit)
-
Breuvage poussière-d’os
's Shadow damage or healing is increased by 40%, and when Bonedust Brew deals Shadow damage or healing, it reduces its cooldown by 0.5 sec.
Voie des Faë
(Night Fae Potency Conduit)
-
Piétinement de ligne faë
deals 10.5% additional damage per target, up to a maximum of 52.5% additional damage.
The Conduits below are rated in order of effectiveness...ish:
Breuvage bouillant
is a simple Keg Smash damage increase. It’s generally a competitive option with any of the Covenant conduits -- if not just outright superior to them all. This is the only Conduit that has any synergy with your Legendaries, and the synergy between this and
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
is pretty obvious. It's simple, but great!
Reflets imprégnés
is boring, but a must-have.
Houblon à moelle
is a noteworthy DPS increase, starting at 7% while Bonedust Brew is active, and increasing from there. The cooldown reduction has been hard-capped to only grant 2.5 seconds per cast of Bonedust Brew, which totally limits its scaling into AoE, but that's okay. It's balanced, and balance is... good. No, it is good, really! (*grimaces*)
Marche du Buffle
will grant about 30 seconds of cooldown reduction to
Invocation de Niuzao, le Buffle noir
. Given the state of our beautiful Oxen boy: It’s not terrific, but it's not terrible, either. It's alright! It's okay! Great!
Frappe de clarté
is simple, and not really very good now that it has been nerfed from >30% Mastery to 1.25% Mastery. Wild how a 2500% nerf would skew balance, right?
Voie des Faë
increases Faeline Stomp’s AoE damage. It’s simple, but given the reduction of Night Fae's base damage, it suffered a pretty substantial loss in value. Essentially: It's very bad.
Endurance Conduits are up next, and they are a real collection of uninteresting, undertuned junk:
Ingrédients fortifiants
(Endurance Conduit)
-
Boisson fortifiante
grants you a shield equal to 12% of your health for 15 sec.
Souffle isolant
(Endurance Conduit)
- When casting Vivify on yourself, its heal is increased by 15%, and it has a 30% chance to refund its cost.
Refus du mal
(Endurance Conduit)
-
Extraction du mal
's healing is increased by 25%.
Effervescence céleste
(Endurance Conduit)
- While under the effects of Celestial Brew, your effects that heal you are increased by 18.8%.
Manœuvre d’évitement
(Endurance Conduit)
- During
Virevolte
, Heavy Stagger has a 2.5% chance to heal you instead of dealing damage.
Again, here's another ordered ranking of the effectiveness of the Endurance Conduits. It is subject to change. It will change. Isn't change great?
Refus du mal
is a simple self-healing increase. Unfortunately, it only affects the base Expel Harm heal, and does not increase the healing of any Gift of the Ox orbs it consumes. As a result, it’s not a very significant healing increase. That being said, it’s still probably the best option due to being a small, constant increase to your self-healing, rather than only being a small, occasional increase.
Effervescence céleste
is arguably just an inferior version of the previous bonus, that’s only active during the roughly 25% of the time Celestial Brew is active. It also applies to Gift of the Ox orbs, but given that you will already have a large Celestial Brew shield active, this bonus seems primarily designed to generate overhealing. There is an undeniable value to consistently coming out of Celestial Brew with full health, but overhealing is worthless. This can potentially be a superior healing bonus to Harm Denial, but it's a little less reliable. In either case, they are both pretty boring, pretty bad, and pretty similar. Verdict: These bonuses suck.
Manœuvre d’évitement
is the only option that grants direct damage reduction. It’s an extremely small chance, and with the increased number of Purifying Brew casts available, you’ll be spending radically less time in Heavy Stagger. It’s indisputably the only option that’s actually a damage reduction bonus, rather than a healing bonus, but the amount of damage reduction it offers under normal tanking circumstances -- even high-damage situations such as Mythic Raid Testing -- is absolutely pathetic. We're talking .25% of all damage taken converted into healing, for a total of .5% pseudo-damage reduction. No, really, this is my napkin math, but also confirmed by multiple other people who are smarter than me. It's stunning how bad it is. It's comfortably outperformed by a 1% Versatility racial bonus. The Kul Tiran
Dur à cuire
bonus absolutely obliterates it -- nukes it from orbit (only way to be sure). This hypothetically becomes a useful bonus at extremely high levels of Mythic+ pushing when using the maximum rank of the Conduit, but we're legitimately talking about 25+ dungeons before it even becomes competitive with other options, and 30+ before it becomes
good
. ("Good" still isn't even on par with racial bonuses.) Come on, man!
Ingrédients fortifiants
adds a small shield onto your biggest defensive cooldown. This isn’t a good bonus. You’re already at your tankiest, does another tiny shield really move the needle? Nah. This bonus is more meaningful for Windwalker and Mistweaver than Brewmaster.
