Back when I tanked in Wrath, Heroic Strike never appeared on my action bars. Instead, it was "behind" my action bars; macro'd to other skills like Devastate, Shield Slam, etc. But now with Cataclysm, Heroic Strike is no longer a "on next swing" attack. It uses up it's own keystroke and has a 3 second CD. This may not seem like much, but when compared to a skill such as Devastate which not only has no CD but costs 10 less rage and deals more damage, I'm wondering if I should just drop "Heroic Strike" and save 3 talent points from Incite to be better used elsewhere?
Back in Wrath, my TPS tripled when I macro'd HS to other skills so that it was always "up". In cases where I had infinite rage (almost everything after Ulduar) I would also have infinite threat. Now I'm finding that i use HS much less, especially on trash where it shares a CD with the much more useful Cleave.
I'm thinking of replacing HS on my action bar with none other than Demoralizing Shout. Now that the damage reduction has been changed from "xxx attack power" to "10%", it has definite utility that I know the healer will appreciate and will cut down on my repair bills a bit.
-Gavn
Heroic strike hits almost as hard as shield slam (and crit almost twice as often thanks to the Incite talent) while devastate is your lowest hitting ability and only a filler if nothing other is avaible. You shouldn't judge from tanking nonheroics versus having a full vengeance stack and 16.000+ additional attack powerOriginally Posted by Gavn
Demoshout should always be up, with 45s duration (glyphed) it's more than enough time to refresh it.
I wouldn't "waste" 3 points in incite, though...
Even in heroics you can have infinite rage at some bosses. Hitting Inner Rage alone is not enough to blow off all this rage. At the same time you will have a high vengeance stack. You should definitely use HS then. It's easy to even top the dmg meter for this encounters.
But even if one does not have infinite rage HS (and especially cleave in multiy-mob situations) is worth using. I use it over devastate most of the time. Devastate has only a higher priority for me when I have to apply/refresh the debuff or it's really a low rage boss. When it's a low rage boss vengeance is low too, so HS does not do much then. Especially since it can use less rage so does less dmg.
HS was always on my bar. I never macroed it to anything. I think it was dumb and will ever be dumb to makro it to something because while using it often, it's a situational skill to use. (Well I never had a functioning stance dance makro, too, because I did well without it, but that's just me.)
HS hits as hard or harder than Shield Slam and it's off the global cooldown, which means you never have to not use another ability in order to use it (except cleave or if you're low on rage). It's just free (time wise, not rage wise) damage and threat. It would be a really bad idea not to use it.
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Two things.
First, you should never have to choose between HS and another ability. HS is off the GCD, you hit it at the same time as another ability, or inbetween GCDs. If your HS leaves you without the rage to use a GCD based ability - you're doing it wrong.
Secondly, it's supposed to be used as a true rage dump now. Rage mechanics have changed a bit. You're unlikely to be hitting HS at every opportunity like you could in the past - save for maybe hard hitting raid bosses.
Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with the software.
I don't see how HS is a "true rage dump" now when you can't use it as often as you did before or how it was "more situational " before. You used it whenever you had more than 50 rage, which, after Ulduar, was always. Having to sit there and continuously click HS (or press the keybind for it) was a pain in the rear, so I just macro'd it to, say, Devastate and Shield Slam and Revenge. This way, I could just spam 1, 2, 3 - this way, HS was continuously being used, and when the CD's on D, SS, and R would wear off or, when SS or R proc'd, they would be instantly used along with HS. I would produce far more threat than even Paladin tanks, which actually started to become a problem on bosses like Suarfang where the tanks had to exchange aggro.
At any rate thank you for the responses. I think I'll keep HS on my toolbar, but move it to a lower priority. I think I might actually switch to a glyphed Cleave/glyphed Sunder Armor build, which would work very well with Blood and Thunder to apply dots, sunders, and threats to trash pulls. I have never had any trouble with threat on bosses, so even in this "AoE" build I'll still probably do fine.
Still wondering about Incite, though.
I'll have to do a few 85Heroics to get a feel for the end-game mechanics. Warrior tanking has changed a bit and I now have more "junk" on my action bar. Granted, Blood and Thunder is beautiful for threat generation, but as a tank I never used rend before except on bosses to help DPS along.
Last edited by Gavn; 12-30-2010 at 09:43 AM.
All this talk of AoE tanking concerns me...I have seen more warriors than any other tank refuse to use cc because "it's just a normal" or one I even had tell me "I'm too lazy to mark".
The only times I have lost secondary mobs on my pally or warrior was a pull I failed to mark and three dps were single targeting three separate mobs and I still didn't lose it until it was near dead. Why all this focus on AoE threat when people should be single targeting and HS should be golden?
