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Brewmaster Monk: First Impression of the New Monk Talent Trees in Dragonflight
Dragonflight
Publié
28/08/2022 à 20:00
par
Llarold
With the reveal of the Dragonflight Monk talent trees, our Brewmaster Monk writer Llarold provides initial reactions and thoughts on this revamped system. We break down the Brewmaster Monk talent trees, discussing the new talents and providing some sample builds. Join us as we predict how this class could play in Dragonflight!
To learn about the best PvE talent builds in Dragonflight for this class, and export these builds into the game, please check out our Brewmaster, Mistweaver, and Windwalker Monk class guides:
Brewmaster Monk Talent BuildsMistweaver Monk Talent BuildsWindwalker Monk Talent Builds
First Thoughts on Brewmaster Monk in Dragonflight
Dragonflight Monk Talent Trees were revealed last week, and Brewmaster Monks are looking pretty
interesting
. Good overall, but a little disappointing in some spots. There are some talent interactions deep in the Brewmaster spec side of the talent tree that are really fun and powerful, but there's a decent amount of low-value filler you have to pass through to get there. There’s still plenty of time to provide feedback and for Blizzard to work out the issues. If the tree went live as-is, the class would still be a tier 1 raid tank, probably mid-table in Mythic+. Business as usual, no reason to be concerned.
Lots of abilities have had their core functionality split into multiple nodes. Do you want to have to spend two talent points to get Purifying Brew? How about three talent points to get Fortifying Brew? Probably not, but that’s what they cost. You probably wouldn't have come out of the Dragonflight reveal thinking you'd have to spend a talent point for a second charge of Roll, or the move speed bonus from Provoke that Monks have enjoyed since they were first introduced. It's a disappointment.
On a more positive note, you might have hoped to regain access to defensive cooldowns like Diffuse Magic, and you do, but it isn't exclusive with Dampen Harm anymore. You can have both pretty easily. That's great.
Let's be clear: Brewmaster Monk was strong throughout all of Shadowlands, aside from very early Sire Denathrius progression at the world-first level. When it looked like Monk might start to slip midway through the Patch 9.2 PTR, a rework to the 4-piece tier set bonus propelled the class to once again perform at the highest level, falling only behind even-more-heavily-buffed Blood DK as Patch 9.2 progressed.
Brewmaster Monk hasn't really lost any of the core power available to the spec other than that 4-piece tier set bonus heading into Dragonflight. The spec has gained, relative to Shadowlands, extra Legendary powers and a few talents that were in shared rows. That's good. Brewmaster looks stronger in Dragonflight than non-tier-set-wearing Brewmasters were in Shadowlands. The main weaknesses that have plagued Brewmaster Monks since the Legion rework have been small health pools, spell damage, and limited self-healing. Brewmasters are gaining some more self-healing in their kit in Dragonflight, and a lot more defensive cooldown availability. That's great. With the loss of the tier set bonuses, health pools will return to being very small. Bye bye, free 100,000 max health bonus.
Brewmaster has arguably gained less defensive power than other tanks, but it was starting ahead of the pack going into this race. Is that a balanced design? Yeah, probably. At least
Force de Sal’salabim
is coming back. That's really fun.
Monk Class Talent Tree
Here is a pretty normal setup for the Monk generic talent tree:
What’s New?
Brewmaster Monks don’t have much that is new in the generic Monk tree. There are some passive scaling bonuses such as
Présence apaisante
and
Férocité de Xuen
, but these are very boring.
Let’s start with the big positives in this tree:
Soif du tigre
is given to Brewmasters for free, and you can take
Torpille de chi
or
Vélocité
later in the tree. Increased mobility, that’s great!
Diffusion de la magie
is available to Brewmasters again, and you can take both it and
Atténuation du mal
at the same time. That’s great, too!
Coup de pied du soleil levant
is a new skill, and its value as a positive or negative is debatable. While it is by far your highest-damage single-target skill, it is functionally a glorified autoattack. There is zero mechanical interaction. It has a cooldown, you press the button, it deals damage, that is the end of the exchange. Damage is good, but it competes for globals with Rushing Jade Wind, essentially pushing it out of the rotation. Kinda disappointing.
Invocation de statue de tigre blanc
is a new capstone talent. It basically just deals AoE damage. This is a very underdeveloped idea. Kinda boring.
Now let’s get to stuff that just isn’t good at all. The majority of new skills available to Brewmaster Monks are heals from the Mistweaver side of the tree, which are functionally pretty useless. There are also a number of talent-point-hungry options on the right side and center of the tree that cost a lot, but they add very little.
