Class Changes​

Most of these don't actually have much of an effect on how you play.

• Melee auto-attack damage increased by 30%.
• Zenith Stomp damage reduced by 30%.
• Weapon of Wind now increases damage during Zenith by 5% (down from 10%).
• Tigereye Brew increases Critical Strike damage by 5%/10% (down from 10%/20%).
• Celestial Conduit damage reduced by 25%.
• Blackout Kick damage increased by 50%.
• Tiger Palm damage increased by 200%.
• Dual Threat damage increased by 30%.
• Combat Wisdom increases Stamina by 5%.
• Calming Presence increased from 3% damage reduction to 7% damage reduction.
• Spinning Crane Kick buffed by 38%.
  • But also maybe nerfed by 12? When we know WTF happened, I'll update this and there will probably be something in #wind-announce.
• Whirling Dragon Punch buffed by 30%.
• Jade Ignition buffed by 95%.
• Temple Training increases the damage of Fists of Fury and Spinning Crane Kick by 30% (up from 10%).
• Vivify healing increased by 25%. (To adjust for 25% increase in health and damage)
• Silent Sanctuary healing increased by 25%. (To adjust for 25% increase in health and damage)
• Expel Harm healing increased by 25%. (To adjust for 25% increase in health and damage)

What To Do​

Tier​

The Season 2 tier set is VERY strong, and the Season 1 tier set was very weak. So you'll likely be swapping ASAP and may even drop your Season 1 tier for higher item level pieces. Because of the new way that the Catalyst works, just make sure you have at least 4 tier pieces.

Talents​

Some talent changes, nothing revolutionary.

The biggest change is that Conduit of the Celestials is a very viable and can be "technically" stronger than Shado-Pan in all content. HOWEVER, it is significantly more complex and you should only play it in competitive content if you are POSITIVE that you're better at Conduit than you are at Shado-Pan. If you play Conduit worse than Shado-Pan, you're better off playing Shado-Pan. The top rankings will be full of Conduit, but anyone who is not pushing for those top rankings should probably be playing Shado-Pan.

Here's a flowchart:

Rotation/Priority​

There isn't much changing currently to the rotation other than that you will want to use Spinning Crane Kick with Season 2 4-piece bonus, Unbroken Rhythm after casting Fists of Fury in both single target and AOE.

There will ABSOLUTELY be updates and improvements to the priorities, especially Conduit as the days and weeks go on, so check frequently.

Right now there are some changes that depend on what is going on with the Spinning Crane Kick buff/nerf, so the guides will be updated if anything changes and as people better explain to me why the guides are wrong.

Bonus Rolls​

This season bonus rolls are more prevalent, which makes the Great Vault VERY WEIRD. Here are two flowcharts:

Great Vault​

Stats​

No change: Agility > Haste = Critical Strike = Mastery >>> Versatility

2H vs 1H​

2-handed weapons are best, get the one from Ula'tek; Abyssal Broodfiend's Bardiche

Embellishments​

Arcanoweave Lining on Bracers and either Boots if you will eventually kill Mythic Coiled Altar, or Cloak if you will not.

Trinkets​

Ideally you want Voracious Heart of Ula'tek and Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique. As always, sim your options to see what’s best for you in particular.

Consumables​

• New Health Potion: Concentrated Silvermoon Health Potion

Macros​

Since Celestial Conduit is a relatively weak ability by itself, you will want to cancel this with your next ability. This means that you can alter the macros so that they will interrupt Celestial Conduit but not Fists of Fury, I'll update this and the main guide when someone tells me how to do this.

As always, information on this page may change over the first days and weeks of the new patch as new things are discovered or tested.

Until now. Sort of. In some cases. Ugh.

The reality is that things are complicated. Sometimes Crit/Vers is still best! Sometimes Mastery will overtake Vers and Crit/Mastery will be best. With the tuning changes from Patch 10.1.5 now settled and some quirks of itemization next tier, now seems like a good time to explain why this shift can occur (and why it may have already occurred for you!)

A Detailed Breakdown of Brewmaster Stats​

To kick things off, let’s review what different stats actually do for Brewmaster. It might seem obvious, but there are a lot of quirks that play a major role in explaining why we get these results.

Broadly, there are two different things that you might care about as a Brewmaster: the offensive value provided by a stat, and the defensive value. These are fundamentally incomparable---there is no magic formula that will tell you the perfect balance of the two. It depends on what content you’re doing, how comfortable you are on the spec, and how good you are as a player.

But, the magic of WoW is that the choice is yours. You can work things out yourself, experiment, and decide for yourself whether to take our recommendations or do something else entirely. Your choices might not be “optimal” according to the priorities that we have (and they also might not be optimal for your priorities---optimality is hard!) but experimentation is an essential part of growing as a player.

Offensive Stat Reference​

As a reminder, this reference only covers the offensive benefits. See [below](#Offensive Stat Reference) for defensive benefits.

There are two primary questions to answer when figuring out what stats are going to give the best damage for a situation:

1. How much of your damage comes from gear & item sources?
2. Which Monk spells make up the majority of your damage?

Question #1 helps define the value of Crit & Vers relative to Mastery. If you have a large percentage of damage coming from gear & item sources, then Versatility can overcome its worse scaling to become one of your best stats.

Historically, a very large percentage of our damage has come from external sources, with over 40% coming from gear & items in patch 10.0 (and nearly 60% (screenshot) in the bad old days of BfA). Patch 10.1.5 saw dramatic changes that nerfed damage from gear & items (especially the Onyx Annulet) and significantly buffed damage from Monk sources. While this prevented a return to BfA ratios between sources, we still have around 30% from gear & items with our best-in-slot damage setup.

