The Effectiveness of Slam

[ralusek]

this is ridiculous. i encounter over and over arms warriors who avoid slam like it's the plague. many continue to believe it even reset your swing timer. the fact is, it is the bread and butter of arms dps and is simply replaced by abilities with slightly higher damage when rage permits it.

the most functional way to think of an arms warrior rotation is simply slam spam with every single slam being a variable. keeping that in mind:
sudden death>over power>mortal strike>slam is the priority in regards to damage, all the while keeping rend up.

a far as rage is concerned however, overpower>slam>sudden death>mortal strike

the problem is, warriors who prioritize mortal strike above slam with no consideration given to rage usage.
in low rage situation, you can even drop MS from your rotation if it means continuing slam every gcd. if MS would take you to an empty subsequent gcd, slam instead. that being said, in a raiding situation this is almost never the case, and MS is effectively a rage dump vs. slam.

the easiest way to think about it is with simply 2 gcds. you can mortal strike at nearly double the rage cost (considering slam's slight pushback of next auto) and not slam...or you could slam twice. where rage is a limiting factor, slam always pulls ahead.

what is complete garbage is when slam is cited as the rage dump, which is not at all true. using other abilities (minus overpower) in place of slam are the actual rage dumps. higher damage for significantly higher rage costs.

the easiest place to witness the efficiency of slam is at a dps dummy. self buffed, rage is often limiting. attempt a rotation with simply rend, slam spam, and overpower at procs. you will be able to use every gcd with dps just below where it would be with MS and execute. if your gear is good enough to substitute sudden death/MS for slams where appropriate, and still fill remaining GCD's with slam, this will net highest dps. but if you are replacing slam with sudden death/MS and left starved for filler slams, you will notice a decrease in dps.

point being: basic arms rotation consists of rend and slam. all abilities used are simply replacing a slam, and when not up, slam continues. if using an ability means locking out a subsequent slam, don't use the ability. (as stated earlier, this is hardly ever an issue in decent gear, raiding).

[Deleted]

point being: basic arms rotation consists of rend and slam. all abilities used are simply replacing a slam, and when not up, slam continues. if using an ability means locking out a subsequent slam, don't use the ability. (as stated earlier, this is hardly ever an issue in decent gear, raiding).

slam is our filler not the rest of our other base arms abilitys :O

[Vampyrr]

First off slam DOES in fact reset your swing timer

Second rage is never an issue for me I have so much rage that im almost always at 100. Slam should only be used when nothing else is up. Not counting sudden death I am usually Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam, Slam, Auto, Mortal Strike ... and Sudden Death when it procs.

And no dummies are mainly to work on your rotation not to practice efficiency. You want to practice efficiency and see what's what? Go raid.

If you are saying my dps will be LOWER using nothing but overpower and slam spam why would I want to do that when I can do a real rotation and have better dps? Your Argument is baffling slam is nothing but a filler attack, the Heroic Strike for arms.

[Burls]

First off slam DOES in fact reset your swing timer

Spam no longer resets the timer. It merely delays it, which with Imp Slam should only be 0.5 sec.

[ralusek]

First off slam DOES in fact reset your swing timer

slam DOES NOT reset swing timer. honestly, learn the fundamentals of your class. take 20 minutes out of your day to spend time playing with a rotation at a dps dummy. slam DOES NOT rest your swing timer. spam it, you will see within about 5 seconds how very wrong you are

and what the last 2 posts are arguing is a matter of perspective, which is the point i'm making. i don't think the perspective should be mortal strike, execute, overpower, slam if you have the rage. i'm saying that is a dps decrease compared to slam/overpower spam, with mortal strike/execute if rage permits.

in a raiding situation, what we're both arguing comes out to the same result, as you will always have rage to mortal strike/execute and maintain slam/op on every other GCD. we're effectively arguing about nothing, except that i'm placing filler as a higher priority than MS/execute. IF you were unable to maintain an ability every GCD, it is a dps loss to dump the rage in MS/execute. try it (even though, like i must continue repeating, this will RARELY be the case raiding).

[Nookz]

First off slam DOES in fact reset your swing timer

I'm not going into the actual discussion here, since I haven't done any testing yet or haven't looked at a lot of math for arms since 3.1. I only want to say that slam does NOT reset your swing timer. If you have improved slam talented slam only DELAYS your swing timer with half a second.

[Xenryusho]

First off slam DOES in fact reset your swing timer

Welcome to the year not Burning Crusade...

I'm not dps I'll say that a billion times but from what I've seen slam has to be used as a filler.
Not the move that gets called on everytime you feel like it.

Kinda like devastate. Lowest priority..Lower then keeping rend up.
Am I getting this right dpsers?

[ralusek]

Welcome to the year not Burning Crusade...

I'm not dps I'll say that a billion times but from what I've seen slam has to be used as a filler.
Not the move that gets called on everytime you feel like it.

