Llarold
Best Brewmaster Monk Double Legendaries for Sepulcher of the First Ones
Kyrian is the default Brewmaster Monk setup for a simple reason: It does the most damage. All four Covenants are defensively solid for Brewmaster Monk in raids. Kyrian is the most consistent Covenant overall. It's just great. Always.
On top of this, the new tier 4-piece bonus synergizes beautifully with
Armi dell'Ordine, and has no real synergy with any other Covenant ability.
Now for the downside,
Chiamata alle Armi does not add consistent damage.
Invocazione: Niuzao, lo Yak Nero is contingent on Purifying Staggered damage in order to maximize his damage with Stomp. When you’re taking a ton of damage, that makes this Legendary’s damage contribution pretty decent. That’s great in Mythic+, but in raids, taunt-swaps are common enough that you may not get the full offensive value of a free
Invocazione: Niuzao, lo Yak Nero each time
Armi dell'Ordine comes off cooldown. You could hold
Armi dell'Ordine until you taunt back, but depending on encounter timings, this may result in losing a cast, which would almost certainly not be worth it. This Legendary’s value is kind of all over the place, and it promotes taking more damage to deal more damage, which isn’t… a great philosophy (not that I don’t stare off toward the horizon and yearn to play Brewmaster Monk during Siege of Orgrimmar again from time to time).
There's also the issue of using
Invocazione: Niuzao, lo Yak Nero at the same time as
Armi dell'Ordine. The
Invocazione: Niuzao, lo Yak Nero summoned by
Chiamata alle Armi and a regular
Invocazione: Niuzao, lo Yak Nero add CAN exist at the same time, but they will fight each other for Purified Stagger value. After one of them casts Stomp, the damage buff is cleared, so the next one will just deal base damage. Basically, you will need to stagger your
Invocazione: Niuzao, lo Yak Nero casts until after the free
Invocazione: Niuzao, lo Yak Nero from
Armi dell'Ordine has expired. It's annoying.
On average, it’s worth about 5% more total damage on the low end. It makes your burst damage a little burstier, which is cool, but yeah, it’s not great. It also has zero rotational impact. It can be exploited to deal lots of damage with a lot of support and setup, but even still, it’s kind of a boring power.
I'll go into further detail about the failures of this setup in the Mythic+ section, but just wanted to include this to be complete. In terms of defensive value, Necrolord is
slightly tankier than Kyrian in raids, but not by enough to justify running it instead.
Necrolord was just surprisingly underwhelming in Sepulcher of the First Ones testing. It's still totally viable, but
Birra Copiosa is incredibly undertuned and inconsistent, and the Covenant in general doesn't add any utility you aren't getting from other Covenants. If tuning wildly changes from testing to live servers and defensive requirements skyrocket, then Necrolord will be a great choice, otherwise: Nah.
Night Fae is the least-popular Brewmaster Monk Covenant for a variety of reasons:
- It deals less damage – generally AT LEAST 500-1000 DPS below Kyrian under ideal conditions.
- It’s difficult to play! Night Fae has strict positional requirements and gets punished much harder than any other Covenant when forced to move by boss mechanics.
- No burst damage! None! It’s bad!
So why would you ever, ever play Night Fae in raids? Why even mention it?
Again, 3 reasons:
- It’s very pretty.
- Armonia di Silfaglia and Night Fae Soulbinds are actually very good, and they synergize beautifully. Maintaining 15-20 stacks of Niya’s Invigorimento del Bosco on Patchwerk bosses is realistic. With Cuori Vincolati, that can grant upwards of 25% bonus health and 900 Mastery on average. This is a huge defensive boost while tanking -- arguably more than anything offered by Necrolord, but less consistent.
- Animorfosi is exceptionally strong.
If I could have freely swapped Covenants during Sanctum of Domination progression, I would have played Night Fae for Painsmith Raznal and Kel’thuzad. The added mobility from
Animorfosi would have been worth the damage sacrifice. Unfortunately, there aren’t a ton of fights in Sepulcher of the First Ones where that added mobility is going to have the same impact as it could have in Sanctum of Domination.