Most of that power comes from trinkets and weapons: if you remove the 2 trinkets and swap the weapon for crafted items, only around 9% of damage comes from gear & items. We’ll talk in more detail about this in a moment---but you probably have some ideas about what that means for our stat priority.

Question #2 is primarily about haste: do the spells you’re using scale with haste or not? Right now, the general answer is no. In single-target settings, you are primarily gated by the unhasted 4s cooldown of Blackout Kick (BoK). It is a damage loss to push Tiger Palm more often than 1 time per BoK, and you are forced to ignore the cooldown reductions on Keg Smash and Rising Sun Kick in order to keep pressing BoK.

In AoE, things are slightly more complicated since you can in theory get limited by energy when using Spinning Crane Kick (SCK) in large pulls. However: if you are able to pull so large that SCK becomes better than other spells like BoK, Rising Sun Kick, and Keg Smash then you are much more likely to get gated by defensive power allowing you to facetank the pull longer than you are by energy.

Lastly, our damage-over-time sources are mostly anemic at this time---which means that the one damage source that haste directly scales accounts for a very low percentage of our overall breakdown in pretty much any setting.

All of that said: it is a useful question to keep in mind for the possible future where Haste becomes a good stat for Brewmaster (but we’re likely to need pretty major spec changes for that to occur!)

Defensive Stat Reference​

Note: Gift of the Ox is not explicitly included anywhere above: it counts as "self healing", but technically adds damage-taken scaling (1 orb per 100% of HP lost pre-Stagger and post-DRs) to the self-healing scaling of Vers, Crit, and Mastery.

Defensive analysis is where things get more complicated, and fast. Now we have multiple different efficiency conversions per stat---and most conversion rates are only a small piece of a larger puzzle!

This should also highlight how situational all of this valuation is. A heavily melee-centric dungeon like Freehold favors Mastery, while a raid encounter with very little dodgeable damage (like Forgotten Experiments) favors Crit and Vers.

Of course: we also cannot lose sight of the realities of tanking in pursuit of optimally efficient stats. Your stats do not matter if you get one-shot. Your stats do not matter if the model you used to “optimize” them is out of sync with the actual fight you’re in.

Overall, your secondary stat distribution is not your first line of defense, it is an edge—a slight advantage that supports good core gameplay and smart cooldown usage. World of Warcraft is not (presently) a game where it is possible to solve hard content with math and theory. While theory is useful for finding that edge, you must not neglect practice and self-improvement if you want to do hard content.

How Stats Scale (aka What is “Conversion Rate?”)​

Most other pieces of the math for this post have been consigned to the reference at the end, but this one is so important that it really needs to be discussed front-and-center. Let’s talk about Conversion Rates.

At its core, the Conversion Rate for a stat is the the rate at which you convert the points on gear to the actual percentage that you receive. WoW uses several layers of math for this that are all individually simple, but together they can be a bit complex. It will be easiest to start with an example. Let’s convert the Versatility from a crafted belt into the damage and damage reduction values.

First: we need to know the amount of stats that you have on the item. This is determined by the slot of the item (chest, shoulders, gloves, etc) and the ilvl. Importantly: stats scale exponentially off of your ilvl---this is a major part of why “ilvl > all” is such a common recommendation (compare a ilvl 424 belt to a ilvl 447 belt).

Second: we need the stat distribution. Most items divide your secondaries into two different stats, ranging from 80/20 to 50/50 breakdowns. Crafted items are particularly easy: 50/50, every time. This gives us 332 Versatility rating.

Third: we need the exchange rate for the stat. This determines how many points of rating are needed to get 1% of the stat. For Versatility at level 70, this is 205 rating per percent. 332 / 205 = 1.62% Versatility.

Fourth: we need your total rating to apply the diminishing return penalties. The penalties are based on the total percentage gained from rating. For simplicity, we’re going to ignore this since you need over 30% from rating before the first (very minor) penalty kicks in. Since we're ignoring this phase, we are left with 1.62% Versatility from our crafted belt.

Now, what happens if we replace Versatility with Haste, or Mastery? The current exchange rates for each stat are:

• Versatility: 205 points / percent (belt: 1.62%)
• Critical Strike: 180 points / percent (belt: 1.84%)
• Mastery: 180 points / percent (belt: 1.84%)
• Haste: 170 points / percent (belt: 1.95%)

The Conversion Rate tells you how much actual stat percentage you gain from rating, relative to the most efficient option (which is currently Haste---these rates change every expansion!).

This means that if one item gives you 332 Versatility and another gives you 332 Haste, they are not going to give you equal amounts of Versatility % and Haste %!

Again: we have to keep in mind that our spec doesn’t make use of every stat equally well. You might gain the most Haste % from rating, but Brewmaster doesn’t gain nearly as much damage or defensive power from 1% of Haste as it currently does from 1% of Versatility or 1% of Mastery!

However, this underlying difference in the exchange rates is important for understanding why a stat that buffs everything (Versatility) can be worse than a stat that buffs only some things (Mastery). You gain a smaller amount of Versatility % from gear than you gain Mastery %, which means that in order for Versatility to be better than Mastery you actually need to gain more value from each Versatility % than each Mastery %---if that doesn’t happen, then Versatility is worse.

A Wrench in the Works: Stats Buff Each Other​

We have one more detour before we go back to waxing poetic about the age-old war between Mastery and Versatility (Crit likes to stay out of it and Haste died long ago). Everything above is correct---but it is incomplete. You see: stats buff each other. Having more of a stat makes all your other stats better! To see why, let’s talk a little about modeling.

