Hi! I don’t have Alpha access, but I wanted to give my two cents about Monk’s Brewmaster talents. I’ve played Brewmaster since Legion, mained it since Dazar’alor, getting every Cutting Edge (except for Crucible) since then. I don’t have much experience in high keys since I never got a group interested in doing keys past +20, but I’ve also done some tanking in dungeons.
First, let me say there’re some great things in these trees. Having Diffuse Magic is huge, as well as the Fundamental Observation talent. And with Dampen Harm and two charges of Fortifying Brew, we go from having almost no defensive cooldowns in Shadowlands, to being able to use 5 defensive cooldowns in a row.
Brewmaster spec tree:
Gift of the Ox: this is a 2 points talent node for an ability we already have, but the issue with this is that the tooltip doesn’t change between 1 and 2 points (might be just a tooltip issue from Wowhead?). What’s the intent with the second point? Does the healing increases, or the proc?
Quick Sip: on a similar note, this talent doesn’t change between 1 and 2 points, I guess the intention will be that the purified Stagger changes from 1% to 2%?. And based on the tooltip, the purified damage happens whenever you gain 3 seconds of Shuffle, but most of the time (specially while Spinning Crane Kick) Shuffle is already at its maximum duration. Will this purified Stagger still happen if Shuffle is capped and can’t be extended any further?
Hit Scheme and Shadowboxing Treads: the Hit Scheme talent says that that Keg Smash damage is increased when you deal damage with Blackout Kick (not when you cast it). Does it mean it synergizes with Shadowboxing Treads, which makes Blackout Kick hit additional targets? Someone with Alpha might answer this one for me.
Zen Meditation and Fundamental Observation: this might an issue with Wowhead’s tooltip, or maybe a leftover of the current rank 2 implemented in Shadowlands, but the baseline Zen Meditation already says movement doesn’t break it. Is the intent of Zen Meditation to still be usable while moving, even if you don’t pick the Fundamental Observation talent?
Face Palm: this one feels like a dead talent. Right now, Tiger Palm has really low priority in the rotation. Tiger Palm now has to compete with new spells like Rising Sun Kick, and if talents like Quick Sip and Charred Passions are worth it, Spinning Crane Kick will be the default energy dump, meaning we might not press Tiger Palm at all. But we still need to pick it to get to Shadowboxing Treads (great talent if it synergizes with Hit Scheme). Right now, the only way I see Tiger Palm becoming a high priority bonus, is with both the Counterstrike and Blackout Combo talents, but that’s a lot of investment of talents that might not even be worth it.
Shocking Bolt: this one is interesting, and while I know this talent is not yet implemented, the tooltip is really confusing. Is the intent of the spell to add Crackling Jade Lightning to the Brewmaster’s rotation? Is it to make it a stronger spell to generate aggro on far away enemies by dealing its full damage instantly? Why does it make Crackling Jade Lightning cost 40 less energy, if the initial cast costs 20 energy? I know the talent is not finished, but it’s not clear what role it should have in the spec’s rotation.
Fluidity of Motion: right now it says “Blackout Kick’s cooldown is reduced by 1 sec and its damage by 10%”. Is that 10% supposed to be reduced as well? Or is it supposed to be “damage increased by 10%” and it’s just missing one word?
Dragonfire Brew: this one might be answered by anyone with Alpha access, but does the increased Breath of Fire damage applies to the dot? And does it work with the dot applied by Celestial Flames?
Blackout Combo: while we’re talking about Breath of Fire, if you Blackout Combo with Breath of Fire, is the dot damage increased by 50% as well? And applying the dot with Celestial Flames would overwrite this buffed dot?
Exploding Keg: I just wanted to say that I really love how much they buffed this spell, I think it might have some great synergies with Bonedust Brew. My only question is how long does the extra fire damage last, and if it ticks with any damage source (like multiple Spinning Crane Kick ticks).
Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox: we can pick the current rank 2 of this spell as a talent. The talent (and the current rank 2) says that only the damage purified by Niuzao is added to its stomp, but currently in Shadowlands, the damage purified previously is added as well (which forces you to delay the casts of WoO and Angry Dave until you’ve purified some damage). It makes sense that it behaves this way since the pet instantly Stomps as soon as it’s summoned, but maybe the tooltip should be adjusted.
Call to Arms: and now the big issue with this current legendary effect brought back to Dragonfligth. Niuzao the Black Ox can deal a ton of damage in encounters with heavy tank damage, specially if you do degenerate thing like getting multiple Soul Reaper stacks in Anduin. This creates two issues with the Call to Arms effect:
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First, since the only reason Niuzao is a good spell is because of its ability to convert the purified damage to Stomp damage, the only way this talent becomes useful is if you pick all the Niuzao talents as well. It feels weird that this capstone talent only works if you pick the talents behind other capstones.
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Second, Niuzao’s stomp is heavily bugged currently in Shadowlands. The bug itself is that Niuzao won’t automatically use its Stomp ability on targets with very large hitboxes, like Halondrus, the Eye, Tarargrue, Mueh’zala, King Mechaong’s last phase, Timecap’n Hooktail, and sometimes even the Jailer. The way we Brewmasters found to fix it was to just make a macro to use it manually. But this macro doesn’t work on the Niuzao summoned by the Call to Arms legendary effect (and I guess it won’t work with the Call to Arms talent, since it’s the same). Since all the relevant damage Niuzao does comes from its Stomp, this means that the talent won’t work on targets with very large hitboxes. And in an expansion focused on Dragons, I fear that this talent won’t work on a lot of bosses.
General Class Tree Feedback:
Soothing Mist: really a spell I didn’t expect to become class wide. While I could see some situations in which Brewmasters could use it (maybe something similar like the Sun King’s Salvation encounter), it’s really weird that we’re forced to pick it to get a second charge of Roll and the increased healing taken talent. By the way, does it have an energy cost?
Heavy Air: do we really need a talent that makes Crackling Jade Lightning have 10 more yards of range? Let’s be real, the only reason we would pick it is to get the Grace of the Crane talent. Not appealing at all.
Rising Sun Kick: another spell I didn’t expect to get class wide. While it’s not a bad spell for Brewmasters, it doesn’t interact at all with the spec’s toolkit. Mistweaver has talents that interact with this spell, so maybe the same could be done for us. Maybe it could interact with talents like Charred Passions, Blackout Combo? Or maybe make it reduce your brews cooldown, or give you Elusive Brawler stacks? I fear that depending on tuning, it might be a high priority spell that we have to press and forget during our rotation, and does nothing but damage. Also, it has a Chi cost for WW and a mana cost for MW, I fear that an energy cost will eventually be added for BrM.
Well, those are my two cents about the spec. There’re some really great ideas and talents in this tree, I just wanted to get some clarification on some of those, and bring light to some issues that are not that really well known about the spec.
Thanks for anyone that took the time to read it!