MS Slam Rotation Guide

[Cradlenova]

Another guide i wrote up for my T6 dps wars

Raiding With A 2 Hander

The basics: Slam is a 1.5 second cast attack that can be talented down to .5 sec cast. When you start to cast it you stop the auto swing timer, and once you have finished the casting the auto swing is automatically restarted. The auto attack swing is reset and starts over from the beginning again. Remember that slam still triggers the global cool down (1.5 seconds for warriors) so you cannot cast anything in 1.5 seconds even if you have talented slam. When you talent slam auto swing starts 1 second earlier. The best way to use this is to only cast one slam per auto swing attack. It is used in coordination with the Mortal Strike and Whirlwind abilities to produce effective dps output as well as provide a 4% melee dps boost in a raid environment.

The Actual Cycle:
The best possible dps cycle is this:
1. 1 Auto attack, 1 Slam, 1 Mortal Strike.
2. 1 Auto attack, 1 Slam, 1 Whirl Wind.
3. 1 Auto attack, 1 Slam, 1 Mortal Strike.
4. 1 Auto attack, 1 Slam.

This is a very rage intensive build and a WF totem is almost always a must. Your primary rage generation comes from your white damage attacks so never double slam, even if MS and WW are on cooldown, it just costs rage and lowers your dps. Use the time to recast Battle Shout or something, if you have excess rage use Heroic Strike/Cleave to up your dps. Remember that the risk of rage starvation is high when using heroic strikes, and if you rage starve so you cannot cast MS. Use HS in situations where you are certain there is no or very little chance you will rage starve. Cleave can be used a little more freely if you dps two targets, but it costs a lot of rage in rage not gained from yellow attacks, so if you are short in rage, don’t.

Talents:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is the build i have been using in SSC. Having blood frenzy is a must if you are the only dps warrior in the raid as it ups all melee dps by 4% of threat free damage. It sacs a great deal of damage considering you are only able to have 3/5 flurry.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is the build to use if you have multiple dps warriors and the other warrior is the 33/28 above.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Once you reach the 3K AP raid buffed damage machine milestone, this spec will outdps the MS specs entirely. You rotate in Bloodthirst instead of MS (Bloodthirst should be hitting for around 1600) and you really need to start watching threat even with salv on.

Other Notes:
While using the MS specs listed above, the weapon spec of swords will out dps the other weapon specs by a great deal in a raid environment considering sword procs can trigger WF.
This is a much more difficult spec to play and requires your full attention in a raid. There is no mindless spamming. Keep track of your rage totals, keep track of your rotation, keep an eye on your latency, and keep an eye on your swing timer. BTW you MUST pick up Quartz swing timer to judge your slam time.
Mobile fights are your bane. Sometimes you must resort to skipping your slams and spam MS / WW. Static fights, you will shine.
WF totem is a must have in your group or you will rage starve 100% of the time. I find that in 5 mans or 10 mans no shaman can severely restrict damage output. Unless you pull aggro and steal the tanks rage...in which case you are a monster =P
Do not go under a 3.5 static weapon speed. Going under via haste will screw up your rotation along with latency, it will become virtually impossible to follow the rotation correctly.

[nikomo]

Melee class global cooldown (Rogue, warrior) is 1 second, all others have 1.5.

[shortycd]

Good post. Though I wouldn't claim to have wrote this as it just seems like a paraphrased version of what is found on wowwiki.

[Cradlenova]

Wowwiki has some false information in there as well as some subpar outdated specs.

They have info on what buttons to press but not how to achieve maximum dps (e.g. when MS has a lower dps return than Bloothirst)

They also have nothing listed under talent specs they just have a hint at the spec that kinda explains what it does, not exactly how to use it.

And to nikomo, only rogues have a gcd of 1 second, all other classes have 1.5

This guide was written from experience and theory crafting.

[shocking4life]

good guide thanks for this (filler)

[7ifty5even]

ye mind explaining, why on the Bloodthirst build ye have 5/5 on Iron Will?

[Tulladar]

one of the biggest things you need for this to work very well is the UI called Quartz it helps you keep the rotation on track with the servers lag

[Cradlenova]

Iron will is a filler talent and can be swapped out with imp TC; but for those of you who enjoy the pvp side of things can use the extra stun resist...it pwns rogues haha

[Skaarlaw]

+rep for a good guide (links make it nicer too ^^)