"he doens't need healing, he doesn't need healing, he doesn't nee-WHAOSHIT!wtf was that man!". Please stop leaning on TDR. -Teng
Partly because people are still lazy. Partly because some are ignorant.
A good reason, though, to not ignore aoe threat is healing aggro, which can get extremely high in some situations. In particular I've run into problems healing warrior tanks that still tab target instead of getting the dps to follow a kill order. Because I'm atonement-disc, I can, and have pulled aggro while the tank was busy saving som 'tardy dps from his own stupid. Usually fade saves me, but I've had the situation compound on me before...
oh, I pulled aggro on the sqallshaper because the deathtard dropped his dnd on top of the cc. They're not going to interrupt are they? No. The cannoneer is shooting the pirates. Ouch! That hurt! Need to heal myself. Ohshi...two pirates just Kung fu'd me into a repair bill. /votekick deathknight
First: It's a true rage dump as that you get more dmg for more rage when you press it. As it is with execute. So if you hit it at a higher rage level it does burn more rage and does more dmg.
Second: No you did NOT have endless rage in all Wrath after Ulduar. At least not if you were properly geared. There were many situations (not only in 5man heroics) where one was actually rage starved. It was a bad idea to use HS constantly there. And even if you had enough rage, it was a better idea to use (glyphed) cleave in multy mob situations than to use a makroed HS.
However your rage-situation today is, there are many situations where you actually NEED a given amount of rage. Even if HS does more thread than anything else you just need to do the interrupt/spell-reflect/stun/debuff/SB because if you don't use it you have much more problems than a little bit threat missing. Anyway, if you have enough rage it is always a good idea to use HS on single targets. Because it is good or even very good dmg. And even when tanks should not be the main-source of dmg, their dmg counts. It's a bad idea to let all those good rage do nothing because one is too lazy to push a button every 3s.
So it's a good idea to have HS on a very accessible position so one is able to decide if one wants to use it or not. It's not a good idea to just macro it to everything because it burns as much rage as it can and may let you be raged starved when you really need the rage. On the other hand it's one of our best attacks and it's definitely there to be used and should not be ignored.
About AoE:
To have an AoE focussed Spec/Glyph-Setup should not interfere much with your HS-usage. There are two situations to distinguish: Either you want to build up real AoE-threat or you want to focus on one mob and just hold the others off of the healer. In the first situation, you should use Cleave more or less on CD. Period. Because if you don't do so you have few chances to hinder mobs running to everybody else in your group. In the second situation you just have to ensure that the healer will not overtake your threat on the mobs. Blood & Thunder, Improved Revenge and Thunderstruck should be more or less be enough to accomplish this. (At least some seconds into the fight.) So either you have to use Cleave anyway, or you can use Cleave or HS like it's best. That does not interfere much with your build.
Why not? There were times where it was really good. Especially with a cat or arms in the group. Btw: Why are you only interested in dmg "to help the DPS along"? Threat is more important than dmg as a tank, but dmg should not be ignored. Especially when you can be really high on the meters which is the case at the moment (and was more than once in Wrath for AoE).
@sifuedition:
Well even when everybody else does not do AoE much, tanks have to. I like to mark mobs and do so all the time. But sometimes you just don't have enough CC to control all the mobs so you have to tank more than one. All the dps may be focusing on one target but you have to hold all the others as well. Healing threat can be quite high, especially at the start when tank threat is low. So you have to do some threat to all mobs which are not controlled. How you do this depends on the given situation (how many mobs? how long do they take to die? do you have a dk or fire mage in the group? do you have to move them around much? can controll them by interrupting/spell-reflecting/stunning?...)
no, hs will always consume 30 rage and will always do a set amount of damage based off your attack power. execute comsumes 10 rage up to 30 rage depending on how much you have and do more damage for each point of rage consumed. the two are not the same.
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|Ex Tank|
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It has less to do with the mechanics behind HS, and more to do with the new rage mecnhanics. Back in the Ulduar days, we always had infinite Rage (in raids). There was never really a time where you had to manage your rage. You could hit any button at any given time, and not short yourself on rage. Now, it's changed. Hitting the wrong ability (namely HS) at the wrong time can leave you without rage to continue your rotation. Before, it was mostly impossible to hit HS too often. (baring special cases such as Jaraxxus)
An ability is only a resource dump, if using that ability leaves you without the resource. In WotLK we always had infinite rage, there was never a way to really use too much rage and leave you waiting for more. HS wasn't a rage dump then. It is now, because you can leave yourself rageless.
