I initially posted this on my guild's website as part of an effort to encourage warriors to spec protection to help speed up initial raid progression following the raiding "break" many guilds experienced between the 2006 holiday season and the time people started hitting level 70 last February.

It started out as a short sales pitch for the added viability for solo griding and occasional raid DPS that Devastate gave to Prot warriors. I got a little carried away and it turned into a pretty extensive guide. After revising it a few times I figured I might as well post it here and hopefully answer some of the questions we see posted about Devastate every day.

Please let me know if I left out anything important, have suggestions for changes or additions, or if you feel anything is inaccurate.

The latest version of this document is now hosted on TankSpot. Click the link below to go directly to the FAQ:

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/theory-articles-guides/31910-devastate-faq.html#post37287



Devastate FAQ

Last updated June 29 2007.


Note: This document assumes a level 70 warrior with Sunder Armor (Rank 6) and Devastate (Rank 3) trained, 3/3 Focused Rage, and 3/3 Imp. Sunder Armor and 5 Sunders on the target, except when noted otherwise. All threat values are before Defensive Stance and Defiance modifiers. All damage values used for the purpose of calculating threat are considered to be after mitigation from armor.

Some answers include subjective elements based on my own experience and that of other warriors, and may or may not reflect your own experiences depending on your spec, gear and many other factors.

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Q u o t e:
Devastate (Rank 3)
15 Rage, 5 yd range
Instant
Requires One-Handed Melee Weapon
An instant weapon attack that causes 50% of weapon damage plus 35 and additional threat for each application of Sunder Armor on the target. In addition, this attack will renew the duration of the Sunder Armor effect.

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A note on the tooltip:
Like many other tooltips in WoW, the tooltip for Devastate doesn't accurately reflect how the ability works. To stay true to Blizzard's style while being more accurate, the tooltip should probably say:

"An instant weapon attack that causes 35 damage for each application of Sunder Armor on the target plus 50% of weapon damage and causes a high amount of threat. In addition, this attack will renew the duration of the Sunder Armor effect."



How much damage does Devastate do?

The formula for Devastate(Rank3) is as follows:

(W ÷ 2) + (35 × S) - M

where

W = Weapon Damage
S = Number of Sunders stacked on target
M = Target's damage mitigation from Armor

"Weapon Damage" is the damage you deal with one normal "white" hit, which is based on the basic damage range of the weapon you have equipped, plus damage from attack power.

Like many other "instant" melee attacks, Devastate calculates the damage bonus from Attack Power based on a formula that uses a "normalized" weapon speed. The purpose of this is to reduce the viability gap between slow and fast weapons when used for "instant" attacks that are based on weapon damage. In other words, instant attacks using a slow weapon will still deal more damage than using a fast weapon, but the difference is not as big as it would be without the normalization. With all 1H weapons except daggers, the Attack Power component of Weapon Damage is calculated based on a speed of 2.4. With daggers the speed is 1.7.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Normalize
http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.8_(Release_Notes)


Using Devastate on a target with 0 Sunders will deal close to the equivalent of 50% of a normal white hit before mitigation from armor. Using Devastate on the same target after 5 Sunders are applied will deal 50% weapon damage plus 175 before mitigation from armor.

This means that for the most damage per rage point spent, Devastate is always best used with 5 Sunders on the target.


Note that Devastate is affected by the One-Handed Weapon Specialization talent (10% damage increase), which most tanks should have. Devastate damage is also affected by talents and abilities that increase overall damage or crit bonus, such as Enrage and Impale.



How much threat does Devastate generate?

Depends how much your Devastates hit for. Devastate has a flat "bonus" threat of 101. This is in additon to normal threat from damage dealt. For example if your Devastate hits for 200 after mitigation from armor, you are generating (101 + 200) = 301 threat per use.



But the tooltip makes it sound like the ability generates a fixed amount of threat per Sunder on the target.

According to folks who spend a lot of time figuring out threat values, Devastate always generates threat equal to (total damage + 101). So while the added damage per Sunder does naturally translate into added threat, the "innate" threat bonus is always 101, whether you have five Sunders or no Sunders at all. No this doesn't match what the tooltip says, but it isn't the first time Blizzard messes up the wording on a tooltip...



