Fury Warrior Rotation - To Slam or Not to Slam?

[Cheesey]

Hey everyone, I have had some time to number crunch and stuff and I'd like to share what I've found so far to help others and hopefully get some helpful replies!

So rotation-wise, I have crunched out the following:
(this rotation is what I found both in-game and spreadsheet-wise to maximize damage output based on RB > BT)

00.0 - HS + RB (Battle Shout and Berserker Rage along with your initial white hits will allow this)
01.5 - BT
03.0 - HS + ?
04.5 - BT
06.0 - HS + RB
07.5 - BT
09.0 - HS + ?
10.5 - BT
12.0 - HS + RB

Your "Other GCD ability" should be slam, shouts, sunder, berserker rage, deathwish - basically anything on the normal GCD. The priority here would most likely be:
1. Deathwish/Berserker Rage - ONLY if your character is NOT enraged, you will miss your RB otherwise
2. Battle/Commanding Shout - ONLY if your character's rage is low OR the buff needs refreshed
3. Skip it - if you didn't have enough rage to use the last BT on cool-down, wait for RB to be back up
4. Instant Slam - only if you are on track with the rotation, if there is any doubt, wait for RB.

Some of you might say - "Why isn't slam top priority for the free slot if Bloodsurge is proc'd?"
Reason: Currently, slam's damage is extremely low compared to BT/RB/HS. Based on the suggested rotation above, warriors have a 6-second rotation that is repeated. If you don't use the free GCD slot right when it becomes available, you will delay the rest of your rotation. If slam is the reason for the delay, you are extending the time of your DPS rotation. From my testing here is the breakdown in average damage per use, with the value in green being the equivalence points in relation to RB:

RB: 10,373 (1.000)
BT: 7,181 (0.692)
HS: 9,697 (0.935)
Slam: 4,231 (0.408)

Based on this information, using instant-slam right on time will net an 11% increase in damage for that 4.5-seconds rotation,
and if we assume it is available 30% of the time like the talent suggests, it would net an overall DPS increase of 3%
only if used correctly for EVERY 4.5-second rotation.

On the other hand, if you use the instant-slam after the GCD becomes available (by more than 0.5 seconds) it will result in
an overall DPS loss for the following 4.5-second rotation. By skewing your BT/RB rotation, the following 4.5-second rotation
becomes a 5.0 second rotation (assuming your instant-slam error occurred 0.5 seconds after the GCD was available), lowering this 4.5-second rotation's DPS by 11%.

Therefore, using slam correctly will increase your damage over two 4.5-second rotations by 6.0%
Whereas, using slam incorrectly will decrease your damage over two 4.5-second rotations by 5.0%

So my suggestion is to use instant-slam if you can use if RIGHT when the GCD is available (and you have enough extra rage of course) otherwise, it is not worth the DPS loss.

EDIT: Based on user input, my numbers have been updated to more accurately reflect what is going on. Now the DPS loss/increase balance each other out. Using slam when it is available for your free GCD will net an overall increase, but I would recommend using it ONLY if you have enough rage to do so. Rage starving yourself before the next GCD is the worst thing you could do for your DPS since your main damage abilities would be starved. If you can pick out a handful of times you can use slam, go ahead and squeeze that extra DPS out, but if you cannot utilize slam EXACTLY at the available slot (and have enough excess rage), skip over it.

Based on personal experience, I generally do NOT have enough rage to use slam unless I RNG using shout and then get a bloodsurge proc I can use the next free GCD. The effort required to manage using slam and how a correct usage can essentially be "canceled" out by an incorrect usage is not worth the minor damage increase AT LEVEL 80. Tons will change come Cata, so keep in mind this is JUST to hold us over for the time being.

Do what you will with this information, I hope that it is helpful to somebody!

Please post any suggestions/feedback or anything else you'd like to see similar to this post!

For reference, my self-buffed stats are as follows:
Attack Power: 5601
Haste: 12.26%
Hit Chance: 27.29%
Crit Chance: 41.25%
Expertise: 26/26
Mastery: 11.2
MH: Heroic Cryptmaker
OH: Heroic Cryptmaker


Special thanks to Christey for helping correct numbers and catching mistakes!

[Ildurnest]

Good thread, thanks for the help.

