It's also worth noting:Quote:
A very common misconception about heroic strike that some warriors make is that heroic strike does a lot of damage. They say this because they see the numbers on their screen and in their combat log that says heroic strike did a lot of damage. While this is ok that they see this, the important thing to note is what you don’t see. And what you don’t see is a main hand auto attack. Most of heroic strikes damage which you see on your screen and in your combat log is actually damage that would have happened anyway.
if you did not que up a heroic strike because you would have had a normal auto attack from your main hand, so you would have done the same amount of damage, just 495 damage less.
please note that using heroic strike will prevent your mainhand swing from being a glancing blow, as well as making it affected by Impale. This means that over a longer time scale the DPS increase of using heroic strike will be more than just because of the addition of 495 damage. However this still does not make heroic strike an amazing DPS ability, you should be using Heroic strike as a rage dump and not an ability that can boost your DPS by a large amount.
Heroic Strike is not subject to the 19% Dual-Wield Hit % penalty, while white damage is. Most Fury Warriors hover at around 81-85% Hit Rate on their white damage, if geared properly. Compare to 100% Hit Rate with Heroic Strike.
This is probably the #1 benefit of using Heroic Strike. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned.
So, in summary...
The cumulative benefits of Heroic Strike (as opposed to normal hit):
-495 damage bonus
-Is not subject to Dual Wield Hit % penalty (19% Hit)
-Is not subject to Glancing Blow (30% Damage Reduction, 24% of the time)
-25% chance to proc Instant Slam
-Benefits from Impale (20% more bonus damage from Crit)
-Benefits from 2Pc Tier 8 or 4Pc Tier 9 bonuses.
The costs of Heroic Strike (as opposed to normal hit):
-Costs 12 Rage (2 when it Crits)
-You lose the rage generated from the MH white damage.
In the long run, I'm estimating that each swing of Heroic Strike does about 40% more damage than each normal swing.
The fact still remains that it should be only used as a rage dump, and should be considered lowest priority when it comes to rage usage. At the same time, Heroic Strike will still make up a huge % of your overall damage.
While you never want to be in a position where you can't use Whirlwind and Bloodthirst due to rage starvation, you'll still otherwise want to use Heroic Strike as often as possible to maximize damage output.
PS. WTB Section on Execute and what to do when the mob is at 20% or lower.
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I've been prioritizing Execute over Instant Slam procs (but under Whirlwind and Bloodthirst).
I also avoid Heroic Strike unless my Rage is overflowing.