You are required to path through
Brume apaisante
, which is useless, to acquire
Roulade
. You can’t channel heals while tanking. This sucks. Roll is a core skill, you’re charging Monks for core functionality, which isn’t necessarily wrong, but putting it behind healing skills that have zero combat value for two of the class’ specs is bad design. Shifting
Roulade
toward the middle of the tree seems like a no-brainer. What Monk doesn't want to Roll?
The ability to cast instant Vivifies via
Vivification vivace
is
hypothetically
interesting, but it’s 1) bad and 2) evil. The resource cost associated with throwing around instant heals on a Monk is pretty substantial. Using self-Vivifies (OR VIVIFYING PARTY MEMBERS, AHHHHHHHHH) in combat will come at a pretty hefty offensive & defensive cost. It's a design that has worked on Paladin because you're spending an extremely overcapped resource (Holy Power/Shield of the Righteous uptime) on self-healing or spot healing the party. Slamming self-heals on a Monk is currently tuned to be pretty strong, but it's very annoying.
Onde de chi
has been lost behind bad tree pathing. You need to spend three points on Vivify talents in order to access it. Bye.
Paralysie
blocks the right side of the tree. That’s fine, it’s a useful CC.
Paralysie améliorée
(Rank 2) is immediately below it, also blocking the right-hand path. Two points for one CC. Come on now.
Boisson fortifiante
is right below them, and it’s your main defensive cooldown as a Monk, we love to see it!
Immediately below it is the choice node of
Boisson fortifiante : Détermination
or
Fortification expéditive
, where you’re once again paying twice to get the functionality of a single skill.
Provocation hâtive
has had its speed component separated from the core skill and handed back as a talent on the Mistweaver side of the tree.
Invocation d’une statue du Buffle noir
, a talent that had value on Stone Legion Generals and zero other fights in raids this expansion, and is usually
actively harmful
in Mythic+ is the capstone tree of the right side of the generic Monk tree. This sucks.
Fuir la réalité
, a PvP Legendary from Shadowlands that saw <1% usage rates, is a 2-point talent that blockades the left-side capstone talent. Don't worry,
Invocation d’une statue du Serpent de jade
is useless anyways.
Initial Impressions
Prior to Shadowlands, Brewmaster Monk was a spec that had a small, efficient rotation and defensive toolkit. The class never had a massive number of skills, but the ones it had were all impactful, interacted with each other, and had short cooldowns. Shadowlands ballooned Monk’s core rotational keybinds, and Dragonflight is adding more.
Coup de pied du soleil levant
doesn’t add functionality or defensive value to Brewmaster, it’s just a new keybind that you push every 8-9 seconds to maximize your damage. That's not a bad thing. Damage is good, but
Coup de pied du soleil levant
will push
Vent de jade fulgurant
out of viability due to GCD friction. RJW offers a lot of consistent AoE damage, as well as easy AoE threat on pulls. RSK is a comfort pick for a lot of Monks, and has been since the class was introduced, and it's currently poised to be very dead, in order to make way for a big single target damage hit that has no mechanics. This is a little disappointing.
The left half of this tree is almost entirely useless to Brewmasters. It feels unfinished, like no effort was made towards ensuring all the options in the tree are compelling to players of all specs. The right side and center have useful options for all specs of Monk, like
Atténuation du mal
,
Toucher mortel amélioré
, and
Anneau de paix
, but what does the left side offer?
Invocation d’une statue du Serpent de jade
? Oh wow, when I stop tanking to channel heals, it does twice as much?
The preferred capstone talent point is
Invocation de statue de tigre blanc
. It appears to simply deal damage in a large radius. That's pretty boring, but it's clearly better than either of the other two options.
Invocation d’une statue du Serpent de jade
is completely worthless. There's nothing nice to say, it's just worthless.
Invocation d’une statue du Buffle noir
can help with picking up adds that stream into an encounter, such as adds on Mythic Stone Legion Generals, but those situations are pretty uncommon, and it's totally worthless outside of those situations, too.
Invocation d’une statue du Buffle noir
and
Invocation de statue de tigre blanc
are a good combo for degenerate AoE farming.
Having core functionality like
Provocation hâtive
or
Paralysie améliorée
ransomed back to players is extremely frustrating, but picking up stuff like
Diffusion de la magie
and
Atténuation du mal
, or
Soif du tigre
and
Vélocité
at the same time is great.
This tree is a mixed bag.