World of Warcraft is complicated. Yes, this is word 1378 of an article on the math---but even this is a simplification of the game! No amount of math is going to be able to accurately represent every detail of the game---every moment spent kiting, every broken mouseover macro, every bad-luck DC, every good-luck boss-bugs-out freebie. World of Warcraft is far too complicated to model exactly.

But models can still be useful! We can work within a simplified “small world” that represents the larger one and can help us learn important interactions---even if we have to take that knowledge with a grain of salt. We’re about to do exactly that.

How much damage does Keg Smash do? We have a formula:

Keg Smash Damage = 0.9 * (Agility + 6 * Weapon DPS)
                       * (1 + Versatility %)
                       * (1 + Mastery %)

But this is just a single hit! What if it crits? On average, it works out to another multiplicative modifier (proof):

Keg Smash Damage = 0.9 * (Agility + 6 * Weapon DPS)
                       * (1 + Versatility %)
                       * (1 + Mastery %)
                       * (1 + Crit %)

But this is still just a single hit! We have a whole fight! The total damage we get from Keg Smash depends on how many times we cast it, right? Haste lets us cast it more by reducing the cooldown and increasing our energy. In our idealized “small world” model, this means that it is another multiplier:

Keg Smash Damage = 0.9 * (Agility + 6 * Weapon DPS)
                       * (1 + Versatility %)
                       * (1 + Mastery %)
                       * (1 + Crit %)
                       * (1 + Haste %)

Easy enough. Now, how do we maximize it? We know that Mastery is reasonably efficient, so let's put all of our points there. Let's say that we gain 70% Vers from our gear, have 10,000 Agility and 500 Weapon DPS. The text format is a bit of a pain, so let's switch to a block-based format. These numbers give us 11,700 damage as a baseline. After applying our modifiers, we get:

11,700

×

70% Vers

=

19,890

Great! What if we pick a more efficient stat? The conversion rate says that we’ll get about 80% Mastery, giving us:

11,700

×

80% Mastery

=

21,060

We get a bit more damage (shown in light blue), as expected from a more efficient stat.

What happens if we split our available secondaries between the two, 50/50? That would give us 40% Mastery and 35% Vers (roughly).

11,700

×

40% Mastery

35% Vers

=

22,113

It went up! We moved some rating from a more efficient stat to a less efficient stat—getting lower overall stat percentages in the process—and yet got more damage!

What if we split up the Mastery with Crit without touching Vers? 20% Mastery, 20% Crit, and 35% Vers.

11,700

×

20% Mastery

20% Crit

35% Vers

=

22,745

It went up again! I’ll let you try it with a 4-way split on your own ;)

Mastery

Critical Strike

Versatility

Haste

11,700

×

20% Mastery

20% Crit

35% Vers

0% Haste

=

22,745

While this model is extremely basic, it illustrates an incredibly important fact: because stats multiply together, stacking a single stat is almost never worthwhile over a 2- or 3-way split.

In the case of Brewmaster: this is also a large part of why we recommend equipping ilvl first and only caring about secondaries second. If you equip a random selection of items, you will on average end up with a 3-way or 4-way split between the secondaries! On top of that, higher ilvl items have more of all stats---and ilvl scales your stats exponentially.

While that gear is usually actually best-in-slot (in reality, the gap between stats---especially Haste---is a wee bit larger than in this “small world” model), this strategy works extremely well until you reach the point that your ilvl stops going up.

When the ilvl Stops: Deciding Between Secondaries at Gear Cap​

Once you’re at or close to the max ilvl, the loss of exponential gains from equipping highest ilvl makes it worthwhile to seriously think about the differences in secondary stats. To recap:

• Haste has the best conversion rate, but by far the worst value in practice for either defensive or offensive power.
• Critical Strike has a good conversion rate, works on every damage source, and on every defensive element---but its defensive power scales off of incoming healing instead of incoming damage.
• Mastery has a good conversion rate, but only works on damage from abilities. It has a great conversion into defensive power that scales off of incoming damage, but again: that only applies to some incoming damage.
• Versatility has the worst conversion rate, but works on every damage source and---importantly---scales off of all incoming damage (even if the rate is pretty bad).

While you no longer have to think about ilvl gains, you do also need to keep in mind that a 2- or 3-way split is generally the most effective overall---even if it means using a stat that is “less efficient”. Due to the way that items in WoW work (almost every item has rating for 2 different secondary stats), it is extremely common to focus on 2-way splits. Based on everything we now know, let’s work out where we’d expect each 2-way split to be best:

The short version is that there are situations where you might expect any (non-Haste) combo to be the best. The question then is: which situation lines up best with the reality of the game you’re playing?

SimC and the Real World ™​

The final piece of the optimization puzzle that we haven’t talked about is the venerable SimulationCraft. (These days, you probably access SimC via Raidbots.) SimC gives us the biggest, best “small world” model that we could reasonably ask for---but only for damage. It is the easiest way to determine how to best balance stats as you make small changes to your gear over time---but even Raidbots has its limits.

One of the main limitations of the Top Gear approach is that it can’t tell you what the perfect set of gear is---only what the best change you could make to your gear is from your available options. This keeps sims speedy and freely available, but isn’t perfect.

This is why it is important to also build an understanding of WoW’s systems, how stats work, and learn for yourself how to identify situations where different combinations might be good.

As we head into patch 10.2, there are two relatively common Brewmaster setups:

1. A damage-oriented build optimized for raiding, with a heavy focus on items & gear that provide damage---especially trinkets like Beacon to the Beyond and Dragonfire Bomb Dispenser.
2. A more defensive build, optimized for use in push keys. One that sacrifices the extra damage from those trinkets in favor of defensive power in items like Treemouth’s Festering Splinter.

