Tanking Topics #1: Heroic Strike

[Satrina]

This is the first in a pair of discussions focusing on tanking topics that a group of TankSpot regulars and other theory types have been discussing. These posts are the distillation of those discussions, and are intended to be the starting point for discussion within the tanking community on these subjects in a peer-review manner. While they are focused on the rage-based tanking of warriors, the same problems are present for druids to some extent. In any case, discussion from all is welcome!

In this topic, we assume that the infinite rage scenario is here to stay for now, and look at Heroic Strike as a cause of grief and mashing of keys. Next week, we'll discuss rage generation and the problem of the infinite rage scenario.


Part 1: Heroic Strike is Lame
We started from the question of whether Heroic Strike is ludicrous as it stands now, and basically came to the conclusion that "yes, yes, it is". Regardless of why or what the best solution is, activating an on-next swing ability every weapon swing (1.5-1.6s for typical warrior tanking weapons) in addition to using an ability every GCD (1.5s) makes for a ridiculous number of required keypresses. That's two abilities that need to be triggered on every GCD. As long as we have excess rage, and as long as it's so powerful for threat generation, it will be *mandatory* to do this while tanking.

Why was it concluded that Heroic Strike is ludicrious? Simply put, if it's mandatory for top threat and damage output, and we have multiple scenarios that are infinite rage -- we will be spamming that key. That translates to as many as 400-800 keypresses per minute depending on the tank and their zealousness in perfecting the threat rotation. Needless to say, this extra smashing of keys is not all that fun for most and more seriously, can be a contributor in physical stress problems with the wrist. That's not so good.

The question is, then, what to do about that? It must be considered that Heroic Strike is a significant part of DPS warriors' rotations and a rage dump mechanism as well, but we believe there is a way to balance around them while also easing the strain for tanks.


Part 2a: Heroic Strike as a Toggle
One immediate idea that occurs is to add a toggled Heroic Strike ability. That is, when you toggle Heroic Strike on, all autoattacks are converted to Heroic Strikes assuming there is enough rage to do so. If ever there is insufficient rage to convert, the toggle is turned off. Note that this toggle ability must be a separate ability from the current Heroic Strike ability – it is still valuable, especially for DPS warriors, to be able to selectively trigger single Heroic Strikes.

Edit: There's a definite argument for leaving it toggled on no matter what to make it so that if you are lazy in a not-infinite rage scenario, you reduce your threat generation. Adds a bit of judgement into the toggle process.

An argument might be that toggling Heroic Strike removes some strategy from tanking, in that you no longer have to judge when and when not to use it. In the toggle case, strategy comes in when to toggle on and off the ability. You are simply making this decision at a less frantic pace than every GCD. We also submit that given that you are more often in infinite rage than not when tanking a boss, this is not much of a concern.


Part 2b: Heroic Strike on Cooldown
Another idea that came up was giving Heroic Strike a 4 second cooldown, while leaving its current on-next-swing mechanic the same. Heroic Strike would then have two different AP-to-bonus-damage coefficients. Right now, it's a flat +495 damage at maximum rank. As we know, this makes fast weapons better.

After analyzing some logs of DPS warrior rotations and ability usage, a DPS warrior seemed to be getting about 660 bonus damage from Heroic Strike every 4 seconds on average. This does not take in to account Impale and the glancing blow mechanics. A tank gets around 1590 in 4 seconds. The AP scalar while a one handed weapon is equipped would then have to be higher than the two handed one. For one handed weapons, 45.45% of AP to be bonus damage was calculated, which is approximately 2000 bonus damage per Heroic Strike at 4400 raid buffed AP.

This does mean it has a higher "bonus damage" factor over the same time period as the current Heroic Strike, but, this could easily be less damage over that time because it doesn’t take into account that every (current version) Heroic Strike is a yellow attack and is thus modified by Impale and Incite. For two handed weapons the bonus would be 25%, approximately 1625 bonus damage at 6500 AP.

These numbers naturally could be modified quite a bit, but the general concept seems sound. The biggest factors needed to account for are glancing blows being in a larger majority of swings (lowering DPS), and Impale/Incite.

After modelling the change, a 4 second cooldown seems to work well with a variety of likely weapon speeds, offering not much variance at all even over extended lengths of time. Naturally when the weapon speed matches up perfectly or is divisible perfectly it can be problematic, but only in theory - in practice having a Heroic Strike queued up permanently (in the 2h scenario) leaves you rage starved, further, very slow weapons like that probably will never exist or be possible to exist. As long as the weapon speeds are kept within a certain range, they're acceptably balanced. Haste and raid buffs even make the "perfect super slow speed" scenarios impossible.

This also affects itemization ease for tanks because warriors could now safely use slow tanking weapons and not have to know they're reducing their potential "max rage" threat scenario.

