Heroic Strike, More than a Rage Dump
I was browsing the Wowhead.com Warrior forums (an excellent community that’s flourished under Arideni’s constant support) and stumbled across a topic titled Good Tanking Rotation? The discussion quickly got interesting when the use of Heroic Strike came into question.
The 50+ Rule
Definitely one of the must learn skills of any tank is when to Heroic Strike and when not to. It’s important to remember that Heroic Strike is not like your standard threat moves. (Shield Slam, Revenge and Devastate) Heroic Strike essentially replaces your auto-attack causing it to do greater damage and additional threat, but also preventing that attack from generating you rage. When I teach the use of it, I generally advocate only using it when you have 50+ rage. (in other words, as a dump) This is done to ensure that rage isn’t wasted by you gaining so much rage that you end up with more than 100 rage. (which is then rounded down to 100 rage) However with experience, one finds it’s application is far greater than that.
Starving > Death
Early into a pull a couple unlikely parries finds you with a moderate amount of rage and soon to be without aggro. You all know that sinking feeling. You can’t really describe it beyond it’s that feeling you know you are about to lose aggro. (that being said, Omen spells this out in plain old numbers too) This is when you have to start cuing Heroic Strike. It’s true you are risking long term rage starvation, but that’s not as big an issue as the short term risk of aggro loss.
It’s not always going to be about if your attacks miss. If Omen indicates to you that your teammates have either 1) scored an early string of Critical Hits or 2) started dpsing too early then it’s time to drop the gloves and give that mob everything you’ve got. The latter is often the issue and while death is a great lesson for a dpser, you don’t always have time to teach said dpser a lesson. Sometimes, you just need to generate every possible ounce of threat you can and not worry about the fact that at any time a dodge or two will definitely result in you hitting the dreaded 0 rage mark. That’s what Heroic Strike can do for you and you will find this is especially the case when dealing with a dps team that outgears yourself. You may just find yourself running an entire instances under these rules.
Something about Eggs and Baskets
By using Heroic Strike along with a standard threat move, you will increase your chance of landing a threat generating attack. In other words, you are giving yourself 2 opportunities rather than 1 in a given segment of time to generate threat. This way if your standard threat move is dodged/parried/misses then you’ll still land a Heroic Strike for some solid threat where as if you aren’t then you’re counting on auto-attack to keep the mob on you.
This is useful in particular when picking up a boss such as Leotheras or Hydross after an aggro wipe transition. When you need as much Burst Threat as possible doing 2 standard threat moves with 2 Heroic Strikes in 3 seconds is going to be far better than doing 4 standard threat moves in 6 seconds even if the overall threat generated per rage is far less in the first scenario.
Threat Stability
Your dpsers can’t read your mind. Just as you play by feel at times so do they. They don’t know when you’ll be applying Thunderclap, Demoralizing Shout or Commanding/Battle Shout. When you use these low threat moves, your threat is naturally going to drop momentarily. By adding a Heroic Strike to these low threat moves, you’ll ensure that your threat output remains stable. This makes it much easier for your dpsers to manage their threat as well as allowing them to begin dpsing sooner.
This technique is especially important against a hard hitting boss if you don’t have access to Misdirect from a Hunter. You know you need to get your survival skills up ASAP so you don’t die, but if you aren’t cuing Heroic Strike along side them then there’s a very really issue of losing aggro to one of your healers if they land a big heal before you can start your standard threat rotation.
Final Thoughts
We often talk about Heroic Strike as simply a Rage Dump because that’s what it’s designed for and that’s what it’s best at. It uses up your rage faster than any other ability can. It does it off the global cooldown and gives you a reasonable amount of threat in return. But, it definitely has other applications and if you aren’t using it to generate burst threat or stabilize the early part of a fight then you are simply not using it to it’s fullest potential.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Nice article Vene. I like the Threat Stability portion, it’s something I already do. If I have the rage, and feel ready to throw a TC or DS out there, I cue up HS at the same time.
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June 23rd, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Nice article, but I’m wondering what I should spec into to keep my rage up so I can HS more. I’m stuck between UW (I figure if, the more I spam it [heroic strike], the more rage I’ll gain from spamming HS, and in turn, I can spam it more often, for longer) or Anger Management?