I agree with all that was explained except one thing.
If you do Slam, you will eventually be out of rage to maintain de new 6-sec rotation. Using slam causes a systemic break in the rage usage for the rotation. Every time you use Slam, you will be closer to be rage starved by the next start of the 6-sec rotation.


edit - Given 27% hit and 26 Expertise.

[Cheesey]

I'd recommend only using slam when you have excess rage (most likely from battle shout) and even then, only if the conditions are ideal, i.e.- bloodsurge is available BEFORE the GCD you'd use it on to avoid messing up the rotation.

Also, with the loss of warrior 4pc T10, you won't have slam up when you need it very often. During my testing, I was able to utilize my slam proc "safely" only 7 times over the span of 12 minutes.

[JichaelMones]

I was attacking the dummy earlier today, and I guess I must've been doing something wrong by the looks of your post. I found that not using slam (I used it maybe 5 times for the 4 million damage I did) ended up being a DPS gain. I went from around 8400 dps to 9100 dps on the heroic dummy by not using slam.

Also at 27 hit, 26 expertise, and around 41% crit.

[Cheesey]

No you are doing it right. My post shows the disadvantage to using slam. Unless you have very low MS and amazing reflexes, using slam will gimp your dps, but using it "perfectly" will give you a very small dps increase. Small as in unnoticeable at level 80 for the most part.

[Kimirik]

Thanks for the info, and great post. I would suggest taking this info to elitist jerks, if someone hasn't already posted the same there. However, for me, BT does more damage on average than RB. Also, I would not use Deathwish to give an enrage; in a raid setting, with Windfury totem, you should have enough haste to be enraged almost all the time and to fill the gaps solely with berserker rage. Save Deathwish for bloodlust, haste pots, or both. Unfortunately you're right Cheesey; without the old 4piece tier bonus, slam is almost never available when needed.

Also, I'm just curious, when you list your hit as 27.29%, is that before or after adding in the 3% from precision? I have seen quite a few people mixed up on the subject, and I believe you only need 24% showing in your stats sheet to be hit capped, not the full 27%.

[JichaelMones]

The stat sheet factors in Precision for you. When you mouse over hit rating, it will give your hit % from rating, and your overall hit with talents.

27% in your character menu means 27%.

[Cernunnos]

The stat sheet factors in Precision for you. When you mouse over hit rating, it will give your hit % from rating, and your overall hit with talents.

27% in your character menu means 27%.

Pretty much.

Hit Chance factors in Precision (+ Draenei racial if you're Draenei)
Hit Rating is your passive hit from gear. Hence why it is 3% lower (4% lower for draenei).


If you mouse over Hit Chance in your tab you will see something at the top like;

Hit Chance (+21.50%)
Hit Rating 569 (18.50% Hit Chance)

The top one factors in Precision and the Draenei racial.



EDIT...
Still got someways to go till I get to 27% hit.

[Kimirik]

Alright, cool, thanks. Wasn't 100% sure. It doesn't make a huge difference to me, since I decided to go with less hit, and I only miss a few white swings, and still have plenty of rage, but it's good to know.

[Cheesey]

@Kinirik - you sure that your BT is hitting harder than RB? If you have any parses/recount data I'd like to see it. I figured that there was a point where if you had enough AP, BT would become the dominate ability, but my rough estimate for the required AP was way too high to maintain constantly (or even reach at all if I remember correctly)

Are you pulling your data off recount? If so, recount logs RB as 2 hits per use, so your RB dps is actually double what is shown. Er, I mean damage per hit. Here's what I mean

Bloodthirst - 167 hits - 1,199,137 damage = 7,180 average damage per use
Raging Blow - 204 hits - 1,058,026 damage = 5,186 average damage per use

This is wrong, the actual RB usage is hits divided by two, 102, putting RB at 10,373 average damage per use


If this isn't the case, if you could post some recount data I'd like to check it out. Thanks!

[Kimirik]

I just tested it again on a dummy, and RB is coming out ahead, with an average of 7763 damage per BT and 10411 damage per RB. You were right, I completely forgot that RB was two swings, one per weapon, plus, I think I had too fast of a bit of a fluke test earlier, with a disproportionate amount of BT crits. Lol, guess this is why I shouldn't make posts and run tests at 3 am while half asleep.

