does anyone else feel like this talent specifically ruins the flow of the spec currently? is it even worth taking?
This is hands down the best talent in the whole tree lol (Black Ox Brew being second)
It takes a bit of getting used to but actually it makes you better at your class because you are supposed to be weaving those BoKs to maintain Shuffle buff anyways
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How to optimize:
- BOK before Celestial makes it HUGER. You’ll always want this every time.
- BOK before Keg Smash significantly increases your CDR on brews, you have to land this every time (except on pull when you have full brews)
- BOK before Purifying Brew (stopping stagger for 3s is HUGE, but situational). Becomes relevant in high keys to pause stagger while you wait for BoK keg smash to reset your purifying brew when sitting at high stagger. For serious trash pulls you’ll have to learn how to chain pause red stagger and reset purifying brew repeat to not die lol
- BOK before Breath of Fire, increases DR from 5% to 10% which is HUGE. Additionally, this doubles the damage of Breath of Fire which is extremely important for the new tier bonuses. Along with Celestial Flames, this raises the total DR from Breath of Fire up to 15%.
- BOK before Tiger Palm DO NOT USE. This is the “joker” card. How you resolve it when everything is on cooldown and you don’t want to spend the combo charge is to instead fill that GCD with a spinning crane kick, allowing you to wait for something else to recharge to spend the proc on (specifically to delay a global for Keg Smash recharge for the brew CDR)
Note, Tiger Palm is still super important when you don’t have the Combo proc, as during BDB, it causes 2s of Brew cooldown reduction, which is needed in high damage scenarios
I knkw what it does but i feel like it feels wonky trying to get every fire breath with black out combo buff… maulybe ill give it another shot but i was so focused on trying to line it up with my breath of fires i nearly failed a 15 key… which is sad
this is very interesting… i am going to need to try this out. what you’re saying here is pretty much upside down of what it says on peak of serenity 0.o
i am not at all questioning your credibility, your profile speaks for itself…
must try 
edit: your post here has actually inspired me to play brewmaster more intentionally, so thank you
Yes so those alone are very powerful buffs but the 2s additional cooldown reduction is so pivotal because all of the following are affected:
-Purifying Brew
-Celestial Brew
-Bonedust Brew
-Black Ox Brew,
-Ironskin Brew
And then, whenever you use a brew, Special Delivery deals damage too, and the tuning of RJW is too low to make the global worth it imo b/c BrM has so many buttons as is and trying to kite/affixes on top of BoCo on top of RJW is just too much lol (it would be cool if RJW was buffed some to increase skill ceiling, same for WW, as it’s tuned too low there too)
Then on top of that, Bonedust Brew increases the CDR from your abilities even more, creating a positive feedback loop which makes the spec SO MUCH FUN.
So make this macro:
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=15 Celestial Brew, Black Ox Brew
And use it instead of Celestial Brew on your bars.
The maximum number of brews is to dump all Purifyings (optimally) and use Celestial Brew then immediate Black Ox Brew get BoBr on CD ASAP for cooldown reduction.
This is such a fun fun fun and powerful defensive, allowing you to chain 4 purifying brews and 2 celestial brews.
Since we also have access to the BoCo effects, in a worst case survivability scenario, you could stall red stagger for 6 seconds (each time the next Purifying Brew will purify more stagger than typical, charging up Celestial Brew faster than what is possible with other builds — throw on 3 more stacks of improved Celestial Brew from BoCo) and then you have 2 of those for a total of 12 seconds red stagger stalled and 6 more stacks of impCelestial Brew from BoCo and then the additional stacks of imp brew from pausing stagger to get a safe big purify
For maximum damage:
Weapons of Order Ramp x4 → BOK → BoF → BDB → Ironskin → Purifying x2 → Celestial → Black Ox Brew → Purifying x2 → Celestial → Exploding Keg → SCK (the goal being to cast Exploding Keg to absorb the most Special Deliveries with all of your DoTS up and casting SCK to trigger the burn effect)
But in hard keys like for these fortified keys, using all 4 purifying brews and 2 celestial brews efficiently by staggering them out and do affix/kite/dmg it’s super fun. If there is a tank buster combo you can do it faster pace and react to each part of the tank combo, and then you have your other defensives for the next set, etc.