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Megatrohn reply on June 24, 2008 1:22 am:
Well, regarding UW, the rage gain is very little, and it is the same whether you’re spamming heroic strike or not spamming it, because heroic strike replaces your white attacks rather than adding an additional attack.
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Dezdemone reply on June 24, 2008 5:01 pm:
Spamming HS will not yeild more rage as you cannot earn rage from your yellow attacks you only earn rage from your white attacks.
This is one of the reasons HS is often referred to as a “rage dump” it gets rid of large portions of rage and doesn’t replace that rage, while also adding additional threat in the form of yellow damage.
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Dragonfell reply on October 22, 2008 8:34 am:
Well before any major pull dont forget it is possible to now proc retaliation as this no longer wastes your shield wall I am in fact amazed at how many tanks are over looking this skill as a major threat initilizer.
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June 23rd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Anger management should provide more rage over time than unbridled wrath. And, if you’re going for AM, you can pick up a couple points in imp. heroic strike.
That, or find some windfury!
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June 24th, 2008 at 3:38 am
Great article, Vene. HS, especially with a quick weapon on bosses, is definitely in my “rotation”… I might use it too much sometimes…
to Warmwoods: AM>UW. I just recently spec’ed out of AM simply because my rage generation is fine and I felt like I needed a bit more survivability… (we’re a small guild on Hex Lord and have been teaming up with another small guild for Gruul’s and SSC runs.)
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Fentar reply on June 25, 2008 8:06 am:
Every time I have ever drop AM I have respecced back within 10 days. Trash is awful without it and over a 9 minute boss fight that almost 2 full rage bars worth of ammo (then again thinking about a 9 minute Hex Lord makes wanna cry).
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June 24th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I find that I use HS quite alot, especially on bosses. And I never have any trouble holding aggro. I am usually far far ahead of the DPS in threat.
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hbombs reply on June 25, 2008 8:55 am:
Im glad your dps isnt in my guild
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Kavtor reply on June 25, 2008 12:20 pm:
Depends on the content you’re doing. In T4 / T5, it’s pretty easy, the difference isn’t as pronounced in T6+. Damage scales a lot better than threat does.
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Darraxus reply on June 25, 2008 12:59 pm:
Well, we are barely getting into T6 at this point. Im sure there are a few people who could go all out and pull it if they wanted, but the nature of boss fights (aka DPS moving around etc.) generally makes it easier to get a good threat lead. A good rotation also helps a bunch.
June 24th, 2008 at 8:42 am
You talk about your attacks being dodged/parried/missed… However, should anyone, given the new badge gear available, and the shard of contempt, ever have to worry about dodges/misses? I mean, with badge and 10-man gear (and the ring from that rock boss in mana tombs), coupled with food, it’s quite easy to hit the hit cap or so close that the odds of a miss are almost nil.
So I have to ask, when would this article apply? Unless of course you get parried on the first attack back from leo. In that case, however, I am pretty sure i’d be burning heroic strike anyway, no matter how little rage I had. But for the most part, unless you’re not well hit/expertise equipped, I can’t see the advice in this article applying. -shrug-
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admin reply on June 24, 2008 8:49 am:
It’s pretty tough to have 57 Expertise and 142 Hit Rating in Survival gear no matter what level of content you are at. Anything less than those numbers and you will see your attacks miss.
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Hydrix reply on June 24, 2008 8:56 am:
My assumption then, is that this article only applies to boss fights? Heroics and raid trash are not part of the arguement (due to lower requirements)?
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Kavtor reply on June 24, 2008 9:20 am:
Still depends whether you over gear the content. If you do, you probably won’t have the spare rage for HS anyway. But if you don’t, there are certainly some solid hitting trash mobs where you’ll be able to get some good HS work in.
admin reply on June 24, 2008 10:20 am:
Even if you are doing Heroics and Raid Trash, parts of the article will still apply. In particular, Starving > Death is going to be how you’ll run a lot of Heroics and Raid Trash seeing as your DPS squad is going to have insane gear and while your threat is going to increase, it’s not going to scale as aggressively as their damage.
Kavtor reply on June 24, 2008 8:52 am:
There are times when you can gear for max threat (and my standard boss gear is ~100 hit & 33 expertise) but there are other times when you’ve got to wear your best mitigation gear and put threat stats aside.