Brewmaster Monk Spec Tree
Here's a normal Brewmaster spec talent setup:
Here is how Blizzard expressed their plan for the Brewmaster tree:
For Brewmaster, our primary goal was to allow players the flexibility to lean into different flavors – to emphasize a brew-heavy playstyle, or go the way of the wily martial arts master – while also providing situationally-interesting decisions for survivability.
In terms of how well they’ve accomplished that goal: Relative success. There
are
a couple of potential builds you can go with here, structured around Breath of Fire and Keg Smash or Blackout Kick. The deep talents are very compelling. There is some fat around the midsection, too. Relatable.
What’s New?
Not much here is completely new, it’s mostly old traits, talents, Legendaries, and Covenant/Torghast Powers from Legion, BFA, and Shadowlands.
Let’s go over some of the other notable talents in the spec talent tree:
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
- It’s back! That's great!
Passions calcinées
- Very easily available, and without having to sacrifice
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
to get it, this is a nice bonus. Spinning Crane Kick damage goes BRRRRRRRRRRR. On a negative note: this talent, especially when combined with other interactions in the tree, essentially makes Tiger Palm a useless skill.
Force de Sal’salabim
- Creates a synergy between the two talents above, significantly reduces the amount of empty GCD’s on the spec, and feels really good to use. Legion Monk was great, Shadowlands Monk has been great. This brings them together, and it feels
great
.
L’enclume et le bâton
- This can grant a good amount of Brew recharge while tanking, especially when up against multiple mobs. It’s a good talent, although it has been a little overhyped in some circles. It doesn’t function at all against non-autoattacks, and it has a 1-second internal cooldown, so it is pretty variable in terms of the Brew regeneration it can actually provide. In one or two-boss encounters, it’s mediocre. In all-out AoE, it’s very solid. Good talent.
Tonneau explosif
- Buffed, and much more appealing now that it doesn’t have the opportunity cost associated with giving up other, better talents to acquire it. The damage proc effect while this is active triggers from every hit of Spinning Crane Kick and Rushing Jade Wind, turning this into a major burst DPS cooldown. Pretty neat. Definitely not a required talent, and it does come with the opportunity cost of not taking some other powers down at the bottom of the tree, but this is super nice.
Armes de l’Ordre
and
Breuvage poussière-d’os
- Yeah, they’re both going to make it out of Shadowlands, along with their corresponding Covenant Legendaries and some Soulbind/Conduit interactions. They’re good skills, successful designs, and both stand to be useful going forward. No reason to leave them behind. It's possible, and pretty desirable, to run both at the same time. It's weird, but it's kinda good.
Livraison spéciale
&
Vent de jade fulgurant
- Both of these talents are still good, and they work the same as they always have. Unfortunately, the continued keybind bloat is infringing upon
Vent de jade fulgurant
, which makes
Livraison spéciale
even stronger.
Bottines de boxeur des ombres
&
Mouvements fluides
-
Bottines de boxeur des ombres
is better for any multi-target situations. For pure single-target,
Mouvements fluides
is really nice -- but again, it supercedes Rushing Jade Wind for keybinds. Pour one out for the green cloud.
Now let’s list off the talents that need more work:
Jeu de paume
- This hasn’t been a fixable power since the Brewmaster Monk redesign post-Legion. This just got a 500% buff. That's good, right? Absolutely not. Getting it back to the power level it was at in Legion would have required a 1600% buff. That number is not a typo. The proc chance was 7 times higher in Legion, the damage increase from
Combo aveuglant
(the only reason it was useful) was 300%, rather than 200%, and the baseline cooldown of Blackout Kick was increased from 3 seconds to 4. You don't even use Tiger Palm with the current state of the tree, and this sits at an important juncture in the tree, blockading a major Spinning Crane Kick damage buff. The opportunity cost of making this do anything is far, far too high. It's completely unsalvageable. Bonedust Brew has completely stolen Face Palm's thunder. Stop trying to bring this thing back to life, Doctor Blizzardstein, you're just electrocuting a corpse.
Observation fondamentale
-
Méditation zen
is already a very situationally-usable defensive cooldown, and splitting it into two traits feels rude. Not breaking on autos sounds much better than it is. You can't dodge while channeling, you can't contribute to active mitigation, self-heal, or deal damage. It's not actually good to just sit in Zen Meditation like an oaf, this just gives you a bit of leeway for targeting specific boss nukes, so that if you mistime and get auto'ed, it won't break and leave you dead. It is helpful if you need to soak some kind of damage while out of range of a boss and moving around, such as Phase 2 Jailer Pylons.