Wait, what is Venthyr doing in a Brewmaster Monk discussion? Did I add this section just to make jokes? Surprisingly, no.
Ordine Caduto’s base cooldown of 3 minutes made Venthyr an inferior Covenant for Brewmasters all expansion.
Insegnamenti Sinistri brings the cooldown of
Ordine Caduto consistently around 90 seconds even in pure single target, and under 1 minute in cleave/AoE. This bonus wasn’t good enough to justify using over standard Brewmaster Legendaries, but in the double-Legendary system, it’s pretty nice. Venthyr has been surprisingly competitive with Kyrian Monk in single target in Normal raid testing (which provides less value for
Chiamata alle Armi), as well as on training dummies and in Mythic+ testing.
Unlike with
Chiamata alle Armi,
Insegnamenti Sinistri doesn’t require any kind of exploitative behavior to maximize its value. You just want to land as many attacks as possible while
Ordine Caduto is active, that’s it.
Venthyr still probably won’t wind up being the best Covenant for Brewmaster Monks, but it is surprisingly competitive, and it’s probably the second-best in raids once wearing double-Legendaries is available. It could be superior at some points if you able to make use of AoE and cleave to greatly reduce
Ordine Caduto's cooldown and gain extra uses in a fight over
Armi dell'Ordine.
Passioni Carbonizzate is still fine. It has been the best single-target DPS Legendary for Brewmasters throughout Shadowlands, at the cost of losing some defensive flexibility and AoE damage compared to
Ultimo Barilotto di Triplo Malto. With the new tier set 4-piece bonus giving offensive and defensive value to
Lancio del Barile,
Ultimo Barilotto di Triplo Malto has significantly caught up to
Passioni Carbonizzate at the one thing
Passioni Carbonizzate is best at (ST DPS), and now totally outperforms it defensively and in AoE.
You can still run
Passioni Carbonizzate for a very minor ST DPS increase, but it's not nearly as good as
Ultimo Barilotto di Triplo Malto once you have the 4-piece bonus.
Best Brewmaster Monk Double Legendaries for Mythic+
This is the default setup for a simple reason: It does the most damage. Thanks to the new 4-piece tier set bonus, it’s also extremely tanky, as well. This is great. It’s incredibly simple and very fun. Zero complaints, plenty of positives. Good vibes all around!
Not much more to say, it’s grrrreat!
This is where things get ugly. Necrolord Brewmaster Monk has been second banana to Kyrian throughout Shadowlands due to its damage output being weaker, but it has remained relatively popular in Mythic+ because it offers more consistent defensive value than Kyrian.
There is a Necrolord Brewmaster Monk build that has gained popularity late in Season 2 of Shadowlands that uses
Mescita Vigorosa instead of
Ultimo Barilotto di Triplo Malto, but given the design of the new tier set, I expect that build to diminish in popularity.
On paper, while Necrolord doesn’t offer nearly as much damage as the Kyrian setup, it’s still good. Adding
Birra Copiosa emphasizes the strength of Necrolord Monk even harder: defensive consistency. Kyrian Monk may have far superior burst damage, but Necrolord has consistency, right?
This is the problem with
Birra Copiosa. It’s arguably the single worst Covenant Legendary in the game, and not because it’s a bad design. The design is actually pretty nice! Using
Birra Copiosa should double Bonedust Brew uptime for Brewmasters. Instead, it does barely half that, due to three bugs/design flaws that seriously restrict its value:
- Birra Copiosa cannot proc while Birra di Polvere d'Ossa is active. I found this issue during day 1 of Covenant Legendary testing on the Patch 9.1 PTR, and reported it immediately. It remains unchanged. I guess it’s intended. This substantially reduces the Legendary’s proc uptime.