Souffle isolant
is potentially super-useful if you find yourself rolling out of melee range and self-healing in Mythic+ -- arguably the #1 trait. Otherwise, it should be 100% worthless.
And finally, here’s the Finesse Conduits:
Chute étourdissante
(Finesse Conduit)
Targets affected by your
Balayement de jambe
deal 6.3% less damage for 5 sec.
Engourdissement persistant
(Finesse Conduit)
When Paralysis ends, your target's movement speed is reduced by 40% for 5 sec.
Transfert rapide
(Finesse Conduit)
Transcendance
: Transfer increases your movement speed by 12.5%.
Art de la chute
(Finesse Conduit)
Frappe du voile noir
has a 6% chance to grant a charge of
Roulade
.
Here's an ordered ranking of these piles of barely-useful junk:
Chute étourdissante
makes enemies deal less damage, and it waits until they are no longer stunned to apply the debuff. While that is nice, it's not a huge defensive gain, it's tied to a 60-second cooldown, and it requires the target be stunnable to function. It's a fine option if you get forced through a Finesse Conduit, but it's still not very good. All those criticisms aside, when it is able to function, this is legitimately a better defensive option than any of the Endurance Conduits. Isn't that great?! (No.)
Art de la chute
could hypothetically be somewhat useful for moments when you need more mobility than any class has ever needed in the history of the game. Imagine it: A Brewmaster Monk, Clashing to their target (and it doesn’t bug out and just do nothing), then Rolling to another target and using Blackout Kick, then Rolling again, then Blackout Kicking again, then Rolling again, then Blackout Kicking again, then Rolling… again? No, this is stupid. I feel dumb for even typing it.
The other two Monk Finesse Conduits are hilariously worthless. Honestly, I'm wasting my time and yours for even acknowledging that they exist. Maybe they're great in PvP? Who knows? Who cares?!
Legendaries for Brewmaster Monk
Shadowlands is bringing back Legendary bonuses, but players will have significantly more control over them than they did in Legion. This is good!
General Monk Legendary Powers in Shadowlands
Toucher fatal
-
Toucher mortel
cooldown reduced by 120 seconds.
Slot
: Wrist, Finger
This is interesting, but not generally all that special. Given that you’ll only be able to cast Touch of Death once during most encounters anyways, it’s often not even going to be a DPS increase in raids. For the situations in which you can maximize its value, it’s a pretty substantial increase to the availability of
Toucher mortel
. It can potentially be a very strong DPS-only option, but it can also be worthless. It's not super consistent.
Délice de l’invocateur
- You gain 33% haste for 20 seconds after summoning your Celestial.
Slot
: Head, Shoulder
A small, but large buff of a not-great stat on a 3 minute cooldown? It’s not even active the whole time Niuzao is up. This is shameful.
Roulé-boulé
- During
Roulade
, you are immune to roots and snares.
Slot
: Waist, Feet
Original Source
: Torghast Anima Power
Culbute acrobatique
Maybe it's useful for PvP. This is absolutely worthless for PvE Brewmasters. At least when it granted an extra charge of Roll, it could be fun for Rolling around Oribos. Not so much anymore.
Fuir la réalité
- After you use
Transcendance : Transfert
, you can use
Transcendance : Transfert
again within 10 sec, ignoring its cooldown.
During this time, if you cast
Vivifier
on yourself, its healing is increased by 70% and 50% of its cost is refunded.
Slot
: Neck, Chest
Another PvP-oriented option. Hypothetically this could be useful for kiting and self-healing, but that's not really in keeping with how tanking is intended to function. It's a no from me, dawg.
There are also eight Legendary bonuses available to all classes and specs. After the redesigns to
Sacrifice de vitalité
and
Écho d’Eonar
, none of them are remotely competitive for Brewmaster Monks.
Brewmaster Monk Legendary Powers in Shadowlands
Puissance de Shaohao
-
Paume du tigre
has a 10% chance to deal 250% of normal damage and reduce the remaining cooldown of your Brews by 1 additional sec.
Slot
: Chest, Finger
This bonus is terrible. It grants roughly 1.1% more Brew cooldown. That’s enough to reduce the average cooldown of Celestial Brew by .34 seconds. This bonus would need to be increased by 300% to literally have a discernible effect over the course of a fight. Not to be good. It would still be incredibly bad. 1 second off the cooldown of Celestial Brew? But wait, there’s less! It will also increase your DPS by <1% and reduce your average Purifying Brew cooldown by .11 seconds! If you let either of your Brews sit on cooldown for one second at any point in a fight, this bonus winds up being completely wasted. Pretty nice.
This is an act of disrespect to
Jeu de paume
. It was a good bonus. Don’t do it like this, Blizzard.
Passions calcinées
- Your
Souffle de feu
ignites your right leg in flame for 8 sec, causing your
Frappe du voile noir
and
Coup tournoyant de la grue
to deal 100% additional damage as Fire damage and refresh the duration of your
Souffle de feu
on the target.
