On this page, we present the viable talent and glyph choices forBrewmaster Monks in World of Warcraft MoP 5.4. We detail what each of the talents andglyphs do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other pages of our Brewmaster Monk guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.

1. Talent Choices↑top

• Performance-enhancing
• Survival
• Crowd Control
• Movement
• Utility
• Situational

There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents arenow viable. They can easily be changed, thanks to Dust of Disappearance(and Tomes of the Clear Mind from level 86 to 90).You will frequently find yourself changing talents and glyphs betweenencounters, in order to adapt your play style to different mechanics.Therefore, it is important to understand what each of your talents does andhow they affect your play style.

2. Tier 1 Talents↑top

Tier 1 talents offer you a choice between 3 ways of improving yourmobility.

• Celerity passively increases the number of charges of Roll and Chi Torpedo by 1, and reduces their recharge time by 5seconds.
• Tiger's Lust removes all immobilising and movement-impairing effectsfrom the target, and grants 70% increased movement speed for 6 seconds. Ithas a 30-second cooldown. It is targeted, so it can be cast on yourself or onanother ally.
• Momentum passively causes each Roll and Chi Torpedo to increase your movement speed by 25% for 10 seconds,stacking up 2 times.

The choice of talent here depends greatly on how you wish to move duringthe encounter.

• If you are looking for a controlled burst of movement speed, or possiblyto escape movement impairing effects, then Tiger's Lust is best. Do notethat this spell can be cast on allies, providing you with added utility.
• If you believe you will make frequent use of Roll or Chi Torpedo, and you wish to make their usage more comfortable, thenyou will probably prefer Celerity.
• If you believe you will make frequent use of Roll or Chi Torpedo, and you wish to benefit from increased movement speedeach time you do so, then Momentum is for you.

Overall, the preferred choice in most situations will be Tiger's Lust.

3. Tier 2 Talents↑top

Tier 2 talents offer you a choice between 3 hybrid, DPS-healingabilities.

• Chi Wave is essentially a chain-heal that bounces to the 7 nearesttargets. The bounces target friends and allies alternatively. Each target thatthe wave bounces to is healed or damaged, depending on their alignment. Thehealing portion of Chi Wave is a smart heal, in the sense that it prefershealing low health players. It has a 15-second cooldown, and it is free ofcost.
• Zen Sphere summons a sphere above the head of a friendly target(yourself included), which lasts for 16 seconds. Every 2 seconds, the sphereheals the target, and deals damage to the nearest enemy within 10 yards. Ithas a 10-second cooldown, and it is free of cost. You can have a maximum oftwo spheres at one time. Finally, the Zen Sphere will detonate, causing it todeal a moderate amount of damage and healing to all targets within 10 yards,whenever its target drops below 35% health, or after its duration runs out.
• Chi Burst heals all friendly targets, and damages all hostile targetsin a 40-yard cone in front of the caster. The spell has a 30-secondcooldown, a very short cast time, and it is free of cost.

Your choice of talent depends on the type of healing that you need, but Chi Wave should be the default choice for most situations. It isespecially suited for healing targets that are somewhat spread out.

Chi Burst is a good choice for when the raid is stacked up, providinga nice amount of healing. Outside of these situations, however, it is hard touse efficiently.

Zen Sphere is a more controlled, single target heal. The spheredetonation is a useful AoE heal in case many players are stacked, especiallywhen players often dip below 35% health (so that the detonation occursautomatically).

4. Tier 3 Talents↑top

Tier 3 talents offer you 3 choices that enhance your resourcegeneration.

• Power Strikes passively causes Jab, Expel Harm, Spinning Crane Kick (when it hits at least 3 targets), and Crackling Jade Lightning to generate 1 additional Chi. The effect has a20-second internal cooldown. If you are at maximum Chi when this effect procs,a Chi sphere will spawn next to you. A Chi sphere grants you 1 Chi each timeyou walk through/over it, consuming the sphere in the process.
• Ascension increases your maximum Chi by 1 (from 4 to 5), your maximummana by 15%, and your energy regeneration rate by 15%.
• Chi Brew instantly restores 2 Chi, and generates 5 stacks of Elusive Brew. It has a 45-second cooldown.