- Casting Birra di Polvere d'Ossa while a Birra di Polvere d'Ossa from Birra Copiosa is active will not add 10 seconds to the existing proc. It sets the debuff timer to 10 seconds remaining, period. This means that any proc that occurs while Birra di Polvere d'Ossa is close to off cooldown winds up partially or completely wasted. Sitting on a Birra di Polvere d'Ossa cooldown at any point is wasteful, not merely because you’re wasting Brew recharge value for Birra di Polvere d'Ossa, but also because of the following bug:
- Birra di Polvere d'Ossa procs from Birra Copiosa do not trigger Melmina di Kevin. Weirdly, Esempio Guida does get triggered by free Birra di Polvere d'Ossa procs. Being pushed into an overall-weaker Soulbind because of inconsistent spell trigger interactions is not great.
By my recent testing data, between the base proc chance of 1.5 procs per minute and my Monk’s haste, I should expect roughly 1.8 to 1.9 procs per minute. I consistently average 1.1 to 1.2. That’s a 40% gap between expectation and performance.
Performing at its on-paper value,
Birra Copiosa should offer about a 5-10% DPS increase on average. That’s a bit of a range, but it’s a low-chance, RNG proc. This value would be very competitive with the also-inconsistent Kyrian Legendary
Chiamata alle Armi. That’s great. Except it’s not performing at that level, it’s not even a 5% increase in damage in my testing. Also, 5% more damage as Kyrian is more than 5% more damage as Necrolord. Yikes.
Here’s the bottom line:
Birra Copiosa is a really, really broken Legendary. It’s a great concept, but it barely works. If it were fixed, it would be extremely good, and Necrolord Monk would gain a serious power spike. This would likely not be enough to overtake Kyrian in raids, but it might. It would certainly be enough to make Necrolord much more powerful in Mythic+.
That ain’t happening. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Even in WoW. Sorry.
Again, it’s weird to be talking about Venthyr Brewmaster Monk in a positive light, but here we are.
In Mythic+, getting
Ordine Caduto’s average cooldown around 60s is very easy. It’s a pretty strong offensive cooldown that can be available for virtually every pull. This won’t provide as big of bursts as Kyrian or the defensive benefit of Necrolord, but it’s still a very consistent, solid offensive cooldown.
The Brewmaster Monk meta is fairly-well etched in stone at this point, and Kyrian will remain the standard choice, but Venthyr should be surprisingly competitive in Season 3 of Shadowlands. At the bare minimum, it will be strong enough that switching over to Venthyr for Halls of Atonement and Sanguine Depths runs won't make you a liability.
Anomoly
Best Mistweaver Monk Double Legendaries for Sepulcher of the First Ones
Legendary choices for Mistweaver Monks will be fairly straightforward in Sepulcher. There is little to no synergies between our Covenant specific legendaries and our spec specific ones. As such, I'll provide recommendations in terms of combinations for Venthyr, but the logic can be applied to all of our other covenants.
Venthyr rose to the top of the pile in terms of Mistweaver Covenants in 9.1 with the introduction of
Insegnamenti Sinistri. This allowed Mistweavers to push the cooldown of
Ordine Caduto to roughly 1 minute between casts. This will continue to be extremely strong, barring any tuning or changes before 9.2.
In terms of the legendary to par with
Insegnamenti Sinistri you have 3 clear options:
- Antichi Insegnamenti del Monastero: Good old faithful Ancient Teachings! This has been the general default choice for Mistweavers since the 9.0 launch. While there was some debate between this and Lacrima del Mattino early, it has been strong the entire expansion. With Insegnamenti Sinistri you are going to already be in melee, casting Fonte dell'Essenza to trigger as many events as possible for the CDR. With this in mind, you can leverage the additional healing from Antichi Insegnamenti del Monastero while you play in the most optimal fashion. The one downside here is that the healing provided is not directly targetable, so you are somewhat at the mercy of the game and where the healing is targeted.