Does Devastate generate more threat per hit than Sunder Armor?

Depends how much your Devastates hit for, but in most cases, yes.

Sunder Armor generates 301 threat.

So from the example above, your Devastate needs to deal 200 damage to generate as much threat as Sunder armor. Same threat, but with the added bonus that your target now has 200 less healh on its bar. A 200 damage Devastate is very easy to achieve at level 70, even when wearing tanking gear.

It is important to note however that because for most tanks the rage cost of Sunder will be lower than the rage cost of Devastate, a 200 damage Devastate is still not as efficient as Sunder in terms of Threat-per-rage, or Threat-per-second when you queue up Heroic Strikes between Sunders. See next question.



Does Devastate generate more threat per rage point spent than Sunder Armor?

Depends on your spec and how much your Devastate hits for. :)

The scenario that favors Sunder Armor the most is when you have 3/3 Focused Rage and 3/3 Imp. Sunder Armor, meaning that Sunder costs 9 rage and Devastate costs 12 rage.

With Sunder generating a flat 301 threat for 9 rage, Devastate needs to generate 401 threat to compete. This means that Devastate needs to hit for 300 damage to become as rage-efficient as Sunder in threat alone. While hitting for 300 is certainly achievable with level 70 blue DPS gear, particularly with a slow weapon, in situations where you are tanking and your survivability matters most, 300 will probably remain out of reach for a while.

However #1: Regardless of whether or not you generate as much threat per rage as you do with Sunder with sub-300 Devastates, your Devastates are also dealing damage to the mob, when Sunder would deal zero damage. If the mechanics of a particular fight allow you to easily get ahead of your DPS classes on threat, Devastate becomes a better choice than Sunder.

However #2: While on paper the stat requirements for Devastate to compete with Sunder on threat-per-rage alone may seem like an issue, it isn't always the case in-game. Many situations where you'll be using Devastate to hold aggro are going to be boss fights where you should be generating plenty of rage to also spam Heroic Strike in-between global cooldown cycles. Shield Slam and Revenge, with Heroic Strike as rage allows, will remain your main sources of threat, meaning that you'll be using Devastate as a rage-dump for some added damage on the remaining global cooldown cycles.

In other words, as rage becomes more plentiful, looking at the threat-per-rage ratio of a single ability becomes less relevant.

The opposite is also true, and in cases where you are starved for rage you still have the option of using Sunder for that particular fight.



Keep in mind that if you don't have Imp. Sunder Armor, Devastate only needs to hit for 200 damage to be as rage-efficient as Sunder Armor for threat generation.

In what other ways is Devastate better than Sunder Armor?

Devastate can crit.
Devastate deals more damage (and threat) as your gear improves.
Devastate deals more damage (and threat) with buffs.
Devastate damage (and threat) benefits from damage-increasing talents.
Devastate can proc "on-melee-hit" effects from items and enchants, including Windfury.



Would there ever be a situation where Devastate should be used even when Revenge is lit up?

Not likely. Particularly since the changes made to Revenge in patch 2.1.0.

Revenge (Rank 8) generates threat from (Damage) + (~200 bonus threat). Assuming an average of 350 Revenge damage after mitigation from armor, that's a whopping 550 threat total. You would have to hit for 450 with Devastate to generate as much threat as Revenge. While Devastate scales with gear and Revenge doesn't, it's not likely we'll ever have access to tanking gear that yields that much Devastate damage before the level cap is raised again.

If threat is the priority, continue to use Revenge every time it's lit up. If threat (and/or rage cost) is not a factor and you can Devastate for 350 damage or more, skip Revenge and use Devastate for the added damage.



So fast weapon or slow weapon for raiding?

Fast (when tanking).

Due to Devastate using a normalized speed for AP calculations, and because the ability only factors in 50% of weapon damage, weapon speed doesn't have nearly as much of an effect on Devastate as it does on Heroic Strike.

When raiding, you'll typically be generating enough rage to queue up Heroic Strike on almost every hit, and the rate at which you can use Heroic Strike is invertly proportional with your weapon speed. So even while spamming Devastate, the frequency at which you can use Heroic Strike will still have the largest impact on your DPS and threat generation (which is the reason why fast weapons were always better for tanking in the first place).

