Solution sought for Heroic Strike/Maul
by Eliah Hecht 
Jul 24th 2009 at 9:00AM
In the context of a follow-up to the Warrior Q&A, Ghostcrawler mentioned something that he's touched on a few time before: Heroic Strike is a problem. I know what you're thinking: Eliah, you don't have a level 80 warrior! What would you know? Well, that's true, but I do have a Druid tank, and Maul is essentially the same as HS. So I know your pain.
For those who don't, the problem with HS/Maul is basically that it's obnoxious to use in a raid situation. You tend to have roughly infinite rage, so you want to use the ability as often as possible, which contributes to the fact that your main tank sounds like a woodpecker is attacking his keyboard (or mouse) when he pushes his Vent talk button. It's monotonous, but you have to do it to maximize your threat.
Recognizing a problem doesn't mean they have a solution yet, though. One idea GC had is to make it consume more rage the more you have (like Execute). Personally, I might like it if it just automatically activated above half rage (or so). Others have suggested that the key act as a toggle, which continues casting HS as often as possible until you toggle it off. What's your preferred solution?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Tom Jul 24th 2009 9:06AM
Same problem for Rune Strike on Death knights except it's only usable after dodges parries etc.
The solution seems to me to be to just macro it into your bread and butter abilities and that keeps it up most of the time.
Not a complete solution I suppose if you are rage starved on the pull. But it's what most druid/warrior tanks I know do.
Mordockk Jul 24th 2009 9:10AM
Macro it. problem solved....I do the same with Rune Strike
Karilyn Jul 24th 2009 9:17AM
You can't really macro it as a Warrior, you can, but odds are your rage generation will go down. Due to warrior mechanics, the speed of a warrior's weapon, the effects of a warrior parrying an attack, and a few other little annoying bits and pieces...
You have to hit Heroic Strike around once every 0.6 seconds in order to guarantee every attack used as a Heroic Strike without paying excessive attention to the task.
It's bad for druids... Every 2.5 seconds. It's bad for Death Knights, something like every 3 seconds I think?
But it's a lot worse for Warriors :/
Currently the best solution for a warrior is to macro heroic strike to a mouse wheel and spin it constantly the whole fight. It's slightly less annoying than spamming a keyboard button.
Karilyn Jul 24th 2009 9:19AM
"but odds are your rage generation will go down"
I meant threat generation. Eh, no edit capabilities are irritating.
Wyn Jul 24th 2009 9:23AM
The problem with Macroing HS is that you end up casting it more often then you want. Ideally you should be spamming HS only when you're in an infinite rage fight - if you're not at infinite rage you generally want to minimize it's use.
Macroing it takes away that control and ends up spamming HS even in low rage scenarios - this leads to rage starvation and opens you up to potentially loosing aggro.
crayzeigh Jul 24th 2009 10:38AM
2 sets of keybinds would solve this pretty well.
One set without HS macro'd and one with it added in. That way you use one set if you're low on rage, and the other if you're in the not-uncommon infinite rage situation.
Clunky, but less strain on your fingers/keyboard.
Dart Matsuraki Jul 24th 2009 11:48AM
What you guys aren't taking into consideration, is the difference between Rune Strike and Heroic Strike. Rune Strike is off the GCD, so it can be continuously spammed while doing other abilities and it won't mess with your rotation.
Heroic strike wouldn't work the same because it would eat up the GCD of what ever ability you had HS macroed to.
Dart Matsuraki Jul 24th 2009 11:54AM
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe HS isn't off the GCD. I'm not so certain anymore, can anyone confirm?
Also, WTB a way to Edit posts.
Banndit Jul 24th 2009 11:55AM
No, HS is based on weapon cooldown, not GCD.
Friday_Knight Jul 24th 2009 12:27PM
Heroic Strike is off the GCD. It's of the few (and stupid) abilities that is "queued up" to upgrade your next attack.
The solution is simple, but they don't want to do it. Make Heroic Strike an instant attack ability like every other "Strike" spell in the game (Sinister Strike, Crusader Strike, etc.). Make it trigger the GCD, up the rage cost a little, say 20ish rage and bam, you're done.
Toggle abilities like these aren't fun to use. They're clunky, annoying and they contribute to rage problems. Especially as a warrior, when I hit that Heroic Strike button I want that hit to happen right then. This solution would be a little bit of a hit to Prot warriors who generally use every GCD, so there would have to be a little tweaking done on that front. Perhaps adjusting some cooldowns and increasing damage so Heroic Strikes could be weaved in. For Fury and Arms warriors this would be a great help. The biggest thing most DPS warriors ask for is another instant attack. This would do that and keep Heroic Strike from eating a white attack and the subsequent rage that attack generates.
AlmtyBob Jul 24th 2009 2:31PM
Truly spamming the button mindlessly isn't necessary. Quartz has a nice, resizable swing timer so you can just hit the HS button once at the beginning (or end) of each swing. That, combined with an action bar button showing the state of HS (it's highlighted when it's queued for the next swing), mean only having to press it once per 1.6s.
I macro mine into revenge as I'm glyphed for the free HS anyways. I just try to be careful that I don't fire off revenge while SS is off cooldown.
Sleutel Jul 24th 2009 5:48PM
Actually, most Warrior tanks I know (like me) stick it on our mousewheel--and then we spend the entire fight scrolling the wheel. Macroing it into all of your other abilities would leave you using it either too often (you burn through all your Rage before you've established aggro) or too little (you end up with a bunch of generated Rage spilling over the top of your cap).
jbodar Jul 24th 2009 11:45PM
@Friday Knight
I used to think that way too, until I realized that Heroic Strike and Rune Strike are just trading rage/RP for extra damage that doesn't invoke the GCD, unlike Crusader and Sinister. This makes it more bursty when coupled with an Instant attack and breaks up the rhythmic monotony of pushing buttons on the GCD and only on the GCD, IMO.
That said, Rune Strike is more easily macro'd to your other strikes, where Heroic Strike is less successful, since DK's essentially have two separate but linked resource pools.
skoh-fley Jul 26th 2009 5:06AM
For those of us with Glyph of Maul (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40897), macroing Maul into our bread-and-butter moves can be bad news for tanking near CCs. I'll always prefer the inconvinience of spamming the button over the possibility of breaking CCs on General trash.
Tom Jul 24th 2009 9:10AM
I would prefer it to just be removed from the game.
Replacing it with an passive ability that triggers when you reach 100 rage.
Basically, you are so full of rage, you get furious and increase the damage of your next X attacks by Y amount (to an equal-ish amount as HS)
Tom Jul 24th 2009 9:10AM
Eek! Two Toms
Tom Jul 24th 2009 9:11AM
And, just to note, I'm not the same Tom as in post #1 :D
Tom Jul 24th 2009 9:18AM
Whereas I am!
Angus Jul 24th 2009 9:21AM
I like this. Elegant solution.
Heroic Strike: Passive ability learned at level 1 that automatically makes your auto-attack deal additional X damage when rage is equal to 90 or above. This attack consumes Y amount of rage and generates no rage.
Solves a lot of issues and is very effective. Trying to hold threat with warriors is a sad thing from what I have heard. It also doesn't hurt dps warriors as they are likely not having issues with rage if they are at or near max rage.
Tom Jul 24th 2009 9:26AM
@Angus, That wouldn't work so well at level one. Maul and Heroic Strike (as they are now) are essential parts of early leveling for druids and warriors. If something like that were to go into play it would have to be at a later level such as 40.