Brewmaster is currently the least played tank in M+ across all M+ levels, both due to a generic unpopularity of the class/spec due to it’s complexity as well as a perceived weakened state of the spec compared to other tanks. While the spec is not incapable of clearing content, it needs some help in a lot of areas, namely: Utility, Defensives/AoE scaling and a pruning of necessary/mandatory talents in the spec tree.
Pure Tuning Changes
Some changes that could help, but ultimately not completely fix the spec, that only require tuning adjustments are as follows:
- Buff Celestial Brew. Increasing the baseline value for Celestial Brew would make it feel more like the mini-cooldown it is intended to be and help moderately with Brewmaster’s lack of scaling in AoE content.
- Lower the base CD of Fort Brew for Brewmasters. It does not need to match the CD for WW and MW, but the current 6m/4m with Expeditious is a bit much for a M+ environment, where our only real pack-to-pack defensives are Fort Brew and Dampen Harm, both at around a ~2m CD after factoring in Brew CDR.
- Buff Elixir of Determination. It does not need to be its original value, but its current value is absolutely pitiful and the weakest pseudo-cheat death/low health proc among any tank. Making it something like 50% of recently purified stagger, minimum 12% of max health would be huge and nowhere near broken.
- Buff Mastery scaling and revert some of the nerfs we saw in TWW Prepatch in general
Talent Changes
Below are some changes that I believe will help Brewmaster long-term. I will break it into several other categories mentioned above: Utility, Defensives & AoE Scaling and lastly excessive mandatory/useless talents.
Utility
Brewmaster current offers very little in the way of utility compared to other tanks. The extent of our utility is “nice, but not extremely helpful” and the most impactful of our utilities are a Poison/Disease dispel (which is shared with many other specs, even other tanks) and throwing some instant vivifies at the right time.
Both of the primary suggestions I have for Brewmaster utility have been said by others, most recently in an Equinox video: The original Black Ox Statue and Ring of Peace on choice nodes with their respective modern counterparts.
The original Black Ox Brew had a chance to apply Guard, now Celestial Brew, to allies when the Brewmaster dealt damage. This would be absolutely massive for group survivability and actually allow us to aid the group in living pre-damage other than throwing a single vivify and hoping it’s enough. For the sake of modern gameplay, you could make this a 1.5-2m CD that applies CB on placement and has a chance to refresh it on damage dealt, or just have a high chance with a long duration on both the statue and buff so that it requires cognizance from the Brewmaster of incoming group damage.
The Ring of Peace in question would be applied to a friendly target, silencing and disarming all nearby enemies for 4s, then those in the radius who attack or cast harmful spells will be silenced/disarmed again for 4s. Durations can be modified, as can cooldowns, to be in line with similar abilities. This would be unique (due to the disarm effect and placement on a friendly) to Monks, allowing influential useful utility.
Another suggestion would be something like Avert Harm or Guided Meditation making their way from the PVP tree to the PVE tree for Brewmaster. Avert Harm itself is good, but balanced by it’s small radius. Guided Meditation would make Zen Meditation feel like an actually useful button rather than something you press maybe two or three times in an entire dungeon as a backup defensive for very specific mechanics.
Defensives & AoE Scaling
Currently Brewmaster is the only tank that lacks any AoE scaling at all. The extent of our “AoE scaling”, if you can call it that, is BoK’s subsidiary effects from SBT, which only extends to 3 target cleave. Anvil & Stave, what seems to be intended as AoE scaling, is standardized between target counts and not truly AoE scaling. I believe there are many ways to help with this, while also addressing the concerns of Brewmaster’s long cooldowns that hurt it’s standing in M+. Some of these talents could be replacements for mandatory/useless talents that really should be pruned and made baseline.
I should note that at this point I do not expect a full rework for Brewmaster in 11.1, but would look toward a future patch.
- Firestone Walkers. This Legion Legendary gave 2s of CDR to Fort Brew for each enemy hit by Breath of Fire, up to 6s. Having a hard cap on it seems healthy, and would give it synchronicity with Sal’Salabim’s, giving a potent combo in M+ for extra FB CDR without significantly bolstering our strength in raid or bosses.
- Boiling Brew. This Azerite trait made BoF deal additional damage, as well as gave it a chance to summon a Healing Sphere. This naturally scales higher in value in AoE, and would create higher emphasis on BoF in general paired with the above.
- T18/Hellfire Citadel 4pc Bonus. This 4pc gave 1s of CDR to Purifying Brew and what is now Celestial Brew for each Healing Sphere consumed. This doesn’t have AoE scaling in and of itself, but paired with Boiling Brew would give some potent CDR while not significantly bolstering our ST/Boss performance.
- Keg of the Heavens. An extremely popular 4pc from Shadowlands that gave Brewmaster a source of sustained healing and a maximum health increase. You could chop off the Keg Smash damage amp, as KS doesn’t really need yet another damage amp, and it would still help significantly when paired with other options.
These effects, all of which already exist in the game and would simply need scaled up and added to the tree.
Niuzao and Zen Meditation
This is a bit of a sub-point to the defensive issue, but currently Brewmaster lacks defensive to rotate in M+ in AoE specifically. Our only universal defensives are Dampen Harm and Fortifying Brew, both of which teeter around a 2m CD when factoring in Brew CDR, maybe slightly less for Fort Brew if you’re really spamming Blackout Combo → Keg Smash.
