We break down all the reasons you should consider playing Brewmaster Monk in Patch 10.1 and even throw in a few reasons of why you might not. From all the changes since launch to the new tier set bonuses coming in 10.1, join us as we explore Dragonflight Season 2 Brewmaster Monk!
Why You Should Play a Spec in Dragonflight Season 2 Series
Blood DK
Havoc DH
Feral Druid
Guardian Druid
Preservation Evoker
Beast Mastery Hunter
Arcane Mage
Fire Mage
Frost Mage
Mistweaver Monk
Windwalker Monk
Holy Paladin
Protection Paladin
Retribution Paladin
Discipline Priest
Holy Priest
Shadow Priest
Assassination Rogue
Outlaw Rogue
Subtlety Rogue
Elemental Shaman
Enhancement Shaman
Affliction Warlock
Demonology Warlock
Destruction Warlock
Arms Warrior
Fury Warrior
Protection Warrior
Dragonflight Season 2 Warrior Tier Set
Why You Should Play Brewmaster Monk in Dragonflight Season 2 (and Why You Shouldn’t)
Brewmaster Monks are a tank on the rise. They started out the expansion a bit sluggish. They had a strong toolkit and looked competitive, but the Mythic 0 week nerf to all tanks’ damage reduction effects (10% damage reduction passives that had been in tank talent trees throughout the entire beta were removed from all tanks except Protection Warrior, which received a 5% reduction to Defensive Stance’s damage reduction effect) hit them particularly hard. Monk also saw their incredible damage output nerfed pretty heavily near the end of the beta.
These nerfs, along with the high degree of skill required to play Monk effectively, put Brewmasters a bit behind the curve. They weren’t bad, just a middle-of-the-pack tank. Several rounds of buffs ensued during Patch 10.0, including a major increase to self-healing tools and a reduction to the cooldowns of Purifying Brew and Celestial Brew.
This has put Brewmasters back in a competitive position going into Patch 10.1. They are a strong tank in raids, one of the best. Brewmaster Monk’s abundance of offensive and defensive cooldowns and extremely strong self-healing are a pretty dramatic departure from how it has played in the expansions after Warlords of Draenor, but they work really, really well. It’s a very powerful tank, and it has absolutely everything you need to succeed in tanking raids.
Mythic+ has historically been a different story for Monks. The strong damage smoothing and limited self-healing of past Brewmaster Monk iterations made them great in raids, but less well-suited for high-level Mythic+ than other tanks.
Once again, the dramatic shift in Brewmaster Monk’s design in Dragonflight, to being a tank that has powerful self-healing and multitude of cooldowns has made them a really competitive Mythic+ tank, as well.
Brewmaster Monk is a top-tier tank in all facets of the game.
Here is a table summarizing why you should (and shouldn’t) play Brewmaster Monk in Dragonflight:
| Why You Should | Why You Shouldn’t |
Why You Should Play Brewmaster Monk in Dragonflight Season 2
Brewmaster Monk Utility for Dragonflight
Let’s start with group utility.
Mystic Touch – A One-Item Brewmaster Monk Group Utility Breakdown
Mystic Touch is a mandatory buff for competitive raid groups. It only comes from a Monk, so a Monk has to be in the raid. Are Mistweaver Monks worth bringing to provide the debuff? Don’t make me laugh.
How about Windwalker Monks? Yeah, maybe.
Brewmaster Monk is unquestionably good. The other two specs of Monk are questionable. For this reason, and literally this reason alone, many guilds will run a Brewmaster Monk.
I try not to dip into first-person writing with these articles, but I am most likely going to play Brewmaster Monk for Aberrus progression purely because of Mystic Touch.
Is this buff/debuff matrix good? Not really.
Am I upset about playing Monk? Not at all, but I would probably play Paladin if providing the debuff was a non-issue.
Brewmaster Monks Are Legitimately Good at Everything
Here’s an alphabetized list of things that are good about Brewmaster Monk:
- AoE Damage
- Celestial Brew
- Defensive Cooldowns
- Dodging
- Mobility
- Offensive Cooldowns
- Self-Healing
- Single Target Damage
- Stagger
- Tier Set Bonuses
Celestial Brew is pound-for-pound the strongest cooldown in the game!
Celestial Brew has an average cooldown of roughly 20-30 seconds depending on talents. If you are using Black Ox Brew, you can use it twice in short succession. This amount of self-shielding allows you to solo-soak mechanics intended to be split among raid members, survive burst damage that would kill other tanks, and compensate for mistakes made by other players in your party or raid.
Celestial Brew remains an insanely powerful cooldown, and it is available shockingly often given how strong it is.
Damage Output
Brewmaster Monk has a complex rotation, but it is extremely rewarding. You deal tons of damage and generate lots of damage reduction through your offensive rotation.
