Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by onecrazymonkey

Any idea how much extra damage this does to dazed targets?

Comment by 39142

Yeah, I use a really really slow two hand Axe and I think Mortal Strike deals a lot more damage.

Comment by 38686

would u consider using heroic strike over mortal strike assuming ur a MS warr?

Comment by 39142

I am a Dual Wield Fury warrior and I mainly use Heroic strike to burn rage when I have more than 50 rage while Bloodthirst and Whirlwind are on cooldown. What's really magnificent is that this skill has no cooldown so it can be used to burn rage fast if you have a good weapon.

Comment by Collypso

after warriors get whirlwind this ability gets less use, and is useless when you get mortal strike

but its great for tanking

Comment by 100627

At 2.4 Does Piercing howl still influence heroic strike? As far as I know PH causes enemies to be dazed and HS get bonus dmg on dazed targets. Is it possible? Proven?

Comment by Kcaz64

Honestly, I think this a pretty poor skill. It consumes a lot of rage for not very much damage. (keep in mind, you don't get the damage and the rage from a white hit since this is a "on next melee" ability) The only time i'd use heroic strike is when I have more rage than I can burn off with my normal rotation.

Comment by Mareric

A nice macro for tanks wishing to save a button spot. Since your rotation should put Revenge before Devastate, and if using Glyph of Revenge, your first Devstate will generally include a free Heroic Strike. Not good for soloing as it may leave you rage starved, hence the conditional.

#showtooltip
/cast Devastate
/cast Heroic Strike

Once you get good with this macro, you'll find yourself hitting the button when your GCD is down, thus activating Heroic Strike without casting Devastate. It's nice, helps keep the number of buttons low around my hand.

Comment by hermeska

I prefer to use:

/castsequence reset=3 Revenge, Heroic Strike

You can push it out to a 4 second reset, but 3 seconds is better for my reaction time.

This way you just click the same button twice, after 3 seconds, it will reset the macro, plus it still lights up the button, so you have no chance of clicking HS when its not (sort of) free.

Comment by 182403

In pvp I like to use these two macro's

/cast heroic strike
/cast piercing howl
(I only cast piercing how when i have enough rage, otherwise i use hamstring)

and another one

/cast heroic strike
/cast shield bash
(when you have a shield and 1H equipped you relativly profit more from the extra damage, and the hidden rage cost is lower on faster weapons anyway)
(if this heroic strike crits, you can have an amazing interupt +1-1.2k extra damage on next autoswing combination)

it makes sure your target is dazed when using heroic strike, adding a few points of damage

Comment by Malediction

Heroic Strike:
Because nothing's more heroic than striking an enemy while he's dazed.

Comment by 201510

Well they say it will be changed to instant in Cataclysm, instead of on next swing. :D

Comment by icritmypants

In cata this move will take 30 rage (lame), is instant, has a 3 second CD, and explains what its good for.

Comment by Kuja

"A good attack for moments of excess rage."

Whats with these "tips" in the "new" warrior abilities? We don't know when we should use them? :P

Comment by Aera

As of now in 4.0, Heroic Strike is no longer an "On the next swing" ability.

Heroic Strike
30 Rage Melee Range
Instant 3 sec cooldown
Requires Melee Weapon
An attack that instantly deals (8 + $ap * 0.6) physical damage. A good attack for moments of excess rage.

Comment by pallokim

Heroic strike and Cleave are off the GCD.
Both abilities share a 3 second cooldown.
Both abilities tie into macros just fine, as they did before patch 4.0.1.

Comment by 417037

You don't get this until 14 as of 4.0.1. Therefore, you cannot officially be a hero until you reach level 14. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Comment by 660647

As of current beta build, it is

An attack that instantly deals (8 + $ap * 75 / 100) physical damage. A good attack for moments of excess rage.