The last remaining point that would be affected by changes of this type is Devastate. Devastate working off average weapon damage actually makes slow weapons better for it, but slow weapons are worse for Heroic Strike currently. The dilemma can be solved by changing Devastate to work like Hammer of the Righteous. Base the damage of Devastate off weapon DPS, so fast and slow weapons do the same Devastate damage. Using a simple percentage of DPS or the multiplier can be scaled as necessary to balance it.

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Multiple comments regarding the ordering of articles here. It's good to see that many people get the distinction in the problem rather than "just macro it lulz". Yes, there would be a certain logic in putting the rage article first. However, we know that Blizzard has Heroic Strike at least on the radar now, and we know that mechanics-altering things like changes to the way rage works are much less likely mid-expansion rather than between expansions.

Also, this certainly isn't "my" article. Multiple people contributed to get this put together (Xav, Hypatia, Cider, Jamor to name just a few!)

[swelt]

Concur with part one (perhaps should be titled 'Problem Statement'?). I think I prefer recommendation 2a, but suggest that it would be best implemented simply as an additional macro switch/string rather than a change to any specific ability. So heroic strike would stay the same, and you can choose to use it as now, or you can make a macro that toggles on/off automatically applying heroic strike (or whatever similar ability) to every 'nextswing'.

Hope this gets some attention in the right quarters.

[Alent]

Re: heroic strike as a toggle.

I am reminded of "Seal of fury"... Perhaps a dual approach may be in order, say a "Heroic Fury" or something that has a cooldown equal to duration, consumes 50 rage for a 100% second white swing proc on all swings, with added threat in defensive stance. Effectively functioning the way windfury totem used to. (just a much better proc rate!)

[Krashtork]

Whatever the solution, a reduction of key presses would be a good thing. I'm starting to feel some strain in my "tanking fingers" :/

Additionally, good tanks should not be decided by who can spam the fastest.

[Krashtork]

Concur with part one (perhaps should be titled 'Problem Statement'?). I think I prefer recommendation 2a, but suggest that it would be best implemented simply as an additional macro switch/string rather than a change to any specific ability. So heroic strike would stay the same, and you can choose to use it as now, or you can make a macro that toggles on/off automatically applying heroic strike (or whatever similar ability) to every 'nextswing'.

Hope this gets some attention in the right quarters.

I can imagine many players would never realize this possibility.

[etakerns]

So exactly what would this macro look like? how is/would it be written. I dable w/ macros but how would u set up a macro to determine if i have enought rage do this, if not then do this type of macro?

[Satrina]

(perhaps should be titled 'Problem Statement'?)

Problem Statement is something I write for work documents. "Heroic Strike is Lame" captures the essence far better than any other term of phrase could =)

[Petninja]

I think Devastate is in order for buffing too, as it is now it's really only used for the sunder stack and not for much more. Almost every other offensive ability prot warriors use do more damage and more or similar threat. I'm not saying it should be spammable, but for being so far down the tree you'd think it would do more than add a couple hundred damage per minute to an ability we already have.

[Karith]

I have actually done something along the lines of the macro idea. I took the abilities that I use most (and some that I don't) and macro them to, for example:

/cast devastate
/cast heroic strike.

Currently I believe I have it on Devastate, Shield Slam, Thunderclap, Shockwave, Revenge, Concussion Blow, and Shield Bash, as well as having a separate key for just heroic strike.

This has greatly helped me, because if I don't have the rage, it doesn't cast - so while soloing it's typically not wasting my rage - but if I do, it keeps me from having to push "1" every 2 seconds.

Just my .02

[WarDrum]

I, while im no longer warrior and use rune strike macro instead, agree with you. HS sucks, it needs to be spammed 24/7 or you are losing threat (it matters in future raids i hope). With these "screw ergonomy" keyboards everyone is using that much spamming has to have an impact on your hand/wrist. And its not skilled or fun to spam hs.

[Bulvox]

i have 0 problems with spamming heroic the way i learned to tank and the way i have my things set up i would think it would suck if they nerfed it....i like the toggle idea maybe but other than that i dont like any changes to it.....i hit cleave/hs just fine in my rotation and it doesnt give me carpal tunnel so iunno man....if it aint broke dont fix it

[bludwork]

do away with infinite rage scenarios then. I clearly remember when AQ40 geared warriors had infinite rage, they got pretty much out of control so much blizzard had to normalize rage.