Kinda like devastate. Lowest priority..Lower then keeping rend up.
Am I getting this right dpsers?

Sudden Death>Overpower>Mortal Strike>Slam is damage priority. like i said. you however, ignored the core of my post. where rage is a limiting factor, Overpower>Slam>Sudden Death>Mortal Strike. it is much more effective to continue slam if using SD/MS in it's place and missing out on subsequent GCD's. please dont' make me repeat myself more than i've already anticipated

[Hyson]

Hyson-approved.

Slam is good like Rend is good. At least I'm not the only one up in arms about this....

P.S. I like puns.

[psicorp]

Hyson-approved.

Slam is good like Rend is good. At least I'm not the only one up in arms about this....

[Gribble]

I believe the correct response is actually "IS WAYNE BRADY GOING TO HAVE TO SLAP A BITCH?!?"

[Haseo]

I believe the correct response is actually "IS WAYNE BRADY GOING TO HAVE TO SLAP A BITCH?!?"

I think he already slapped her on that picture.

[Battousai]

this is ridiculous. i encounter over and over arms warriors who avoid slam like it's the plague. many continue to believe it even reset your swing timer. the fact is, it is the bread and butter of arms dps and is simply replaced by abilities with slightly higher damage when rage permits it.

the most functional way to think of an arms warrior rotation is simply slam spam with every single slam being a variable. keeping that in mind:
sudden death>over power>mortal strike>slam is the priority in regards to damage, all the while keeping rend up.

a far as rage is concerned however, overpower>slam>sudden death>mortal strike

the problem is, warriors who prioritize mortal strike above slam with no consideration given to rage usage.
in low rage situation, you can even drop MS from your rotation if it means continuing slam every gcd. if MS would take you to an empty subsequent gcd, slam instead. that being said, in a raiding situation this is almost never the case, and MS is effectively a rage dump vs. slam.

the easiest way to think about it is with simply 2 gcds. you can mortal strike at nearly double the rage cost (considering slam's slight pushback of next auto) and not slam...or you could slam twice. where rage is a limiting factor, slam always pulls ahead.

what is complete garbage is when slam is cited as the rage dump, which is not at all true. using other abilities (minus overpower) in place of slam are the actual rage dumps. higher damage for significantly higher rage costs.

the easiest place to witness the efficiency of slam is at a dps dummy. self buffed, rage is often limiting. attempt a rotation with simply rend, slam spam, and overpower at procs. you will be able to use every gcd with dps just below where it would be with MS and execute. if your gear is good enough to substitute sudden death/MS for slams where appropriate, and still fill remaining GCD's with slam, this will net highest dps. but if you are replacing slam with sudden death/MS and left starved for filler slams, you will notice a decrease in dps.

point being: basic arms rotation consists of rend and slam. all abilities used are simply replacing a slam, and when not up, slam continues. if using an ability means locking out a subsequent slam, don't use the ability. (as stated earlier, this is hardly ever an issue in decent gear, raiding).

This is absolutely terrible. If i wasn't so cynical about the general intelligence of the wow community, I would have thought your were more than a simple troll who is purposely spreading misinformation, as just about everythin you said would be the equivalent of something you would hear from a grade schooler on "opposite day."

[Vampyrr]

Sudden Death>Overpower>Mortal Strike>Slam is damage priority. like i said. you however, ignored the core of my post. where rage is a limiting factor, Overpower>Slam>Sudden Death>Mortal Strike. it is much more effective to continue slam if using SD/MS in it's place and missing out on subsequent GCD's. please dont' make me repeat myself more than i've already anticipated

Where is rage a limiting factor as arms? Answer, NEVER. You will lose dps in any legitimate test from only using slam, overpower and using ms/sd sparingly. Im not sure who told you slam should be the goto ability but they were terribly wrong.

[Gribble]

I think he already slapped her on that picture.

No, you see, I'm correcting HIS response, not responding to him.

[Yranigami]

Slam doesn't reset the swing timer but it "freeze" the swing timer while you are in 0.5 sec Slam cast time....

so i don't think prioritize Slam in low rage scenario is a nice idea because because using Slam Rage/sec gained with damage done will be a bit lower.

Slam = minor dmg skill and slower gaining rage skill.

I think due the 5 sec MS Cooldown MS is the skill we have to prioritize to not waste time between a MS and the other one....

OP and SD got a wide window time to use them after proc... so u can easily use them when MS in in CD.....

Use Slam when nothing else is up

[ralusek]

if that were true, .5s of a swing would have to be worth 15 or more rage (MS's 30- Slam's 15), which it's not at all

[ralusek]

Where is rage a limiting factor as arms? Answer, NEVER. You will lose dps in any legitimate test from only using slam, overpower and using ms/sd sparingly. Im not sure who told you slam should be the goto ability but they were terribly wrong.

i don't think i ever said you would be limited to rage, ever, in raiding. in fact i think this is the 3rd of 4th time we're arguing the same rotation, just with a different foundation. read my posts