Setup #1 clearly favors the Crit / Vers stat distribution for damage, while Setup #2 drops some of the core items that make that stat setup desirable. Is that enough for Mastery to become better than Versatility for damage? Here, at the end of the road: what’s the verdict?

It depends. You should probably sim yourself. But maybe now you know enough to know when you should deviate from the sim, or maybe have some ideas for gear sets that are much different from what you have now (which you can sim with Gear Compare even if you don’t have the items!), or just have new things to experiment with in-game. Just be sure to have a Purify handy for when things go sideways :)

Appendix: Math Reference​

This section contains notes on some of the math used above. If you're interested, read on! But: it may not be very accessible.

Defensive Power Efficiency Reference​

• Crit

  • External Healing Efficiency:

    External Healing * 80% (CF Rate) * 94% (Conversion Rate) = 75% * Crit * External Healing
    

  • Self-Healing Efficiency (w/ Celestial Fortune):

    Self Healing * Crit * 94% (Conversion Rate) * (100% + 80% (CF Rate) * 94% (Conversion Rate) * Crit) = 94% * Crit * Self Healing + 71% * Crit^2 * Self Healing >= 165% * Crit * Self Healing
    

    The 100% + X comes from the base value of the heal (which we always get, and which can crit). Note that this is quadratic scaling on Crit, hence >165%

• Vers

  • Self-Healing Efficiency:

    Self Healing * 83% (Conversion Rate) * Vers
    

  • Damage Reduction Efficiency:

    DR: Incoming Damage * 83% (Conversion Rate) * Vers * 50% (DR Conversion Penalty) = 42% * Incoming Damage * Vers
    

• Mastery

  • Dodge Efficiency:

    Incoming Dodgeable Damage * 94% (Conversion Rate) * Mastery * Expected number of stacks when being hit
    

    The main question is how many stacks you will have. If it is at least 1 (on average), then 1% Mastery is at least as good as 1% dodge. Due to passive rotational gain, this is the case in raid (I average 1.25 to 1.7 depending on the encounter). M+ is much lower (I have 0.5-0.75 stacks per auto in various keys).

    Note that the lowest the expected number of stacks could be is a bit less than 0.5 (you always gain a stack if you have 0 stacks and are hit, then dodge the next hit, resetting stacks; the exact lower bound depends on your passive dodge—which depends on your Agility based on a totally different formula that we're not getting into in this post 🙂).

  • Self-Healing Efficiency:

    Self-Healing from Abilities * 94% (Conversion Rate) * Mastery
    

• Haste
  • There are no closed forms for Haste’s efficiency.

Queueing Theory & “Virtual Damage Reduction”​

Queues are pretty useful, and this utility is reflected in their ubiquity: we queue at the grocery, at restaurants, at banks. Queues give us the ability to handle a burst of incoming traffic in a smooth & orderly fashion---without having to overcommit resources to (for example) a bunch of extra cashiers that would service no customers most of the time.

You might not have thought about this before, but your health bar is a queue for damage! The gap between your current HP and maximum HP is the amount of damage queued. A large amount of HP allows you to handle a burst of incoming damage, which can then be dealt with by your self healing & external healing in a smooth & orderly (or, sometimes, hasty and panicked 🙃) fashion.

However, queues have a very interesting and unintuitive property: over time, a queue will always become empty or full. Either you have enough incoming healing to cover all of the damage and the queue becomes empty, or you don’t and you eventually die when the queue fills (and overflows).

Damage reduction effects have an interesting interaction with this: they act as multipliers on healing done. If you would take 1000 damage per second and receive 900 healing per second, then you obviously run out of HP and eventually die! But if you add a 20% DR? Now you take 800 damage per second and 900 healing per second and live. This is mostly equivalent to getting 1080 healing per second and taking 1000 damage per second---provided you’re not dying so quickly that incoming healing doesn’t matter.

Said another way: damage reduction effects are multipliers on incoming healing.

The other thing that a DR does is increase the effective size of your damage queue---your “effective HP”. This is sometimes a critical part of the effect, so you cannot treat DRs only as multipliers on healing.

A “virtual damage reduction” is then a multiplier on healing that doesn’t provide a bonus to effective HP, such as Celestial Fortune.

Proof: Critical Strike as a Damage Multiplier​

Critical strike provides a 100% damage bonus X% of the time. This means that:

E[dps] = (1 + E[crit?]) * dps

where E[.] is the expected value and E[crit?] is the expected fraction of the time that you crit. We can rewrite this as:

E[dps] = (1 + Pr[crit?]) * dps

(where Pr[.] is the probability of critting, aka your crit %) by using the fact that that crit? is a Bernoulli random variable.

This simplifies to:

E[dps] = (1 + crit%) * dps

using the definition of a Bernoulli random variable.

These are entirely my opinions, as always, and really dependent on barely one full night of raiding. I have the tendency to be curmudgeonly, and Snarkylonius more so. You don't have to agree with them, so if you don't then just accept that you're wrong and keep it to yourself.

The Ugly​

Button Bloat​

(Snarkylonius) Lets get this straight, right off the bat, if you are someone out there who advocated for more buttons, more button presses, or the like... go fuck yourself. I don't know if you have some kind of weird alien fingers, use some kind of stimulant or performance-enhancing drugs, or I'm just getting old and arthritic but Windwalker has way too many fucking buttons. I felt Windwalker had too many before, and now we've added Expel Harm to use every 15-seconds and Fortifying Brew as a "defensive".