I have a couple of views on heroic strike itself though, I don't think blizzard originally meant for it to be spammed, that's why the rage cost is so high but due to BoS the "rage dump" part no longer applies hence the "spam heroic strike button". It used to be that the really skilled warrior knew when and when not to HS but not so much anymore. Heroic strike as it is ok, fix the other bugs (bos, increase innate threat) so it doesn't have to spammed anymore

[Kahmal]

While I must agree that Heroic Strike Spam is lame, it's doable if u just bind the shit to your mouse wheel (lol) zoom with (ctr+wheel)

I hate to sound like some snob but as of now...nowing that you need to spam Heroic Strike non-stop is one of the few things that seperate good Warrior tanks from bad ones in terms of knowledge. (Execution in encounters is a completly different story.)

[Fea]

I haven't bothered to post on this topic previously because I felt my solutions rather elementary, but the increasing concern about Heroic Strike spam suggests that my solutions may work for others as well (stop-gap though they are.)

I've used a series of simple macros for some time to maximize HS use while minimizing the extreme spam otherwise necessary for high uptime. I don't kid myself; all I've done is replace all core abilities with macro'd versions that tag HS to the end. If I only have the rage for the core ability, that's what goes off; if I have excess rage, it converts into a HS. I have seen no negative effect in any rage situation, low or high.

I replace the primary spell on my bar with the macro containing it and have removed HS from my spell bar for as long as I can recall. A single keystroke triggers the instant and queues HS and subsequent strokes of the same key will continue to queue HS whether or not the instant is off cooldown.

Devastate:
#showtooltip
/cast Devastate
/cast Heroic Strike

Shield Slam
#showtooltip
/cast Shield Slam
/cast Heroic Strike

I think you get the picture. I also use this for Revenge and have a modified version for Thunderclap and Demo shout that substitutes Cleave for HS, thus eliminating the need for it on my bar as well.

I know this isn't a suggestion for a long-term solution, and I personally would love a toggle function. I just hope that this saves some of the community some RSI.

[Satrina]

do away with infinite rage scenarios then.

That's next week's Tanking Topic =)

[Rhyseh]

This is a valid argument and I wholly support a push to take the stress off my left hand. Since the changes to warriors in 3.0 I have never had to mash one key so many times, RSI is becoming a real concern. Something needs to be changed, to make us not have to press 2-3 keys every second. Not because we cannot press 2-3 keys per second (we have already proven that we can) but because the strain on our hands is simply too much. I can't think of any other class that requires this many key presses in order to perform to their maximum potential. My left wrist demands a change.

Both solutions are viable, however I would personally prefer something along the lines of solution 2a. It doesn't change the mechanics of the move itself, it simplifies my max DPS/Threat rotation and therefore allows me to focus more on environmental elements and maximising my Shield Slam rotation rather than making sure I press Heroic Strike at least once every GCD.

[Nerlth]

I was under the impression that heroic strike isn't need that much anyways. That you should only use it if 'you have time + enough rage to do Heroic Strike AND your next priority spell'.

If that's true, why would we need to worry about it so much? Just toggle it to a button thats not to far away to reach, and go down your list of priorities.

[Rhyseh]

I was under the impression that heroic strike isn't need that much anyways. That you should only use it if 'you have time + enough rage to do Heroic Strike AND your next priority spell'.

If that's true, why would we need to worry about it so much? Just toggle it to a button thats not to far away to reach, and go down your list of priorities.

HS isn't on the GCD, if you are in an infinite rage scenario you should be spamming it.

[Ghladum]

I think the point of Satrina et al, is that coming up with convenient macros for using HS every cooldown doesn't address the fundamental flaws associated with Heroic Strike.

I quickly became (within ~2 raid evenings of using this) a fan of assigning Mouse Scroll Up/Down to HS/Cleave, respectively. So far my scroll finger is absolutely fine, on fights like Patch, I can easily keep my total number of (those feared, disgusting) auto-attack swings below 4-5 total.

So there are options that can do wonders to decrease the key-mashing issue - although so far, I'd rate my overall number of key-presses per raid night as roughly equal to BC raiding.

What bugs me about HS is that it feels like an antiquated mechanism that shouldn't have a real purpose since the massive tank changes in 3.0.X - they rolled Salvation and all of these threat modifiers into innate threat/DPS but left this huge binary modification to our rage response and threat/DPS output. You can argue it's nice to have a situationally-dynamic mechanism, but I don't think any other class relies so heavily on anything in order to maintain the threat/DPS that their class is balanced or assumed to have.

[phaze]

Well, I hold no particular love for HS/Cleave/Maul to start with, so I wouldn't mind seeing them modified to a less-spammy approach.

Along the 'toggle' approach, I've always liked the concept of auras/aspects, and feel it could be applied easily to this situation. Choose from 3 states:
a) regular white swings
b) auto-convert all white swings to Heroic Strikes
c) auto-convert all white swings to Cleaves

For Druids, just options (a) and (b), since no Cleave in their ability lineup.

While on the subject, I do think Battle Shout and Commanding Shout would function more cleanly as an aura effect rather than a short-duration buff. But that's just me.