CS is perfectly fine to open with rotation as long as you battle shout ahead of time.

[danblee]

The title pretty much says it all. I'm not sure why there is so much distress over not having enough rage in the beginning to open up with CS when blizz gave us a perfectly good way to open up with 37 rage before we even charge, HT, or otherwise start attacking that boss. Easy macro...

#showtooltip Battle Shout
/cast Battle Shout
/cast Berserker Rage

I've seen too much talk about not using your CS until your second rotation, but with this much rage to begin with I see nothing wrong with it.

Thoughts?

[Gatsu]

maybe cause of aggro?

giving tanks a few gcds of advantage will let you push out more with cooldowns without turning the boss on you

[Blafasel]

ok so you have 37 rage (i believe its 35 btw, can't check right now) - 20 for CS, so you basically have 17 rage, which is too low for anything important to use and you can actually miss your first swing so buh, no rage for anything and a waste of CS. And the aggro thingy Gatsu mentioned too, if you crit into a CS right at the start of the fight you will most certainly have aggro. Also the macro is kind of... well let's put it like that: I like to activate Berserker Rage when I'm actually not enraged, not when I need Rage, so putting both skills in one macro doesn't work for me at all.

[danblee]

I don't know. Popping CS has never gotten me in trouble. Popping CS with another CD like DW, Blood Fury, or a strength tinket might.

---------- Post added 2011-01-28 at 01:01 PM ----------

ok so you have 37 rage (i believe its 35 btw, can't check right now) - 20 for CS, so you basically have 17 rage, which is too low for anything important to use and you can actually miss your first swing so buh, no rage for anything and a waste of CS. And the aggro thingy Gatsu mentioned too, if you crit into a CS right at the start of the fight you will most certainly have aggro. Also the macro is kind of... well let's put it like that: I like to activate Berserker Rage when I'm actually not enraged, not when I need Rage, so putting both skills in one macro doesn't work for me at all.

Its 37 with the small increase from Berserker Rage. Our cookie cutter rotation is BT, RB, BT. This guarantees that right off the bat you can Raging Blow in the beginning of your rotation and you can also intercept (helps more on mobs that you can stun). So yeah, basically you have 17 rage. 17 rage is better than 0, isn't it?

[Amaranth]

On raid bosses, I spam Bshout and Zerk rage beforehand so I can start the fight with at least 70 rage. From there, it's white hits for 7 sec while the tank grabs aggro. Once I DO attack, I have pretty much all my procs up and I bust CDs. CS - BT+HS - RB - BT+HS - Slam

When CS cooldown is coming up, I drop HS from my rotation and bust Bshout the GCD before I pop it again and do it all over again. Our biggest DPS loss is when we don't make the most use out of CS.

[Gatsu]

Basically, for maximazing your dps, you have to use all your cds together (CS/DW/Reck/trinket)
if you do it at the start of the fight, maybe you will notice a full rage bar, but that's because the boss is hitting you.

Start with normal rotation, do not use CS for the first seconds, let the tank get 200k aggro, then CS -> blow all cds -> profit

Aligning cooldowns is one of the most important choiches for a dps

[danblee]

On raid bosses, I spam Bshout and Zerk rage beforehand so I can start the fight with at least 70 rage. From there, it's white hits for 7 sec while the tank grabs aggro. Once I DO attack, I have pretty much all my procs up and I bust CDs. CS - BT+HS - RB - BT+HS - Slam

When CS cooldown is coming up, I drop HS from my rotation and bust Bshout the GCD before I pop it again and do it all over again. Our biggest DPS loss is when we don't make the most use out of CS.

This was my (edit: LK) rotation when Rage was much easier to get. I don't think BT+HS is viable any more. Also, I'm sure you don't get +70 rage from B-Shout and Berserker Rage. I do agree though, CS needs to be up, and throwing down a BS guarantees that we'll have enough rage to CS right off the bat.