Cooldowns
Brewmaster Monk has a huge collection of offensive and defensive cooldowns. You have a tool for every situation, and you can combine them as needed to survive especially dangerous situations, or maximize your burst damage to kill bosses or priority targets.
Stagger
As a defensive mechanic, Stagger may actually be overrated by a lot of the community. The unspoken downside of how it works is that you do actually just take a lot more damage on a Monk than you would on another tank. That being said, it is still a powerful mechanic. A Brewmaster Monk can absorb a huge hit that would kill another tank, hit Purifying Brew and Expel Harm, and keep going like nothing happened.
Mobility
Brewmaster Monk has literally never had more mobility. With the right talent setup and a Time Spiral from an Evoker, you can Roll 4 times in a row. Beyond that, you have Tiger’s Lust and Transcendence. If you cut Monk’s mobility in half, it would still be one of the most mobile tanks.
Self-healing!
This is crazy to write, but for the first time since Blackrock Foundry was current content, Monks consider self-healing a strength, not a weakness. Dragonflight really is the best expansion ever!
All Blizzard had to do was buff Expel Harm, and give Monks 5 talents to boost its healing (3 that work directly, and 2 that increase all healing taken). Now it’s good. Great!
You don’t have to hit Expel Harm like it’s Death Strike, but if you make liberal use of it, you’ll have a pretty easy time staying alive in most situations, even if healers forget about you for a while. Kinda crazy!
Dodging
In yet another subversion of post-WoD tradition, Brewmaster Monk is actually really good at reducing incoming autoattack damage in Dragonflight. Historically, this has been another of Monk’s major weaknesses, and why they’ve rarely been super competitive in Mythic+.
Between the Patch 10.1 Tier Set’s powerful synergy with Mastery: Elusive Brawler and Pretense of Instability, Brewmaster Monk is better than ever at dealing with incoming autoattacks.
Tier Set Bonuses
Here are the Patch 10.1 Tier Set Bonuses for Brewmaster Monk:
Unlike the 10.0 Tier Set Bonuses, which were decent, but had some ramp-up and could impact your rotation negatively at times, these bonuses smoothly synergize with your rotation and fix one of its biggest issues: Rising Sun Kick has no defensive value. With the 4-piece, it does.
This tier set is an upgrade across the board from the previous tier set. It’s great.
Why You Shouldn’t Play Brewmaster Monk in Dragonflight Season 2
This is a really easy section to write up, because the reason is simple: Complexity.
Complexity
Brewmaster Monk is strong. It’s a really good tank, arguably the best if played to 100% of human ability, but it’s vastly more complex than other tanks.
When Blizzard was working on Brewmaster Monk heading into Dragonflight, they came up with a lot of really good ideas for active powers. Rather than pruning down the weaker options or folding some of them together and supplementing them with comparably-powerful passive options, they just shoved every good idea into the same package. The end result is that Monks are very strong, but they have more keybinds than you can possibly imagine.
Playing a Brewmaster Monk requires significantly more keybinds (about 30-50%) than other tanks. This makes it harder to play on a physical level, and tougher mentally, as well.
It’s still a good tank that’s worth learning, but the fact that it requires a lot more effort to learn is a serious downside for most players.
Protection Paladin is Overpowered
Protection Paladins are extremely strong in Patch 10.1.
Monk has amazing offensive and defensive cooldowns. So does Paladin.
Monk has great damage reduction and great damage output. So does Paladin.
Monk’s rotation is complex. Paladin’s is simple.
Brewmaster Monk has good crowd control for Mythic+ groups, including an AoE knockback in Ring of Peace.
Protection Paladin can single-handedly carry interrupts thanks to Avenger’s Shield and Divine Toll, to the point that you can assemble virtually any group composition around them.
Protection Paladin is good at mitigating all types of damage, much like Monk. Monk is better at dealing with burst damage, but worse at damage over time.
Monk is better at self-healing, which is a change of pace, and really one of the only areas in which Monk clearly outperforms Paladin.
Is that enough to make Monk competitive with Paladin? Probably not.
Mark it down, unless some major nerfs occur in the next week, Pally is going to be the most popular tank in Patch 10.1, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it! (That’s fine, Pally is also very fun!)
About the Author
This guide was written by Llarold! I’ve been tanking since Vanilla. During Mists of Pandaria, I saw an opportunity to begin writing guides, and I took it with the hopes of making myself a better tank and making the community into better tanks with me. I hope it’s working!
I am active in all of the tank class Discords but primarily contribute to theorycrafting discussions in Peak of Serenity and Skyhold (Monk and Warrior). I’m active on Twitter, where I mostly talk WoW (and basketball), and I’m half of the team responsible for the YouTube channel WoW at Night, which focuses primarily on tank guides and previews.
For more information on playing Brewmaster Monk, please see our class guide updated for Dragonflight:
Brewmaster Monk Guide
