Brewmaster Monk Playstyle and Rotation Guide

General Priority List:

Brewmaster works off a priority list rather than a rotation and it’s highly dependant on talent choices.

1. Execute an enemy with Touch of Death if possible.
2. Use Summon White Tiger Statue if your enemies will be near it for the duration.
3. Use Blackout Kick to trigger Blackout combo + Elusive Brawler
4. Consume Blackout combo buff with Tiger Palm on single target, Breath of Fire on multiple targets.
5. Keg Smash
6. Breath of Fire
7. Weapons of Order
8. Rising Sun Kick
9. Rushing Jade Wind
10. Exploding Keg
11. Tiger Palm / Spinning Crane Kick
12. Chi Wave

General Rotation:

This assumes you’re not inside any cooldowns like Weapons of Order and Don’t have any that need to be used like Exploding Keg.

Single Target:

1. Blackout Kick to trigger Blackout Combo
2. Tiger Palm to consume the Blackout Combo buff
3. Kegsmash
4. Breath of Fire
5. Blackout Kick to trigger Blackout Combo
6. Rising Sun Kick
7. Tiger Palm

Multi-Target:

1. Blackout Kick to trigger Blackout Combo
2. Breath of Fire
3. Kegsmash
4. Rising Sun Kick
5. Spinning Crane Kick

Opener

Single Target:

1. Rushing Jade Wind Pre-pull
2. Kegsmash to pull
3. Breath of Fire
4. Blackout Kick
5. Tiger Palm (Skip if Press the advantage talented)
6. Summon White Tiger Statue
7. Weapons of Order
8. Kegsmash
9. Rising Sun Kick
10. Refresh Rushing Jade Wind
11. Bonedust Brew
12. Exploding Keg

Multi Target:

1. Rushing Jade Wind Pre-pull
2. Kegsmash to pull
3. Summon White Tiger Statue
4. Weapons of Order
5. Kegsmash
6. Breath of Fire
7. Bonedust Brew
8. Exploding Keg
9. Spinning Crane Kick

Playstyle

Let’s talk Stagger. Brewmasters fundamentally revolve around their stagger passive to smooth out incoming damage. Due to the nature of Stagger, Brewmasters tend to have a slightly lower Health pool than their tank counterparts, which can be punishing if you aren’t prepared.

While you are taking damage you’ll notice one of three debuffs applied to you at any given time:

• Light stagger (Green) - This indicates your stagger amount is low and you’re fairly safe. This DoT will be anywhere from 1% of your Max Health to 29%.
• Moderate Stagger (Yellow) - This indicates your stagger is at a decent amount, and you should start thinking about ways to mitigate or clear this. This DoT will be anywhere from 30% to 59% of your Max Health.
• Heavy Stagger (Red) - This indicates your stagger is high and you are likely in danger if you don’t have any ways to clear or help mitigate this. This DoT will be anywhere from 60% of your max HP or more.

The harder content you do, the more often you’ll be dipping into or even just sitting inside of heavy stagger. As long as you are receiving a steady amount of healing, whatever the source, you’ll be fine.

Shuffle is an important buff to maintain, as it greatly improves the effectiveness of your Stagger. Without this, I’d argue stagger is almost useless in the current patch. Fortunately, you don’t really need to think about this too often as you gain it through multiple abilities in your core rotation.

Another way to make Stagger greatly more effective, is through the use of Purifying Brew. Purifying brew has 2 charges, and the cooldown of which, along with every other Brew your have in your arsenal, is reduced through a multitude of ways (Tiger palm, Keg smash, and certain other talents). What Purifying Brew does is cleanse 50% of your current stagger amount, as well as grant you a stacking buff (based on the amount you cleanse), to increase the size of your Celestial Brew.

So that tank buster you just got hit in the face with? Stagger reduces the amount (varies depending on agility amount), turns it into a DoT, and then you can cleanse that through Purifying Brew to effectively mitigate and reduce the amount of damage you’re actually taking. It sounds complicated but I promise it’s not!

Finally, this all feeds back into the tool that is Celestial Brew. Now the base absorb amount of this ability is rather lackluster, but through clever use of Purifying Brew in combination with the talent Improved Celestial Brew, you can over triple the absorb amount, making it a very powerful defensive tool for us.