---------- Post added 2011-01-28 at 01:11 PM ----------

Basically, for maximazing your dps, you have to use all your cds together (CS/DW/Reck/trinket)
if you do it at the start of the fight, maybe you will notice a full rage bar, but that's because the boss is hitting you.

Start with normal rotation, do not use CS for the first seconds, let the tank get 200k aggro, then CS -> blow all cds -> profit

Aligning cooldowns is one of the most important choiches for a dps

There are two ways that I've seen people use their CD's. One way is to use one CD with each CS. Example CS+Death Wish, 20 seconds later CS+BloodFury, wait 20 seconds, CS+Trinket. The other way is to do what you said, which I find looks GREAT on the DPS meters when fighting trash but doesn't do well for me on long boss fights. I don't know. I may be wrong with that. My goal in this thread is really to discuss the use of CS and the importance of opening with it. If you're blowing every CD you have then yeah, I can see why waiting for the boss to get aggro is so important.

[terrih91]

yeh when i dps (MS tank) i go all fucking out and piss off my main tank (good buddy of mine dont flame lol) i pop reck my trinkets deadly calm inner rage everything. pop in with a charge rend CS MS and HS all together pretty much followed up with a OP doing like 25k burst and tailing him on threat lol. as far as rage starving urself to the point where u cant use it off the bat just use deadly calm and save ur battle shout and zerker rage unless u have to buff seeing as u may not have a dk or hunter with a cat.

[danblee]

yeh when i dps (MS tank) i go all fucking out and piss off my main tank (good buddy of mine dont flame lol) i pop reck my trinkets deadly calm inner rage everything. pop in with a charge rend CS MS and HS all together pretty much followed up with a OP doing like 25k burst and tailing him on threat lol. as far as rage starving urself to the point where u cant use it off the bat just use deadly calm and save ur battle shout and zerker rage unless u have to buff seeing as u may not have a dk or hunter with a cat.

Arms, cute.

[Oxhart]

Basically, for maximazing your dps, you have to use all your cds together (CS/DW/Reck/trinket)
if you do it at the start of the fight, maybe you will notice a full rage bar, but that's because the boss is hitting you.

Start with normal rotation, do not use CS for the first seconds, let the tank get 200k aggro, then CS -> blow all cds -> profit

Aligning cooldowns is one of the most important choiches for a dps

Not to be a dick, but you say to not use CS for the first seconds, let the tank get 200k aggro. 200k aggro. 200k fucking aggro. Then you go to say we should always try to align our cooldowns with CS right? What about the first couple seconds when our trinkets proc that have 12-20 second durations? Our "aligning of cooldowns" cannot be done til the proc trinkets come back off cooldown. NET DPS LOSS. And yes, I know some little kid is going to say, "A dead dps is no dps." Very true. Yet it is fucking stupid to make posts like the quoted without thinking.

[Fwip]

Not to be a dick, but you say to not use CS for the first seconds, let the tank get 200k aggro. 200k aggro. 200k fucking aggro. Then you go to say we should always try to align our cooldowns with CS right? What about the first couple seconds when our trinkets proc that have 12-20 second durations? Our "aligning of cooldowns" cannot be done til the proc trinkets come back off cooldown. NET DPS LOSS. And yes, I know some little kid is going to say, "A dead dps is no dps." Very true. Yet it is fucking stupid to make posts like the quoted without thinking.

Well, even if your trinket procs at t=0, you still have until t=6 to use CS and not waste any of the proc. There's no way to get two colossus smashes in (even if it's a 20 second proc), so there's no point in blowing CS right off the pull (in terms of both your own rage and the tank's threat).

Edit: Also, could you use a little less profanity? It makes it harder for people to respond politely.

[Gromnak]

i personally pre pot golemblood potion (on progression only) and then zerker rage / battle shout...

then white hit for a few seconds to get rage and License to Slay slayer stacks up (this also allows tanks to get sufficient threat) and then death wish/blood fury + colossus smash and then recklessness bt hs rb

it's important imo to make sure to not waste a recklessness charge on Csmash since your main abilities all crit harder, normally my BT is between 40-50k , my hs is between 40-50k and the rb is between 50-60k


also i do not have to worry about sunders because we have a feral druid and prot warrior in raid.