- Sussurro di Yu'lon: This legendary provides a consistent amount of healing. With the 4pc tier bonus, Tè del Grande Benessere, you will want to cast Tè della Concentrazione del Tuono as often as you can. There is a bit of additional gameplay in ensuring you are near allies as you cast Tè della Concentrazione del Tuono. In reality, since you will be using Tè della Concentrazione del Tuono mostly on Calcio del Sole Nascente, you will be near your melee raid mates anyway. There is a downside here is you have a large amount of healing while the 4 piece tier bonus already during your Tè della Concentrazione del Tuono casts. This just adds more healing within that same window, which may be wasted. Also, one thing to note is the 4pc will not apply to the initial healing tick from Sussurro di Yu'lon.
- Delizia dell'Invocatore: The main purpose of Delizia dell'Invocatore is to greatly increase our throughput during our Celestials. With the amount of healing Mistweavers are currently doing, this increase in haste may be just be a bit too much, as you may find that all it provides is additional overhealing. There is another compounding issue here around the use of Invocazione: Yu'lon, la Serpe di Giada specifically. In 9.2, with 4pc tier bonus, you will more than likely be utilizing Tornado di Giada Rinfrescante. Because of this, Invocazione: Chi-Ji, la Gru Rossa will not be an option and you will be playing Invocazione: Yu'lon, la Serpe di Giada within the raid. This ability is extremely mana intensive to use fully, so while this legendary wants you to cast as often as you can for throughput, mana may be a constraint without an Innervazione or two available.
For the remainder of the covenants, there is no additional or other choice. The reasoning for selecting the non-Covenant specific legendary pair remains the same as above.
- Kyrian - Chiamata alle Armi: One interesting note on Kyrian was there was a thought that the Celestial spawned from Chiamata alle Armi would trigger Delizia dell'Invocatore if you had it equipped. This is sadly not the case. As such, follow the above recommendations.
- Night Fae - Armonia di Silfaglia: You will continue to use Urto di Silfaglia as needed. With this, you will get some extra uses and an increase to your damage and healing, which you may not be able to take advantage of due to the mana cost of Urto di Silfaglia. One interesting note is if the covenant specific conduit Via dei Silfi also affected the healing of Urto di Silfaglia, this becomes a much more interesting choice and would push Night Fae further up in terms of power. In it's current state though, it does not change or impact your choices above.
- Necrolord - Birra Copiosa: With the random nature of the proc, there is almost no way to synergize another of the above with this so take Antichi Insegnamenti del Monastero and continue to play in standard playstyle.
Best Mistweaver Monk Double Legendaries for Mythic+
For Mythic+, the reasoning behind the choices remains close to that of the raid recommendations above. The healing profile in Mythic+ does not add or introduce any additional synergies in your legendary choices across the covenants. So in similar fashion, I will use Venthyr as the covenant to start with and you can use this same logic for the other three as needed.
Venthyr will continue to be your go to choice in Mythic+ in 9.2, so to pair with
Insegnamenti Sinistri you have the following 3 options:
- Antichi Insegnamenti del Monastero: Are we seeing a trend here? Antichi Insegnamenti del Monastero is just an all around solid increase in HPS. With the greater focus on DPS in Mythic+ you can utilize the trickle healing from Antichi Insegnamenti del Monastero to slowly top your group and continue to DPS. You can also use this to support any additional healing needed during your Ordine Caduto windows. Again, you are already in melee, already doing damage, why not get some additional healing for that time spent and speed up the dungeon a bit. With the fact that this legendary has been the default pick for an entire expansion, it would be interesting if Blizzard added this to the baseline class in the next expansion.
- Lacrima del Mattino: This is a slight change to the above. In dungeon content, you are the only healer, and because of this you will spend more time casting Vivificazione and Nebbia Avvolgente to top various members of your group. As such, this legendary provides buffs and additional healing to both of those spells. While this does not synergize at all with Insegnamenti Sinistri or Ordine Caduto, it does provide additional healing as you move through a dungeon between your Ordine Caduto cooldown.
- Delizia dell'Invocatore: As above, the main purpose of Delizia dell'Invocatore is to supercharge our throughput during our Celestials. There is a bit more to this in dungeons than raiding, as you can utilize Invocazione: Chi-Ji, la Gru Rossa over Tornado di Giada Rinfrescante. Delizia dell'Invocatore will provide a nice boost during your Invocazione: Chi-Ji, la Gru Rossa.
