Talent Builds
Raid Offensive
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This talent build is for advanced players looking to push their damage to its limits in a raid setting. You don't have access to a handful of defensive talents so it can be more punishing to make mistakes. I'd only recommend this to players comfortable with the spec and encounters they are playing it in.
Raid Defensive
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This talent build is for players that are generally newer to the spec, or for encounters that are particularly difficult. You shouldn't have much of a problem surviving playing these talents as long as you don't let your Shuffle drop!
M+ Offensive
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This talent build has a solid mix of defensive and offensive talents, leaning more into the offensive side of things. Talents such as chi surge, facepalm and counterstrike can all be shifted away from for defensive options if you feel you need a little more durability.
Mythic+ Defensive
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This talent build is extremely defensive. Not only will you have no problem surviving bosses with Ox stance, but having access to increased brew cooldown and buffing our fort brew even more adds a lot of extra durability to the spec.
Class Talents
The Monk class tree has a lot to play with now. You have an abundance of talent points to move around, and below you will find a layout of all the options available to us in the Class tree.
Important/Essential: The talents highlighted in Green are essential talents you will not deviate from. You will always use these talents as they are either too powerful not to have, or are necessary to give you access to talents that are powerful.
Optional: The talents highlighted in Yellow are optional talents that you can swap between in any given scenario.
Banned: The talents highlighted in Red are bad talents that you should not use.
Notable talents
Dampen Harm/Dance of the Wind - The choice here will typically be Dampen harm as it’s very nice to have an additional large defensive to press in times of need. Dance of the Wind only really has value in specific Mythic+ dungeons, and even then I’d personally still recommend Dampen as it’s more forgiving for even the most advanced Brewmaster players, with more of an impact.
Yu’lons Grace/Diffuse Magic - In most situations I’d recommend Diffuse as it’s quite handy to have an extra, large defensive cooldown. Yu’lon’s Grace is definitely good, allowing the damage smoothing nature of Brewmaster to do it’s work, however it’s only consumed by magic damage. So in most cases you’ll get more value from Diffuse even though the healing meters love Yu’lon’s Grace.
Detox - There are numerous encounters where Detox has a use and it’s a powerful piece of utility in those scenarios that I’d definitely recommend taking if needed.
Pressure Points - Any time an enrage effect takes place, this can benefit you greatly. It’s almost exclusively a dungeon specific talent as there aren’t any raid encounters with an enrage.
Windwalking - Gotta go fast. You have extra points to play with in the monk class tree as a brewmaster, so why not buff yourself and your party with some extra movement speed?
Spec Talents
In this section I will discuss some of the more notable talent nodes, where you want to use them and how they synergise with your spec.
Elixir of Determination - This is an extremely powerful 1 point talent node right near the top of our spec tree. The absorb is based on how much damage you’re purifying, and can be treated as an extra defensive/safety net. It cannot occur more than once every 15 seconds so I do recommend tracking this where possible.
August Blessing/One with the Wind - Both of these talents are very minor defensive gains. They provide you access to Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox, and each one is more beneficial in different content. August Blessing sees more potential in Raid whereas One with the Wind sees more potential in Mythic+.
High Tolerance - This is easily one of your best purely defensive talent options. The value from this is very high if you ever feel you need extra durability.
Face Palm - This talent is a very strong single damage option. It does have minor defensive value, but it’s almost exclusively used for the damage. It incentivises more tiger palms, which synergises with our Shado-pan hero talent to generate flurry charges, which is even more damage.
Anvil & Stave - This is a purely defensive talent node that gives us access to more brew cooldown reduction. It’s far better in Mythic+ than it is raid due to the reduction rate from melee attacks being more frequent.
Ox stance - Ox stance and its capstones provide large defensive benefits against any form of tank buster. Black Ox Adept is the weaker capstone of the two, as Ox stance doesn’t proc too often so you end up overcapping on stacks regardless. Heightened Guard allows you to proc it more reliably and more often.
Blackout combo - This talent adds a level of complexity to the spec. It has the potential to add both a large amount of damage and a large amount of defensive bonuses to you. It’s not typically recommended to newcomers of the spec, however once you’re more comfortable this talent is too good to pass up.
Hero Talents
As of right now, Shado-pan is strictly better than Master of Harmony. It provides more damage and damage reduction than its Master of Harmony brother, although that doesn’t necessarily mean Master of Harmony is bad. Prior to the most recent buffs to Shado-pan, Master of Harmony was superior in primarily physical damage based encounters, as the multiple buffs to our stagger, combined with an extra charge of celestial brew, made it quite strong. Pair that with the ability to essentially choose when you want to do damage with your vitality, it makes for a solid hero talent tree. You can make both work, however Shado-pan is better right now in all forms of content.
Below is my recommended set-ups for each of the hero talents in all forms of content.