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With optimal BOK Keg Smash and Bone Dust Brew, you can get Black Ox Brew down to roughly 1.2 min, which is super fair.
2 Likes
Yea probably worth knowing that I theorycraft here on the WoW Forums they do it on Peak of Serenity and we kinda have a long history of disagreeing with eachother.
I just read the Peak of Serenity guide to get up to date info for what they reccomend for BrM and no offense but I think it’s a majorly suboptimal build in all circumstances for survivability and damage.
Black Ox Brew + Blackout Combo is 2-3x tankier than the peak’s build and do the same damage without RJW at the skill floor, and up to 10-15% more damage with perfect play.
Here is max damage balanced build:
BwQAPOfh8E5EV1u1/5sg+UnhAAAAAAAASAAAAAFKtkkQSSSrQAAAASLSLJSSSoQSaJIJANJSJlSiA
There is basically 1 flex talent point in the BRM Tree to swap around depending on mitigation requirements:
- Weapons of Order
- Pretense of Stability
- Fundamental Observation
So a max mitigation raid build might look something like this:
BwQAPOfh8E5EV1u1/5sg+UnhAAAAAAAASAAAAEUo0SSCJJJtCBAAAItk0SikkEtColgkABJSJlSiA
And then there are 5 flex talent points in the Monk Class Tree to swap around depending on mitigation requirements:
- Summon White Tiger Statue
- Resonant Fists
- Fatal Touch
- Generous Pour, Bounce Back, or Diffuse Magic
Guides always reccomend High Tolerance / Bob and Weave but I really think there are just better talents. Stagger doesn’t scale enough compared to the number and power of your brew usage so the brew related talents are better.
You need Black ox Brew and Blackout combo to be super survivable and also deal the most damage — not taking these talents is just like playing half of the class. They are absolutely fundamental
Not going to discuss stomp builds here because they’re not relevant this early on in the season where mitigation is more important.
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OPENER
(no tier — I’ll make a post once I get tier about what might be good with BoCo — as there are way more BoFs with Salsabim’s than with Scalding Brew, which is what I reccomend without tier. With Salsabim’s, you will definitely not be able to use BoCo for every ability without capping charges and we may see a haste breakpoint to land 1 more BoCo for Breath of Fire since it will Reset from Keg Smash too but generates healing and shield based on the damage it does, so we will want to optimize BoF much more with tier)
Dont use tiger palm in the opener, instead use RSK first for snap threat then quickly BoK Breath of Fire for mitigation
My opener ( WoO on CD) is typically:
RSK (much better instant threat) → BOK → (BoF if all mobs can be hit otherwise SCK → Keg Smash (this keg smash doesn’t need BoCo because on pull you mostly have all your brews) → BOK → Celestial Brew → (SCK for little more AoE threat before regular rotation or a BOK Keg Smash if ST)
If WoO then pop it as you are pulling and replace the SCK mentioned with Keg Smash to build the damage amp before going into normal rotation ( ideally a juicy BDB exploding keg)
This way, you can have your damage reduction from BoCo breath of fire while moving into position, purifying somewhere on pull and hopefully getting Celestial Flames to buff your next SCK, get initial threat then quickly pump out a 3 stack improved Celestial Brew to soften the pull (critical tanking concept to take the brunt of the on-pull damage/mechanics while healer/and group to position themselves too). If youve ever seen a tank get globalled on a trash pull its because they didnt “soften the pull” with Celestial Brew or some other CD like Dampen Harm and get 1 shot
Right now, with no tier bonuses, Scalding Brew + Charred Passions is more damage than Salsabim’s / Dragonfire, but once you have tier you’ll switch to Fiery Dragon Salsa build
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Stat Prio
Even though technically speaking a mastery/vers build is the highest survivability (and it will be a drop in dps) , I’ve never had to use my mastery brew build to survive with good play, but the option is there. I personally reccomend just maxing dps stats:
Vers = crit >> haste > mastery
As for enchants, they say choose between Leech or avoidance for back/bracers but I would say the leech is mandatory compared to avoidance. Leech is good and you already get avoidance from the monk tree.