Comment by 736962

so this is a noobish question, i'm sure, but what exactly is the purpose of a "rage dump'? i understand that it takes a lot of rage, but how is that advantageous?
from what i'm reading here, and i may not be reading it right, it sounds like HS is designed to be a lousy ability simply to fulfill some sort of ocd need to not 'waste' rage. but i don't really see how using something that costs too much rage and doesn't hit as hard in place of something that doesn't use much or any rage and delivers a stronger blow is a good idea. in fact, it sounds like the idea of not wasting rage by using too much rage is actually wasting more rage. i'm sure i have to be missing something here because that is just way too illogical

can someone please break Heroic Strike down into dumbed down noob speak for me?

Comment by praeter

As a leveling warrior who gets this at level 14, should this ability replace the normal Strike one starts with? Or should both Strike and Heroic Strike be used at this point, until other abilities start filling more normal rotations?

Comment by 660647

not used rage = not generated rage = not generated threat/damage = you are called noob etc. Wanna be noob? sit rage capped

Comment by Deadlyhaze

Alright so here's the thing... Everyone is saying how Heroic Strike is only good for a rage dump... I am a fury warrior and heroic strike is honestly one of the most powerful and important skills in my rotation for DAMAGE. Critical hits and even normal hits for heroic strike are much more powerful than any other skill I use, only second to Raging Blow. Heroic strike usually hits for HUGE damage, yet people say that its weak. Even as an arms warrior, the crits for Heroic strike were devastating (Between 30k-55k). When used with skills like Recklessness, Deathwish, and Inner Rage, sure it takes a lot of rage, but the damage is unbelievable. So I really would like to know why some people consider it to be so weak.

Comment by Solthurius

I'm still not sure I completely understand the rage dump concept. Yes, I realize that if my warr sits rage-capped, I'm not generating rage. I smash something, it uses rage, but I don't generate as much rage in return. So, the more I smash, the more rage I lose, till eventually, I sit rage-starved. Then, I wait for a white swing to generate rage, since it doesn't use any, and THEN I can smash another button. IMHO, having 100 rage means having enough to smash whatever I want and still having rage to smash something else immediately after, and still slowly generate rage since I'm in combat. I mean, my toon is nothing spectacular, rather mediocre, tbh (Arms, 9-10k on raid dummy, unbuffed, well, at most Battle Shout). I don't stance-dance, which is a way to dramatically increase DPS, since you can access abilities specific to a certain stance. Not coordinated enough for that, I guess. All that aside, there are still times when I'm rage starved and a) wait for a white swing, or b) smash BS for the rage it generates. It's not like my DPS increases with the amount of rage I have. More rage = ability to do stuff. Why worry about dumping it? I used HS for the DPS, since it doesn't trigger the GCD. So, tie it on with an OP, and 2 solid smacks for, what, 35 rage? Not a bad deal. Maybe I'm just a bad, but, there's my 75 cents (adjusted for inflation).

Comment by inject

"... Yes, I realize that if my warr sits rage-capped, I'm not generating rage. I smash something, it uses rage, but I don't generate as much rage in return. So, the more I smash, the more rage I lose, till eventually, I sit rage-starved. Then, I wait for a white swing to generate rage, since it doesn't use any, and THEN I can smash another button. IMHO, having 100 rage means having enough to smash..."

Your logic is flawed, If you're smashing something that uses rage but don't generate as much rage in return, you will NEVER be rage capped because you're using more rage than you generate.

My explanation of being "ragecapped" = bad:
Say you do 10K DPS during a fight, but you are constantly rage capped.
Theoretically, I dont know the actual numbers but lets say, you could have had an extra 5000 Rage over the course of the fight but didn't gain due to you sitting at 100 Rage.
So you did 10K DPS and ended the fight with 5000 Rage you didn't use.
As we all know, Rage = Resource used to increase DPS.
That 5000 Rage you did not use could have been used to increase your 10K DPS.

"... More rage = ability to do stuff...."

That is 5000 Rage you DID NOT get over the course of the fight, therefore NOT increasing your ability to do stuff. DUMPING RAGE = Effectively allowing yourself to not waste generated rage due to the rage cap.

Say your character is sitting at 90 Rage, and your next swing will generate 30 rage.
You only get 10 Rage due to the cap, and 20 Rage is wasted.

You sit at 100 Rage, and the whole 30 rage is wasted.

