Protection: Heroic Strike?

[Kojiyama]

On trash when you can use Cleave, sure. Heroic Strike has less use. Also, Inner Rage is more viable on trash.

For single-target, however, Heroic Strike is almost certainly a better use of Rage than Inner Rage if you have to pick between the two. At higher levels of AP Heroic Strike not only matches but actually exceeds that of Shield Slam damage (without Heavy Repercussions) and is on its own GCD. Not using it is a massive TPS loss.

If anything, for single-target fights Heroic Strike is actually almost more spammy than it was in Wrath. You want to use it exactly on CD and can't queue it, so it's just spamspamspam that button like mad.

Rage starving yourself with Heroic Strike is a small risk, but especially if you have Incite and/or War Academy, you can't really go wrong with it. It's still going to be almost as much threat as Shield Slam and potentially more--so it's not like it's 'wasted' Rage. You may lose a bit of threat from messing up your SnB cycle, but you won't lose much doing it.

While I suspect a big Heroic Strike nerf is incoming (it's just too strong right now) for the moment, it's powerful enough just to mash it and worry about the Rage later.

If there's one thing that should be ignored, it's Inner Rage. I'm almost totally certain that unless you have basically infinite Rage with it up (e.g. trash packs w/ Shield Spec) it's a net TPS loss to use it. Some people on beta were macroing it to Revenge then canceling it right after (due to the low cost), but the fact that it still increases the cost of shouts and other things still makes it a pretty crappy ability.

[Katzazi]

There are bosses even in 5man heroics where I have infinite rage even whith Inner Rage and HS spam. (For example the boss on the ship in deathmines when I have a near 20 debuff stack, but there are others, too, especially when they have those 30% enrages.) I don't use Inner Rage much, but there are situations where it's nice too have because you really get more rage than you can spam in any case at least at current gear level. Well, one has to monitor the rage bar, and be ready to cancle aura it when the situation changes but it's fun as long as it lasts.

HS spam may be best tps/dps wise. But there are things that are more important than this increas in some situations. HS needs a high amount of rage and there are those encounters where one just need a set amount of rage for special things (spell reflect, interrupt, stun, debuffs,...). In such situations it's better to stop spamming HS and maybe going back to the normal rotation while monitoring the rage bar. So use it when appropriate, but stop using it when it may let you unable to do more important things than pure dmg/threat.

[Booi]

If anything, for single-target fights Heroic Strike is actually almost more spammy than it was in Wrath. You want to use it exactly on CD and can't queue it, so it's just spamspamspam that button like mad.

Absolutely agree. I have never pressed the heroic strike button more than now. I know they like the idea "push the button and something happens" but essentially managing two gcds is a just cumbersome - queing (especially in a 3s HS environment would be much preferable)

I ended up running a mirrored action page with:

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast shield slam
/cast [nomod:shift]heroic strike

With the same for dev/revenge.
Essentially, auto-rage dumping unless I'm holding shift.

[lyd]

I'd say that one ought to start from the assumption that HS is an attractive button to push. You want to be able to push it whenever possible, because it's now one of our hardest hitting attacks.

with that said, if you're having trouble knowing when to use Heroic Strike, it's best to simply do a cost/benefit analysis based on how much rage you're earning.

HS hits harder than devastate, but costs alot more rage. So generally, even though HS is an attractive button, you can't really use it unless you're earning more rage than is necessary to simply spam devastate, revenge and shield slam. Practically speaking, I approach this in a couple ways.

The first way, which is rather uncomplicated, is to just use HS whenever you get a Sword n' Board proc. It's not optimal in all situations, but it works well when you're not gaining rage faster than you can spend it.


The second, more complicated way is to use a priority checklist. I generally view rage-returns in 5 stages:

1. poor rage gain: don't use HS. (devastate + SnB procs + revenge + debuffs)
2. medium rage gain: use HS sparingly. (devastate + shield slam + revenge + debuffs)
3. high rage gain: use HS on cool-down. (devastate + shield slam + revenge + debuffs)
4. very high rage gain: pop IR, use HS sparingly (devastate + shield slam + revenge + debuffs)
5. "endless" rage gain: pop IR, HS on cooldown (devastate + shield slam + revenge + debuffs)

You can also, of course, give yourself a "rage point", i.e. 50 or 60 rage, at which it's ok to press HS. I prefer the above 2 methods, but as with most things in this game, there's no single "right" way to do it, so long as what you're doing works for you and your group.

no matter which approach you take, keep in mind that there's alot of "feel" to HS. It's not always easy to plug in your rage returns to a neat formula, or a rote strategy, because your rage returns won't always be consistent. The rule of thumb is that HS is an attractive button and you *want* to push it, unless rage is hard to come by.

[Kojiyama]

It's worth noting that in DPR terms, Heroic Strike is not all that inefficient compared to Devastate at high levels of Attack Power. While it is more expensive, it is probably upwards of twice as strong or better--even moreso if you have Incite.

Therefore the only loss incurred from rage starvation due to overusing Heroic Strike is potential SnB procs--of which at least one will be usable via Revenge due to its extremely low cost.

While one definitely wants to optimize their SnB procs, with Heroic Strike being so hard-hitting now it is certainly not a terrible, terrible thing to sometimes use it perhaps slightly overzealously. It will be a detriment, but only a small one. It's likely you will lose more as a general rule if you are too cautious with Heroic Strike rather than the other way around.

I have to say that on my Bear, it is extremely rare that I don't spam Maul (which has the same cost/mechanic as Heroic Strike) almost all the time. Probably 90% of fights I use it on cooldown. Warrior should be pretty similar if not easier--as the general cost of the Warrior rotation is lower than Druids due to Revenge and SnB and the added rage gains from Shield Spec are quite large.

Inner Rage is certainly the trickier ability as you can really screw yourself over by using it at the wrong time. It has a terrible effect on DPR for a pretty minor DPS gain, and it's pretty easy to totally drain your Rage pool on accident if you are unlucky.

[lyd]

Inner Rage is certainly the trickier ability as you can really screw yourself over by using it at the wrong time. It has a terrible effect on DPR for a pretty minor DPS gain, and it's pretty easy to totally drain your Rage pool on accident if you are unlucky.

agree totally. I've found myself ignoring IR while tanking heroics because I find myself being denied too many GCD's while it's up. More often than not it's simply not worth it.

[Booi]

agree totally. I've found myself ignoring IR while tanking heroics because I find myself being denied too many GCD's while it's up. More often than not it's simply not worth it.

If you refuse to micro manage inner rage, you should still macro it into revenge - with cancelaura's on the other abilities.

[Kojiyama]

It's not a bad thing to do by any means--it's what many Warriors were doing on beta. Although, I would personally view this fallback as a pretty strong indication of how broken the ability is more than anything else.

[lyd]

If you refuse to micro manage inner rage, you should still macro it into revenge - with cancelaura's on the other abilities.

that's actually a great idea, i didn't think of that. you could also macro it to SnB procs too, if you wanted to have 2 separate buttons for shield slam.

[joostvader]

Hi guys in preperation for the new patch im currently 5/3/32 With 1 point to put somewhere. Please see below.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LGZhZcfGdRRodbu

Theory: I dropped incite all together i basically dont use HS until im over 75 rage and choose to use Devestate as a primary rage dump now after 3 stacks.

Therefore Devestate would benifit from War acadamy for dps boost & it costs half the rage of HS.

I have one point to put somewhere suggestions??

Please note consider the above AFTER the patch changes not before!

[Bung]

joostvader i like ur spec idea, I was thinking you could put 1 point in cruelty with that last point. Might as well increase SS 5%.