Part 2: Maximizing your Boss Threat
Welcome to the 2nd part of Maximizing your Boss Threat. The first part focused on abilities on the Global Cooldown. This article is going to focus on abilities not on the Global Cooldown in particular, Shield Block and Heroic Strike.
Shield Block and Heroic Strike are an interesting pair because they are basically on exact opposite ends of the warrior spectrum. Heroic Strike represents a rage dump for additional threat where as Shield Block is one of the defining survival skills of the warrior class.
Shield Block = Necessary, but also Negative Threat
Now certainly you can use a Shield Spike (one of the many enchants we’ll discuss in the next installment) to have attacks you block generate threat and you do get a tiny amount of rage from blocking, but that doesn’t change that basically every time you use Shield Block you are effectively wasting rage and getting little to no threat in return.
Unfortunately, not using Shield Block isn’t really an option on Bosses. If you don’t use it, you’ll effectively be setting yourself up for getting hit by a Crushing Blow that does 1.5 times the damage of a regular hit. And even on bosses that can’t Crushing Blow, a blocked attack will still do you less damage based on the amount of Block Value and Strength you have making using Shield Block on hard hitting bosses that can’t crush still worth it. Most importantly though, Shield Block virtually ensures that the boss’ next attack will activate Revenge which is essential to your best threat rotation.
Heroic Strike - A Dangerous Friend
Heroic Strike (HS) isn’t on the global cooldown, but it’s important to understand that once activated it won’t take effect until your next swing. When it does take effect your normal auto-attack is going to change in 3 ways:
- Your attack isn’t going to generate rage
- Your attack will do an additional damage (176)
- Your attack will generate additional threat (196)
What this means is that Heroic Strike is a Rage Dump. Rage Dump is a term given to an ability that should only be used so that rage isn’t wasted by going over the 100 rage mark. In 99% of situations, you should never use Heroic Strike instead of another ability if your rage is low. I try to use HS when my rage is above 50 since I know that there’s a good chance the next hit will result in my rage going over the 100 mark and causing Rage Waste.
The nature of HS also means that a faster weapon is going to be able to use Heroic Strike more often. This means that in high rage situations a Fast Weapon is going to allow you to prevent Rage Waste better than a Slow Weapon and in turn generate greater threat. The danger of Heroic Strike with a Fast Weapon is that it will give you the ability to Heroic Strike too much essentially inefficiently consuming your rage. (a term I like to call, “Over-Heroic Striking”) Always remember that maintaining the Shield Slam > Revenge > Devastate > Devastate rotation is more important than getting in an additional Heroic Strike.
But wait, there’s Cleave!
When you use Cleave the exact same 3 things happen as when you use Heroic Strike with one rather obvious difference, Cleave hits two targets. However, while Cleave may be able to hit two targets, it’s going to do the same damage when hitting one target. This means that on 99% of boss fights there is no benefit to using Cleave instead of Heroic Strike because it simply generates less single target threat than Heroic Strike.
That’s all for Part 2, check back soon for the 3rd installment where we’ll look at Specs and Enchants to maximize your Threat.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
On hard hitting bosses, I’m almost always able to keep up a rotation of doing:
SS > Rev > Dev > HS > Dev > HS
Mind you, the HS is hit with the Devastate–so I’m not adding extra time. Think of it it this way: on Prince phase 2 in typical gear for a tank at that level of progression, you’re going to have plenty of extra rage. This rotation allows for getting in enough HS to increase your threat while not endangering your next SS.
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February 26th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
When I was just starting Kara, I used to be able to do SS (HS) > Rev (HS) > Rev (HS) > Rev (HS) (effectively pressing 3-6-4-6-5-6-5-6 without missing a GCD). Obviously that’s not possible when your armor gets up, but I have to disagree with the timing that Nalthien suggests: if you have steady rage, the best time to dump is after a revenge (followed by the first devastate).
The main benefit of this is that your Rage expenditures is more static over time (17/12/19/9 through the GCD, with a std dev of 3.96). Doing it after the two Devs gives you 17/2/19/19, which has a std dev of 7.12.
Fluctuations are bad, steadiness is good
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February 27th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Sure, it’s more consistent rage expending; but it causes a TPS drop off. By mixing in the HS with the devastates, I can keep my TPS more in line with the period where I hit SS / Revenge in rapid succession. In situations where rage is consistently above 50%, the spikier rage use isn’t an issue.
I see where you’re coming from; I’m just not convined it would be any more effective.