Thats 50 rage right there. Over the course of a fight that rage adds up. The idea is to maintain your rotation, while weaving in heroic strikes to prevent yourself from increasing that amount of wasted rage. Keep in mind this generally is for long boss type fights, where the amount of wasted rage can pool up to large amounts and can equate to a large amount of Heroic strikes that you did not cast, which will effectively lower your overall DPS.

"... or b) smash BS for the rage it generates..."

This probably sums it up the most here. When do you use BS? When you don't have enough rage right?
The reason why you dont sit rage-capped is the same reason why you wont use BS when you have 100Rage. You waste rage.

Comment by inject

"In essence, I see your logic just as flawed, because, as long as you have rage, you can do whatever you need, regardless of the 'have 90, gain 30, miss out on 20' concept. The rage to do something will still be there, and, thanks to GCD's, you're still limited as to how often you can do something."

As long as you have rage you can do whatever you need yes. You can keep a full rotation and do all the skills you 'need' to by staying ragecapped. Heroic strike is not on the GCD so you can use it while you're doing your 'rotation'. The idea is not to starve yourself to where it hinders your rotation, but also to not waste rage by staying ragecapped. As I said in the earlier reply I posted, say you have 5000 wasted rage at the end of a fight and you kept a completely perfect rotation minus Heroic strikes to burn rage.

you can keep your rotation steady by throwing in heroic strikes, but not to the point where you hit 0 rage, just to make it so you gain a full 30 rage, and not just 10 of the 30.

Would you rather have a full perfect rotation doing less than10k DPs+Rage you didnt use at the end of the fight

or a full perfect rotation doing more than 10k DPS without wasted rage.

Let me try to explain it in a different way:

Say by staying ragecapped you gain a total of 5k rage over the course of 1 minute.
Alternately, not staying ragecapped you gain a total of 6k rage over the course of 1 minute.

This is essentially saying you start the fight with 5k or 6k rage and do not generate rage the entire fight (theoretically).

1) Start the fight with 5K rage and try to use it up in 1 minute, doing a normal rotation without heroic strike ends you at 0 Rage. = 10k dps

2) Start the fight with 6K rage and try to use it up in 1 minute, doing a normal rotation without heroic strike ends you at 1000 Rage. 10k dps + 1000 unused rage.

(these are all theoretical values given just to give the basic idea, the idea here is to essentially have a greater value of rage while using it effectively)

in example #2, we end up with with 1000 rage, you are still able to do what you need to do essentially, but you could have used heroic strike off the global to burn that 1000 extra Rage you did not get to use before the 1 minute is up.

In your explanation you say what is the point when you have to wait for white swings just to gain more rage to do stuff. This is where you are still looking at it completely wrong. Say a person can sit at 65-70 rage constantly and you can still do what you need to do, and you don't waste rage because you are not ragecapped. The whole idea is to Heroic strike to burn SOME rage, not all rage.

If you still don't get the concept I don't know what else to tell you. It's been proven everywhere by many people that staying ragecapped is a loss of dps. Go hit on a dummy, and each time you hit 80-90 energy (and ONLY 80-90) use a Heroic Strike, there is a difference.

It's like you and me punching eachother in the face, we're throwing right hooks at eachother 1 for 1, except I'm throwing in left jabs and you're not.

Comment by entropos

The point of heroic strike is DPS. DPS = threat. Use Heroic Strike to generate more DPS and threat whenever the rage bar looks like it's getting full. It's not on the GCD so it's like getting free damage and threat.

At least that's how I'm reading the comments.

Comment by 391911

I think I may be able to help solthurius, you guys did an incredible and amazing explanation of how Rage works and why you need to dump "Some" of it, but there is one major assumption that you guys (Inject and Cal) forgot to remind Sol of in order to drive the point home.

I had a Rage and Rage Dump epiphany when Inject wrote:

"It's like you and me punching eachother in the face, we're throwing right hooks at eachother 1 for 1, except I'm throwing in left jabs and you're not"

The concept that Sol needs to understand in order to get the Rage dumping increases DPS concept is to understand how HS works in the rotation: when used effectively IT DOESN'T INTERRUPT YOUR NORMAL ROTATION

Think of how a simulation tool might work, it would lay out your rotation out from left to right over time; think of it like a linear graph of your warrior skills in the rotation (similar to musical notation)

Then the simulation tool also indicates on the rotation timeline the duration of skill COOLDOWNS IE, WHEN U ARE UNABLE TO CAST OTHER DMG SPECIAL ATTACKS THAT SHARE THE SAME CD (this could be represented visually as well).