With the other covenants, the above comments on the covenant specific legendaries and pairing them for Mythic+ remain the same. Even though
Lacrima del Mattino is being recommended in Mythic+, there isn't any additional comments. None of the covenant specific legendaries interact with the way you use
Vivificazione or
Nebbia Avvolgente so there is no additional gameplay when using
Lacrima del Mattino in Mythic+.
In general for Mistweaver Monks, our non-Covenant legendaries typically only provide additional HPS around a gameplay style we are already playing. None of either the Covenant specific legendaries or spec specific ones change the overall gameplay style for Mistweaver. With that in mind,
Antichi Insegnamenti del Monastero is the clear winner. It will generally provide double the additional healing of the next non-Covenant specific legendary in the list. This has been the case since 9.0 and will continue to be the case in 9.2, without any additional tuning.
Babylonius
Best Windwalker Monk Double Legendaries for Sepulcher of the First Ones
There isn't anything changing for Windwalkers currently as we look toward 9.2. Windwalkers will still prioritize being Necrolord for any situation with more than one target. This means that you'll, by default, be using
Birra Copiosa. As can be expected,
Delizia dell'Invocatore continues its dominance of the Windwalker's legendaries, so it will maintain its spot in our equipment set.
Birra Copiosa is a relatively simple legendary to use, as it requires really no additional change to how you play. If you get a proc during an AOE situation, you want to spam as much
Calcio Rotante della Gru as you can during its duration, but as there's no way to know when it will happen, you just have to adjust. In single target, it changes nothing, just a little bit more damage. Other than a little bit more
Calcio Rotante della Gru in AOE, which you'd be doing anyway, literally nothing else changes.
Similar to pre-9.2, Kyrian will be the go-to for single target situations if you want to use it. Realistically the gain for switching to Kyrian over Necrolord is small, and Kyrian does require a bit more effort to maximize than Necrolord, but they're close enough that you can pick what you'd like.
Like when using
Birra Copiosa as Necrolord, when you're Kyrian and using
Chiamata alle Armi, you'll pair it with... wait for it...
Delizia dell'Invocatore! What a surprise!!
It also has no effect on how you play, as the Xuen summoned by
Chiamata alle Armi doesn't currently trigger
Delizia dell'Invocatore, so there's no point in staggering them. If that is changed then you'll likely use one after the other for extra buff uptime.
However, this combination has a problem in that the two Xuen's don't quite play well with each other. For whatever reason, when two are out, one of the Xuen's will steal the
Fulmine della Tigre Crepitante damage of the other, which leads to one doing almost no damage while the other does a TON. We're not sure what the intended behavior is, but it makes things look very lopsided. There's really no secret synergy to this happening, its just 1+1=2 where one of the 1's takes most of the credit for the other.
- While not likely to see the strength or popularity of the other two Covenants, Night Fae and Venthyr will also be using the Covenant legendary and Delizia dell'Invocatore. There aren’t any special interactions here either, just equip and keep on keeping on.
Best Windwalker Monk Double Legendaries for Sepulcher of the First Ones
Just like currently, when 9.2 comes around you'll be sticking with Necrolord for Mythic+, so you'll be using
Birra Copiosa. To no one's surprise,
Delizia dell'Invocatore will be the other legendary that Windwalkers will use.
You'd think that with the increase in AOE situations, you'd alter how you play when using
Birra Copiosa, but you'd be thinking wrong. If you get a proc during an AOE situation, you want to spam as much
Calcio Rotante della Gru as you can during its duration, but as there's no way to know when it will happen, you just have to adjust. In single target, it changes nothing, just a little bit more damage. Other than a little bit more
Calcio Rotante della Gru in AOE, which you'd be doing anyway, literally nothing else changes.
- The same is true in Mythic+ for the remaining Covenants that is true above for raids. If you were looking for legendary variation or interactions between them, you came to the wrong class.
