GC on Heroic Strike
Written by Wildchild.
We have become pretty dissatisfied with the on-next swing mechanic. Come Cataclysm, we’d love to get rid of all of them. Obviously that will necessitate some pretty significant changes in how warriors generate threat or do damage (unlike Maul or Rune Strike, Heroic Strike gets a lot of use outside of tanking), which makes it too risky a change for 3.3. We think some of the other ideas like toggling the ability are also risky in the sense that they might require a lot of iteration to feel right, or worse, might mess up threat generation or damage dealt.
The original design of HS as a tanking tool wasn’t that you replace every white swing with a Heroic Strike. You did it when you wanted to burn off rage. These days tanks (and increasingly dps warriors too) are rarely rage starved beyond perhaps the first few seconds of the fight. That turns Heroic Strike into a button you always push.
A couple of other ideas we have considered, as someone above referenced, were making Heroic Strike do more threat the more rage you have but also spend more rage. Another is that you somehow go into “high rage mode” at which point everything costs double but hits harder. This would work for dps warriors too. Those are just ideas at this point, not announcements. Please don’t tell us in a few weeks that you were promised these changes for 3.3. 
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Note that whenever players read “pretty significant changes” we understand and usually find that to mean “we’re about to mess up your class, but don’t worry, we’ll return it close to the way it was in awhile….maybe…”
That “first few seconds of the fight” are critical to establishing the course of the rest of the encounter. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand tanking. Heroic strike has been a solid tool since the beginning of a warriors career.
I get nervous everytime a blue suggests fundamental changes like this.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I’m personally OK with HS atm, Warriors in general need a decent look at. Fury in particular really should be pushing higher numbers in lower gear, Mages with my GS can push 5K, I struggle to break 4k on bosses.
If fixing HS is the only thing the devs give wars over the next year, I’ll go back to leveling my Lock. I can’t speak for the uber-gear’d, but as a mid gear’d War, I feel unloved
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next swing mechanic is allright but because im used to it…
They are making so many of these ‘fundamental’ changes that they have homogenized everything. Maybe just fold them to one of three classes tank dps or heal. but you can get your choice of almost 20 haircuts…
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Over the year I’ve heard so much ranting about the pains of spamming HS and I really don’t get it. So you push almost twice as many buttons as other classes, but how hard is it, if it creates a big problem for you – sort it with macros.
I agree with Pussinmyboot – I wouldn’t want to tank as bear, I’m not a warrior because it’s easy. I’m in it for the versatility. Making a choice between HS or Cleave depending on how many mobs you’re on and the rage situation is a small but natural part of that.
And hm, Varjeal, warriors are the class least affected by the dodge nerf in relation to avoidance – so no reason for whining. I love the changes to avoidance because unlucky damage spikes is the only thing currently killing me outside of my own (CD:s) or the healers control.
Other than that – I like the idea of a very angry warrior doubling his damage output.
/Baude
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But what bothers me is the consumption
even now its kinda hard to build up rage
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As a fury warrior I’m geared out for grand crusader/ crusader 25, I’ll pull an average of 6k~7k, having Hs set up with 3 points in talents and glyph when it crits it basically cost only 2 rage, this honestly doesn’t qualify as a ‘rage dump’. of course we wont pull top dps compared to hunters, rogues, mages, locks,…(until they give our 10% back for Titans grip and fix something in arms). Simply put we are a ‘hybrid class,’ but doesn’t change the fact warriors are still some of the best dps in situations.
If they take away our next swing mechanic and replace it with what? a 4 sec cooldown(you know they aren’t gonna make the cooldown faster than our swing) and make it on our global cooldown to mess with our rotation even more competing with our better moves (i.e. overpower, mortal strike, bloodlust, whirlwind)
Going over some of the posts rage isn’t hard to build, with the hs talent and glyph is alot better over cleave (12 or 2 rage hs > 20 rage cleave for single target)Speaking for fury warriors getting improved beserking rage, Intensify Rage,Unbridled Wrath rank 5, Anger management(yes it helps cus it stop rage decay). yes it stops you from getting some of the more damage boosting talents, (oo 5 less to execute, or if you get hit your have 30% chance to do 10% extra damage) deal with it! Given 45 sec before a pull you can have close to 100 rage ready for you to jump into the fight.
This idea of hs as a ‘rage dump’ is just silly just keep it completely in your rotation you dps with improve your fingers maybe a little tired, but its time to stop wanting a facroll character.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I’ve been a tank since i first hit lvl 10, HS is more of a threat builder in single target then a dps move. My offspec arms, i dont even use heroic strike, and other dps warriors ive asked dont. But with a fast melee weapon like the Peacekeeper Blade, it helps generate quick threat on a single enemy while you spam Devastate.
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Hot debate. What do you think?
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oh and the “Another is that you somehow go into “high rage mode” at which point everything costs double but hits harder. ” take the 30rage MAX cap off of execute and make it to where execute can be used at around 50% or so?! just an idea
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or maybe if you get above 75 rage execute will turn on and you can loose the execute being useable at 30% or what ever it is…sorry about the 3 posts for 1 idea thing haha
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I am also using the incite build in arms which is built with heroic strike being macroed into 3 of my attacks I’m using the HS glyph and still suffering from lack of rage at times but this did increase my dps and was a huge improvement to damage done overall! One thing that annoys me is how low the bleeds tick for, how often do u watch the dps meter and pushing close to 6k dps but die part way through a boss encounter while the bleeds continue to tick away and reduce your average dps by 300-500
maybe look into increasing the damage done per tick rather than nerfing the arms spec by taking away HS or reducing the cooldowns on ms or other abilities
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for the love of god make are dps better>>
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btw warriors really suck, i HAD a warr with 50 days playtime, quite a lot but i got frustrated and just lvled a DK, more choices in builds for tanking = win and dps that doesnt require overgearing = win too.