I'm not advocating for going down to the "classic" Beast Mastery or Havoc rotations of pressing the same 4 buttons and doing a ton of damage, but fuck me if Windwalker doesn't feel like it has a dozen abilities to press rotationally; Tiger Palm, Expel Harm, Rising Sun Kick, Blackout Kick, Whirling Dragon Punch, Spinning Crane Kick, Fists of Fury, Chi Wave/Chi Burst, and Fist of the White Tiger/Energizing Elixir, and that's not counting the actual damage CDs: Touch of Death, Storm, Earth, and Fire, Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger, Touch of Karma (and Fortifying Brew), or the fact that we often have to use Flying Serpent Kick to keep our Mastery going.

The fact that Windwalker now has 9 rotational buttons is just insane to me. Because of all these different buttons, none of them feel impactful, you just feel like you're pressing them and not seeing the effect of what you're pressing, it all just blends together into mush. Windwalker has always been a spec about flow, but this is more like the flow of some non-Newtonian fluid; it seems to flow the way its supposed to, but any resistance and it has no flow at all. Everything was just equally unimpressive and blegh.

Expel Harm​

So I had really good hopes for this ability, I loved it in Warlords and before. However, this current version just feels like it sucks a bit of my soul out every time I have to press it. I love it for being another ability to use to keep Mastery, Hit Combo, and Chi generation going when I'm out of range of the boss, but I hate it for just about everything else.

It did an absolute whopping 63 raw HPS last night with 69% (nice) of that being overheal because you just press it on CD without caring about the heal. The old version was used when you were below 8% health because only then did it do enough damage to trump TP, but since Tiger Palm is a light tickle, who gives a fuck how much damage Expel Harm does when it generates more than 50% more Chi for the same energy cost. But hey, lets not scoff at the 1.2 DPS over 79 casts that it did over the whole night. There's no way I was using it on CD, but I don't think its going to be a dramatic difference even if I was.

So... it doesn't deal enough damage to merit pressing the button, the damage it does comes from the Chi it provides, which is boring since its just another Blackout Kick every now and again. There are times where it gives you that 3rd Chi for Fists of Fury or that 2nd Chi for Rising Sun Kick, but I found the times that happened were massively outweighed by the times that I didn't use it because I was full on Chi or I used it and barely noticed a dip in my energy trying to stay away from the cap.

Some of my lesser complaints are that it currently has a 0.5s GCD which just feels out of place and contributes to how disruptive using it felt to me. It doesn't cost enough energy to really feel like your energy bar goes down when you use it. It also promotes needing to use it before a pull just for the Chi, which is annoying but something I can get used to.

After playing with it a 2nd night it wasn't as bad, but I consciously paid much less attention to it. Having to basically ignore your most efficient Chi generator so you don't have playing the spec is not a great feeling.

Bugs​

This may surprise you, but Windwalker is one buggy mess. Rather than list them all, just read this; https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-monk-class-changes/490702/985

The Bad​

Easiest way is to just list these out rather than explain them in their own sections.

• Fortifying Brew - I know its mostly my problem, and it will get better with time, but I barely forgot that this ability existed, and when I did it was normally right after I popped Touch of Karma and missed out on the damage bonus of using both.
• No Corruption - I'm very happy its gone, but I got super used to the damage reduction from Versatile. I had a MUCH harder time staying alive last night than I expected to because I was obviously very comfortable with all the Versatility.
• Touch of Death - This ability doesn't feel worth the button press, simple as that. Last night it rarely did more than 1% of my damage for a boss fight. Its fun to press to kill things quickly, but with a 3 minute cooldown you don't get that fun anywhere near enough. Getting 3 Chi at 60 isn't going to save this ability from just feeling poopy.
• Opener - The opener is close enough to easily fall back into old habits, but far enough away that I notice I'm not doing it the right way.
• GCD Changes - Just like it took time to get used to things being on the GCD, it will take time getting used to things being off the GCD.
• There is almost no connection between abilities, no reason to stack cooldowns, or reason to even really care about how or when you press anything that's not Storm, Earth, and Fire.
• Overall my damage just felt poor when compared to others. I know I wasn't playing the spec as good as it should be played right now, but I didn't feel any better about my damage and having to put up with all the other shit that I didn't like.

The Good​

So this section was going to be full of praise for how happy I am that the Whirling Dragon Punch bug came back to Live, because I wrote a whole article about how great it was and how much fun it made the spec, plus adding damage that is both interactive and yet uncomplicated and passive.... it was... until the Fire Nation developers attacked. If you're unfamiliar with what I'm referring to then read the article I just linked you pleb, I'm not going to TLDR my own stuff.

This is just the newest edition of the "Fun Detected, Fun Destroyed" meme that too frequently becomes too true for Windwalkers. Sure, Windwalkers have a laundry list of bugs and unkept (so far) promises, but thank god they fixed Windwalker getting free damage that put it on par with other specs and gave it interactivity between its abilities. I get it, this bug was already fixed on Beta and PTR then somehow weaseled its way back into Live when 9.0 came out, I understand why it got fixed. What I can't fucking fathom is why it was fixed so quickly and so efficiently while we languish in the shadow of a dozen other bugs that are bigger, more horrible, and make the spec less fun to play. Its really hard not to buy into the memes and the "sky is falling" chicken littles out there who say things like, "Blizzard is actively trying to remove Windwalker from the game", or "If more people played then they'd have to fix more bugs, so why make more work for themselves?"

Its honestly very hard to feel like someone out there has a vendetta against Windwalkers and the conscious decision is to do the opposite of what is best for the spec.