As for embellishments, imo Lariat is Bis and then you can choose the other. You should have all vers gems regardless of the other secondary stats so that Lariat will only ever trigger the vers buff, as this is most optimal for survivability and damage.
For other embellishment, I recommend the Primary Stat on Interrupt/Stun from boots.
It’s basically a weak version of Sephuz’s Secret, but because other embellishments are tuned so low, it’s the best because 5% primary stat at this gear’s secondary stat inflation is BiS.
It’s a 30s CD that you can reliably trigger with Leg Sweep / Paralysis / Interrupt in M+ to sync with every 1 min Exploding Bone Dust Delivery:
(Bone Dust Brew → BOK → BoF → Boots → (Brew Spam if no mitigation needed) → Exploding Keg so Special Deliveries land in the 3s burn window → Be casting SCK for as much of the 3s window as possible, ideally with the WoO damage amp on the 2 min sync)
1 Like
this is philosophy more than monk but…
“Don’t let perfect get in the way of good.”
breath of fire specific
with just stagger, monk is taking 30% up front damage. if you use breath, its 28.5% up front damage or 27% with combo. and thats before factoring all those other juicy mitigations, like versatility or dodge. the margin for breath is a very small priority overallbrew has the most spinning plates (vdh is #2). expect imperfection.
at the highest level, brew tanking is stagger. to that end, brew engine keeps you alive reliably (engine meaning cooldown reset and charge recovery).
thats what psychi points to when talking about the importance of blackout combo and (imho to a lesser extent) black ox brew.
I personally do not think about every combo. I keep a shortlist in my head because there is too much to track otherwise.
What to Combo:
- Keg Smash
- Celestial Brew
- lmao
Worrying about the other issues, from threat to stagger management, is far more important.
2 Likes
Blackout Combo felt much more fluid & vital back around the Legion-era. Now it’s much more situational.
It’s not situational it’s hands down one of the mathematically most optimal talents and it’s extraordinarily hard to justify any build without it
I strongly disagree.
A blackout combo breath of fire into celestial flames is 15% damage reduction instead of the usual 5%
That is serious damage reduction and should absolutely be prioritized (goes from being some trivial effect to the same DR as baseline Ironskin brew to put it in perspective)
Having 10% extra DR is approx equal to 20% more stagger because you can only ever purify half of the stagger damage, this is a core reason why High Tolerance (4% stagger is best case a measley 2% DR and haste is one of our worst stats) and Bob and Weave (makes stagger last longer but doesn’t do much about the high DoT taken by stagger in high keys, unlike Black Ox Brew which provides immediate damage prevention, likewise, Blackout Combo Purifying Brew just flat out stops the stagger DoT for 3s so you can sit at maximum stagger for 3s and take no damage, purify, granting tons of Imp Celestial brew, and guarantee at least 3 charges of imp brew for every celestial, which you can now reset on command lol)
Easily gimmicking the extra 10% Dr for most breaths of Fire is way better
Maybe community perception of BrM is bad (from what I’ve heard ppl think it’s weak)
Because people are recommending silly things like ignoring core talents and rotational abilities on major guides
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This doesn’t even factor in the relevance of Breath of Fire damage for the tier bonuses
1 Like
thats definitely a take
stagger power isnt on only the purify but on normalizing the damage curve. you’re purifying against an amortization window and not each hit (which gets funky about how its actually mitigated). but the gist is that stagger lets dodge do some cooking, before even factoring your healer being less on edge…
again, a lot of spinning plates here
breath of fire i thought was 5%? celestial flames also 5%? meaning max 10% DR? last i cleared headspace to grok, the difference was basically a druid applying moonfire. how are you getting to 15%?
(because combo is another negligible 5%, ok back on track)
again, im not saying to flat out skip a breath, im saying comboing it is trivial except over duration when you can plan and coordinate a combo breath instead of other higher priority combos
my trash pull shortlist (probably not ideal) is smash, bok, celestial, breath, purify, bok, flame crane, keg smash, bok, and then my first bof combo. if i have deadspace, ill rotate in rsks but im also working with last tier.
im glad you mention tier too, because this is another example of breath being meme-worthy.
