A Much Angrier Dave & Customizable Mitigation – Brewmaster Monk’s Patch 11.2 Rework Reviewed

Our Brewmaster Monk Writer, Sinzhu, discusses the suite of changes including the talent tree shakeup, improvements to their core celestial Niuzao (Angry Dave), and potential concerns as to whether the rework goes far enough.

Patch 11.2 Overview: Ghosts of K’areshBrewmaster Monk Guide

Brewmaster Monk Updates in Patch 11.2

Players have been crying out for them, and now on the Patch 11.2 PTR there are finally some substantial Brewmaster updates. For a tank that has long been confined to being decidedly average at worst, what could possibly need to happen to shift player perspective, and have there been enough changes to satisfy the ones wanting a full rework? To start with, here are the official developer notes of the first two 11.2 PTR builds to go over Blizzard’s adjustments and the goals of these updates:

Per Blizzard, the overall aim of these changes is to create an even smoother damage intake and healing loop for Brewmaster players, while also trying to make Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox a more useful and persistent part of the kit. So far, this includes 3 brand new talents, 5 redesigns, 2 removals, and a major reshuffling of the talent tree’s layout. With all that in mind, let’s go over each aspect of these updates and see how successful or not they are with Blizzard’s intentions.

Customize Your Mitigation

Starting off, Brewmasters have gained three new talents that all have a big theme of spreading damage and healing out over a longer period of time. The first and most impactful of these is Celestial Infusion, which acts as a choice node with Celestial Brew and lasts for up to twice as long as its alternative while providing the same size of absorb. In exchange, this ability’s absorb will is only reduced by 30% of the damage you take. If you are familiar with a Protection Warrior’s Ignore Pain ability, this is sort of similar. Unlike them, however, a Brewmaster’s “effective health”—how much damage they can actually take before dying thanks to Stagger in particular—is among the highest of all specializations. This means that the “burst” mitigation of Celestial Brew is often unnecessary to survive, and you can instead focus on smoothing it out with Celestial Infusion. If you need to block an entire hit for some reason, such as Ego Check on Chrome King Gallywix, then Celestial Brew is right there. Otherwise, you can largely expect this talent to become your new default choice of the two to focus on more consistent damage mitigation.

Next among these brand new talents is Niuzao’s Resolve, which focuses on smoothing on your healing from Gift of the Ox. While talented, Niuzao’s Resolve converts all Healing Spheres from Gift of the Ox and Spirit of the Ox into a 10-second HoT effect. What’s more, this HoT’s size dynamically adjusts every tick with bonus healing based on how much of your maximum health you are missing at the time. Considering that these Healing Spheres are very prone to overhealing when consumed with Expel Harm (especially when considering Strength of Spirit and Celestial Fortune), this talent becomes something of a no-brainer in an area where your damage taken is consistent and you are not in need of as much burst healing. However, at time of writing, this is unfortunately bugged to often lose some of its healing ticks, which results in a tremendous loss of potential. Provided that this bug is fixed in a timely manner, you can count on Niuzao’s Resolve also becoming a staple defensive talent for Brewmasters that vastly reduces the chances of overhealing in their kit. Best of all, like with Celestial Brew, you can always untalent it to regain burst healing as an encounter demands; its node does not block you from reaching any other talents!

We’re two for two on solid new talents so far, and the final new option of Zen State is likely to keep the momentum going. This talent, which has taken the place of Zen Meditation, dynamically increases your Stagger percentage against your target based on your missing health. Think of it as an always-present Will of the Necropolis from a Death Knight, giving you more defense when you need it the most. However, it should be noted that the Stagger increase is linear (like the scaling damage reduction of Dampen Harm), and works as another modifier on your Stagger rating. As a result, the tooltip’s claim of “20%” is an example that’s not outright lying, but not telling the whole truth either—those of you interested in the creative math behind Stagger can see what I mean hidden in our rotation guide for Brewmasters. You will gain roughly that much additional Physical Stagger percentage…but only while at 1% health. Still, the scaling nature of this talent does mean that on average it is likely to be the best defensive choice for Staggering more damage, and all for a single point. To top it all off, like Niuzao’s Resolve, Zen State’s position means you can opt into or out of it without affecting your pathing. The only real downside to its creation is that we have lost Zen Meditation, which perhaps could have been kept as a choice node to be the “burst” defensive counterpart of this passive smoothing effect.

