KyrianОружие ордена grants a substantial Mastery buff, resets the cooldown of Keg Smash (it only resets 1 charge if you are wearing the
Последний бочонок Буйного Портера legendary effect), and grants a stacking damage buff that applies to
all of your damage. There are some downsides, though. The debuff only lasts 8 seconds, the same duration as Keg Smash’s base cooldown. This means the window to reapply the debuff is extremely small unless you have a lot of Haste. If you get CC’ed, knocked back, or the enemy charges out of melee range at the wrong moment, the debuff will drop off. Not great. Additionally, it takes 5 Keg Smash casts to stack up to full power. Assuming a 7-second cooldown, that means you’ll need 28 seconds to get the debuff up to full strength. With the Keg Smash legendary, that’s closer to 21 seconds, but it still means that most of the time
Оружие ордена is active will be spent powering it up, not enjoying the full-strength debuff.
Призыв распорядителя provides a potion that can be used to clear debuffs, but it is on the standard health potion cooldown and is considerably weaker than normal health potions available from Alchemy, so the healing won’t really be all that useful. The potential to remove bleed debuffs has been extremely valuable in raid and dungeon testing thus far, but it is ultimately dependent on encounter specifics to be useful. The steward does offer some helpful non-combat utility, such as free respecs and vendoring out in the world, so he’s cool. His combat value can vary heavily, from “valuable defensive utility” to “worth less than a health potion,” but he’s very cute and friendly, and that’s always worth something.
VenthyrПавший орден conjures a scary door that summons ghost Monks. They deal damage and heal, and that’s basically it. The utility of this skill is low and it doesn’t seem to have any thematic connection to Monks. A ghostly mirror? Is that something Monks have? The good news is this is the only truly bad Covenant skill for Monks. The bad news is that it’s the Covenant players will most want to have for Mythic+ skips.
Врата теней ranges from excellent to nearly-worthless. The cast time makes it mostly useless mid-combat, especially as a tank, but gaining access to a ground-targeted blink is exceptional for skipping trash packs when pushing Mythic+. It can no longer be used to blink anywhere within line of sight, and now requires a direct path to the destination. Unfortunately, due to the buggy nature of WoW’s pathing, this means you will encounter spaces through which you cannot blink despite having line of sight and a clear path. I’m trying to blink through an open doorway in the Venthyr hall literally right now as I’m writing this, and I’m being denied. It can potentially be used to blink through deadly raid mechanics, which is terrific.
NecrolordОтвар из костяной пыли is almost exclusively defensive. The 15% chance to deal 25% extra damage and healing equates to an extra 3.75% damage and healing while the debuff is active. If it’s active 30% of the time, that’s 1.1% more damage. Yeehaw! Mockery of its embarrassing throughput value aside, Bonedust Brew provides a decent chunk of Brew recharge, roughly a 40% increase while active. Because it is a Brew, it benefits from Brew recharge effects, in essence increasing its own uptime and effectiveness. Under normal circumstances, it’s worth about 15% more Brew charges, which is a decent defensive power boost, and it has natural synergy with
Отвар Черного Быка.
The negatives of this ability are pretty significant. Aside from being effectively worthless offensively, it is a GCD spent applying a 10-second buff, it deals zero damage on its own, and you have to aim it to ensure it hits everything in AoE packs.This can be pretty annoying if adds are not well-stacked. It’s a useful skill, but it’s not great or particularly fun.
Скульптор плоти is a 4-second channel that generates an absorb shield equal to 20% of your max health. If you’re next to a corpse, the absorb shield can scale up to 50% of your max health. 20% of your max health is really not a strong defensive bonus, especially for Brewmaster. An unbuffed Celestial Brew on a premade level 60 is worth 41% of your maximum health. A 2-minute cooldown, 4-second channeled half-CB is not a good bonus. Channeling mid-combat is a terrible idea while tanking since you can’t block, dodge, or parry. Starting off combat with a 20% absorb shield is not a huge gain.
Night FaeВолшебная линия is a basic AoE damage skill that applies the Breath of Fire debuff to all targets hit, even if they are not debuffed by Keg Smash. Another way to apply Breath of Fire. Cool. Fighting on the Faeline has a chance to reset Faeline Stomp’s cooldown, which gives the Brewmaster rotation a reset proc, and adds a lot of offensive depth. Faeline Stomp is an excellent filler skill that can substantially increase the spec’s damage. It’s also beautiful, by far the best-looking Covenant skill that Monks get.
It does have problems. First, it’s insanely bugged on the Beta right now, and does not deal damage or apply the debuff to a target more than once without relogging. Additionally, it adds another rotational ability to a class that is now
flooded with on-GCD rotational abilities. It really doesn’t have much defensive value, either. While you usually can fight on the Faeline, for the situations in which you have to move away, its value drops precipitously. It is a much stronger choice in AoE and cleave than it is in single target. Lastly, Faeline Stomp forces you to move forward a few yards to stand within its ground effect. This means that you’ll regularly be moving to maximize its value, and that can be pretty annoying. All that aside, it can easily be worth a 15% DPS increase. That rocks.
Облик души is a simple movement cooldown. It grants an instant 15-yard blink upon casting it, and a 50% movement increase for 12 seconds. It can be reactivated to blink again, which makes it useful for skipping over dangerous raid mechanics. Unfortunately, it’s on the GCD and it will break if you cast most offensive skills, so it’s not great. Given that Monk already has an absolutely enormous mobility toolkit, adding this to it isn’t a huge gain. Notably, you can Faeline Stomp while it is active without breaking the buff, so that’s neat.
