Warriors, stop using heroic strike and cleave

[Revir-herod]

A bit of advice, from some one that has tanked for a while. If you are using heroic strike as a tank outside of a raid or being very geared, probably with windfury, you are doing it wrong. You do not have the rage to be wasting on heroic strike, you need every melee attack you do, to generate rage. Replacing your next attack with heroic strike is going to set you back quite a bit on threat generation.

Cleave is also not good to use, you will be better off tabbing and using revenge(prio) and sunder. Never rend, it is not good for threat.

As for DPS with a damage tracking addon, if you are like “why cant this tank hold aggro?” and you see heroic strikes and cleaves on his damage, that is why, he probably doesn’t know. I am not telling you to call him out, but a “hey buddy, you should avoid those two skills until you are a geared 60” nudge in the right direction wont hurt.

It isn’t that heroic strike doesn’t generate a good amount of threat, it is the fact that it replaces your rage generating attack, with a non-rage generating attack, and you will have to wait twice as long to get the rage to do something else.

Side note:
As for a DPS warrior, don’t use these skills ether, you are just better off not doing it. For solo questing, spam sunder, you will do progressively more damage and generate more rage for the next mob. Also, avoid rend, it is not worth the rage, and you shouldn’t be going for deep wounds or impale anyway, you do not have the crit for it to matter 45+ anyway with an axe spec and cruelty.

When do you start using heroic strike and cleave? At low gear or leveling? when you are at like 85 or 90 or more rage, somehow? Later on when you are in full epics, probably push that down to 75.

Edit: removed part that was hotfixed regarding demo shout.

[Twinbeard-westfall]

Yeah, I replaced HS on my action bar with Sunder a while ago as a DPS warrior, way better. Cleave seems okay only till Sweeping Strikes/Whirlwind becomes an option…

[Döt-grobbulus]

@Revir-herod

There is a reason I am able to hold aggro on 10+ mobs with 3 mages AOEing like mad and not losing aggro on the mobs in AOE spam groups

Yeah well.

@Aggrend-1483

We have identified a fix for an issue that was causing Demoralizing Shout/Roar to generate too much threat when applied to multiple enemies. In addition, we’ve also identified a fix for a separate issue that was causing Battle Shout and most healing spells, effects, and buffs to incorrectly split the threat they generate between enemies that had members of the buffed party on their threat list.

[Caddo-mankrik]

If you are tanking more than 5 or more mobs, spam demo shout, it is multiplicative, and you generate more and more threat the more mobs you have around you. There is a reason I am able to hold aggro on 10+ mobs with 3 mages AOEing like mad and not losing aggro on the mobs in AOE spam groups.

Have you tried this since the hotfix that may or may not be active yet?

[Revir-herod]

@Caddo-mankrik

@Revir-herod

If you are tanking more than 5 or more mobs, spam demo shout, it is multiplicative, and you generate more and more threat the more mobs you have around you. There is a reason I am able to hold aggro on 10+ mobs with 3 mages AOEing like mad and not losing aggro on the mobs in AOE spam groups.

Have you tried this since the hotfix that may or may not be active yet?

@Döt-grobbulus

@Revir-herod

There is a reason I am able to hold aggro on 10+ mobs with 3 mages AOEing like mad and not losing aggro on the mobs in AOE spam groups

Yeah well.

@Aggrend-1483

We have identified a fix for an issue that was causing Demoralizing Shout/Roar to generate too much threat when applied to multiple enemies. In addition, we’ve also identified a fix for a separate issue that was causing Battle Shout and most healing spells, effects, and buffs to incorrectly split the threat they generate between enemies that had members of the buffed party on their threat list.

I’ll remove it, the change went under my radar.

[Döt-grobbulus]

I’ll remove it, the change went under my radar

Though, from the blue wording it almost sounds like they just changed it from spam Demo, to spam Battle.

The problem is, Blue wording only half the time means what it sounds like.

[Ragefist-stalagg]

Spamming battle was always viable in Vanilla though. It was one of the best way to hold multi-mob threat in BWL for example.

I wonder if that was a bug back then as well, that they’re changing now? A bit confused about the wording.

[Revir-herod]

I’ll remove it, the change went under my radar

Though, from the blue wording it almost sounds like they just changed it from spam Demo, to spam Battle.

The problem is, Blue wording only half the time means what it sounds like.

Well battle was supposed to be the better threat generator, but having tried both battle was losing aggro where as demo was doing absurd threat. Maybe you are correct, it is now battle shout that is the better generator. We will see over the next couple of days.

[Döt-grobbulus]

Spamming battle was always viable in Vanilla though. It was one of the best way to hold multi-mob threat in BWL for example

It was for sure. I played and raided extensively on warrior in Vanilla. But, the way this hotfix was worded, it could mean several different things.

[Raegan-bigglesworth]

Ok, so we know that you should use sunder armor and revenge when you’re having threat issues. My question is, which one does more damage, sunder armor or cleave and heroic strike? Somebody’s gotta do that number crunching. I might give it a go.