Noob question - Heroic Strike Vs Slam

[Whiteboard]

I know beans about warriors, I've had my warrior for a whole two weeks. But as I've been reading on 90 rotations quite a bit and all of them suggest working in heroic strike... I don't understand why Heroic Strike is used as a rage dump instead of Slam. Slam hits harder and costs less rage; although you might use MORE rage with HS and thus it's a better dump, wouldn't Slam's harder hitting power make it better to use? Is there a passive that I'm missing?

[roflwaffle]

HS is off the GCD, making it a lot faster/easier to dump with.

[Deleted]

You only use HS if you can't dump all your rage with Slam.

[nyctre10]

haven't played my warrior in a while, but it might be like that because hs is off the gcd while slam is not..if i'm wrong about that..then i have no idea

[Wishblade]

Well they're both kinda rage dumps.

Heroic Strike for whenever you got a bunch of rage cuz it's not on the GCD, so won't mess with your rotation.
Slam on the other hand is for whenever you can't use anything else.

Going with the Icy Veins guide for Arms you'd use HS if:
1. CS is active and you got 70+ rage OR
2. If Execute is unavailable and you're at 85+ rage

Slam would be used over Overpower if Execute isn't available AND you got 90+ rage. Otherwise Slam is used when nothing else is available and you got 40+ rage.

http://www.icy-veins.com/arms-warrio...owns-abilities

[Appolyon]

I know beans about warriors, I've had my warrior for a whole two weeks. But as I've been reading on 90 rotations quite a bit and all of them suggest working in heroic strike... I don't understand why Heroic Strike is used as a rage dump instead of Slam. Slam hits harder and costs less rage; although you might use MORE rage with HS and thus it's a better dump, wouldn't Slam's harder hitting power make it better to use? Is there a passive that I'm missing?

As an arms warrior (assuming PVE) you will likely spend most of your time back to backing abilities. Meaning that any ability you have that will allow you to stack damage (particularly inside of the Colossus Smash debuff) you should use, if you can AND if you can spare the rage AND your target is above 20% health.

As an example of when HS is good:

Your raid casts lust/heroism and your swimming in rage you can often use both HS and Slam at the same time.
You've charged, CS is up and you don't have any more TfB OP's left Slam is cycling and you still have plenty of rage.

these kinds of things....