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February 27th, 2008 at 8:02 am
i’m not sure i understand fully what the two above me are alluding to.
the way i see, and play, it:
if you are in an ‘endless rage’ scenario you should be popping a HS in your rotation whenever this is up. so, essentially every 1.x seconds (dependant upon weapon speed) a HS should be weaved in.
in a ‘limited rage’ scenario you simply follow your standard rotation and weave in a HS when above your ’safe’ rage threshold (40 - 50 for most people). if you don’t weave in immediately you risk suffering ‘rage waste’ from the next few hits.
example:
you’re on a ‘limited rage’ boss using a standard rotation of SS / Rev / Dev / Dev. you have just landed your first ‘Devastate’ of the rotation and find yourself above 50 rage due to a smack in the chops from the boss.
if you want to wait until after your ‘Revenge’ to pop in a HS you’re looking at 4.5 seconds before you next hit ‘Revenge’, by which time you will have probably wasted some rage.
- DW
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February 27th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I guess it depends on your definition of limited rage. My personal definition of limited rage is when I can’t do a SS/Rev/Dev/Dev without running out of rage.
My definition of endless rage is when you can HS every time it’s up.
We were talking about the middle ground steady rage fights, when you’re going to be able to regularly throw in a set number of HS each rotation. Prince P1 and P3 is an example of this.
There are also spikey-rage fights, where yes, you should throw up the HS immediately upon breaching 50 rage. Prince P2 is an example of this.
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February 27th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I like to Roll like it was said above, SS > Revenge> then spam the hell out of my HS and Dev back n forth n back n forth till sheild slam is up again. I will also refresh any Debuffs if i need to, and refresh my shout durring one of them if i have a signifigant (which i usually do) lead on the DPS’ threat. Mashing the HS and Devastate like that will keep my TPS high, espeically in high rage situations where I dont have to worry about being at 0.
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February 27th, 2008 at 10:45 am
My name is Vrathmat, and I sometimes still struggle from
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February 27th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Heh, I also suffer from over-HS…
I’d like to know if there’s a mod (Quartz, maybe?) that most warriors use to regulate their rotations for maximum efficiency.
I’m starting to think the standard UI is not the way to go…
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February 27th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I don’t know why people are trying to fit Heroic Strike into their rotation. It’s a rage dump, as the OP states, and therefore not part of a rotation, but a good place to spend extra rage. If I have 50+ rage, I hit Heroic Strike. If I’m hovering close to 100, I spam it. If I’m rage starved, then HS is the last on my mind. Simple. I’m sure most of you already agree with this, so my point is you all are over-analyzing. It doesn’t go in any rotation and there is no GCD ability that it best couples with.
Also, TPS spikes are fine and don’t really matter much unless they’re drastic and/or early in the encounter. Sustained TPS matters the most and something as simple as hitting HS with Revenge instead of the first Devastate will not make a noticeable difference. If your damage classes are riding the agro line enough for that to matter then you have other things to think about.
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February 27th, 2008 at 11:37 am
“I
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February 27th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Quartz is amazing for maximizing your threat. I have the swing timer right under my character’s feet with the GCD spark right above it. When you spam abilities you get client side lag and your threat will actually go down. So I set my swing timer and gcd spark right in the middle to allow more precision in using abilities instead of just spamming. If you can break the habit of spamming you will see a very noticable increase in your threat.
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February 27th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
I just remembered the other thing I meant to add - none of the bosses so far in SW25 can crush.
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February 28th, 2008 at 3:32 am
I remember the old days of dual wield HS tanking (obvious while over-geared and farming older content).
But as Rochelle says also, not spamming and using macros is definately a good way of maximising threat, and dps infact. I guess spamming/marcos to me are like going back and playing Street Fighter 2 with some kind of programable control pad, while button bashing - so I avoid it.
Nearing 70 myself soon and looking forwards to tanking again (not really tanked since WoW vanilla and startings of Kara etc close to a year ago).
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February 28th, 2008 at 3:33 am
with older toon that is…
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February 28th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
what would be SW25??
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February 28th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
The 25 man on Sunwell Plateau.
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February 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I like that. A lot of people call it SP but that causes an obvious ambiguity, lol.
Does that make Magister’s Terrace SW5? Because once again most people call it MT which is already taken. I usually just call it Terrace, but I’ve heard MgT also.