The notable exception to this rule is with daggers. Because they are normalized to 1.7 speed for AP calculations on instant attacks, daggers deal noticeably lower damage with Devastate.


Slow for secondary aggro

Carrying a slow weapon for higher Devastate numbers is a good idea for those fights where you need to remain second on a mob or boss' threat list. Since you'll only be gaining rage from your own white damage, a Shield Slam every 6 seconds should be priority number one, but if you have enough rage (and the gear for it), Devastates for 300 damage or more in between the Shield Slams should be next on your list.



Slow weapon for solo grinding then?

Yes.

If you own a slow weapon with a base DPS comparable to your fast tanking weapon, and ideally with damage-increasing stats, use it for higher Devastate damage in situations where you don't generate enough rage to spam Heroic Strike.



5-man trash mobs?

Tanking trash mobs in 5-man instances may also qualify as a low-rage situation, but mobs are usually dead before you have time to apply 5 Sunders, which means you won't be using Devastate anyway, so weapon speed doesn't really matter there.



Since Devastate replaces Sunder Armor once 5 Sunders are applied, is there any value in speccing 3/3 Imp. Sunder Armor?

For grinding / DPS and tanking 5-man trash, definitely. For raiding, it's a question of preference.

Imp. Sunder enables you to quickly apply 5 Sunders on an regular outdoor mob and use Devastate on it right away. Or in some cases, use the extra rage for a few Heroic Strikes or a bigger Execute. Sunder is also still a good "filler" ability when tanking trash mobs in 5-man instances, even if you never stack them up to five.

In a raid instance, if you're tanking something that will live long enough for you to have time to apply 5 Sunders to it, it's probably also hitting you so hard that spending the extra 15 rage at the beginning of the fight won't be an issue. However, in cases where establishing aggro quickly is key, the rage saved on the initial Sunders can be used to queue up simultaneous Heroic Strikes for more threat early on. This becomes even more meaninful on fights where the boss "dissapears" long enough for the Sunder debuff to wear off and aggro resets multiple times. Nightbane is a good example.



Is Devastate needed for raid tanking?

No.

Shield Slam (combined with 5/5 1H specialization and 3/3 Shield Mastery) still provides the biggest overall threat (and damage) improvement beyond Defiance.

Devastate is a DPS ability conveniently placed in the Protection tree to provide warriors who choose to spec heavily into it with an option to contribute further to their raid's overall DPS while increasing their own threat generation, as well as to increase their damage while soloing.

Great. :)

I'm going to attempt to insert this into the sticky and fill out the bottom spots. :)

Nice, thanks! :)

Wow. Thanks alot!

Awesome thread. Devastate needs some major changes IMO to be worthy of a 41-pointer.

Remove the Sunder requirement, just give it +175 damage, half damage, and double it's damage is threat. Useable with 2-handers to help with grinding/PVP, but prevents it from being raid-spammable for DPS (Would take aggro and die).

Very nice write-up. Two recommendations:

(1) You may want to express the damage mitigation from armor multiplicatively, because that's how it works in the game (on the other hand, it may be more confusing to people who aren't mathemaically inclined).

(2) You may want to add that with bosses you mean "post-Karazhan" bosses. Most bosses in Karazhan hit weakly enough so that the rage efficiency of Sunder vs. Devastate is an issue.

When I"m protty spec and farming for money or whatever, I use my dps gear and dual wield. Stack 5 sunders on them and spam devistate to hell. It's always up because it's 12 rage and dual wield floods rage for me.

After 5 sunders, it normally hits for 500 - 600 damage non crit (I hear it takes 1/2 damage from both weapons when dual wield) and because it's instant, it's technically more damage than bloodthirst (my average in fury spec aleast) say it's 550 average after 5 sunders, every second, bloodthirst is 6 second cooldown, 550 x 6 = 3300 damage IF none of them crit. if they do, well you get the idea.

Anyhow, just my two copper worth of input on devistate. I like knowing i can stil farm when i'm protty spec. can't pvp effectivly though =\

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Q u o t e:
Very nice write-up. Two recommendations:

(1) You may want to express the damage mitigation from armor multiplicatively, because that's how it works in the game (on the other hand, it may be more confusing to people who aren't mathemaically inclined).