Flammes célestes
- A 0% usage rate talent throughout Shadowlands, this is a usable option now. It’s not great, or even good, really, because of a pretty simple, fixable design issue. 5% more damage reduction is good, but casting a regular Breath of Fire over a buffed one will immediately overwrite the added damage reduction. Holding Breath of Fire casts because of a proc from this talent invalidates like four other, better talents, so it's a no-no. This talent provides occasional small windows of extra damage reduction, but you could drop it and never notice. It could use more work to make it stand out. Going back to Breath of Fire generating Mastery stacks for each target hit would be a better design than this. Getting shielding based on Breath of Fire damage dealt could be neat -- or awful, depending on tuning.
Combo aveuglant
- Redesigned to make its Breath of Fire interaction slightly stronger. This is an interesting concept when paired with the right-hand path on the tree that favors Blackout Kick. Getting this and its synergies requires pathing through some underpowered talents along the way, and losing cooldown availability and power for this isn’t really worth the trade.
Shocking Blow
- This turns
Éclair de jade crépitant
into an instant-cast spell that costs 40 Energy, deals 40% less damage, and buffs your next Blackout Kick to deal some amount of extra nature damage. Unless this is tuned to deal absolutely insane, egregious levels of damage, this is the worst talent in the entire tree, by a considerable margin. Nothing about this design is good, it offers no defensive value, even more keybind bloat, and major resource consumption for a literally unknowable offensive gain. Silver lining: You could use it to pull mobs from range. That's it.
Here’s a bunch of lousy two-point filler traits:
Don du buffle
– Good bonus, but making it a two-pointer feels like a cheat.
Petite gorgée
– Extremely undertuned. Bad.
Frappes chancelantes
– Wildly undertuned. Horrid.
Sortie gracieuse
– Oh wow, a situational move speed proc that lasts 3 seconds, costs 2 talent points, and grants 5% entire movement speed? It's bad.
Initial Impressions
This talent tree is much better at first glance than the generic Monk tree. There are a ton of great options available, but there are a lot of low-value filler talents in here, as well. The high-value traits deep in the tree are really good, but the right-side ones built around Blackout Kick are definitely a little weaker. They just don’t provide as much generic value as the left-side builds structured around Keg Smash and Breath of Fire.
The synergy along the left side of the tree is excellent, and the options at the end of the tree are all pretty compelling. It's hard to put together a tree that gets everything you want in the bottom section. Something of value has to be excluded.
Armes de l’Ordre
,
Breuvage poussière-d’os
, both of their sub-talents,
Réplique
, and
Tonneau explosif
are all competing for a handful of talent points.
Brewmaster Monk Dragonflight Talents for Raiding - How Strong is It?
The core competency of Monk is still there. Stagger, Purifying Brew, Celestial Brew, and Expel Harm are still here. The class is still a very good tank. Damage output will probably go up by quite a bit. Tuning can change things, but the design definitely looks like it should deal
way
more damage than Shadowlands Monk.
A raid talent setup will look something like this:
The biggest takeaways here are how incomplete the generic Monk class tree feels, how good the big bonuses in the Brewmaster spec tree are, and how much low-value bloat is around them in the middle of the spec tree. There’s still a real chance all of this can come together over the rest of the alpha/beta, and result in something incredible. Again, even if nothing changes, it's still good.
The other big takeaway is how many active talents this tree has. The majority of them are worth opting into, but Shadowlands Brewmaster Monk has already been one of the most keybind-laden tanks in the game. In Dragonflight, you're going to need to add even more keybinds. Maybe consider growing some extra fingers between now and 10.0.
Being able to have
Diffusion de la magie
,
Atténuation du mal
, and
Élixir de soins
at the same time as Celestial
Brew with
Breuvage du Buffle noir
and
Infusion légère
is a level of defensive cooldown availability Brewmaster has never had even in my wildest dreams. There are still some duds in the tree, and plenty of reason to want more -- ask for the stars and you might get the moon.
Coming off the heels of Warrior's incredibly-polished unveiling and the first few rounds of changes on that tree: Brewmaster Monk is a little underwhelming by comparison, but the starting point for the class is already so good. The rich get richer, but do they appreciate it? Apparently not.
The synergy of
Dernier baril de Brune d’Orage
,
Passions calcinées
, and
Force de Sal’salabim
is very fun, and throwing
Mouvements fluides
(or
Bottines de boxeur des ombres
in AoE) to build even harder off that is great. There's significant potential for Brewmaster Monks to have an incredibly strong, cohesive talent tree by the time Dragonflight goes live. It's going to take more work from Blizzard, but the skeleton of something really good is visible here.
As usual, Monk's good.
Interested in playing Brewmaster Monk now? Check our out live guide for this spec!
Brewmaster Monk Guide
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