When to Kite

When should I be kiting? This is an essential question. In short, it's a question of, “Do I have defensive cooldowns available to facetank the pull?” If the answer is no, then you kite. If the answer is yes, then you have to assess whether you're saving any special cooldowns for the next pull. If the answer is no, then you kite when you've exhausted all other options (except the one cooldown you're saving).

To show this in real time, here is a clip of me in Halls of Valor. I only have Dampen Harm going into this wolf pull, so I use my shield trinket on pull and then Dampen Harm so that I don't die between shields. After my Dampen Harm ends, I Leg Sweep, Keg Smash, and then Ring of Peace the wolves away. I know I cannot live in this scenario after Dampen Harm falls off, so I keep the mobs grouped in a controlled manner while staying out of range so my DPS can AoE efficiently.

How to use your Toolkit to Kite

Brewmasters have one of the best toolkits in the game when it comes to locking down mobs and kiting with Ring of Peace, Leg Sweep, and Transcendence. To successfully use this toolkit to kite, let's look at a couple of clips. Also, a small but important tip is to use Vivify while you're kiting. Not only does it heal you, but it also generates threat at the same time.

In this clip, I show you how to use your toolkit to kite until your cooldowns are back up. I start off the pull with Dampen Harm and then focus on keeping my Pretense of Instability buff up via Purifying Brew. Then, I go into a Celestial Brew > Black Ox Brew. After that, I do the same, keeping Pretense of Instability up and waiting until I need Celestial Brew again. Afterwards, I Roll out, use Ring of Peace, wait until it ends, then walk in and Leg Sweep. After that, I just kite until Fortifying Brew is back up, then tank them once again. This clip is a good showcase of something that you can do. It is an important skill to know how long you need to kite and how long you can survive until you need to kite.

For an example on how to use Transcendence to drop stacks of a debuff and minimize incoming damage, I'll use this clip from The Necrotic Wake. You'll see here that I'm getting blasted by melee swings due to having three stacks of the Tenderize debuff from the Goregrind (since each stack is a physical damage increase of 12%). I start walking away partway through the pull (at about 00:16), drop a Transcendence spirit, and I create some extra distance with a quick Roll and Tiger's Lust. I wait for the Goregrind to Gutslice, let him walk a little closer to me, and then port back to my spirit just before the next Tenderize.

The best place to use tricks like this is in Halls of Valor, where you have debuffs to drop but you don't want the mobs running all over the place, or when you're just kiting bears or wolves. You will see this in action in the next section.

How to Maximize Celestial Brew

The way to maximize your Celestial Brew is to use it at 10 stacks of Purified Chi, right? Well, it's a bit more complicated than that once you factor in the rest of your tool kit. Here is a clip of me in Halls of Valor. Pay attention to my Purifying Brew and Celestial Brew usage. I purify to nine stacks while my Fortifying Brew is running. After that, I Leg Sweep and use my first Celestial Brew. Then, I purify twice while Dampen Harm is running. I then follow that into a Black Ox Brew > Celestial Brew. This gives me a nine-stack Celestial Brew followed by a six-stack Celestial Brew. While I could have purified immediately to get two nine-stacks, I prefer nine-stack into six-stack, then double purifying at the end of the pull for heals, just in case I take a lot of damage, which ended up happening. The Gai Plin's Imperial Brew healing helped me quite a bit. This is a good clip to showcase how to use Black Ox Brew properly as well as Celestial Brew.

How to Maximize Gai Plin's Imperial Brew

Gai Plin's Imperial Brew is basically a heal for 12.5% of your current stagger when you purify. The easiest way to explain maximizing this is that high stagger equals good; you want to sit on high stagger until you need a heal, then you purify once to top yourself, let your stagger build again, then purify again to top yourself. If you're doing a big pull, like in Waycrest Manor or Blackrook Hold, you want to use stuff like Fortifying Brew and defensive trinkets to let your stagger build. Once those fall off, you rotate Purifying Brews to heal you, Celestial Brew, then go into Black Ox Brew and repeat the process.