Slot
: Feet, Back
Look, another way to apply Breath of Fire!
This is actually a solid damage increase in AoE, and (AGAIN, WHY?!) an increase to your Breath of Fire uptime. Setting your foot on fire is fun, but this option isn't really on par with the Keg Smash legendary. The defensive value is pretty poor, and the damage increase
only
has an impact in AoE.
Déversement puissant
-
Breuvage céleste
increases your Armor by 25%, and
Infusion purificatrice
has a 25% chance to not consume a charge.
Slot
: Legs or Feet
Inspired by
: BFA Azerite Trait
Riche en fer
25% more Purifying Brew is good, but worse than it sounds. The diminishing returns are pretty significant. It’s worth a small increase in damage reduction throughout a fight, but it’s not a good bonus. The armor increase is significantly worse. Brewmaster Monks have by far the lowest armor values of any tank, and the armor buff would need to be substantially increased to even provide a noticeable effect. These values are subject to change, but just for reference, this Legendary grants roughly 2% damage reduction while Celestial Brew is active on a premade character. Not only is that terrible, but why grant extra damage reduction while a big defensive shield is active? Diminishing returns! Come on.
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
-
Fracasse-tonneau
deals 30% additional damage, and has 1 additional charges.
Slot
: Shoulder or Hands
Original Source
: Legion Legendary
Dernier souffle de Brune d'Orage
Magnificent. Without question, this is the single strongest all-around bonus Monks have been given since their Legion redesign, and it’s back. It dramatically improves the base rotation, it substantially increases damage output, and it is a good defensive gain.
“But doesn’t this just add one Keg Smash per fight?” Yes, but no. Because Celestial Brew is on the GCD, along with Covenant Abilities and the rest of Brewmaster’s filler-laden toolkit, the standard 8-second (7 with Haste) Keg Smash window regularly creates situations in which you have to delay casting a desired skill. Additionally, if your Keg Smash cooldown is less than 7 seconds due to Haste, the GCD-locked nature of Monk effectively still makes it a 7-second cooldown. By having a second charge of Keg Smash, a 6.5 second Keg Smash cooldown becomes two Keg Smashes every 13 seconds, rather than two Keg Smashes every 14 seconds. That’s a meaningful increase in DPS and defenses.
This Legendary may hypothetically only add one Keg Smash per encounter, but it dramatically reduces the pressure and difficulty of keeping Keg Smash on cooldown due to minimizing ability collisions. Practically speaking, it adds more than one cast per encounter, it makes Haste scaling function in between Keg Smash cooldown breakpoints, and it adds more than just DPS. It allows more fluidity within the rotation. It’s very good!
Picking the Best Legendary
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
is the only useful Brewmaster Monk Legendary bonus in Shadowlands, but it’s fantastic.
Souffle de feu
is a decent DPS increase, but mechanically pretty boring.
Déversement puissant
might be useful as a purely defensive option, but it's generally not going to be remotely competitive with Stormstout's Last Keg.
Every other bonus is uninteresting, weak, and should have been redesigned. Oh well, looks like we’re out of time! The rest of the Legendaries being underwhelming doesn’t matter -- for now. In Patch 9.1 (presumably), when Blizzard rolls out wearing two Legendaries as a big, new idea, having no compelling fallback options may be a problem. For now, it’s fine. Actually, it’s easier, since you only need to farm one piece!
Conclusion
Brewmasters are in a very good spot right now. They have a reliable, versatile defensive toolkit, higher mobility than ever, three viable Covenant choices, and an easy Legendary choice. The class is simple but strong, and easier than ever for new players to pick up and start learning.
Shadowlands Brewmaster Monk is a synthesis of the MoP/WoD & Legion/BFA class designs. It offers the unparalleled damage smoothing and painless active mitigation of Legion/BFA Brewmaster via
Report
/
Virevolte
/
Infusion purificatrice
, but also gives players powerful, controlled MoP/WoD-style self-healing in the form of
Breuvage céleste
, and I legitimately have to say: Good job, class designer. I didn't think a synthesis of the pre-and-post-Legion designs was possible, but you managed it, and it rules. Brewmaster is as fun as it has ever been, and really good, too.
Monk’s greatest strength is their lack of weaknesses. Brewmasters are good -- if not great -- at almost everything (except DPS).
Add tanking? Easy. Big boss hit coming? Stagger coming! A fight has constantly-spawning adds? Time to bust out
Invocation d’une statue du Buffle noir
. Need to quickly move a boss?
Persiflage
is still the only way in the game to make a boss sprint. Need to kite? Use
Anneau de paix
to get some breathing room! Got a frustrating caster who won’t move into melee range? Hit them with
Fracas
! Maybe it’ll work!
Monks rule.
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