Here, you are faced with a rather difficult choice in deciding which thebest talent is for your survivability.

Ascension, in addition to the energy (and therefore Chi) that itprovides, has the advantage of allowing you to pool slightly more Chi. This isbeneficial because you can thus save up Chi in preparation for taking a lot ofdamage.

Power Strikes is ideally suited for fights where you have regulardowntime on targets. This is because its internal cooldown continues to tickeven while you are not attacking anyone, so you will get the Chi proc as soonas you are back on the target.

Finally, Chi Brew is great for when you need to pick up a new boss oradd. In situations like these, your Elusive Brew stacks and Chi may be low,so this talent helps quite a lot.

5. Tier 4 Talents↑top

Tier 4 talents offer you a choice between 3 crowd-control abilities.

• Ring of Peace is an ability that can be cast on a friendly player.It creates a ring with an 8-yard radius around the player, lasting 8 seconds.When Ring of Peace is cast, enemy players who are inside this area areinstantly disarmed for 4 seconds and silenced for 3 seconds. Enemies insidethe area who cast spells or use any abilities other than melee attacks aredisarmed for 4 seconds and silenced for 3 seconds (the disarm and silenceeffects both being subject to diminishing returns). This ability has a45-second cooldown.
• Charging Ox Wave summons an ox that stuns all enemies located ina 30-yard path in front of you for 3 seconds. It has a 30-second cooldown.
• Leg Sweep stuns all enemies within a 5-yard radius of you for5 seconds. It has a 45-second cooldown.

These talents have no meaningful impact on your gameplay and will not affectyour performance. Therefore, you can choose them based on your own preferenceor the crowd-control requirements of the encounter.

To help you decide, we can mention that Charging Ox Wave is good whenyou need a ranged stun, and especially when you need to pick up newly-spawnedadds with regularity. Leg Sweep offers good damage reduction if you areable to stun adds that are attacking you with it, but note that it has a lowerrange and longer cooldown than Charging Ox Wave. Ring of Peace is usefulagainst groups of adds that can be silenced or disarmed.

6. Tier 5 Talents↑top

Tier 5 talents offer you a choice between 3 survival abilities.

• Healing Elixirs heals you for 15% of your maximum health each timeyou drink from a Brew or Tea. The effect has an 18-second internalcooldown, and it does not proc when you are at full health. It procsautomatically when you have less than 35% health.
• Dampen Harm causes the next 3 attacks against you (within 45seconds), which deal 20% or more of your maximum health in damage, to havetheir damage reduced by 50%. It has a 1.5-minute cooldown.
• Diffuse Magic removes all magical debuffs from you. Additionally,for 6 seconds, it reduces all magic damage taken by 90%, and reflects allspells back to the caster.

The choice of talent in this case is based very strongly on the type ofdamage you are receiving in the fight.

• Diffuse Magic can help greatly mitigate magic damageagainst you, as well as clear harmful debuffs from yourself. Its low durationmeans that it is useful against spikes of magic damage, but not againstsustained magic damage.
• Dampen Harm works against both magic and physical attacks, despitethe ambiguous wording of the tooltip. It will prove most beneficial to reducethe damage dealt by powerful boss melee attacks. Note, however, that unlessthe boss hits particularly hard or you are doing progression content, itsmelee attacks are unlikely to trigger the effect of Dampen Harm.
• Healing Elixirs requires no management, and it will provide you witha nice amount of overall healing by the end of the fight. That said, thishealing may often come at times when you do not really need it that much.

7. Tier 6 Talents↑top

Tier 6 talents offer you a choice between 3 multiple target abilities.

• Rushing Jade Wind is an improvement over Spinning Crane Kick, whichit replaces. It acts exactly like Spinning Crane Kick, but it only deals80% of its damage/healing. At the same time, it is instant, and not channeled,allowing you to continue casting spells while the spell is on-going.
• Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger summons a tiger companion for 45 seconds.This companion has a pet control bar, allowing you to command it to tauntand attack specific targets. When Xuen takes damage, you gain Vengeance. Xuen also has a cleave attack, damaging 3 targets near tohis primary target. It has a 3-minute cooldown.
• Chi Torpedo is an improvement over Roll, which itreplaces. It causes you to roll a short distance in front of you, dealingdamage to all enemies, and healing all allies in your path.