OK, import your optimal rotation into this hypothetical simulation tool,...now, notice how there are moments when DESPITE THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE ENOUGH RAGE TO DO ANYTHING U WANT, U CANNOT CAST BECAUSE OF THE COOLDOWN,....AHA -----> ENTER HEROIC STRIKE

1) It gives you that extra little JAB at a time when you cannot cast another damage spell
2) It maximizes the rage you accumulate over course of fight

So now think of your graphical representation of your rotation,...with HS peppered in along that timeline in those moments that you can't cast spells that are on CD. OBVIOUS DPS INCREASE if you look at this visually.

Here is a rough picture:
CD ICON ------>
SKILL 1 = X
SKILL 2 = Y
SKILL 3 = Z
HS = HS

IDEAL DPS ROTATION WITHOUT RAGE DUMP
----> -----> -----> ----> -----> ----->
X Y Z X Y Z

IDEAL DPS ROTATION WITH RAGE DUMP HS
----> -----> -----> ----> -----> ----->
X HSY HS Z HS XHS Y HS Z HS

EQUALS MOAR DPS

Now obviously you can't cast HS that often as you would run out of rage, but on a longer timeline, even with less frequency of opportunities to cast HS, with all those extra HS (WHICH DOES DAMAGE REMEMBER) peppered across your rotation timeline, its MOAR DPS.

Maybe the wording RAGE DUMP messes u up SOL, it seems to imply that getting rid of rage is intrinsically good, when it is only good in its capacity to help you accumulate more rage over time and trade that additional RAGE as currency for extra DPS.

Think of your rotation a little differently now, instead of thinking of HS as a RAGE DUMP or whatever, think about another addition to our hypothetical tool, a next to your ROTATION icons a visual display shows you your current rage level versus the RAGE COST of each damage ability...think about what is the rotation across the timeline that would MAXIMIZE YOUR OPPORTUNITES TO CAST HS WITHOUT ANY INTERUPTION TO YOUR PERFECT ROTATION TIMELINE.

I am not a WOW expert, if I have made mistakes I hope you guys Inject and CAl can correct me,..thanks a lot guys,..really interesting discussion woot.

Comment by 658350

Several months back or maybe even an expansion, heroic strike did moore damage to dazed units, wonder if that still works, just that it's an hidden bonus?, would be great if somone could confirme this, because there where no patchnotes that told they where removing that little bonus.

Comment by 358147

Pre level 70ish, cleave > heroic strike in terms of everything.

Comment by Allakhazam

One of the main Warriors abilities. This first rank increases weapon damage by 11, and its deadly at the Beggining zones. But the problem is to get rage at lvl 1 :P.

Comment by Thope

wont have the white dmg glancing/reduced miss chance, good to use after instant attacks on cd. does same dmg to dazed targets. note evasion or high %dodge targets will be more likely hit by HS than white dmg swing consider using in these cases

Comment by werkkrewsyko

How long does HS effect last? Or am i completely missing the point? Is it instant solely on HS alone?

Links

Heroic Strike

Heroic Strike

30 Rage	Melee Range

Instant cast	3 sec cooldown

An attack that instantly deals (8 + Attack power * 60 / 100) physical damage. A good attack for moments of excess rage.

Spell Details

Duration

n/a

School

Physical

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

n/a

Cost

30 Rage

Range

5 yards (Combat)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

3 seconds

GCD

0 seconds

Effect #1

School Damage (Physical)
Value: 5
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #2

Dummy
Value: 61
PVP Multiplier: 1
Server-side script

Flags

Is Ability
Cannot be used while shapeshifted
Do Not Sheath
Initiates Combat (Enabled Auto-Attack)
Discount Power On Miss
Requires main hand weapon

Heroic Strike

Buff

Spell Details

Related

Contribute