DW DPS warriors

[oldmandennis]

Can DW DPS warriors safely HS away without pulling aggro? Or what is the purpose of the Hakkari Warblade Set?

[Tal]

Can DW DPS warriors safely HS away without pulling aggro?  Or what is the purpose of the Hakkari Warblade Set?
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Yes and no. Yes they can HS so long as they pay attention. No if they spam it. But that is true of any DPS class - Shalandrax (arms/fury to MS) has pulled aggro off the MT more than once. Sometimes I even live through it! :)

[Monkey]

Can DW DPS warriors safely HS away without pulling aggro?  Or what is the purpose of the Hakkari Warblade Set?
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Yes, but you can't spam it. Working with an eskhander's right claw/lobotomizer combo, I found that mixed with bloodthirst at 1:1, I could stay behind the tanks in aggro. However, your results may vary, I haven't raided in a couple of months.

[Lissa]

Yes and no. Yes they can HS so long as they pay attention. No if they spam it. But that is true of any DPS class - Shalandrax (arms/fury to MS) has pulled aggro off the MT more than once. Sometimes I even live through it! :)
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And other times Vael eats you and then goes on to the third tank... :P

[Tal]

And other times Vael eats you and then goes on to the third tank...  :P
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Well I wasn't referring to those times - I was referring to pulling stuff in MC off Vic/Seiki or the one time I slammed my way into Nefarion's sights. :)

[vor_lord]

Or what is the purpose of the Hakkari Warblade Set?
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For rogues.


:shuriken:

[Mavfin]

Can DW DPS warriors safely HS away without pulling aggro?  Or what is the purpose of the Hakkari Warblade Set?
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In my experience HS spamming is ok *in battle or zerker* unless your gear is getting to be insane. In defensive, be careful with it. If you're salvationed or Tranquil Air-ed, have a ball.

Of course, this goes out the window with an aggro-ceilinged boss like Ebonroc.

[ZugzwangZeitgeist]

Can DW DPS warriors safely HS away without pulling aggro?  Or what is the purpose of the Hakkari Warblade Set?
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If you are capable of doing enough damage to pull aggro - and that should be your ultimate goal as a warrior in a DPS role - then no, you should never ever use Heroic Strike in a raid situation. Warrior aggro management is already terrible and there is no need to be compounding it by spamming aggro abilities for a small increase in DPS.

It's not a huge mistake though if you aren't capable of doing very good DPS. If you're consistently in the top 10 though, you really shouldn't use Heroic Strike.

This is mitigated a bit if you're Alliance, but is actually worse for Horde since they reach that cap much more quickly with Windfury. I am speaking from a Horde perspective as well.

[oldmandennis]

For rogues.
:shuriken:
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A bit fast on the main hand, no?

[vor_lord]

A bit fast on the main hand, no?
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This is all the reaction I get? I'm a bit disappointed.

Yes, way too fast on the main hand. HUNTER WEAPON!

[Artega]

Why any Fury Warrior would gimp his DPS by being in Defensive Stance at all is beyond me. I suppose if you can't get out of AOE range in time or something.

I've always been a fan of racking up Rage then burning it all by spamming Slam in conjunction with the largest, slowest two-hander I can acquire. Not sure if this is more efficient than mixing BT in with HS, but it's kinda fun.

[ildon]

This shouldn't be a problem unless your tank is not protection spec, or you outgear him, or you're a way better player. The combination in the difference in rage generation, and the difference between berserker stance and defensive stance, should keep you well under the tank's aggro. Unless the tank is getting constant de-aggroes. In that case, use cleave instead.

[Mavfin]

This shouldn't be a problem unless your tank is not protection spec, or you outgear him, or you're a way better player. The combination in the difference in rage generation, and the difference between berserker stance and defensive stance, should keep you well under the tank's aggro. Unless the tank is getting constant de-aggroes. In that case, use cleave instead.
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Well, after further thought, here's a couple places HS spam gets people in trouble:

1) as backups when they're expected to be in Defensive stance, like on Molten Giants. HS can pull aggro here, depending on relative weapon/gear to the one tanking.

2) Ebonroc. 'Nuff said. We're in defensive stance for whichever thing we're taunting off for. HS spam is *way* too easy to make someone the new MT on this boss. I've been known to aggressively build a little more over the fury war if he steals aggro, to keep the shadowflames going in a better direction, if they're not in a great spot.

3) other places that you're in Defensive building aggro on purpose to be #2 or #3. Too much HS spam in defensive stance can put you higher than you wanted to be.

Now, my prot warrior can pretty freely HS spam in battle or zerker. I do it on Nef, since I'm usually 3rd tank, so I'm not MT or OT.

And, again, *some* of this depends on the MT's gear, relative to the person HS-ing.

[Mavfin]

Why any Fury Warrior would gimp his DPS by being in Defensive Stance at all is beyond me.  I suppose if you can't get out of AOE range in time or something.

I've always been a fan of racking up Rage then burning it all by spamming Slam in conjunction with the largest, slowest two-hander I can acquire.  Not sure if this is more efficient than mixing BT in with HS, but it's kinda fun.
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They're only in def stance because they need to be for that fight, really. Otherwise, we much prefer that they (the fury wars) be in battle or zerker.