- 2 pieces (Brewmaster) : Breath of Fire deals 40% bonus damage as Shadowflame and causes you to heal for 50% of your Fire damage dealt.
breath ends up being less than 5% of the overall profile in terms of damage. as soon as you factor the 2pc buff you might see it jump a little bit but it will drop back down again after 4pc. so in terms of the overall leech the skill adds is right around 2%, where comboing wont move the needle short term
the damage on breath isnt on breath but on letting your kicks do more damage. breath good, combo breath meh.
- 4 pieces (Brewmaster) : Your attacks against targets afflicted by Breath of Fire have a chance to deal 15% extra damage as Shadowflame, and each Celestial Brew also grants a Stagger absorb for 100% of the Shadowflame damage you have dealt, causing damage delayed by Stagger to instead be prevented.
all of the power here comes from the bonedust brew effect of 15% multistrike damage (proc too though - no idea on proc rate). so it doesnt really matter how strong of a breath is up, only that breath is up to get the effect. combo or not…
once you get into the stagger absorb calcs, you double down on exactly what im saying that stagger is the core of monk tanking. master stagger, master the spec.
tldr here, breath is a maintenance ability to have up, not a core skill to maximize its effect
also, trying to approach this with mindset that op is someone who has far fewer hours on class than us
I’ll address you point by point:
Stagger is a highly interesting mathematical mechanic just like Ignite. I could get all mathy and talk about discrete optimization but instead I’ll just tell you the gameplay:
General Guidelines
-Don’t cap purifying brew except if tank buster in 3s
-Use purifying brew immediately after the biggest damage event in any ~12 second window
Very High Stagger Guidelines
-Try not to use purifying brew unless you can use another 1 within 5s (this is for 2 reasons: Pretense of Instability and for Chain Stagger Pause rotation: Blackout Combo Purifying Brew Blackout Kick Purifying Brew Blackout Kick Celestial Brew (monster shield).
Monks are just sitting at red stagger too long and trying to say “amortizing windows”
Just death strike it and move on — trust me I’ve done the math and sparing you guys
So again, even though BoF is around 3-4% right now, I’m expecting it to jump to 8-10% with tier and when you compare the damage it’s doing relative to your health pool (~1 million) you can see that it will be refilling your healthbar multiple times over if it’s doing 10M or more damage per dungeon
With Blackout Combo increasing its damage by 200%, and reset on Keg Smash, it will be a lot more damage and like I said it’s not about the total damage but rather the damage relative to your health pool
Absolutely incorrect. Blackout Kick Breath of Fire Celestial Flames Spinning Crane kick to maintain that 15% DR is critical lol
Stop scoffing at 15% DR it’s literally like perms baseline Stoneskin if you keep it up with skilled play
im scoffing at 5% dr because it is trivial
keep up bof but skipping a combo for higher priority combos is ok.
im okay getting into the math if you can gimme the proofs on these claims
It’s 15% stop calling it 5% already
It’s not hard to Blackout Kick Breath of Fire and Spinning Crane Kick when the giant CELESTIAL FLAMES pops up on your screen so just stop being difficult
5% Breath
5% Celestial
5% Combo
Its okay not to combo
I’m doing my best here, since math is your strong suit, to bring the English to meet you halfway.
Bro the difference between a 10% DR in a 20 fortified key and a 15% DR in a 20 fortified key actually is nontrivial
It’s MILLIONS of damage. 5% of MILLIONS could just be within the dynamic range of what is viable with the tank and healer healing
So please stop being difficult
5% DR Is better than 4% stagger anyways
Only half the damage can ever be purifier so the upper limit is a 2% DR so this just showcases how much more important BOK BoF Compared to High Tolerance.
Just that 5% DR is literally almost 2 High Tolerances
Is op doing 20 keys or 15s?
I’m not arguing for mathematical perfection here but realistic gameplay expectations for someone trying to understand what’s happening under the hood.