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Stagger like Jagger: The brewmaster monk 101 guide
Interested in trying out the new monk class, but can't tell your Tiger Strikes from your Tiger Palms? Written by Chase Hasbrouck of World of Monkcraft, WoW Insider's new monk coverage will get you kicking in no time! With Mists of Pandaria nearing release, the monk class is rounding into its final form. While a few things may still be tweaked, the design and abilities have now stabilized enough that I feel comfortable presenting you with a series of guides for each specialization. This week: brewmasters! Brewmaster is the tanking specialization for the monk class. Themed after the classic Drunken Master, your job is to keep the enemies busy trying to hit you while your compatriots take them out. Any race, except for worgen and goblin, can play a monk. Like all monks, they have two resources that must be managed; energy and chi. Energy functions identically to rogues and feral druids, as a 100-point pool that regenerates at a constant rate, in and out of combat. This energy regeneration can be increased with haste, and is used to power your basic attacks. These abilities don't do much on their own, but they build up the brewmaster's second resource: chi. Chi is a static 4-point pool, similar to a rogue's combo points, that decays when out of combat. Once you've built up a few points of chi, it can be used to power stronger abilities that do significant damage, provide self-healing, or make you more resilient.
So you want to play a brewmaster monk?
Interested in trying out the new monk class, but can't tell your Tiger Strikes from your Tiger Palms? Written by Chase Hasbrouck of World of Monkcraft, WoW Insider's new monk coverage will get you kicking in no time! Last week, I covered windwalker monks and how to fly around kicking butt like a kung fu master. This week, I'm delving into the "spirited" version, the brewmaster. One caveat, though: Because this is still beta, things will likely change somewhat between now and live. We'll have a full 101 guide that covers things like enchants, gems, and stats when Mists is released, but this will cover you until then. What is a brewmaster monk? Monks have three role options: damage, tanking, and healing, of which brewmaster is the tanking role. How do brewmaster monks work? Brewmaster monks have two primary resources, energy and chi. Energy replenishes at a constant rate and is used to power your basic moves and abilities. These attacks generate chi, which is then used to buff your survivability. What is this "stagger" thing? Stagger is a new mitigation mechanic that is exclusive to brewmaster tanks. For every physical attack taken, a percentage of the damage is not taken immediately but instead is turned into a damage over time effect that stacks. In and of itself, this does nothing except spread out the damage taken a bit. However, brewmasters also have Purifying Brew, which completely eliminates the Stagger DoT effect. Depending on the fight, you may have enough chi to use PB often, or you may need to let Stagger stack a bit. Many abilities buff Stagger, such as the Shuffle effect from Blackout Kick.