[Deleted]

Well,in most cases I either conserve rage from trash or do the in-out buggy that resets shout and rage CDs,so I start with CS every time.

Nonetheless,our tanks are fully epic'd out and rather skilled,starting with prepot is a bit no-no nowadays imho as the amount of strengh is
equal to essentialy having a trinket etc up so, ESPECIALY if you are on sunder duties it will most likely cause an overaggro.

That aside,with the current trent with hit (I have 18% ) its rather impossible not to have rage the 1st few seconds, at least to maintain the regular rotation.

Remember: we do NOT use heroic strike all the time, I see many ppl stuck in how it was in the past, it is there just for when u are over 70 rage,to keep
you from capping.

[Deleted]

Battleshout + Zerk > autoattack > Deathwish > wait for 100rage > CS > reckless > BT+HS > RB > BT+HS
That way normally your tank have enough aggro, proc trinket are up and you got 4crits under CS+otherCD thanks to incite.

[LuNa-]

Shout + zerk rage before the battle starts, open with a bloodthirst. ONLY THEN You should CS.
Reason: You might get a Battle trance or a Bloodsurge proc, which would make you able to use more special attacks during that 6 sec span-time. then go BT-HS all the way, using RB only as a rage dump (when you're really near or at 100 and BT - HS are on cooldown). When CS is almost up again, try to gather some rage to suit more attacks on the debuff time.

To use Recklessness, make sure incite is not up, use deathwish + bloodfury (orcs), CS, then RECK - RB - BT - HS. Both weapons will crit on RB, but it count's as 1 charge only. you'll also get one more crit from a guaranteed incite.

That's the opening and sequence i'm using, and it pretty sure works... cuz it made me get some high ranks, and even some world 1sts at World of Logs in some fights

[Fwip]

To use Recklessness, make sure incite is not up, use deathwish + bloodfury (orcs), CS, then RECK - RB - BT - HS. Both weapons will crit on RB, but it count's as 1 charge only. you'll also get one more crit from a guaranteed incite.

Do you mean Reck-(BT/HS)-RB-(BT/HS)? I would assume this would be the way to go, as you get more specials in the CS window. But then again, I'm not posting any records on World of Logs.

[LuNa-]

Fwip, you wont probably have rage for all that. Using bt+hs altogether may force you to 2 things: go ragestarved on the next GCD, and waste a Battle Trance proc with something that is not HS (which is the optimal scenario).

Try using BT and HS 1.5sec between each other, as if they shared GCD's. Works fine.
The only time that i have found myself swimming in rage to smash every button available and without that pause is when fighting the adds in Nefarian's flight phase and when Proto Behemoth breaths on Halfus heroic.

edit: There's something interesting beyond this explanation for not using everything together: Keeping flurry up. If you know the mechanics, you'll realize that it's better to lose 1 or another attack during CS to keep flurry up for more time.

[Fwip]

Ah, I see what you mean. I've been personally playing as SMF, and leaning toward the "save up rage as CS approaches" strategy. Usually even if I start with BT/HS, I have enough rage for the following RB and BT, though I sometimes sacrifice the second HS. If I have a bloodsurge proc, it helps out a little more. I think the smoother rage generation afforded by my faster weapons helps me out, though there are definitely sometimes that this plan backfires and I end up missing the second bloodthirst. I'm hoping that when I get some more hit, I'll be more effective (currently at just over 10%).

[Deathcries]

I first start off with attack target (but at a distance) wait for tank to grab aggro, then battleshout or command, Herioc leap to garner MORE rage then open with CS to open up their armor then hit my macro for blood fury, Recklessness and Deathwish the I'm usually full rage BT, HS, RB, rinse and repeat if all is down I go for slam if it's up for the free hit. I'm usually top DPS in raids btw. 9/12

[Doom Walker]

I open: Heroic Throw -> Intercept -> Sunder Armor -> Colossus Smash