(Sorry Vene, we’ll get back on topic eventually :))
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February 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Vene - I love that you’re doing a series on maximizing boss threat, since that’s exactly what I’m focusing on right now. My guild is 4/5 Hyjal and 4/9 BT, with strong healers and DPS that are almost always threat-capped.
We’ve all heard that HS should be added to the tanking rotation only as rage allows. HS is an important tool for threat tanking, however, and should not be considered only a “rage dump.” A tank that is trying to maximize threat will make sure that the rage is available to spam HS whenever she can get away with it. I spec 12/0/49 with Imp HS, Anger Mgmt and Imp Bloodrage, and I swear by it. Looking forward to Part 3!
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March 2nd, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t someone trying maximize threat go 12/5/44?
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March 3rd, 2008 at 7:34 am
Thanx rochelle. im way down the path to reach SW25. I am just happy with a new 5 man heroic, to run.
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March 3rd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I am also a “button masher” and prolly should get out of that as i learned last night in kara. I hit the right buttons at the right time and it was exactly same tps/threat (duh). Also for the person doing the SF reference, the good players never mashed buttons. (our local arcade had competitions back in the day)
currently, i go ss=>rev(if it is up)=>dev=>dev=>repeat. If rev is not up and i have a lot of rage, i just use HS to fill in the gap before rev comes up again…
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March 4th, 2008 at 9:47 am
“currently, i go ss=>rev(if it is up)=>dev=>dev=>repeat. If rev is not up and i have a lot of rage, i just use HS to fill in the gap before rev comes up again
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March 4th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I was trying some hitting orders last night in heroic BF and when i had a lot of rage, i did HS and pressed dev and/or rev as a 2chain or maybe 3chain of hits depending on how much rage i had. HS has this “pause” befor it strikes so i filled the pause up with rev/dev (or maybe TC or some other threat causing strike) depending on how much rage i had. Its kinda analogous to that pause cleave has before it hits and how you can press ww during the pause and have it hit almost like a double combo. it was kinda neat. On the tanking strikes, hs and dev hit almost at the same time rev followed after causing my threat to shoot up pretty quick according to my Omen threat meter.
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March 4th, 2008 at 11:51 am
gosh my grammar sucked on that one..
“On the tanking strikes, hs and dev hit almost at the same time. Rev followed after the previous 2 causing my threat to shoot up pretty quick according to my Omen threat meter.”
I tried the combos after the normal order i mentioned previously so that my rage was built up well..
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March 6th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I recently leveled my warrior to 70 after playing a rogue and then a priest(both holy and shadow). I’ve tanked all of kara and was able to get in on a few boss fights in 25 mans. I basically use two devastate keys. One is keyed to just devastate and the other is devastate and heroic strike with one key(since HS is not the GCD). When my rage spikes up I start spamming my second key, when it drops below about 40 rage I go back to using the first key.
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March 18th, 2008 at 5:45 am
I’m in a Kara/Gruul guild getting set for either Mag or Lurker; we haven’t decided yet.
I’m only generating 800 TPS typically (according to omen), but for the most part the DPS tends to lag WAY below me. I know that the DPS will fix their issues and start generating more damage, so I need to work on getting to the 1k TPS mark.
I use Blazeguard with the Executioner enchant for normal threat generation. I don’t have a set rotation per se, I just open a fight with a Bloodrage->SS and then start using whatever ability is up.
Should I be waiting to use abilities to try to fit into a SS-> Rev -> Dev -> Dev rotation with HS sprinkled in or just do what I’ve been doing, which is a great deal more random, but ensures my abilities are on cooldown?
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March 19th, 2008 at 6:52 am
@Zannin im in MH/BT atm and i usually have a TPS 1k+ depending on how hard the mobs hit. A very good tip is to debuff yourself by not using shield block+TC+demo shout so that the mob will hit harder on you and thereby get more rage so u can use more abilities = more TPS. i have tried using rotations but i dont like it that much since u have to adapt to the situation u are currently in, but i ALWAYS start with SS(if u have the Gnomereagan auto blocker 400 use it at the start of the pull to increase SS dmg). After the SS i pretty much just hit as much as i can, on normal trash i wouldnt recomend HS until u got everything else up and when the mob is at -50% or so, if u are fighting a boss just nuke the HS button, if ur rage gets low stop shield blocking for just a little while if its possible(learn what the boss do and how hard he hits). also, if u got sick dps, start of with a mocking blow so u have a few sec to build aggro. if u want loads of rage, berserker stance -> berserker rage -> def stance, helps loads.
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