Talents for SoO - A closer look at which talents suit which bosses and why.

Hey guys, I was struggling to come up with a blog topic this week, and while raiding the other night I ran out of tomes of the clear mind and it suddenly hit me how often I talent change depending on the fight, so I though I would explain my thoughts on each talent, which fights I use them for, and let you in on some of my failed experiments when trying different ones out! (note: all from a Brewmaster PoV)


Level 15 talents.

Celerity - Having an extra roll can be really useful, especially on high movement fights, the added bonus of a cd reduction on these rolls means that if you spread them out properly, you can always have a roll ready, nothing worse than needing to move out of trouble and clicking the roll bind like a madman only to see its still got a 5 second cooldown. Some of the fights on heroic don't leave 5 seconds grace before you get slapped upside the head by something. I like to use this talent for Iron Juggernaut, as you need to take 3 bombs between tanking the boss, having the 3 rolls is pretty perfect here. I also like to use it on Spoils of Pandaria sometimes.

Tigers Lust - I love this talent, its pretty much my go to choice in this tier for most fights, its got a nice low cooldown, and provides not only a burst of speed, but frees you or anyone else you use it on from any slow effects, this is particularly useful for something like Garrosh, the adds he summons in phase one put a hamstring debuff on whichever tank they are attacking, and even if that's not you, you can put it on your co tank, meaning they can move out of the way of the iron star without being slowed. I use this for almost every fight in SoO, I personally value the short speed burst over the other two choices.

Momentum - I have not really found a place for this talent in Siege for myself, the extra distance on the roll is nice but compared to the other two options its just not as valuable to me, that being said, if you are add kiting on Garrosh, as long as you spread out the two rolls you have, you can make the most use out of the extra movement speed, combine this with keg toss and you can kite those adds for days, I think this talent would really shine if you're in a 25 man guild and on add duty in P3.


Level 30 Talents.


Chi Wave - Another "go to" talent for me, overall this does a lot of healing, and damage, plus it has a relatively low cooldown making it nice and spammable. It also uses the smart healing mechanic so it can be overall really helpful for your raid, especially your melee and co tank. I have used this talent for every single fight in the raid, and its always proved valuable.

Zen Sphere - Although I like the idea of this talent, running logs on it I have discovered that its overall healing and damage just don't stack up to Chi Wave, although its cd is shorter and you have have 2 orbs out at once, the amount it ticks for loses its value when you're being hit by bosses that have 300k+ melee attacks as standard. Thats not to say Chi Wave is any better in that situation, but it can provide on the spot "chunk" heals as opposed to a small ticking heal. I currently do not use this talent for any fights in SoO.

Chi Burst - I love this talent for aoe fights, it provides a huge burst of on the spot healing to anyone it travels through and contributes a very reasonable amount of damage to any adds. I favour it on fights like Galakras, sometimes spoils, though for progress I used Chi Wave as it requires less aiming and has no cast time so that I could focus more on add control and positioning, but once the fight was more committed to memory and I was more comfortable I switched to Chi Burst.

Level 45 Talents.

Power Strikes - As I do not generally have any issues generating chi I do not use this for any fight, that being said at lower gear levels it could be quite useful for ensuring you always have enough chi to keep BoK up and the ability to purify on demand.

Ascension - This is pretty much the only talent I use in this tree as it stands, I like having 5 chi available and as I do not run any extra haste and have reforged any haste i do have into mastery, the extra energy regen means I always have the 40 I need for my keg smash, coupled with the fact that I am very fond of RJW, I prefer the 15% regen to make sure I can use both as much as possible.

Chi Brew - Again I find this talent nice for lower gear levels and when I was struggling to generate chi, I still find it great for single target fights like Malkorok, where an instant chi generator can really come into its own, plus the extra stacks of EB are also great to keep a high uptime on it, especially when you run a lower crit build like I do.


Level 60 Talents.

Ring of Peace - This is a really nice talent when you have either a lot of adds to deal with or caster adds, the silence gives you a lot of breathing space and time to position yourself in front of the adds and stop them from stacking up behind you, I use this talent for Galakras, Spoils, Garrosh and sometimes General Nazgrim, depending on the raid comp at the time.