• Want to bring back Expel Harm? Hell yeah!! Want to see it do about 1/4 of what it used to do? Wait what???
• Heard you loved the tier set bonus in Tomb!!! Here's the fully neutered version....
• You guys love that Whirling Dragon Punch triggers some damage when Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury go on CD? Well lets get that fixed right up for you...
• Windwalker has a unique mechanic that rewards you for doing a major part of the fight on Grong that puts you slightly ahead of other classes?? Better stop that right now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjYyIKkRvUU

The Actual Good​

Dear lord not playing with Hit Combo is great. I know its not particularly ideal to play without it on single target, but it just feels so damn liberating to not have to worry about. I don't have anything else to say about it. Playing with Dance of Chi-Ji is whatever, playing without Hit Combo is glorious.

Overall​

Overall not as much fun as I had hoped. I'll be honest, I enjoyed playing Windwalker for approximately 15-minutes out of a 3-hour raid, and those 15 minutes were playing Carapace with the Whirling Dragon Punch bug and just enjoying do so much damage and trying to play the fun minigame of keeping my Rising Sun Kick and Fists of Fury on CD without missing a chance to hold for a second so that when one did go on CD and I got the free Whirling Dragon Punch damage, it would hit multiple targets. I'm definitely going to just try not using Expel Harm and see if I hate my life a little less or I can ease my way into it. I enjoyed it more on N'zoth where there were a bit more things to make playing with Expel Harm more bearable, but I sense thats the exception, not the rule for me. I have no plans to swap away from Windwalker, but good lord if it doesn't seem more appealing every time I have to write a stupid fucking article like this.

I know my opinions won't be shared by everyone, but I remind you that its my website so I can do what I want; get your own website and put your own opinions on there.

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Welcome back to the Mistweaver Ability Spotlight, a series where we go in-depth and talk about using specific abilities that are very unique to Mistweavers. Today we will be looking at Way of the Crane, and is the best rotation and setup to maximize each use of this ability.

What is Way of the Crane?​

Way of the Crane is a PvP ability. It effect is that it increases your Physical damage by 25%, you remove and become immune to all snare and root effects and you heal up to 3 nearest allies for 150% of all damage done. This buff lasts 15 seconds. It does cost 25% of your mana, so there is a large cost associated with the large amount of healing it does provide. Since this is a PvP ability, why do we care about it in PvE? Well, with the new Azerite Essence system and in particular the Conflict and Strike essence, the major effect of this grants us access to Way of the Crane in PvE scenarios.

You can get access to the Conflict and Strife essence by doing rated PvP.

• For Rank 1, you need to earn 500 conquest in a week.
• For Rank 2, you need to reach 1000 rating in any PvP bracket.
• For Rank 3, you need to collect 15 items from your weekly PvP chest to upgrade, similar to the Mythic+ Essence.

In-Depth Look​

So now that we know what Way of the Crane is, how exactly do you use it? In this section we will deep dive a bit into the setup, the different rotations during Way of the Crane, any haste breakpoints, and the final verdict.

Setup​

With Way of the Crane, the minimal setup you will want to enter the cooldown with is 2 stacks of Teachings of the Monastery, Rising Sun Kick off cooldown, and Thunder Focus Tea off cooldown. From there you have all the necessary items ready to start the initial opening rotation of the cooldown.

There is some potential additional nuance if you want to include using Way of the Crane in one of the final GCDs of Mana Tea to cut its mana cost in half, or timing the usage with a potion. For those items, take a look at how or when you may do that in the ending Question and Answer section. For now though the basic requirements listed above is what we will start with.

Rotation Variations​

Based on the above setup, the opening 4 GCDs of any Way of the Crane usage should be consistent. You are looking at the following cast sequence:

1. Tiger Palm

2. Tiger Palm

3. Thunder Focus Tea

4. Way of the Crane (Start of Buff)

5. Rising Sun Kick

6. Tiger Palm

7. Rising Sun Kick

8. Blackout Kick

This initial rotation ends up being the most efficient as it gets up your Secret Infusion buff, from Thunder Focus Tea -> Rising Sun Kick. It also efficiently uses the GCD between Rising Sun Kicks to cap stacks of Teachings of the Monastery, and ends the initial opening with a full 4 Blackout Kicks to maximize your Rising Sun Kick reset potential.

From here your rotation can diverge into two thought processes. One, Tiger Palm 3 times, then Blackout Kick, or alternate Tiger Palms with Blackout Kicks to fish for early Rising Sun Kick resets. Below is the analysis of both, please note the following stat values were used in the analysis:

• Assumed 16% Haste for all of the calculations. This allows for a natural reset of Rising Sun Kick on the final GCD of Way of the Crane.
• Assumed 2 stacks of Secret Infusion @ 420 item level for the buffed damage values.

Thanks for Peak of Serenity Discord user Ashbourne for putting together the base spreadsheet. Below are the two main rotational differences we explored, and the probability of each occurring:

As you can see the damage values are very close between the two rotations, but the reset probability allows the top 3 Tiger Palms -> Blackout Kick to generally be more consistent with damage. If you were able to pull some of the <5% probability reset combinations with the alternating Tiger Palm -> Blackout Kick rotation, it would be a theoretical damage and thus healing increase.

The reset consistency and damage provided by the Tiger Palm three times into Blackout Kick make it a clear choice for the majority of situations.

For a view of the details behind the above screenshot, please check out the sheet here.

Haste Breakpoints​

This was mentioned above in the assumptions sections, but there are 2 key haste breakpoints with Way of the Crane. The details are below:

• ~11% Haste - This initial breakpoint allows for an additional GCD under Way of the Crane. This is a key breakpoint and generally in current raid gear should be no issue to hit
• ~16% Haste - This is the second breakpoint that allows for a natural reset of Rising Sun Kick during the final GCD of Way of the Crane. This one may be a bit more difficult to reach, but does provide a guarantee of 3 Rising Sun Kicks in a single Way of the Crane.