Brewmaster is currently the only monk spec that does not take their celestial outside of in Raid for a small damage bonus. This is frankly absurd in my opinion. Even with all 4 Niuzao points (effectively 6 if we count the one required for pathing and CTA) he does an absurdly small amount of damage without offering a significant defensive increase. I believe the only real way to salvage him as a button is to lean more heavily into either the defensive or offensive side of him, preferably Defensive in my opinion. Fold all 4 upgrade talents for Niuzao into the baseline ability, or at most massively buff Walk With the Ox’s CDR and make a Jade Bond/Gift of the Celestials-esque choice node. Reduce Niuzao’s baseline CD to 2m to standardize it with the other two specs (currently it’s baseline 3m for MW, but that’s getting changed in 11.1). Next tie in another defensive component to Niuzao. Something like a Spirit Link shared between Niuzao and the Monk, splitting health in addition to the stagger, or even just a flat DR while Niuzao is active would go extremely far. Also add a connecting node from Elixir of Determination so it’s actually accessible without wasting a point on either of two relatively weak talents.
Zen Meditation is such a niche button in it’s current state that it’s asinine that it’s made it this far. Prot Paladin can go fully immune while still doing damage 2-3 times in the time it takes for ZM to recharge. Removing Fundamental Observation was not the play. Make ZM baseline and bring back the Legion version of Fundamental Observation. The tradeoff of ZM should be that you are unable to attack, not that you cannot move, cannot attack and have it absorb one hit every 5m. You could add another talent beneath it that upgrades ZM to reflect a portion of post-mitigated damage with a significantly increased threat modifier. This would make the button more interesting, reduce some of it’s downsides without eliminating them and allow it to be more useful in larger AoE pulls as you are less likely to lose threat if you use it early into a pull. That’s just a cook though.
Mandatory/Useless Talents
Currently the Brewmaster tree just feels poorly. It has many talents from top to bottom that are either 100% mandatory for the spec to function or so weak that they are either never chosen or, at most, only taken for pathing. From top to bottom, these include:
Useless Talents
- Staggering Strikes. Extremely weak and borderline unplayable. The only place it is decent in is extremely low end content, but even then you’re in so little danger that you’re likely better just taking anything that does damage.
- One With the Wind & Strike At Dawn. Both of these on their own are relatively weak. The only reason they see play currently is to avoid ZM, which is poor design in general. Stacking them together, as they were in their tier set, would at least make them somewhat worth it in AoE environments.
- Celestial Flames. IIRC gets overwritten by BoC BoF, which does the same thing but controlled.
- All of the Niuzao talents. See above.
- Fort Brew: Determination. Relatively weak. Frankly you could buff this significantly, make Fort Brew 4m baseline for Brew and put this on the choice node with Ironshell and I still doubt it’d be taken.
- Fluidity of Motion. Just an extremely terrible talent.
- Black Ox Adept & Heightened Guard. Both are pretty mediocre. BOA is terribly and HG is only taken to make Ox Stance more reliably proc. Frankly both could just be folded into Ox Stance and it would be fine. Sub-capstone design is uninspiring.
- Call to Arms. Not useless per se, but only taken because it’s a moderate damage increase. Any of the Niuzao fixes above would fix this talent.
- Press the Advantage. Currently has no interaction with either hero talent, denying a large portion of damage, and requires near robotic play to do less damage. It’s the epitome of a noob trap.
Mandatory Talents
Excluding talents that are required for pathing to these, Brewmaster has at least 10 talent points that are entirely mandatory for the spec to function in any decent capacity, spread through the top to the bottom of the tree. While I understand that some mandatory talents are perceived as necessary, it’s a bit excessive, especially when some of these could be made baseline to make way for more interesting choices. These talents include:
- Keg Smash
- Purifying Brew
- Shuffle
- Gift of the Ox / Spirit of the Ox
- Celestial Brew
- Breath of Fire
- Exploding Keg
- Stormstout’s Last Keg
- Weapons of Order (or PTA, I suppose)
I’ve already made some suggestions for talents that could take any of their places, and many others have provided options as well.
Arbitrary Choice Nodes
This is a sub-point, but most of our choice nodes just do not make sense. Special Delivery / Rushing Jade Wind makes sense. An active or passive AoE. Scalding Brew / Sal’salabim’s makes sense. BoF causing one of your hardest hitters to do more damage or more casts of BoF. Dragonfire Brew / Charred Passions makes sense. More BoF damage or BoF boosting BoK/SCK damage.
Bob and Weave / Black Ox Brew and Light Brewing / Training of Niuzao make no sense whatsoever. More stagger duration versus an instant brew/energy reset. They do not directly interact with the same mechanic. Stagger granting secondaries or lower brew cooldowns. Again, they do not interact with the same mechanic. Swapping them to Black Ox Brew / Light Brewing and Training of Niuzao / Bob and Weave would at least make sense. One node is about brew CDs, another node about stagger. However, I do not believe they should be on a node at all. Having access to all 4 would not be gamebreaking by any means.
Don’t even get me started on SBT/Fluidity of Motion and WoO/PTA.
In Closing
Despite the deceptive appearance this massive wall of text creates, Brewmaster doesn’t actually need much. Please give the spec the attention it deserves, especially considering all of the negative feedback you’ve been receiving due to the lack of changes. I believe Brewmaster is the only spec to get zero changes, good or bad, in 11.1 That is just absurd, especially with complete silence from the devs. It is crazy to me that there hasn’t at least been a “We think Brewmaster is in a good spot” or “We think Brewmaster needs some attention, though we will have to delay it until a later patch” message yet. People do play the spec, and it’s very possible more would if they believed it wasn’t doomed to being terrible and brought something to the group =)