Stagger

Stagger
	Stagger; Level 10 Brewmaster monk ability; Passive; You shrug off attacks, delaying a portion of Physical damage based on your Agility, instead taking it over 10 sec. Affects magical attacks at 55% effectiveness.;
Properties
Class	Monk
Other information
Level learned	10
Improvements	[Bob and Weave], [Eerie Fermentation], [High Tolerance], [Training of Niuzao]
Related debuff
	; Stagger ; X damage is being staggered every 0.5 sec.; ; Stagger Remaining: Y ; Duration: 10 seconds ;

Stagger is a Brewmaster ability that causes a portion of incoming physical damage to be dealt over 10 seconds rather than instantly.

Notes

The key thing here is that Stagger by itself does not mitigate damage, but instead smooths it out. For each hit taken, Stagger is recalculated, with the new portion of stored damage added to the damage over time (DoT) effect, and the dot refreshed. The Stagger amount is proportional to damage taken, but the percentage has changed through the game's history. The percentage is still roughly around 35%, the same proportion as in earlier expansions, but since BfA it starts slightly lower and is now affected by increased agility. This is doubled by keeping up [Shuffle], and 15% Stagger can be temporarily added with the talent [Fortifying Brew: Determination].

The Stagger DoT has three "Phases": Light Stagger, Moderate Stagger, and Heavy Stagger. Light Stagger is when the total stagger amount is less than 30% of max health. Moderate Stagger is when the total stagger amount is more than 30% of max health, but less than 60%. Finally, Heavy Stagger is when the total stagger amount is greater than 60% of max health. Stagger can still continue accumulating at this point, past 100% HP of stored damage. While the bar appears to be full at 1m HP of Stagger damage, there is no technical upper limit to the amount of Stagger, as long as the monk is able to stay alive to receive more incoming damage.

As was mentioned previously, Stagger does not by itself mitigate or reduce damage. However, it is easier for the brewmaster to remove staggered damage, rather than applying healing. The biggest method is [Purifying Brew], which will remove half of the current staggered damage and has a fairly low cooldown (due to Brew cooldown reduction mechanics from [Keg Smash]). [Quick Sip] can also automatically remove Stagger on a regular basis, as can [Staggering Strikes]. The relative importance of each talent may vary depending on content, as Quick Sip's proportional removal is better with the highest levels of stored damage. As a sidenote, Stagger by itself will not kill a Brewmaster monk. The monk can be at 1 health with only Stagger ticking and not die, but in a raid there are a lot of things that can take that last point of HP.

Patch changes

Hotfix (2024-05-07): The effectiveness of Stagger against magical attacks increased to 55% (was 45%).
Hotfix (2023-01-30): Fixed an issue where Stagger's effect was incorrectly reduced.
Patch 10.0.5 (2023-01-24): Stagger is now a baseline ability at level 10 (was a row 2 talent).
Patch 10.0.0 (2022-10-25): Now a row 2 Brewmaster talent (was a level 12 Brewmaster ability).
Hotfix (2020-12-09): Fixed an issue that caused the Stagger passive to not apply to the character when switching specializations while in [Soulshape].
Patch 9.0.1 (2020-10-13): Now learned at level 12 (was 10).
Patch 8.3.0 (2020-01-14): Stagger percentage reduced to 90% of Agility (was 105%).
Patch 8.1.0 (2018-12-11): Base Stagger amount reduced to 105% of Agility (was 140%).
Patch 8.0.1 (2018-07-17): Redesigned: You shrug off attacks, delaying a portion of Physical damage based on your Agility, instead taking it over 10 sec. Affects magical attacks at 35% effectiveness.
Old: You shrug off attacks, delaying 40% of Physical damage, instead taking it over 10 sec. Affects magical attacks at 50% effectiveness.
Hotfix (2017-06-19): Now has 40% effectiveness against Magic damage (was 50%).
Patch 7.2.5 (2017-06-13): Staggered damage cannot exceed 1000% of your maximum health.
Patch 7.1.5 (2017-01-10): Is now 40% more effective against magical attacks.
Hotfix (2016-10-03): Stagger now delays 40% of damage taken (was 35%), and now quickly fades after leaving combat.
Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Redesigned. You shrug off attacks, delaying 40% of Physical damage, instead taking it over 10 sec. Affects magical attacks at half effectiveness.
Old: You shrug off attacks, causing 80% of the damage to happen instantly and the remaining 20% to be divided over 10 sec.
Patch 5.2.0 (2013-03-05): Tooltip now includes the amount of stagger remaining.
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Added.