We believe that the best choice is either Rushing Jade Wind or Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger.

Rushing Jade Wind is best for sustained AoE situations, and it should becast whenever there are more than 3 targets around you.

Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger is the best choice for single target andcleave situations.

Chi Torpedo provides a hybrid role of DPS and healing. It is onlyuseful when you can roll around and when your raid is stacked up enough thatthe healing from Chi Torpedo is very efficient. In reality, this talent ishighly situational.

8. Major Glyphs↑top

There are several Major Glyphs that are interesting for Brewmaster Monks.

• Glyph of Fortuitous Spheres causes a healing sphere to be summonednear the Monk, when their health drops below 25%. It has no cost, and it hasa 30-second internal cooldown. This glyph is useful when you have a spareglyph slot, and especially so in fights where your health often drops below25% health.
• Glyph of Fortifying Brew increases the damage reduction of Fortifying Brew (a major survival cooldown) by 5% (to 25%), butreduces the health increase by 10% (to 10%). We believe that, as FortifyingBrew is best used preemptively, this glyph will often be useful.
• Glyph of Leer of the Ox grants you the Leer of the Ox ability,which grants your Black Ox Statue a single target taunt. However, this tauntdoes not generally work on raid bosses.
• Glyph of Zen Meditation allows you to channel Zen Meditationwhile moving. This is very useful for fights where you can make good use ofZen Meditation, and it also helps avoid accidentally canceling thespell.
• Glyph of Enduring Healing Sphere increases the duration of the healingspheres generated by Gift of the Ox by a considerably amount. It isvery useful for saving up a pile of spheres and using them when you really needa burst of healing.
• Glyph of Touch of Death removes the Chi cost of Touch of Death,but increases its cooldown by 2 minutes. Since using Touch of Deathagainst a raid boss will be extremely difficult (you must cast the abilitywhen the boss' health is between roughly 500,000 and 0), removing theChi cost will make using it exactly when you want to somewhat easier.

9. Minor Glyphs↑top

Glyph of Spirit Roll and Glyph of Water Roll allow youto use Roll and Chi Torpedo while dead, and while travelingover water respectively. They have no raid applicability, but they can proveto be very convenient.

All other Minor Glyphs have only cosmetic purposes, or are otherwise notuseful during raid combat.

10. Changelog↑top

• 11 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
  • Updated the descriptions of Chi Wave, Power Strikes, Chi Brew, Ring of Peace, Healing Elixirs, Rushing Jade Wind,and Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger to account for the (mostly minor) changesthat they underwent.
  • Updated the relative values of Tier 3, 5, and 6 talents.
  • Removed Glyph of Stoneskin and Glyph of Guard.
  • Added Glyph of Fortuitous Spheres, Glyph of Zen Meditation, and Glyph of Enduring Healing Sphere.
• 23 May 2013: Updated Ring of Peace description forPatch 5.3.
• 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing to change.
• 12 Apr. 2013: Several important updates.
  • The Tier 2 talent section now correctly reflects the fact that thesetalents are very useful for Brewmaster Monks.
  • Reworded and improved the Tier 3, 5, and 6 talent sections to betterreflect the usefulness of these talents.
  • Added a mention that Glyph of Guard is not quite as good as itsounds. Also added a mention that the taunt from Glyph of Leer of the Ox doesnot work on raid bosses.
• 11 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated explanations for all Tier 2 talents to include the addition ofcooldowns, and the removal of Chi costs. Also further updated the explanationof Zen Sphere to account for the fact that now two spheres can be activeat once.
  • Removed explanation for Deadly Reach, following its removal from thegame.
  • Added explanation for Ring of Peace, a new talent introduced in Patch5.2.
  • Updated Healing Elixirs explanation to mention that the healingprovided is 15%, up from 10%.
  • Added mention that Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger fixates on the target ofthe Monk at the time of casting it.

Introduction

Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities