Good extensive post, lots of information. Personally I had no doubt that devastate would produce more threat then a single sunder armor once 5 were stacked up, did not know what the margin will be. Theres a few things that still concern me though;

1. On a pure rage to threat level with the new talents, devastate with a castigator (Took one last Thaddius, they are nearly rotting and I wanted to play with devastate) provides 30% more threat than a sunder armor, yet you can make sunder armor cost 9 vs devastate at 12 thus negating the difference right? In the current situation the only gains from devastate are the DPS and the 2 talent points you free up if you plan on going 41 prot, but then you'd need someone else to stack sunder for you if they wanted it up fast.

2. I'm really liking the idea of using slow weapons to tank now and it is nice to see another warrior who realizes that you don't have the rage to do everything and is willing to support the idea of slower weapons. What sort of rage generation are you seeing as a tank in TBC? Currently I find myself very very rarely HSing in naxx except on Thaddius and Loatheb. Theres periods of time where I get barely enough rage for shield block/shield slam/revenge. I was hoping that we might start seeing some more consistant rage gains in the expansion when tanking.

3. Devastate obviously scales, but we get a new rank of sunder armor in the late 60s correct? Do you happen to have the threat numbers for that? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the immense increase in weapon DPS will allow a slower weapon to create more then double the threat of a sunder for a raid situation at 70.

4. I've pretty much come to terms that Devastate will be useless outside of bosses/raid environs. It seems to be a pretty nice tool for soloing as protection though?

Thats all for now, I like the concept of devastate though. If a 10 man boss hits hard enough to give rage to us it, that 100 extra DPS is not a bad gain if you can still equal or beat the rage efficiency without it. What concerns ms is that currently on the same rage budget the difference between improved sunder and devastate is negligible on a pure threat level.

Responding to your first point, to match the rage efficiency of a Focused Rage Sunder, Devastate will need to output ~348 points of threat. However, Devastate will still output *more* threat than sunder over (virtually) all situations. So for weapons that produce Devastate damage of under 300, you will be giving up a small amount of rage efficiency for moderate to large gains in total threat, and very large gains in DPS.

To put it in another way, to maintain a Devastate spam, you need to generate at least 8 rage/second. To maintain an Imp Sunder spam, you need 6 rage/second. Is the 2rps difference signficant enough for you to give up the DPS of Devastate?

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Q u o t e:
Responding to your first point, to match the rage efficiency of a Focused Rage Sunder, Devastate will need to output ~348 points of threat. However, Devastate will still output *more* threat than sunder over (virtually) all situations. So for weapons that produce Devastate damage of under 300, you will be giving up a small amount of rage efficiency for moderate to large gains in total threat, and very large gains in DPS.

To put it in another way, to maintain a Devastate spam, you need to generate at least 8 rage/second. To maintain an Imp Sunder spam, you need 6 rage/second. Is the 2rps difference signficant enough for you to give up the DPS of Devastate?

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The difference isn't quite that big, because you'll be using Shield Slam and Revenge in nearly every situation. The estimated rage (without heroic strike) is a maximum of 6.88 per second, thats assuming you operate a bit like a computer and meet every single cooldown.

Nice post!

I think you are overvalueing the contribution from Heroic Strike a bit... in my experience even if you are getting pounded you can't hit HS on every attack and maintain the rage to use everything else too. I don't know what factor to apply to it but I'd think you could only HS something like 50-75% of the potential uses.

I only have 3 words for you:

Improved. Sunder. Armor.

Fine, I will say a few more words. While theoretically, in infinite rage situations rage cost makes no difference, they are just that – theoretical situations. In reality, a good tank will not be sitting at full rage bar all the time, and the rage he saves on every Sunder instead of Devastate will go towards other aggro generating skills, most likely Heroic Strike, giving him more overall threat than if he were using Devastate. Sure, you are doing damage with Devastate, but is it worth using if you could instead increase the aggro ceiling of the whole raid a few percent, especially with Warriors scaling so poorly in that regard?

And even the presence of this dilemma indicates that really, Devastate needs some tweaking.

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Q u o t e:
Nice post!

I think you are overvalueing the contribution from Heroic Strike a bit... in my experience even if you are getting pounded you can't hit HS on every attack and maintain the rage to use everything else too. I don't know what factor to apply to it but I'd think you could only HS something like 50-75% of the potential uses.

