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Something I noticed as my gear is getting better and my guild is progressing throught end-game raids. Im not using Devastate as much, meaning its not quite my first priority to max my sunders right away, I do eventually but SS, Rev, HS seem to be my first priority. with SB intermixed to keep crushing blows to a minimum. Dev and SS have the same CD so when if comes down to which generates more threat... SS FTW.
Getting at least a few devastates on a target increase you ability to generate threat as it increases your ability to hit the target. So while per use they generate less threat in themselves, their multiplicative value means they should always be one of your first choices. The best possible initial threat sequence is: Devastate, Devastate, Devastate, Shield Slam, Revenge, Devastate, Devastate -- that will set you up for maximum threat generation in your normal threat rotation, and build initial threat fastest. Once you've built initial threat, the maximum sustained tps is had with the rotation SS, Rev, Dev, Dev repeated. Anything else you limits your threat. Adding HS on a per swing basis will increase it. Skipping your rotation will lessen it. If possible always break CC with a SS, it is your highest threat ability, so on CC's instead of on pulls, your initial threat sequence would be: SS, Dev, Dev, Dev, SS, Rev, Dev, Dev and then into your normal threat rotation.
Multi-mob is a little trickier of course, but in a multi-mob situation you're not going to get 1k dps unless your gear is so good you wouldn't be asking this question to begin with :)
The only time you should deviate from that rotation is if you are rage starved. In which case use whatever threat ability you have rage for. Never let a global cool-down go by without doing something unless you absolutely have nothing you can do (in which case, use that cool down to pop blood rage, or down a rage potion or take off your armor so you get hit or something :) )
HS is on a per-swing cool down, you don't have to give up anything to use it, it is not on the global cool down. However, HS is a rage dump. If you're using it with less than about 40% rage, you're going to be compromising your threat generation ability by creating the possibility of being rage starved, as HS doesn't generate nearly as much threat as your main abilities. The reason is that, while approximately equal to devatate in terms of threat per rage on paper, HS consumes a rage generating white attack, since heroic strike does not generate rage unless it procs a white-damage windfury swing. This means the actual cost of heroic strike is the tooltip rage cost, plus the cost of rage LOST by not having a white damage attack. Furthermore, the actual threat gain from heroic strike is the threat of the heroic strike itself, minus the threat that would have been caused by the white damage attack that it replaced. This means that the threat per rage (or relative efficiency) of heroic strike is slapped twice, and it actually becomes a rather terrible ability to use in a low rage situation. Thus, only use heroic strike to burn off rage, period.
Lastly, SB is also not on the global cool-down, there is no excuse for (a) not having it up all the time (unless seriously rage starved) and (b) skipping a threat ability to mash that key, they aren't on the same cool-down.
Edited, Jun 13th 2008 12:35pm by kingpatzer Edited, Jun 13th 2008 12:41pm by kingpatzer Edited, Jun 13th 2008 12:43pm by kingpatzer