This article certainly applies to anyone who’s had to step into an encounter that they’re under geared for. And even with reasonable hit / expertise, bad luck can occasionally happen.
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Fentar reply on June 25, 2008 8:17 am:
I run 27 expertise on my boss tanking gear (that’s Axe, Bracers, Belt right now - just got Akama’s pants last night) and around 115~ hit. That’s 21.5k hp raid buffed, 22k with imp and around 54% avoidance. I know the avoidance could be higher, hell that’s why I keep a second set of gear, but heals are coming and rage from soaking up that kinda of damage = hot TPS.
The article is applicable b/c there is not a case where boss parry is pushed off the combat table unless you are just gimmic gearing for shits and giggles. Blizzard uses boss parry as a fight tuning mechanism; some bosses have parry rates estimated around 13% - and again with those no serious gearing is going to come close to pushing it off the combat table.
A MT’s rage in high level raid content should SPIKE. If it isn’t going up AND down, you are doing something wrong. On a boss like Azgalor or Gorefiend there is NO reason you cannot empty a rage bar. It’ll be back up to 60+ with 2 hits. However there is something dreadful about DPS having to hold back and playing the odds that a Baddie is gonna get constructs and bone your raid or you’re out of battle rezzes/soul stones after the fights has lasted way longer than it needed to.
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June 24th, 2008 at 10:38 am
So basically the idea is to learn when to push the envelope with HS. If you know dps is going to pull something off you if you don’t do something immediately, it’s worth the risk of starvation to proactively throw in some HS’s, even if you’re below the 50 rage mark. On the other hand, you still need to know when to hold back so you don’t get that terrible sinking feeling on a boss when shield block is up and you don’t have enough rage for it.
Sometimes starving = death. It’s all about the risk/threat trade-off.
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Rochelle reply on June 24, 2008 1:12 pm:
If you are on a boss and you don’t have enough rage to shield block, it means you probably just avoided a bunch of attacks in a row so you are probably sitting at full health so a crushing blow is not the end of the world.
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June 24th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Heroic strike definately is a powerful move, quite underestimated. On fights such as Tidewalker where I have plenty of rage, HS generates the most threat out of all of my abilities.
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June 24th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Another important use of HS is when you want to keep free the Global Cooldown, to be able to shield bash immediatley. Magtheridon adds, for example.
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June 24th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
The way I use heroic strike the most, besides rage dumping, is when breaking CC’d targets. I’ve noticed a lot when I do heroics with PuG tanks, they they’ll taunt the CC’d mob, then break it, which I think is kinda stupid. (Shield Slam parry, you = screwed) Granted that I have the rage for it, I’ll HS-Shield Slam CC’d targets to break them, saving my taunt for if it’s needed later.
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Hydrix reply on June 25, 2008 2:33 am:
When I’m not on my tank, and I see tanks taunting the mob that was CC’d the whole fight, or worse the mob that is already on them, I can’t help but ask “did you not read the tooltip”?
“Has no effect if the target is already attacking you”.
-shakes head-
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Speidel reply on June 25, 2008 11:19 am:
Well, I’ll taunt a mob already on me if its near death and I’m trying to save rage for the next pull. But yea, I see so many tanks using taunt for no reason at all.
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Jandrae reply on June 25, 2008 5:36 pm:
CC’ed targets can gain aggro from healers that are healing too close to them. If a target is sheeped it’s not “attacking” you so using Taunt before breaking it just ensures that when you DO break it, you’re the one it’s going to start pounding on. Granted a healer shouldn’t be standing too close a CC’ed target, let alone while healing, but stranger things have happened.
Taunting a target that you have aggro on is just mildly retarded but taunting a CC’ed target has a purpose, albeit a very seldom purpose..
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Rochelle reply on June 26, 2008 1:31 am:
A sheeped target DOES NOT gain aggro from healers. I was feeling goofy tonight and got crazy with rending EVERYTHING. I had aggro on every sheep that broke due to rend damage. All 25 of it.
admin reply on June 26, 2008 9:20 am:
Nope, it doesn’t. However, it does gain aggro while the target is running around trying to get CCed.
Vegaveil reply on June 26, 2008 11:43 am:
Careful when you criticize the useage of taunt mid fight, because there is a valid reason for it.