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This may be true, particularly when the next patch comes out.

However, my build is specifically designed to get as close to 100% Heroic Strikes out as possible. I use both Improved Heroic Strike and Unbridled Wrath and have a very high base Block rate allowing me to generate a rage points in fights where I don't have to spam Shield Block. Next patch I will not have HS or UW in my build, unfortunately.

It's been a while since I've had the pleasure of abusing my Eskhandar's set while tanking, which is at same speed of Hungering Cold (the Right claw, at least). I did not have too many rage problems with it, but certanily with a 1.9 speed weapon it's easier to do.

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Q u o t e:
I only have 3 words for you:

Improved. Sunder. Armor.

Fine, I will say a few more words. While theoretically, in infinite rage situations rage cost makes no difference, they are just that – theoretical situations. In reality, a good tank will not be sitting at full rage bar all the time, and the rage he saves on every Sunder instead of Devastate will go towards other aggro generating skills, most likely Heroic Strike, giving him more overall threat than if he were using Devastate. Sure, you are doing damage with Devastate, but is it worth using if you could instead increase the aggro ceiling of the whole raid a few percent, especially with Warriors scaling so poorly in that regard?

And even the presence of this dilemma indicates that really, Devastate needs some tweaking.

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Again, as in response to the previous poster:
3 points in Focused Rage is going to place Devastate and Heroic Strike exactly where 6 points in Improved Sunder Armor and Improved Heroic Strike already are. While yes, in some situations it may be more rage efficient, normally rage efficiency should not be a problem. You are assuming a tanking Warrior does not take enough damage in to maintain the higher rate of rage expenditure, that isn't true.

I do not believe that rage efficiency is a valid criticism to Devastate because I cannot see -- in any circumstance -- a Warrior being unable to use a 12 rage ability between Shield Slams and Revenges. Even if off-tanking. I believe rage efficiency becomes more of a problem when adding in Heroic Strikes, but at the basic pre-heroic level? That's an unrealistic argument.

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Q u o t e:
Question 1: Will Devastate outperform Sunder Armor in Threat?
Test 1: Will this work even with the least-suited weapons?
The first thing we need to do is determine whether Devastate outperforms Sunder Armor in terms of threat generation with epic tanking weapons. We will use the lowest-damage weapon, the Bloodlord's Defender, and the fastest weapon with a low damage range, Widow's Remorse, to determine threat generation vs. Sunder Armor.

Bloodlord's Defender
With Attack Power = 91.5 + (1.9 * 1200 / 14) = 254
Devastate Damage Bonus = 254 * 0.5 = 127 + 125 = 252
Critical Strike Modifier = 252 * 1.15 = 290
Armor Reduction = 290 * 0.8 = 231

Unmodified Threat = 231 + 47 = 278
Unmodified Sunder Armor Threat: 260

With a the first major epic weapon a tank can acquire, as well as being a weapon built around mitigation stats, a tank is adding 4% threat over Sunder Armor while also dealing 231 damage per use.

Now, let's see how an incredibly fast weapon with a relatively low damage range holds up:

Widow's Remorse
With Attack Power = 100.5 + (1.6 * 1200 / 14) = 237
Devastate Damage Bonus = 237 * 0.5 = 118 + 125 = 243
Critical Strike Modifier = 252 * 1.15 = 280
Armor Reduction = 280 * 0.8 = 224

Unmodified Threat = 224 + 47 = 271
Unmodified Sunder Armor Threat: 260

Devastate appears to be advantageous over Sunder Armor even for the fastest available weapons with basic stats. Before you get worried that the difference between Devastate and Sunder is so small with a fast weapon, keep in mind that you are able to use Heroic Strike at a much faster rate -- which is what we'll cover next.

Result 1: Devastate outperforms Sunder Armor with weapons least suited to an ability based off Weapon Speed.


Test 2: Just how big is the disparity?
Now let's cover the slower weapons and see what kind of damage range we get with Devastate. We will begin with a comparison of Crul'shorukh and Spineshatter.