Final Thoughts​

Way of the Crane is a very cool ability and gives Mistweaver something it has been lacking for 2 expansions now, an actual cooldown that requires some forward planning and thought. It also brings back to PvE the old Fistweaving style that has also been absent for an expansion or two now. The ability does come with a large mana cost, so on top of adding in a DPS rotations, there is also the additional mana management that needs to be taken into consideration. Between usages you will want to conserve to limit your mana usage to ensure you have enough mana to finish the fight.

As for the rotation, the standard Tiger Palm three times into Blackout Kick provides the most consistent damage. While alternating Tiger Palm with Blackout Kick has the chance to do more damage and therefore more healing, the probability is low enough that it won’t result in consistency.

TL;DR / Question and Answers​

This section will be dedicated to some quick Q&A and summary information. I will add additional questions from the comments or feedback to the list as time goes on.

When do you use Conflict and Strife as a Major Essence?​

You will use the essence any time you can consistently hit something for the duration of the buff, while healing is needed.

What fights would you use Way of the Crane on in Azshara’s Eternal Palace?​

Currently, every fight is a candidate for using Way of the Crane. I will say the first boss, Abyssal Commander Sivara is a weak candidate and you will probably swap it out on progression.

What is the optimal rotation and setup when using Way of the Crane?​

Read above . . . Just kidding.

1. Start with 2 stacks of Teachings of the Monastery and Thunder Focus Tea and Rising Sun Kick off cooldown.
2. TFT -> WotC -> RSK -> TP -> RSK -> BOK as your opener
3. 3x TP -> BoK, weaving RSKs in with resets

Do you want to always use Way of the Crane with Mana Tea?​

No. If you need to chain Mana Tea into Way of the Crane you can, but that is a lot of healing, that is generally not needed in the current raid. You are better off using Mana Tea between Way of the Crane usages to conserve mana during those times.

Does all damage contribute to Way of the Crane healing?​

No, only physical damage contributes.

What minor essences do you want to use with Way of the Crane?​

Memory of the Lucid Dream or Ever Rising Tide would be the two main ones. With Lucid Dream being your first chose.

What talents do you use with Way of the Crane?​

Your talent sections won’t change when using Way of the Crane. Way of the Crane does not make Rising Mist stronger, it's a trap. DO NOT SPEC RISING MIST!

If you like this and the other content provided here on PeakofSerenity by myself and other Monks, consider supporting us through Patreon or Paypal. If you have any questions, leave a comment below or join us on the Monk discord channel, PeakofSerenity.

Brewmaster Changes​

For the most part, there isn't a lot of class balancing in patch 8.2. Rather than tweaking class abilities, with a few exceptions, a lot of the character tuning this time around is being handled by the changes to the Heart of Azeroth--more on that later--and gear. What few changes we have received directly are listed below.

General​

• Bugfix: Summon Black Ox Statue (Dave/statue) will no longer default to totem slot #1 on the back end. This fixes a somewhat rare bug where players using the talent Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox (Angry Dave) would despawn their Angry Dave if they placed a statue while it was active. The side effect of this change is that you can no longer just macro /canceltotemslot1 to despawn a Black Ox Statue you've placed; instead you will have to right click the totem or risk changing your macro to cancel all totem slots and possibly despawn Angry Dave if he's active.
• The power of damage and healing effects on Battle of Azeroth items now increases more per item level. This includes weapon, trinket, and armor effects, but does not include azerite traits.

Abilities/Talents​

• The honor talent Hot Trub now will split its damage evenly among all targets hit.
• Hot Trub now only deals 20% of purified Stagger as damage (was 30%).
• Double Barrel now increases the damage of your next Keg Smash by 50% (was 15%).

This helmet from The Eternal Palace on mythic only requires Heart of Azeroth level 41 to unlock all of its traits.

Azerite​

• The Heart of Azeroth now caps at level 70
• Pieces of azerite armor obtained in patch 8.2 have the same requirements for their traits as patch 8.1 items. The final node to add 5 item levels to a piece does require higher heart levels, capping out at 65 for mythic-level shoulders.
• Most sources of azerite have been increased, including island expeditions, emissaries, mythic plus, and PvP.
• Paragon reputation caches now award their azerite on quest turn-in, not when opening the box.
• Patch 8.2's new raid, The Eternal Palace, contains three new azerite traits: Loyal to the End, Arcane Heart, and Undulating Tides. Azerite armor from the new mega dungeon Operation: Mechagon has one new trait: Clockwork Heart. Our Azerite Trait guide will be updated soon enough with more info on these.

A Change of Heart​

Feature-wise, one of the key pieces of content to be found in Tides of Vengeance is a new and improved system with the Heart of Azeroth. Through the efforts of Magni and MOTHER, a possible solution to heal the world now exists. The apparent solution is a forge for the Heart of Azeroth, created to enable players to socket in essences found around Azeroth. These essences each provide powerful major and minor effects. Once unlocked, players can have one major essence effect (along with its minor effect), plus two more minor effects at heart levels 55 and 65. A rested area allows one to freely swap between unlocked essences, along with Tomes of the Quiet Mind. What's more, the essences also come in multiple ranks that add additional effects to both types of power. There is even a fourth, legendary level of each essence that will alter their major effect appearance for the truly dedicated to show off! However, a number of these essences and the powers they grant will be unavailable until July 9th/10th when season 3 starts. But, on patch day, you will receive your first essence in the form of a Petrified Ebony Scale.