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Once you start seeing 30k+ heroic strikes in raids you will probably change your mind and use it on cool down as I do .... and its exciting with incite knowing after you crit with a heroic strike the next one is gunna hit like a truck also. HS should pretty much be used on cool down if you have the rage, which if you tanking a raid boss you should have especially if you have 3 points in shield specialization and have been stacking mastery. Not hitting HS on CD would only result in a massive tps loss.
Last edited by Sirloinsteak; 12-30-2010 at 02:20 PM.
If you add "in a 25 man raid" at the end of that it would be correct.
Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with the software.
The damage per rage is comparable to devastate. Revenge/Shield slam are so cheap that there is little to no opportunity cost in using a HS when shouldn't have.... so you lose a devastate... miss a GCD... and did the same threat per rage because of it.
Taking HS off your bars is foolish, accounting for 35+% of our current throughput.
HS nerf incoming though.
HS nerf is incoming - at least for Arms and Fury. GC mentioned that it does too much for them. He did not speak about warriors in general. Instead he explicitly mentioned those two specs and said that all tanks are more or less where they want them to be.
Chances are high that a nerf to HS will also affect Prot, but we have to wait until we know more about the changes. However I think that HS does too much for Prot, too. Maybe since it's expected that Prot gets more rage when tanking a boss than the other two specs get, it's probably less of a problem if HS is not exactly a rage dump but used together with the rotation.
If the dps warrior rage-starves himself the worst case is that an interrupt is missing which may be compensated by someone else with a much longer CD on an interrupt like a mage. The dmg loss due to this would be minor compared to the whole raid-dps. If the tank rage-starves herself she may not be able to pick up a target or use something important like a spell reflect or a SB. So it may be a higher risk, when a tank uses HS mindlessly than if a dps does. So maybe the dps need another cause to think about using HS constantly since HS usage should be a decision for warriors. Something that can be used additionally to the normal rotation should not be a no-brainer for anybody. If it would be it would be better converted to a passive ability or a procc.
why ?? you get the same amount of buffs in 10 mans and 25 mans and some times even 5 mans depending on the group make up ... so no ... saying only in 25's is not correct.
Wait, what?First: It's a true rage dump as that you get more dmg for more rage when you press it. As it is with execute. So if you hit it at a higher rage level it does burn more rage and does more dmg.
Wait, what? If you're tanking Ulduar chances are you are "properly geared", or very soon will be... I don't know too many ungeared tanks who got carried through Ulduar...Second: No you did NOT have endless rage in all Wrath after Ulduar. At least not if you were properly geared.
And in those situations I had cleave macro'd to Thunderclap. Or I used Blood Rage (R.I.P.)There were many situations (not only in 5man heroics) where one was actually rage starved. It was a bad idea to use HS constantly there. And even if you had enough rage, it was a better idea to use (glyphed) cleave in multy mob situations than to use a makroed HS.
Wait, what? Dude you're really drifting back and forth. It's like you're arguing with yourself. Very confusing.Why not? There were times where it was really good. Especially with a cat or arms in the group. Btw: Why are you only interested in dmg "to help the DPS along"? Threat is more important than dmg as a tank, but dmg should not be ignored. Especially when you can be really high on the meters which is the case at the moment (and was more than once in Wrath for AoE).
Anyway thanks for all the input guys. You've given me much food for thought.
Uhh I may have missed that they changed HS back again. It had an execute like behavior sometimes in beta. (Cannot test it now, because I'm not at home for some days.)
Anyway. I did not want to say that you never should have used HS in Wrath. But it just was not optimal to macro it to your rotational abilities. If you outgeared the bosses there were many situations where you could get rage starved. Wrath was either full bar or empty bar. In full bar situations it was good to us HS on CD. But it was not optimal to always use it in empty bar situations. And it was bad in multi-mob situations. Or did you only hit TC then and wait until it was free again?
I don't contradict myself when I say that HS is very good in some situations and bad in others. It's additional to everything else. If you can afford it, it's quite great. But if it's usage hinders you to use more important things you simply should not use it.
Cata is less binary than Wrath. You often sit more in the middle of the bar where you actually can decide between abilities. But if you are struggling to get rage (which you will do sometimes) don't use HS blindly. On the other hand if you have a constantly full rage bar even while using Inner Rage you would miss about a lot of dmg if you don't add it on CD. You will find those situations, too.
So: In Wrath it was not optimal to blindly switch it on all the time. But in Cata it may be even more important to make this decision.
The damage intake is quite a bit different, meaning different rage gen. I've raged starved myself a few time by hitting HS too often. Especially on bosses that turn to do something to the raid and/or have long casts. Such as both Magmaw and the Omitron.
Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with the software.
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