Monk tank discussion from a newbie

Classes Monk
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So i started to play little bit of monk tank, i dont know why but throwing barrels shooting flame breath is pretty fun and ox statue is pretty nice.

But there is few complications to compare to other tanks.
Myself i am not tank main but i am willing to give it a shot.

so kul tiran monk, i have made soo many wipes just to the level 67.
mostly because i take too much damage and i die…
Now when i have seen how tanks work, its complicated.

So first off, you have these two brews that minimize the damage that the stagger does to you and other one extends the amount of damage you can stagger, so you are suppose to balance those while throwing barrels and compo with flame breath and midigate a good pull.

thats allot to do brewmaster monk, sometimes when you have adds, you can just throw ox but mainy times, you are the main target and you take allot of damage.

now lets compare little bit:
Paladin has great self heal, armor gain, block gain and invisibility and you can taunt at the same time.

Druid: allot of hp, good area attacks, huge armor gain, barbs, movement speed.

Warriors: good area attacks, armor gain and so on.

monk is like, you got small amount of passive heal you could you say, stun, movement but everything else is depended on combos.

Now comboing isnt too hard…but when you are trying to keep enemies only targeting you while you are shuffling between brews, self heal and so on.
its kinda hectic.

so what i want to ask from you is.
Would you ever recommend tank monk to anybody and would it be actually worth the struggles?

2

Monks are very strong tanks at max level that can survive things that maybe some other tanks would not simply because of stagger. Monks struggle more at lower levels because of not having their mastery. But they are almost invincible at max level paired with a good healer. They pair extremely well with a resto druid for example.

Monk is the most used tank for mythic raids right now and Andybrew, top m+ tank is using a brewmaster for their high keystones.

Ofc they have their weaknesses and they do rely more on a healer than other tanks. But brm is a very strong tank otherwise. They have their mitigation up 100% of the time with ironskin brew and can survive huge hits that some other tanks would just die to…like a blood dk for example.

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Monk Tank main here.

Between stagger, orbs healing, free healing from the crit passive, kiting with rolls, transcendence, leg sweep, and ring of peace, and the god-almighty stagger mechanic, a monk tank is very durable if played right.

Holding threat of groups of enemies is very easy with proper use of keg smash, breath of fire, and to a lesser degree - rushing jade wind.

Generally the idea is to run in and let rushing jade win grab the teeny bit of initial aggro on mobs, then hit them with keg smash + breath of fire once you’ve gathered them all up. You might have to tab+tiger palm on specific mobs that run to your dps sometimes, but that’s normal for tanks on aoe pulls.

As for mitigation, the main thing is: Keep your ironskin brew up! The main thing that new brewmasters seem to mess up on, is using too many brew charges on Purifying Brew. Sure, getting rid of stagger damage is nice – but if you run out of charges and can’t refresh your ironskin buff when it runs out, you run the very real risk of getting bursted from the now mosly direct damage intake, coupled with the already-staggered damage from your previous ironskin brew.

With a proper rotation (i.e. using keg smash on cooldown and using tiger palm enough to not let your energy over-cap), you should get enough cooldown reduction on your brew charges to always have ironskin brew up and also get a few purifies in here and there as well.

Make sure you save the purify charges for moments in time when you have a LOT of damage staggered, though, as they should be used sparingly and it’s important to make it count when you do use them.

Overall, monk tanks have good damage for a tank, are easy to heal if played right, and have a decent amount of self-healing (particularly if you run Healing Elixir for solo content and 5-mans). If you’d like more tips and tricks for playing them, there are several guides out on the internet – icyveins is usually a good place to start in general, and peak of serenity is also a fantastic monk-specific info website :slight_smile:

Good luck, and have fun!

2 Likes
4

I’m very late to this party, but this line stood out - because monk tanks are legendary for not being very good at lower levels. I imagine the you are well beyond this by now though. Hopefully you didn’t give up :slight_smile:

I don’t tank often, but I can and often meander around assaults and world quests in brewmaster spec because it just feels so safe and solid. Rare with 5m hp? Pull it, either I’ll solo it over 3 minutes, or someone else will show up and kill it for me.

In dungeons, I’m pretty inexperienced, but I’ve managed to get a group around a +14 on time. Stagger is very forgiving of your personal mistakes - even if it does potentially ramp up the load on your healer and make them compensate, at least they can do that rather than watching you die :slight_smile:

2 Likes
5

Any leather tank is usually less reliable than a plate tank in terms of survivability, but it mostly depends on your healer. Funnily enough, mistweaver monks seem to pair the best with brewmaster thanks to the continuous healing. I would recommend monk tank after lvl 90 when you have both your mastery and can take the rushing jade wind talent, which gives you an AoE damage ability that you can have 100% uptime on for no energy cost at all. Pair this with a good healer and you’ll have one of the more enjoyable tanking experiences imo.

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I would say resto druid for brewmaster, personally. They’re more likely to heal you through stagger after combat ends, just because their HoTs are still ticking. Other healers can forget that you still need attention. PITA on grievous week :slight_smile:

1 Like
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True, any HoTs pair well with brewmaster, but I’ve found that resto druid tends to run out of mana faster when your HoTs alone can’t cancel out the amount damage your group is taking, but this could be thanks to my lack of experience with the class.

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Im 115 monk now and this brews mechanic can be little overhelming with short duration it have. I dont think refreshing buff every 6 sec is healthy mechanic but im getting used to it… issue is only absence of having strong cooldown i mean this 7min cd with 20% reduction? Lel this zen something is againts spells only. So one 7 min cd and thats it. Thats why you relly a lot on your healer…

I have also bdk on 120 and gameplay wise its very brainded.

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