Considering that Blizzard’s goal with these talents is to take damage and heal it back more smoothly, I would call these three a resounding success. With them, you have the option to talent into more long-term damage and healing with Celestial Infusion and Niuzao’s Resolve in particular, but still go back to the “burst” options of regular Gift of the Ox/Spirit of the Ox and Celestial Brew. Plus, since these talents are either choice nodes or appear in non-critical pathing locations, you are free to mix and match them all and create an entire spectrum of defensive choice. Maybe there will be an encounter where you only take Zen State and Celestial Brew while also grabbing High Tolerance and Ox Stance to maximize your Stagger, or another where you opt for fully smoothing things out. The beauty of these choices is putting all that control in your hands as a player to meet your personal needs.

A Celestial’s Resurgence

Blizzard’s next stated goal involves the intent of making Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox, aka (Angry) Dave, a more consistently present and impactful part of the Brewmaster kit, and improving his integration throughout. While it is true that the celestial has been something of a “staple” in many Brewmaster builds since his debut in Legion, the Black Ox has become increasingly overshadowed by other Brewmaster abilities over the years. In particular, the relative power of Dave has dwindled to the point where in The War Within it can be difficult to even justify the talent point for him outside of raiding where there is likely more flexibility allowed. Beyond this, the two supporting talents below Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox, Walk with the Ox and Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox, have gone unselected since their Dragonflight debut. Clearly, there is only room to rise from here, and ascend Dave has.

The improvement effort to the Brewmaster celestial begins with the cooldown itself. Thus far on the PTR, Dave’s Stomp ability has been buffed to be 10 times stronger, and is now triggered with every cast of Purifying Brew you do while he is active rather than autocast every 5 seconds. In addition, he is healed by the Stagger damage you clear with Purifying Brew, similar to the Gai Plin’s Imperial Brew talent, to offset the Stagger damage transferred to Niuzao while active—previously he could be killed from this damage in especially dangerous content. Finally, these changes to Stomp and the healing effect should be applied to the Call to Arms talent, turning Weapons of Order into an even more formidable cooldown—although this copy is seemingly bugged and only exhibits the Stagger damage transfer passive at this time. However, it should be noted that your Stagger damage will also only transfer to one of them. This means that you must wait for 12 seconds after casting Weapons of Order to cast Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox and maximize the potential benefits. All things considered, this is a substantial set of buffs to Angry Dave the celestial, though there will likely be some lingering concerns about wanting to excessively purify while he is active for damage; this will especially push players into Black Ox Brew, too.

Of course, the adjustments to Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox wouldn’t be complete without also modifying Walk with the Ox and Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox. In 11.2, Walk with the Ox is becoming a bonus damage proc to summon an image of Niuzao that Stomps at the location of your enemies, while also passively reducing the cooldown of Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox. Essentially, this talent replicates a stronger, more Brewmaster-themed version of the Resonant Fists talent from Dragonflight. Then, to cap things off, Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox finally grants Brewmasters a (small) additional group utility all their own by enabling Dave to knock enemies into the air once per use, which also applies to copies summoned by Call to Arms! However, this talent is still a fairly substantial investment for a knockback utility that deals no additional damage and can only be once every minute or so. By comparison, Ring of Peace is more impactful on a shorter cooldown, available to all Monks, and located in a position where it is easily selected at all times. Even so, it is early enough in the PTR for this to be changed to something more potent or rewarding for its talent investment, and remains mercifully avoidable if necessary without compromising all the additional damage of the “regular” cooldown and Walk with the Ox.

As with the completely new talents, Blizzard seems to have had a laser focus on the goals they wanted to address in Brewmasters for Ghosts of Ka’resh. To this end they have outdone themselves on the new and improved Angry Dave, and it certainly possible for Walk with the Ox to become a staple of damage-oriented builds going forward. Although Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox is on the underwhelming side, it does at least create a Brewmaster-specific utility that the other Monk specializations don’t quite have access to, even if Ring of Peace is close.

Talent Build Shakeups

With all of the new and improved talents’ effects covered, let’s now see how Blizzard chose to revamp pathing throughout the Brewmaster talent tree.

While there are plenty of small movements to potentially discuss, like Strike At Dawn/August Blessing moving into the top section or Staggering Strikes becoming a choice node with Quick Sip, perhaps the single most noteworthy changes are in Elixir of Determination gaining a direct connection to Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox and the choice node of Shadowboxing Treads/Fluidity of Motion taking the place of Zen Meditation. This means that now you may opt for builds that focus entirely on the three Breath of Fire talents on the left or the three Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox talents in the middle and still be able to fill in a suite of defensive talents to meet every situation. In particular, a potential build being tested on the PTR right now is this new “Breathless” approach of the Invoke talents, while possibly switching Special Delivery back to Rushing Jade Wind or even selecting Fluidity of Motion in single target to help fill gaps in the rotation from missing Breath of Fire.