[oldmandennis]

Interesting discussion. Of course the def stance thing is a bit away from the question, because if you are offtanking, your dps is secondary. You probably go sword and board any how? Or do you try to equip your shield really fast when you have to step up?

Next question - is there a clear winner between 2h + MS/slam (or whatever 2h dps warriors do) and DW warriors as far as damage goes? Or does it depend on spec, and what gear has come your way?

Thanks for your help guys, warriors are kindof a black box to me.

[Mavfin]

Interesting discussion.  Of course the def stance thing is a bit away from the question, because if you are offtanking, your dps is secondary.  You probably go sword and board any how?  Or do you try to equip your shield really fast when you have to step up?

Next question - is there a clear winner between 2h + MS/slam (or whatever 2h dps warriors do) and DW warriors as far as damage goes?  Or does it depend on spec, and what gear has come your way?

Thanks for your help guys, warriors are kindof a black box to me.
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Well, *in my experience*, HS spam only really bothers on pulling aggro if the tank doing it is in def stance for a reason. Maybe I didn't communicate that very well. Very rarely is it a problem in battle or zerker stance, unless you're dealing with an aggro-ceilinged boss with his own de-aggros. And that's not really within this discussion.

[Artega]

Interesting discussion.  Of course the def stance thing is a bit away from the question, because if you are offtanking, your dps is secondary.  You probably go sword and board any how?  Or do you try to equip your shield really fast when you have to step up?

Next question - is there a clear winner between 2h + MS/slam (or whatever 2h dps warriors do) and DW warriors as far as damage goes?  Or does it depend on spec, and what gear has come your way?

Thanks for your help guys, warriors are kindof a black box to me.
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Theoretically speaking (note, this is Theorycraft, not Warcraft here):

DW Fury, when properly equipped and played, is the highest single-target DPS in the entire game, outdoing all other Warrior specs, Rogues, Hunters, everything. Between Flurry, rapid Rage generation, and a target that is both standing still and has enough time to allow them to build up their Flurry combo, they will beat everything in single-target DPS without question.

The reason this is Theorycraft? All that damage, and no way of shaking aggro (Rogues can Feint, Feral Druids can Cower, Hunters can Feign or even Disengage, and so on.) While they could easily top the damagemeters every time, they'd also do far more damage than even an equally-equipped Defiance Warrior could hold.

They could equip a weapon that has an aggro drop effect on proc (I know there are a few out there), or get one or more of those new threat-reduction enchants, but that would end up gimping their DPS, making them more in-line with cookiecutter MS builds and other classes.

Practically speaking, a good DW Fury Warrior will do more damage than an identical MS Warrior, but personally I'd rather lose a little DPS for the MS debuff nine times out of ten.

[TheDragoon]

Can DW DPS warriors safely HS away without pulling aggro?  Or what is the purpose of the Hakkari Warblade Set?
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It really depends upon a number of factors including the gear for the DPS warrior, the gear and spec for the warrior that is tanking and what buffs you have. If the fury warrior is very, very geared up and does not have any buffs to reduce aggro generation (like Salvation), using heroic strike more than just sparingly will often pull aggro. I know that with my warrior, if I spammed heroic strike I would pull aggro quite quickly off on just about anything because I have such a high rate of rage generation. Instead, I spam bloodthirst and whirlwind (using them whenever their cooldowns are done) and only use heroic strike as much as I need to in order to keep my rage from maxing out. When I do that, I generally don't pull aggro off of a similarly geared tank. Overall, I would say that a dual wielding warrior is better served by using whirlwind, overpower, bloodthirst and execute than heroic strike if you are worried about pulling aggro, but don't feel that you CAN'T using heroic strike, because you usually can.

The Warblade set is very nice because it gives you +sword skill. This is very helpful for fighting mobs that are 2 or more levels higher than you (like most raid bosses) because it will substantially increase your damage output. If you want to learn more about this, there are a number of posts that you can find that talk about how weapon skill affects raid DPS. :)

[TheDragoon]

This shouldn't be a problem unless your tank is not protection spec, or you outgear him, or you're a way better player. The combination in the difference in rage generation, and the difference between berserker stance and defensive stance, should keep you well under the tank's aggro. Unless the tank is getting constant de-aggroes. In that case, use cleave instead.
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This isn't true in many situations. I assume you are picturing a situation where the MT is taking enough damage to have essentially unlimited rage. In such a situation, it is unlikely that anyone will pull aggro off unless the mob is deaggroing the tank. However, if more tame situations where the MT isn't taking a huge influx of damage, it is quite easy to pull aggro if you are dual wielding -- especially if you are spamming heroic strike. This is why some well-geared MT's will opt to dual wield or use a 2-hander to tank against trash in smaller instances as they are easily passed by others in aggro since they aren't getting much bonus aggro from the damage they are taking.

[TheDragoon]

This is all the reaction I get?  I'm a bit disappointed.

Yes, way too fast on the main hand.  HUNTER WEAPON!
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I won't bite to this troll, I'm quite happy with my Crul'shorukh, Edge of Chaos + Brutality Blade combo. :P