In this article, we explain what the best statistics are for Brewmaster Monks (WoW MoP 5.2), how the class benefits from each of them, and what your reforging strategy should be. We also detail what the various caps are and why they should be attained. The statistics priority is important as it influences reforging strategies as well as itemisation choices (gear, enchants, and gems).

Make sure to check our Gear Optimisation Guide, which serves as a support guide for this article.

The other articles of our Brewmaster Monk guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Sunnier, who maintains the most respected Brewmaster Monk resource site: Sunnier's Art of War.

1. Basics↑top

The stat priority for a Brewmaster Monk is:

1. Expertise Rating (until 15%) and Hit Rating (until 7.5%);
2. Agility;
3. Mastery Rating;
4. Critical Strike Rating;
5. Haste Rating.

Note that 10-man raiders may prefer Critical Strike Rating instead of Mastery Rating. More on that below.

These statistics have been obtained by combining common sense, in-game testing, and simulations using Simulation Craft.

If you are unsure what the optimal reforging strategy is for the above priority, you can Ask Mr. Robot for a personalised optimisation of your character's gear, by filling the form below.

2. Getting a Better Understanding↑top

Hit Rating and Expertise Rating improve your survivability and your DPS/threat output. Firstly, missing with your attacks, or having them parried does not generate any Chi, costing you a global cooldown (and, in the case of Keg Smash, triggering the ability's 8-second cooldown). Secondly, it reduces the proc rate of the healing spheres generated by Gift of the Ox, since this ability requires you to land melee hits. While it may sometimes be viable to stop at 7.5% Expertise (and not go all the way up to 15%), we do not generally advise this.

Agility is a very strong survival statistic. It increases your chance to dodge, your attack power (which affects Guard and the strength of your self-heals), and it also increases your Critical Strike chance (which benefits Elusive Brew).

Mastery Rating ( Mastery: Elusive Brawler) increases the amount of damage that you Stagger with each hit. During progression content, and especially against hard-hitting bosses, this is the best survival statistic you can get (it is especially good at mitigating burst damage).

Critical Strike Rating increases the frequency at which you can use Brewing: Elusive Brew, allowing you to stack it much faster. It provides less survivability than Mastery Rating, but it provides more DPS, so if bosses are not hitting you very hard, then you may prefer this stat over Mastery Rating.

Haste Rating increases your energy regeneration rate (and thus, indirectly, your Chi generation), as well as the rate at which you proc healing spheres from Gift of the Ox (since you attack more often). It also increases your DPS. The greatest benefit of Haste Rating is that it allows you to use Purifying Brew more often.

Most encounters have abilities that cannot be mitigated or avoided. Also, you need to have a decent amount of health, in order to give yourself the chance to be healed before a subsequent attack kills you. As such, you need a minimum amount of Stamina. This amount will, in most cases, simply come from the Stamina found innately on your gear. Therefore, you should never have to go out of your way to gem for Stamina.

2.1. Choosing Secondary Statistics

There is a debate in the Brewmaster community as to which secondary statistic is better, once your Hit and Expertise caps have been reached. The debate is between Mastery Rating and Critical Strike Rating. Haste Rating is also sometimes considered as an option, although the points in favour of it are less valid.

In this guide (here, on the Enchants and Gems page, and on the Gear page) we support the Mastery approach. This is not to say, however, that there are no significant benefits when gearing for Critical Strike or Haste.

We choose Mastery because it allows you to reduce your damage taken in the most tense moments of any encounter, that is to say, when you are taking burst damage. At any challenging level of raiding, most tank deaths will result from too much burst damage, for which the tank or the healers were not prepared or were ill-equipped. Your Mastery takes part of that burst damage and turns it into a DoT (which you can then remove through Purifying Brew). This means that the risk of dying from burst damage is much lower, and healing up the DoT in case you do not have the Chi to remove it is much less problematic than healing a large spike of damage.

Critical Strike Rating, on the other hand, provides you with better Elusive Brew uptime. However, as we know, relying on avoidance is very risky, since there is always the chance that you simply will not avoid the attacks made against you, and that you will take a large amount of unreduced damage. This risk does not exist with Mastery Rating.

Therefore, if you are gearing with survival in mind, then we believe that Mastery is the better choice. Even if it means that, over the entire course of the fight, you will take more damage than someone gearing from Critical Strike, it still means that your spike damage (the most lethal kind of tank damage there is) is reduced. In other words, Critical Strike may cause you to take more damage overall, but Mastery will be more effective in actually preventing you from dying.

Haste increase the amount of Chi, allowing you to use Purifying Brew more often, resulting in a larger damage reduction over the course of the fight. That said, an overall reduction in damage is only really useful if you are dying because your healers are running out of mana (which is unlikely). With this approach, you may be able to cast Purifying Brew more often, but your Mastery will not be very efficient at reducing burst damage.

To conclude, while we do prefer the Mastery approach, the Critical Strike approach can also be viable.

10-man raiders represent a different case. Critical Strike Rating can be considered preferable over Mastery Rating for them for two reasons. Firstly, bosses in 10-man hit for less damage than in 25-man, making burst damage less problematic. Secondly, the DPS contribution of tanks is more relevant in 10-man, and Critical Strike Rating helps boost DPS, but Mastery Rating does not.

2.2. Hit Cap

At level 90, most races require 2,550 Hit Rating to reach the melee hit cap. Draenei, thanks to Heroic Presence, only need 2,210 Hit Rating.

2.3. Expertise Cap

At level 90, most races require 5,100 Expertise Rating to reach the expertise cap. Some races, in some cases, only need 4,760 Expertise Rating, thanks to passive racial skills:

• Gnomes when dual-wielding Swords (because of Shortblade Specialization);
• Dwarves when dual-wielding Maces or using a single Mace ( Mace Specialization);
• Humans when dual-wielding Maces/Swords or using a single Mace/Sword ( Mace Specialization and Sword Specialization);
• Orcs when dual-wielding Axes or using a single Axe ( Axe Specialization).

3. Changelog↑top

• 27 Apr. 2013: Added a mention of Critical Strike Rating being better than Mastery Rating in 10-man.
• 25 Apr. 2013: Revisited the secondary stat discussion, giving more emphasis to Critical Strike Rating (which had been neglected previously).
• 12 Apr. 2013: Clarified several stat descriptions, and added an explanation of the debate between Mastery Rating and Haste Rating.
• 09 Apr. 2013: Updated statistic priority for Patch 5.2.