What is especially impressive about the new tree layout is that there is still room for a “maximum damage” build that selects every possible offensive talent but still has two “flex” points to put into whatever defensive choices you like; I can only assume it will become a new staple of raiders in (hopefully) farm. Yet all the while, almost every defensive option has ended up in a position where they aren’t absolutely necessary for the purposes of pathing, but can still be reached in almost any build. This is what I would consider the biggest success of the entire Brewmaster update, and will ideally give players the greatest amount of personal agency in building their character around the demands of a fight. If the loss of Zen Meditation and Pretense of Instability becoming mandatory are the price to pay for this success, then so be it…as long as the tuning is appropriate.

Potential Concerns

There has been a lot to like in these Brewmaster changes for 11.2. However, I do wonder if honing in on a specific goal has caused Blizzard to potentially forget about some lingering concerns that aren’t directly related to smoothing out the damage and healing intake or Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox. Take my previous wishlist for the season as an example, where I mentioned my own desire of wanting to see a more consistent play experience. What seems like a single concrete change has been made in pursuit of that goal, in that the Face Palm talent has had its randomness removed in exchange for reducing the damage bonus. However, there is still the large problem of Tiger Palm remaining the main Energy spender over Spinning Crane Kick, even in AoE. Similarly, there is still a distinct lack of appeal to the Haste secondary across the board, and the frustrating behaviors related to Shado-Pan’s Flurry Strikes continue to remain when an upcoming tier set will prominently feature them and potentially create all the more frustration.

Credit where it’s due to Blizzard though, the desire for consistency mentioned Walk with the Ox and Celestial Flames by name, which were redesigned and removed, respectively. You can also argue that all of the defensive talents available have ended up in a state where (almost) none are particularly bad, though their similar effect on your final mitigation results in them feeling very nebulous in value. Seeing some of the changes longed for get implemented is better than none of them.

Where I have more of a bone to pick is in the Ox Stance talent and its supporting capstones. On top of having a very vague tooltip (how much more Stagger when a charge is consumed, for example), the additional talents that improve its effects—Black Ox Adept and Heightened Guard—have realistically been dead-on-arrival from the start of The War Within. It is already difficult to tell how much defensive value the Ox Stance talent itself provides over a fight, with players often sitting at the maximum number of buff charges and “wasting” plenty more while having to carefully check a log to even know for sure when one was consumed. Therefore, there is no reason to increase the stack generation with Black Ox Adept, nor does consuming additional charges with Heightened Guard on damage that’s already non-threatening warrant spending a talent point at the bottom of the tree. Surely one of them made more sense to see removal than Zen Meditation, which also had its limited share of use, or at least a redesign.

Regardless, apart from Spinning Crane Kick not being fully addressed and the Ox Stance trio of talents not warranting their tree positions, my criticism against the 11.2 Brewmaster changes themselves remains very limited. Of what we have already seen, at most I would want to see the bugs involving Niuzao’s Resolve/Call to Arms addressed and perhaps a little more incentive to select Improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox, even if it is in the form of attaching some damage to the knockup stomp. Otherwise, most of my lingering concerns have already been addressed with the more recent build that favorably adjusted talent positions.

Final Thoughts

Overall, these adjustments to the Brewmaster Monk tree have ended up feeling like more than a hotfix, but perhaps less than the “rework” some players were hoping to see. As of writing, though, we are now in a state where almost every single talent point in the tree has a proper use. Not only that, but the spectrum of building for damage or defense has gotten wider and created more flexibility than ever before for a Brewmaster to tailor their choices to the content at hand, including opting out of keybinds. While this may still result in it being hard to judge when to use a given talent (particularly if it involves increasing your Stagger like Zen State or Ox Stance), there is plenty of room to explore without accidentally locking yourself into too awful a build. And, for those that strictly wanted more damage, the new and improved Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox, along with Walk with the Ox, help deliver it in spades. All in all, this “compromise” approach of improving Brewmaster seems to be a success if the tuning works out.

However, I’d still argue that like all of the best compromises, everyone is left feeling a little disappointed by the final results no matter how successful they end up being. Fortunately, there is still time to see more updates and tuning throughout the leadup to (and even during) Season 3 to really get these changes into a place beloved by all. Make sure you get on the PTR yourself as a Brewmaster to try things out and give feedback on how these changes feel (not just numbers and tuning) and still give Blizzard your feedback while there’s time to adjust! Worst case scenario, there’s always Midnight to keep hoping for the “full” rework some players may still want.