Crul'shorukh
With Attack Power = 144.5 + (2.3 * 1236 / 14) = 347
Devastate Damage Bonus = 347 * 0.5 = 173 + 125 = 298
Critical Strike Modifier = 298 * 1.15 = 342
Armor Reduction = 342 * 0.8 = 274

Unmodified Threat = 274 + 47 = 321
Unmodified Sunder Armor Threat: 260

Devastate from Crul'shorukh produces 19% more threat than Sunder Armor.

Spineshatter
With Attack Power = 141.5 + (2.6 * 1218 / 14) = 367
Devastate Damage Bonus = 367 * 0.5 = 183 + 125 = 308
Critical Strike Modifier = 308 * 1.15 = 354
Armor Reduction = 354 * 0.8 = 283

Unmodified Threat = 283 + 47 = 330
Unmodified Sunder Armor Threat: 260

Devastate from Spineshatter, a slower weapon with good mitigation stats, provides 23% more threat than Sunder Armor. Don't take too much from the comparison to the Crul'shorukh -- remember, the Crul will deal considerably more damage through Heroic Strike due to the faster speed. However, in a low-rage scenario, Spineshatter -- a basic weapon from the first boss in Blackwing Lair -- is not bad.

Now, for fun:
Castigator
With Attack Power = 170 + (2.6 * 1216 / 14) = 395
Devastate Damage Bonus = 395 * 0.5 = 183 + 125 = 322
Critical Strike Modifier = 308 * 1.16 = 374
Armor Reduction = 374 * 0.8 = 299

Unmodified Threat = 299 + 47 = 346
Unmodified Sunder Armor Threat: 260
Devastate with Castigator is 29% more effective than Sunder Armor.


Gressil
With Attack Power = 197.5 + (2.7 * 1240 / 14) = 436
Devastate Damage Bonus = 436 * 0.5 = 218 + 125 = 343
Critical Strike Modifier = 343 * 1.15 = 394
Armor Reduction = 394 * 0.8 = 315

Unmodified Threat = 315 + 47 = 362
Unmodified Sunder Armor Threat: 260
Devastate with Gressil is 39% more effective than Sunder Armor.

Result 2: Devastate scales incredibly well against Sunder Armor even with weapons already in-game.

Now, to get some other values out of the way for future use. Here is Maladath and The Hungering Cold:

Maladath
With Attack Power = 125 + (2.2 * 1200 / 14) = 313
Devastate Damage Bonus = 313 * 0.5 = 156 + 125 = 281
Critical Strike Modifier = 281 * 1.15 = 323
Armor Reduction = 252 * 0.8 = 258

Unmodified Threat = 258 + 47 = 305
Unmodified Sunder Armor Threat: 260


The Hungering Cold
With Attack Power = 109.5 + (1.5 * 1200 / 14) = 238
Devastate Damage Bonus = 238 * 0.5 = 119 + 125 = 244
Critical Strike Modifier = 244 * 1.15 = 280
Armor Reduction = 280 * 0.8 = 224

Unmodified Threat = 224 + 47 = 271
Unmodified Sunder Armor Threat: 260


Summary: Devastate is better than Sunder Armor for a raid tank no matter what, and can be significantly so if you continue to raise your Attack Power and Critical Strike rating.

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Great stuff, but your AP calculations need to be normalized. It's (1200/14) x 2.4 for one handed weapons, irregardless of weapon speed after patch 1.7.

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Q u o t e:


Again, as in response to the previous poster:
3 points in Focused Rage is going to place Devastate and Heroic Strike exactly where 6 points in Improved Sunder Armor and Improved Heroic Strike already are.

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What? Imp Sunder + Focused Rage = 9 rage Sunder Armor.
Devastate only benefits from Focused Rage, costing 12 rage, or 33% more than Sunder Armor. This is not either/or situation, you can have both Focused Rage and Imp. Sunder Armor.

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Q u o t e:
While yes, in some situations it may be more rage efficient, normally rage efficiency should not be a problem. You are assuming a tanking Warrior does not take enough damage in to maintain the higher rate of rage expenditure, that isn't true

I do not believe that rage efficiency is a valid criticism to Devastate because I cannot see -- in any circumstance -- a Warrior being unable to use a 12 rage ability between Shield Slams and Revenges. Even if off-tanking. I believe rage efficiency becomes more of a problem when adding in Heroic Strikes, but at the basic pre-heroic level? That's an unrealistic argument.