[Deleted]

Hey Cheesey, nice thread, but one thing, i don't understand. Why are you using a 2 sec GCD?
Usually the rotation (perfectly played) should be:

00.0 - HS + RB (Battle Shout and Berserker Rage along with your initial white hits will allow this)
01.5 - BT
03.0 - HS + ?
04.5 - BT
06.0 - HS + RB
07.5 - BT
09.0 - HS + ?
10.5 - BT
12.0 - HS + RB

Than a lil corrction:
Its a 4,5 sec Rotation.
You start with HS + RB and you end with BT.
Then you do it again
If it would be a 6 sec rotation, your first rotation would start with HS + RB
and the secound rotation with BT.

So now to the Slam-DMG increase.
Each rotation you got 2 BT's
and each rotation you got 2 Chances to use Slam, so in 100 Rotations you got
200 Chances for a slamproc. According to the 30 % Proccchance, you get 60 Slams
you will have 100 RB's = 10,373 * 100 = 1037300
200 BT's: 7,181 * 100 = 718100
200 HS: 9,697 * 100 = 969700
60 Slam: 4,231 * 60 = 253860

So the maximum DMG-increase you can get with slam is 9.33 %
In the worst case of luck, you only get the half of it
(Slam proccs at the last BT and the next first BT)
And also not to forgett about the Rage

[Cheesey]

wow kinda over looked that, i need to do things not so late. I just took the rotation logged in game and for some reason i decided to match it against a 2 sec GCD scale. Things fall into place like they should now lol. I'm going to use a little copy/paste/edit to fix it up before bed (with your name of course!)

and yes, with the correct GCD time, everything fits nicely. I am going to redo my mis-used slam calcs (maybe tonight, maybe after sleep?) but with a smaller time interval, the penalty is going to go up significantly which is going to make slam less appealing IMO.

I still say that if you cannot use slam EXACTLY at the ? fill-in, do not use it because the offset it creates will significantly decrease your damage.

Thanks again for helping me out!

[Kimirik]

Looks like there will be a slam rule like the old rend-weaving rule; If your latency + reaction time > x amount, do not to it, it is a dps loss.

[iddqd]

Nice post Cheesey, its again that crap that Slam hits like a limp noodle :/
Two corrections: Berserker Rage and Deathwish are not on the GCD anymore!

[Sanchival]

Apologies if this is a stupid place to ask this but would macroing Raging Blow to Heroic strike be a sensible option, along the lines of how DK's used to have rune strike macroed to strikes for tanking? (yes I have a DK main - apologies)

Something like:
/cast Heroic Strike
/cast !Raging Blow

[Kimirik]

You could, but really, I think for the best dps results, you'd want to just watch your rage and HS whenever you get above 60 or 70, as opposed to doing it with every RB. Doing them together is just the easy, mostly failproof way. Of course, this is just my opinion, without any numbers backing it up.

[Sanchival]

You could, but really, I think for the best dps results, you'd want to just watch your rage and HS whenever you get above 60 or 70, as opposed to doing it with every RB. Doing them together is just the easy, mostly failproof way. Of course, this is just my opinion, without any numbers backing it up.

Yep that's why my suggestion was to bind RB to HS and not the other way round - if the macro works like the old rune strike one it would queue RB as the next strike if it's available everytime you hit HS but if it isn't available it would just HS.

It is my alt so not as experience on it but I think I am not getting in enough HS and thought this might help getting RB's in faster - but since they have changed the queuing system I'm not sure if the old /cast !<spell of choice> still works...

Will try it out and see if it improves my dps or not - may just help the uncoordinated like me

[Cheesey]

If you look at my data, RB > HS > BT in terms of damager per use of the ability. Using HS + RB together is not just to make it failproof, but it prioritizes RB > HS > BT as well.

Right now, my rotation ensures that RB is used every single time it is up since it is our top damaging ability, followed closely by HS. Since HS is off the GCD, sometimes it does become skewed from the normal rotation, but as long as I use it ASAP off the CD, I am okay.

In all honesty, I will most likely us HS over BT if I only have enough rage for one of them since HS hits harder and has a chance to proc Incite, guaranteeing that my next HS will be a better choice over BT. It's hard to explain, but hopefully you can semi-understand my rambling.

Off to work, will check back when I can - thanks for the feedback everyone!

[Tricsun]

It's really looking like BT > HS > RB is still going to be the way to go. I can't do the number crunching like they do over at EJ, but it's mainly because of the cooldowns, and you really can't guarantee you'll have 100% uptime on RB.