(2) You may want to add that with bosses you mean "post-Karazhan" bosses. Most bosses in Karazhan hit weakly enough so that the rage efficiency of Sunder vs. Devastate is an issue.

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Thanks, and I appreciate the suggestions.

It did cross my mind that using a minus sign for mitigation from armor was technically inaccurate, but I'm concerned that a multiplication sign may also make it look like the target's armor somehow "amplifies" the damage. Which I guess it does in a way, but you get where I'm going here... :)

As far a rage flow from bosses, I suppose that's part of another unending argument... I'll change that sentence to say "many situations where you'll be using Devastate", to leave a little more room for individual experience.

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Q u o t e:
Devastate is a DPS ability conveniently placed in the Protection tree to provide warriors who choose to spec heavily into it with an option to contribute further to their raid's overall DPS and to increase their damage while soloing.

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You said in most cases it generates more threat then sunder, but then in the last line you brush it off like its only a bonus damage thing. Doesn't matter if you get more threat from other talents, the more threat, from anything, the better (don't forget it can crit/proc mad windfurys).

More threat you generate the more damage your raid can deal, so yes, it is needed for raid tanking. Unless you only do off tanking on things that mad hate isn't required for, but for any main tank its a must have.
With all the enrage timers now days, you have to be able to push out as much threat as possible so that your DPS can go crazy.

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Q u o t e:
Hitting for 300 is certainly achievable with level 70 blues, particularly with a slow weapon. It's also achievable with a few epics and full raid buffs, even using a fast weapon that lends itself to Heroic Strike spam.

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That's rarely true and very misleading.

1) Hitting for 300 average damage is much more difficult than nearly every warrior makes it out to be.

2) Going from blue to epic tank gear does nothing for AP, the only difference are our available weapons.


Self-buffed my damage range with Decapitator and 4/5 T4 with all equivalent epics in all other slots is 308-452 in defensive stance, or 380 average damage (190 base devastate). With 175 from 5x Sunder bonus this averages out to 365. A boss would only need 18% damage reduction (a tad over 2625 armor from a level 73 mob) for my Devastate to go below 300. The only boss I know what that kind of super low armor with full sunders would be Shade of Aran. With imp. MOTW, King's, and Blessing of Might, my average damage would go up by about 57, pushing the limit to 29% DR or 4780 armor from the boss after sunders.

The only way I can average over 300 devastates in normal tank gear is if I get all those buffs plus Strength of Earth, and/or pot up. The last month or so of testing Decapitator on offtanking Gruul with Recap put my average devastate at 286 with raid buffs.

While you can look at the top end of your damage range and see yourself peak over 300 devastates, over the course of the boss fight you are certainly not being more efficient than sunder this way. So unless you are sporting something with significantly more damage range than Decapitator or you have hybrid gear with lots of STR/AP, don't fool yourself into thinking that your devastates are always going to be more efficient than sunder when in fact, in the vast majority of cases it is just the opposite. Until you start getting the 100.3dps 2.4-2.6s speed weapons, I wouldn't blindly count on Devastate. In some cases it is still preferable than sunder spam plus a fast weapon for heroic strikes, for instance I many times do not have enough time to use up all my rage on just sunder armor and shield slam when offtanking Gruul, but sunder spam + heroic strike + shield slam would be less efficient than pure Devastate + shield slam (few to no heroic strikes). In that very specific case Devastate is better even though it is not more efficient on rage per threat basis, as does less TPS than sunder + heroic combined however it does so far more efficiently, although whether combining a fast weapon with heroic strike and devastate over the other two setups in this only semi-limited rage situation is something I haven't done much footwork on quite yet.

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Q u o t e:
You said in most cases it generates more threat then sunder, but then in the last line you brush it off like its only a bonus damage thing. Doesn't matter if you get more threat from other talents, the more threat, from anything, the better (don't forget it can crit/proc mad windfurys).

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I think there is no disagreement that Devastate is designed to eventually outscale Sunder Armor. The main issue that people are contending over is at which point that actually happens. (My understanding is also that Sunder Armor can proc Windfury as much as Devastate, though I may be wrong there -- our shaman is usually in a caster-heavy group, because Mana Tide > Windfury for us, and it's been nearly a year since I last played my own shaman).

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Q u o t e:
You said in most cases it generates more threat then sunder, but then in the last line you brush it off like its only a bonus damage thing.