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That's the point. With Sunder Armor, I can use Heroic Strikes in-between to further increase my aggro, with a fast weapon, that would equal to probably 1 heroic every 12 seconds, assuming SS/Revenge/SA/SA cycle. Yes, there is a point where the Devastate aggro will be higher even for the same amount of rage, but that point is uncomfortably high, which is a problem.

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Q u o t e:


What? Imp Sunder + Focused Rage = 9 rage Sunder Armor.
Devastate only benefits from Focused Rage, costing 12 rage, or 33% more than Sunder Armor. This is not either/or situation, you can have both Focused Rage and Imp. Sunder Armor.



That's the point. With Sunder Armor, I can use Heroic Strikes in-between to further increase my aggro, with a fast weapon, that would equal to probably 1 heroic every 12 seconds, assuming SS/Revenge/SA/SA cycle. Yes, there is a point where the Devastate aggro will be higher even for the same amount of rage, but that point is uncomfortably high, which is a problem.

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Alrite i'll put it more simply, I see where you are going with this.

A) Currently there is no difficulty using Sunder Armor in between Shield Slam and Revenge.

B) Devastate does not represent a 33% increase in rage usage over Sunder Armor. Shield Slam and Revenge will take half or more of your global cooldowns; the actual rage efficiency difference is much smaller.

C) If you are off-tanking or building secondary aggro and rage efficiency will be a problem, you will not be using Heroic Strike. You cannot lose rage generation from your melee attacks by using Heroic Strike Any use of Heroic Strike -- already and in the future -- is a net loss of a large amount of rage, as you are not only expending rage but you are not gaining it from the same attack. Also, although like you say you could occasionally use Heroic Strike, you would still build significantly more aggro with slower weapons and Devastate -- which is exactly what is recommended in the original post for off-tanks. Finally, Heroic Strike spam only get's a maximum benefit if using fast weapons, as it is a threat-per-application bonus and if you apply it every 12 seconds -- regardless of weapon speed -- it will provide exactly the same bonus to a tank. (Wall of Text simplified: If you aren't getting enough rage, use slower weapons, and you'll still be a league beyond Sunder Armor in the same situation)

D) If you are main-tanking, rage efficiency is an invalid argument, as even keeping the current dynamic (since the rage costs are the same next patch as they are this one) it is possible to use both Devastate and Heroic Strike with no problem, from my experience. Damage intake next patch is not changed.

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Q u o t e:


Alrite i'll put it more simply, I see where you are going with this.

A) Currently there is no difficulty using Sunder Armor in between Shield Slam and Revenge.

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Awesome. Also, irrelevant.

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Q u o t e:

B) Devastate does not represent a 33% increase in rage usage over Sunder Armor. Shield Slam and Revenge will take half or more of your global cooldowns; the actual rage efficiency difference is much smaller.

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Devastate costs 12 rage, Sunder Armor costs 9, so Devastate costs 33% more than Sunder Armor, or Sunder Armor costs 25% less than Devastate. Play on words. Either way, you still save 3 rage per use, which, assuming 2 SS/Revenge/SA/SA cycles as 6 second each, will give us 12 rage over 12 seconds. With a relatively fast weapon, Heroic Strike costs us 9 rage + white damage rage, which depends on many variables, but 12-15 overall rage cost would be a safe bet. Either way, saving 12 rage every 12 seconds is not minor by any means.

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Q u o t e:

C) If you are off-tanking or building secondary aggro and rage efficiency will be a problem, you will not be using Heroic Strike. You cannot lose rage generation from your melee attacks by using Heroic Strike Any use of Heroic Strike -- already and in the future -- is a net loss of a large amount of rage, as you are not only expending rage but you are not gaining it from the same attack. Also, although like you say you could occasionally use Heroic Strike, you would still build significantly more aggro with slower weapons and Devastate -- which is exactly what is recommended in the original post for off-tanks. Finally, Heroic Strike spam only get's a maximum benefit if using fast weapons, as it is a threat-per-application bonus and if you apply it every 12 seconds -- regardless of weapon speed -- it will provide exactly the same bonus to a tank. (Wall of Text simplified: If you aren't getting enough rage, use slower weapons, and you'll still be a league beyond Sunder Armor in the same situation)

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If I am rage-starved, that's more the reason to use Sunder Armor. Every 3 Sunder Armors I will get enough rage to use another SA, and if I have enough rage, Heroic Strike (which has, as I mentioned, overall cost of 12-15 rage). Simply, while my specials might do a bit less threat, I can do more of them, in the end producing similar overall threat. You say Devastate will produce more, but others already pointed out that you would need a really high damage Devastate to match Sunder Armor in efficiency.