stances are a little out of balance too.
battle – 10% AP = GOOD
beserk – 3% crit = you srs? bad even w/o the EXTRA 5% dmg taken
defense – fine. aprt from the -5% dmg dealt, warr tank do the least dmg and in aoe situations can find it pretty hard to maintain aggro.
long story shrt my warr is gathering dust.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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“execute its meant for a finisher” Zodiac ill break this down for the simple minded, just because it says execute doesn’t mean its a finisher..look at all the rogue ability’s/combos. any way all i was saying is that execute can be put to better use.
since GC was talking about how HS was intentionally to be used as a rage dump and not a every other white hit use, i was just trying to say how they can leave HS alone and play with execute for a rage dump.
like my idea up top: lets say warrior get 75%+rage execute procs and execute have no 30 rage max rage cap will “dump” the rage by using it. once the rage is “dumped” below 75% it is off of proc tell the time time its at 75%. Then if they did decide make execute a “finisher” (that is for you zodiac) at 20% execute stays proced but its at a +30% chance crit every time. but the down side of it would be execute would have to use ALL the rage every time for it to be a dump, more or less like a rage wipe. whice forces warriors to wait for rage to build back up.
this is just an idea and people can tweak or do what every with it. to me that would be a better way to manage rage without messing with the the way HS works now and for the excessive amounts of rage issues.
as for zodiacs comment on titans grip yes in the REAL world x2 2 handed weps would be a little over the top with no super negative effects. so without the titans grip spec i can see a negative effect on the damage or hit. talents mean that you put points into them to do something SPECIAL, titans grip being a talent which means something special i.e. dual welding x2 earth shapers or what have you.
i do not agree with the 10% damage nurf on warriors period!
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HS was designed to be a rage dump? live with the fact that its found a new purpose? Make it so warrs get less rage?
Major scapegoat, next they will blame warrs hard to attain dps on this mechanic by saying they cant buff dmg with this in or the good warrs will do ‘too much’ dmg.
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Hey lets keep screwing warriors ]from every angle possible. Blacksmithing is a completely worthless trade as the only thing you can make is plate that other warriors can make for half the price. If not the materials are so absurdly hard to get your lucky to make a 100 gold from your braccers. I think this next patch we should find a way for cloth wearing mages to tank along with rougues everyone else can so why not. Hopefully by 3.4 Warriors will be completely phased out as a class so all the two button 7k DPS casters will be able to have nothing to complain about in raids as they sit at a safe distance tapping their buttons.
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If you cant pull 4k in a 25 man as an arms or fury warrior you need to reroll. Im Arms and i can compete in freakin’ TOC 10 while im still in naxx and tier 7.5 gear. as for fury there isnt as many AoE options but good fury wars rip bosses to shreds so dont give me that “broken class” crap.
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well then maybe they should get rid of sudden death and replace it with something else then execute wouldn’t be OP in PVP. i was thinking another bleed. like disembowel(that’s a cool made up name for a bleed lol) or something.
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my 2 cents from a rogue / druids point of view,
lets get this out of the way at the start ‘AMAGADS HES NOT A WARRIOR FLAME NAOW KAY KAY!?’
no.
as i do not play a warrior i had no idea that there problems with heroic strike that warrented a POTENTIAL CHANGE. But i really do wish that i could just once look at any kind of thread relating to ANY class that talks about ‘potential changes’ that didnt get at least 20 comments reporting how broken things are, or how perfect htings are and that if anything is changed all hell will break loose and babies will explode.
not to get into a pissing contest with a bunch of enRAGEd warriors over the interwebs, but i think that warrior dps is fine at the level its on right now. I consider myself a primary dps class (rogue) as i cant do anything BUT dps. however i have seen many warriors just below me on dps meters, which idicates that warriors are where they ought to be in the current game environment. hell, ive even seen some warriors top first on the dps meters with 7k+ dps which says to me that if they can make it work, then maybe you should go take a long hard look at whats working for them and copy it.
in closing, pray for the best when it comes to POTENTIAL (key word) changes. who knows? they may even make the class better in ways you may not have ever imagined. and if they break it to all hell then all i can say is, good luck. because the long and the short of it is that warriors have been getting nerfed / screwed since almost day of release and that 5 year tradition isnt about to change now.
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Shadowmourne
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I hope they don’t mess with it…I’m lazy and don’t wanna have to unmacro every single ability.
If the 10% damage penalty on TG is too much, then lets just go back to -15% hit. That’ll certainly solve things
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I play a warrior because it is a complexed toon. I tank because I love to tank. I read these articles and am very sad to see the dumbing down of all the classes. Defense will no longer be a stat, QQ about too many buttons to push, pretty soon we will be breaking out a controller from an old Atari 2600 that has one button and a joystick to control. Blizz needs to understand that the complexity of the characters is one of the things that makes this game stay interesting.
Bottom line, if it isnt broke dont fix it, if people QQ they either need to invest more time understanding thier class or reroll another toon that isn’t as complicated!
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Also, in addition, you need to make warriors a little better, i find warriors the worst at arena.
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There are things that needs to be changed as retaliation as it is pretty much useless in most raids seems like it is only usefull for pvp, I would think a better pve cooldown for arms and put retaliation as an optional ability in the talent tree that would suit a pvp spec.
I tend to generate a ton of threat short of pulling of the boss, warriors need an ability like other classes to reset aggro
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to a point i can kinda understand that us warriors are a hybrid class and therefore shouldnt put out as much dps the “pure” but when i look at the charts and i see my 2800(wow-heroes)gearscore war get blown away by a 2500 mage/lock wit 9.5k and me doing 7k is kinda depresing >_>
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