Quote:Of course, this is true, but, it's as you say: When tanking, I only use Devastate when I don't have anything else to use the GCD for, other than making sure I use it enough to keep the sunder stack up.
Mathematically the optimum threat cycle once the sunders are on is:
Global cooldown skills (one every 1.5 seconds)
Shield Slam
Revenge
Devastate
Devastate
Cycle takes 6 seconds which conveniently is the cooldown of shield slam and close enough to the cooldown of Revenge. (No lag and perfect reflexes are assumed)
On Next Swing (once every X seconds where X is your modified attack speed)
Heroic Strike
In addition you may need to activate Shield Block every 5 seconds. (Fortunately it operates without global cooldown)
The GCD attacks and the On Next Swing attacks are not contrained by the same factor so there is no need to use a heroic strike instead of a GCD move you can use both simultaneously
Of course that is one heck of a lot of key presses in a very short span of time so I'm also in the process of optimising how I do it and I certainly don't achieve it except in the briefest of bursts with my current set-up. I am looking at making macros to help me maintain this before I begin raiding
All this assumes you have plenty of rage, rage starved fights are different
Source:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?t...=94319875&sid=1
Interestingly the On Next Swing mechanic favours fast weapons while the Devastate mechanic favours slow weapons (bigger hits). I don't know whether fast or slow weapons number crunch out to higher threat. If no one enlightens us in the next day or so I'll see if I can sit down with the numbers and produce some calculations