The two bonus minor slots unlock at level 55 and 65. The diamonds along the way are each 3% extra stamina via

You can expect an article here on Peak complete with math to break down precisely when to use each essence by the time The Eternal Palace opens, so keep your eyes peeled! Until then, below is a list of what content to focus on to obtain each essence as a Brewmaster. Note that the in-game interface tells you where to obtain everything when moused over. These are also only their rank 1 tooltips.

Essence Sources​

• Aegis of the Deep/Depth Forged Aegis; Ankoan/Unshackled reputation (Alliance/Horde factions within Nazjatar).
• Anima of Life and Death/Fetish of the Dark Caverns; Mythic Plus. Locked until season 3.
• Azeroth's Undying Gift/Hardened Azerite Formation; The Eternal Palace, patch 8.2's new raid. Locked until season 3.
• Conflict and Strife/Finger-Bone Trophy of Battle; Weekly rated PvP. Locked until season 3.
• Memory of Lucid Dreams/Pearl of Lucid Dreams; Leveling up bodyguard npcs in Nazjatar through world quests and combat.
• Nullification Dynamo/Null Force Containment Unit; Rustbolt Resistance reputation (a new faction within the Mechagon zone)
• Ripple in Space/Time-Lost Battlefield Memento; World PvP, especially in Nazjatar
• Sphere of Suppression/Sphere of Suppressed Force; Honor from any PvP activity
• The Crucible of Flame/Petrified Ebony Scale; Leveling up your Heart of Azeroth and doing a questline with Magni and MOTHER
• Vision of Perfection/Engine of Mecha-Perfection; Operation: Mechagon, patch 8.2's new megadungeon. Locked until season 3.
• Worldvein Resonance/Volatile Worldvein; Island Expeditions

Deeper Thoughts​

Squishing Bugs​

So without discussing the new raid, dungeon, affix, zones, or profession tweaks in Tides of Vengeance, what is there to think about in class changes? For starters, the bugfix involving Summon Black Ox Statue and Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox is the result of how a new azerite essence interacts. Vision of Perfection's major effect is a chance to cast Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox even if you aren't talented into it. As a result, the despawn bug would potentially happen more often now than ever before. It has actually been around since at least patch 8.0, and may have existed even in Legion! That's how rarely seen this bug was. But, as a fun story about why we have the public test realm instead of only hotfixes, the initial fix for this error allowed players to summon up to five Black Ox Statues, shown below. This won't be the case on the live realms in Tides of Vengeance, but what the fix does mean is that you cannot easily macro a way to despawn Dave anymore, as previously discussed.

This is one reason why PTR exists.

Hot Trub​

Next, the Hot Trub nerfs. This potent pvp passive has really only seen nerfs since its initial release in patch 7.0, and with good reason: it allows a Brewmaster's Purifying Brew to deal damage based on the amount purified. Before some of its Legion nerfs, a Brewmaster could almost solo an entire raid of players with a couple of well-timed Purifying Brews, as the character Pharmacist demonstrated back in 7.0.

Watch the raid frames.

Of course, until Tides of Vengeance, this power was restricted to PvP...but soon players will be able to use it in PvE with the help of the azerite essence Conflict and Strife. What this all means for Brewmaster damage as a whole more or less requires an entire Zen Meditation, unfortunately. Needless to say, without the damage splitting in aoe, we would have been more ridiculous than Protection Warriors who also received nerfs this patch! For now, expect to see plenty of Brewmasters using the Conflict and Strife essence for damage at the start of season 3 until we puzzle out how much damage it's actually providing compared to other options.

Gear Scaling​

An item level 425 Diamond-Laced Refracting Prism (with socket) tooltip in patch 8.1.5.

The same Prism's tooltip in patch 8.2.

Finally, let's discuss the implications of the scaling buff to all non-azerite gear with extra effects coming in Patch 8.2. This change may end up being more significant than even the essence system when it comes to the raw power increase given to players. What makes it especially noteworthy is that these buffs are greater at higher item levels! For example, using a 425 Diamond-Laced Refracting Prism for comparison, one can see that it is a buff of approximately 61% in its effect strength (before accounting for Celestial Fortune's interaction with absorbs). But, if that prism was only item level 415, the level of buff would instead be ~41%. An amount that is still significant, but definitely not as massive. If this trend continues into the item levels offered in The Eternal Palace raid, then it is entirely possible that an item with a strong effect could be worth sacrificing a LOT of stats--and therefore item levels--to equip instead. Suddenly all that gear from mythic Crucible of Storms (Trident of Deep Ocean) may be worthwhile after all...but hopefully not.

The Takeaway​

So, is it worth it to come back to Battle for Azeroth to try out Tides of Vengeance? Honestly, until season 3 starts on July 9th/10th, there's not much there to entice you if you've already moved on to something else. The main pieces of content available on patch day will be a few essences here and there, some story quests/rares in Mechagon and Nazjatar, new profession materials to farm, heritage armor for some, and a couple of new island expedition maps. Otherwise, it's back to the same old ap/rep grind, albeit with some new world quests and pet battles. That being said, players are unlocking flying this patch if they earn Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder: Part Two. Overall, if you aren't intending to raid in The Eternal Palace or want to see the megadungeon Operation: Mechagon, there probably won't be enough content to sustain you. If you are though, you may want to hop back in and see how things go for the next month or two. You may end up content with the content after all.

Some would say transmog is the true endgame anyway.

If you like this and the other content provided here on PeakofSerenity by myself and other Monks, consider supporting us through Patreon or Paypal. If you have any questions, leave a comment below or join us on the Monk discord channel, PeakofSerenity.