Charging Ox Wave - I really like this talent, however the only place I have really found it useful is Nazgrim, because in my humble opinion, the other two choices are better. Using it for Nazgrim adds means you can help lock down a mage that's casting while you're dealing with a Shaman, obviously this requires some careful aiming but once you get used to it, it can be great on this fight.

Leg Sweep - I used to use this on add fights, until I discovered that when you use it, it resets the swing on each add stunned, which will then all hit you together at once, which is fine if they dont hit very hard, but the adds on Phase One of the Garrosh fight hit for about 200k each, when there's 6 of them, and they hit you as one...it hurts! I have grown to favour RoP over this, once I started tanking bosses that hit harder, the reset swing can really knock you for six if you're not expecting it. One thing I will add, is that the animation for this is hilarious compared to the other two, and watching 6 adds fall over on their arses in unison is always great.


Level 75 Talents.

Healing Elixirs - I was never a huge fan of this talent to begin with, but after combining it with the Chi Brew I discovered that for constant damage fights it is quite nice to have that extra heal, also, any fights where you are likely to be away from healers for any length of time. I currently use this talent on the  Norushen fight on account of the constant ticking aoe damage. 

Dampen Harm - This for me is a really nice damage against the hard hitters like Malkorok, General Nazgrim, Thok, paragons and Garrosh, although for Garrosh I sometimes like to take Diffuse magic, again depending on raid comp. Combined with my already high mastery build, If I am going to have to wait for too long for a guard and have no other cds left, it can take the edge off what could be otherwise fatal melee swings. As it is not affected by attack power it is also a great tool to pop at the start of the fight until you have enough vengeance built up to get a decent sized guard, as cold tanking on a monk can sometimes be a little painful.

Diffuse Magic - I love this talent for fights like Immersius, it means that if something goes wrong you can completely negate an entire corrosive blast. I also liked to use it if I was tanking He softfoot, as if you get into an awkward position when he has noxious poison, you can give yourself 6 seconds grace to reposition, and not take any extra damage from the poison on the floor. I also use this talent for Sha of pride, Siegecrafter and Garrosh for the whirling corruption if we have no DK's with AMZ present.


Level 90 Talents.

Rushing Jade Wind - A particular favorite of mine, even before it was remodeled in 5.4. Especially on Add fights like Tortos. Since the remodel it has become my favorite talent for all 3 specs of the monk, I find it particularly great for extra damage and chi generation on Galakras, Spoils and Nazgrim where there is a constant flow of adds to ensure said chi generation. That's not to say that I haven't used it on fights with less adds such as Sha of pride, or Garrosh. When you need to get and keep aggro on adds that may not be there for long, if you already have high vengeance, this talent is perfect, plus is means you do not have to channel SCK and you can keep using your other abilities. I appreciate that you still dodge and parry when SCK is going, but as someone who has 8% parry and 20% dodge (without taking EB into account) this doesn't really comfort me a lot, and there have been more than just a few occasions where I have fallen over because of this channel.

Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger - one of the coolest looking talents by far, a giant blue electric kitty fighting for you gives a certain amount of street cred over other tanks in my opinion! Xuen also does amazing amounts of damage, and he cleaves, but if you're looking for burst on a single target boss, this is the guy to do it. I like to use him for Malkorok, Iron Juggernaut, Thok, Seigecrafter, and for progress, he was brilliant for Spoils, as if you find yourself overwhelmed, you can bust him out and have him take over some of the ads and tank them for you, while doing batshit crazy amounts of damage, thus helping them melt a little faster. 

Chi Torpedo - Ever since I flung myself off Lei Shen's platform when forgetting how far this thing goes in compared to a roll I have been a lot more cautious about using it. In all honesty, for Siege, it just doesn't stack up to the other two options in this tier for me. I don't use it for any fights, purely because it means I would have to forgo either my Kitty or my RJW. It's a shame really, because I believe it has its uses, and the animation is pretty awesome, but with the amount of healing and mobility Brewmasters already have, it just doesn't have any value for me.