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Well noted. I edited that part to reflect the added threat potential while tanking. Thanks for pointing that out.

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Q u o t e:


That's rarely true and very misleading.

1) Hitting for 300 average damage is much more difficult than nearly every warrior makes it out to be.

2) Going from blue to epic tank gear does nothing for AP, the only difference are our available weapons.


Self-buffed my damage range with Decapitator and 4/5 T4 with all equivalent epics in all other slots is 308-452 in defensive stance, or 380 average damage (190 base devastate). With 175 from 5x Sunder bonus this averages out to 365. A boss would only need 18% damage reduction (a tad over 2625 armor from a level 73 mob) for my Devastate to go below 300. The only boss I know what that kind of super low armor with full sunders would be Shade of Aran. With imp. MOTW, King's, and Blessing of Might, my average damage would go up by about 57, pushing the limit to 29% DR or 4780 armor from the boss after sunders.

The only way I can average over 300 devastates in normal tank gear is if I get all those buffs plus Strength of Earth, and/or pot up. The last month or so of testing Decapitator on offtanking Gruul with Recap put my average devastate at 286 with raid buffs.

While you can look at the top end of your damage range and see yourself peak over 300 devastates, over the course of the boss fight you are certainly not being more efficient than sunder this way. So unless you are sporting something with significantly more damage range than Decapitator or you have hybrid gear with lots of STR/AP, don't fool yourself into thinking that your devastates are always going to be more efficient than sunder when in fact, in the vast majority of cases it is just the opposite. Until you start getting the 100.3dps 2.4-2.6s speed weapons, I wouldn't blindly count on Devastate. In some cases it is still preferable than sunder spam plus a fast weapon for heroic strikes, for instance I many times do not have enough time to use up all my rage on just sunder armor and shield slam when offtanking Gruul, but sunder spam + heroic strike + shield slam would be less efficient than pure Devastate + shield slam (few to no heroic strikes). In that very specific case Devastate is better even though it is not more efficient on rage per threat basis, as does less TPS than sunder + heroic combined however it does so far more efficiently, although whether combining a fast weapon with heroic strike and devastate over the other two setups in this only semi-limited rage situation is something I haven't done much footwork on quite yet.

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You know, I went back and re-read what I posted and started to wonder how I came up with it. There was a time a few months ago where I was playing around with Reflex Blades just to see what numbers I could hit with Devastate both while DW grinding in DPS gear and while tanking in early Karazhan (the Chess event gave me a King's Defender on our first visit so the Reflex Blade quickly wound up in the bank). I'm pretty sure I was hitting 300 in certain cases, but I may have written that particular part while overly sleep-deprived, since I'll admit it doesn't make any sense when I look at it now.

I've fixed that section. Now that I have a Decapitator (which never use while tanking), I'm curious to pull it out on some raid trash tonight just for a quick jugement check. :)

Thanks for pointing that out.

Bring
Up
Someone elses
Topic

Excellent write-up.

Posted and credited on my guild's warrior forums. Thanks for putting out good information!

Mind if I stick this on my site?

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Q u o t e:

1) Hitting for 300 average damage is much more difficult than nearly every warrior makes it out to be.

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I do this raid-buffed with a 71.7DPS 1.8 speed weapon. That's not "much more difficult".

this message gains anchor's seal of approval :)

Since we're having a discussion about tanking, shouldn't we include Defensive Stance and Defiance threat modifiers into the damage required to overcome Sunder?

Or did you already put those in and I missed it?

Edit: Nevermind, they have the same percent bonus, so this doesn't change the convergence. However, this is good to keep in mind because they diverge faster (when in defensive stance) than the threat numbers you state.

It's good to keep in mind that there's four comparisons to talk about:

Threat per second (or per attack) without Imp Sunder.
Threat per second (or per attack) with Imp Sunder.
Threat per rage without Imp Sunder.
Threat per rage with Imp Sunder.

Some of them are redundant, but it would be nice to have a little spreadsheet or chart. Also, I feel the ones to look at are threat per rage comparisons because, in most cases, infinite threat is only a theory. Maxamizing threat gen is about getting in as many HSs as possible by efficiently choosing your non-HS abilities to be rage efficient.