If I see that a DPSer has passed me on threat but not “pull threat” taunt will immediately match that DPSer’s aggro and my next attack will put me over the top, also setting a new mark for the “pull threat” level.
Or in the same scenario, (if spec’d) I will use concussion blow (for reason of interupt) on a mob, wait and go white damage only (consume no more rage), and then taunt > shield slam to get back on top of threat after stun is the cb stun has worn off.
Basically, I only use it to save my DPSer’s butt midfight.
Speidel reply on June 25, 2008 11:43 pm:
Yea, talked to Vene for a bit about this. Like when I pick up CC’d targets in a raid, I’ll always taunt first. There’s just so much healing aggro going around in those situations. But in 5 mans, HS/SS should be able to overcome 1 healer’s aggro. Basically, the longer the mob is CC’d, the greater the need to taunt upon breaking.
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June 25th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
It definitely seems like many tanks, especially new ones, don’t know exactly how taunt works. However, there are still good uses for taunt on mobs that are already attacking me just because it gives me focus.
There are many situations where 3 seconds of guaranteed aggro is going to be helpful. SP is trivial anyway, but when you’re really going for speed you can use it on those mobs that intimidating shout you. They’ll break you right out of you’re own fear if you taunt them before they do it.
Anyway, I’m just playing the devil’s advocate here, but there can be a time and place for taunting mobs that are already attacking you.
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Jandrae reply on June 25, 2008 5:47 pm:
I was under the impression that if the target is attacking you, Taunt has “no” effect whatsoever. It wouldnt focus you no matter what for 3 seconds or do anything. The tooltip says “no” effect, not “some” effect. I could be wrong.
“Has no effect if the target is already attacking you”.
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Speidel reply on June 25, 2008 11:45 pm:
My understand of this was that the “no effect” portion of the tooltip applies to the threat gain mechanic. I think if you taunt a mob while you have aggro, it just works like a 3 second mocking blow.
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dwigt reply on June 26, 2008 9:23 am:
taunt forces the target to attack you for the duration. if you are already on top of the aggro table, you will not gain additional threat, but you will prevent the mob from running loose for taunt duration. ive used it to break incoming cc, expected intim shouts, and to hold aggro on targets that are dying, and i dont wish to spend any more rage on. when you dont have to worry about using taunt reactively, theres only benefit to using it proactively.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I believe the taunt tooltip lies. The mob will be forced to keep attacking the taunter for three seconds. And I’ve always believed that I gain aggro (even though it may be very little) from taunting a mob trapped by a hunter.
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June 26th, 2008 at 1:37 am
seriously? who uses taunt?
This thread is degrading into a discussion of taunt mechanics and any tank worth their shield ought to know how taunt works already. I REFUSE to let this discussion stray from its intention of getting people to realize that Heroic Strike ought to be a staple of your threat rotation and not a “rage dump”.
*I am putting “rage dump” in quotes from now on because I think it is an unrelenting dumb and misleading phrase when used in relation to anything but stance dancing to deliberately rid yourself of rage.
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Vrathmat reply on June 26, 2008 5:41 am:
I suppose I’ll agree. After really thinking about this and actively trying to implement more HS use in some heroics and ZA this week, there are a couple situations where HS really fits in nicely where before I would have been too hesitant to use it due to rage starvation. One reason for this was my guild’s general lack of consistently available strong healers, which meant I didn’t trust them on boss fights if I missed a shield block even after a string of avoidance. That’s still an issue but not as much as it used to be.
I found it especially useful when needing short-term burst threat when getting those crucial first few hits on a mob, even though it did probably result in slightly lower long-term threat. Also was good to be make sure I always have HS queued while refreshing shouts/tclap.
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admin reply on June 26, 2008 10:09 am:
There’s nothing wrong with discussing taunt mechanics and the entire tank population including yourself uses it albeit in varying degrees. There’s no reason to get all worked up and I wouldn’t have wrote multiple articles on Taunt usage if it was something that everyone understood completely. So while it’s nice for article discussion to focus around the topic, I have no issue with it straying off-topic if people are keeping that discussion constructive.
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Rochelle reply on June 26, 2008 1:06 pm:
I feel like most of the time I am the one leading or at least helping discussion stray off topic. But like you said, there are multiple articles on taunt and they all have their own discussions attached. But this is the first one I have seen about HS
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Kachra reply on June 27, 2008 5:42 am:
Speaking of keeping things off topic, there’s nothing wrong with using heroic strike as the rage dump we’ve all been trained to use it for: when you’re tanking one mob and you don’t want to waste any incoming rage. Turn it all into threat!
Anyway, now I’m just being picky. Another insightful article vene. All warrior abilities (including taunt and heroic strike) have their sneaky, non-nonstandard uses as well. In the past I’ve mostly used heroic strike to keep globals free or to build threat when my globals are all being used. *cough* shattered halls *cough* I usually don’t like to take chances with my threat, but having read your article I can definitely see times when heroic striking will work out better in the long run. Statistically speaking anyway.
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June 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am
I’ve recently started using HS in boss fights and it has been a great improvement in my threat generation. I am pulling far ahead of my DPS’er much more quickly. I may even spec to get improved HS and and AM. Its just hard to turn loose of other talents in Prot.
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Bacara reply on July 1, 2008 8:35 pm:
I’ll be honest, I used to *hate* having to worry about one more spell (lol) to cast when I first started tanking raid content (I never did it pre-BC).
Around the time the third tier of badge loot (Sunwell content) was released, I found that I increasingly had to “push the limits” of my old TPS rotation.
I basically was slowing down a raid. Sure, I was holding aggro, but the more and more people were improving their DPS while I pretty much grew complacent.
One day I decided to give Heroic Strike a shot. My TPS jumped up 300+ points. My Karazhan trash clearing was reduced by easily 20+ minutes each time. Five-mans were even more cake than before. Omen didn’t lie, I was doubling threat above the next man.
The most convincing thing though was this: I rarely have to Taunt anymore.
If you’re a tank and are lazy like I was, you’re only handicapping yourself by not utilizing HS.
Beware though: As Vene points out, careful to not over-HS (especially in a 5-man) but also make sure you’re Hit Rating and Expertise are tip-top shape… blown rage on multiple parries/misses makes you look bad. And you’ll probably eat a repair bill too boot…
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June 30th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Personally, I always spec into Imp HS. When a devestate + heroic strike only costs you 18 rage you end up being able to use it almost as quick as you can hit the keys. Also I throw in a heroic strike just about every time I’m doing a non threat generating move that uses the global cooldown. It works wonders in my opinion. Plus if you find yourself having to dps as prot it gives very large gains if you took Imp HS.
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July 2nd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Dunno how obvious to everyone else this may be, but I’ve long been in the habit of queuing up a heroic strike any time I hit revenge. With improved heroic strike and focused rage, you’re getting a nice threat burst for the low cost of 11 rage (and whatever you would have generated on your next swing). I tend to over-use heroic strike - I’ll get into situations where my incoming damage is high enough for me to happily spam my abilities, and then before I know it, my rage bar is too low for my next shield slam… but it’s a very rare occasion when I can’t fit an extra HS in with a revenge.
On a side note, it made me a little sad to hear from a good friend of mine and a fellow tank that he thought heroic strike as absolutely worthless, and I couldn’t even begin to explain to him its value - he just cut me off altogether… and yet, I don’t think anyone would deny the value of heroic strike’s big brother, cleave.
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Khrushchev reply on July 2, 2008 8:10 pm:
I don’t use Shield Bash too terribly much, but I like to macro HS in with Shield Bash. Rank 4 shield bash dazes the target and HS ranks 10 and 11 cause extra damage versus dazed targets. That’s not the only time I use HS obviously, but I always make sure I use it in conjunction with shield bash.
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MadTanker reply on August 27, 2008 1:27 pm:
I think Khrushchev has (one of) the best use for Hs here. I’m definatly gonna start emplimenting it. Great way to amp threat and utilize HS’s non global. But it seems to me the majority of the Tanks here agree HS is not just an aggro dump, esspecially for high end raid with dps’rs in plain sick gear. Aggro doesnt scale like T-6 dps, esspecially with these new epic gems.
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Khrushchev reply on August 27, 2008 4:50 pm:
Heh. Thanks. I guess I should have mentioned though that this is only effective against trash for the most part. I’ve never noticed if it dazes bosses or not as I’m typically too focused on my stupid GCD indicator to notice much else.