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Q u o t e:

D) If you are main-tanking, rage efficiency is an invalid argument, as even keeping the current dynamic (since the rage costs are the same next patch as they are this one) it is possible to use both Devastate and Heroic Strike with no problem, from my experience. Damage intake next patch is not changed.

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I don't know, with a fast weapon, even today, I can use up my rage pretty quickly with Heroic Strikes, SS/SA and Shield Blocks. Outside of special cases (Vael), I never had trouble keeping my rage spent. I am sure most people don't have that problem either.

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Q u o t e:

D) If you are main-tanking, rage efficiency is an invalid argument, as even keeping the current dynamic (since the rage costs are the same next patch as they are this one) it is possible to use both Devastate and Heroic Strike with no problem, from my experience. Damage intake next patch is not changed.

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But you're also stacking stamina over avoidance, which means you have a load more rage to work with than other tanks, no?

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Q u o t e:


But you're also stacking stamina over avoidance, which means you have a load more rage to work with than other tanks, no?

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Absolutely. I believe Stamina and Armor > Avoidance, and I also believe Attack Power is critical to a tank. But then, it can also be said I'm not hypocritical in this, as I've argued Warriors should be doing this to some extent for almost a year. =)

I dunno if anyone else brought it up, but you get a 10% threat bonus in Def Stance.

Should bring the threat values of Devistate up another 20-30 points.

shut it

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Q u o t e:
Devastate costs 12 rage, Sunder Armor costs 9, so Devastate costs 33% more than Sunder Armor, or Sunder Armor costs 25% less than Devastate. Play on words. Either way, you still save 3 rage per use, which, assuming 2 SS/Revenge/SA/SA cycles as 6 second each, will give us 12 rage over 12 seconds. With a relatively fast weapon, Heroic Strike costs us 9 rage + white damage rage, which depends on many variables, but 12-15 overall rage cost would be a safe bet. Either way, saving 12 rage every 12 seconds is not minor by any means.

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First, your math is wrong. The global cooldown is 1.5 sec, that means the cycle you are talking about does not take place in 6 seconds but rather 7.5, because you cannot use another ability until a cooldown has finished. Also, for Revenge to take accurate priority you cannot use the 7.5 second cycle, you need to use a 31.5 second cycle (an outline of the deviation is noted above, all rage costs are slightly lower due to human decision as well as server lag -- this deviation would benefit Devastate's rage efficiency over Imp Sunder Armor due to the percentage decrease).

((2 * 6(Revenge)) + (5 * 17(Shield Slam)) + (12 x 10(Devastate))) / 31.5 = 6.88
((2 * 6(Revenge)) + (5 * 17(Shield Slam)) + (9 x 10(Imp Sunder Armor))) / 31.5 = 5.93

Rage-Per-Second Difference: 6.88 - 5.93 = 0.95
Second marker for Heroic Strike: 12 / 0.95 = 12.63


Now, let's use Castigator as an example, as it's a similar to Hatchet and both are fairly achievable (both much moreso than Gressil):

Castigator Threat: 346 * 10 = 3460 / 31.5 = 109.84 TPS
Castigator Damage: 299 * 10 = 2990 / 31.5 = 94.92 DPS

Sunder Armor Threat: 260 * 10 = 2600 / 31.5 = 82.53 TPS

For Improved Sunder Armor to be as efficient as Devastate, using a weapon I said would be very good for low-rage positions such as off-tanking, the Heroic Strike would need to make up the difference between the Castigator TPS and Sunder Armor TPS.

The Difference: 109.84 - 82.53 = 27.31
Heroic Strike with rage saved Threat = 25.29


27.31 > 25.29

The numbers just don't stack in your favor. Even using points in Improved Heroic -- a poor idea at level 60 -- you still won't match get more out of the occasional Heroic Strike with the same rage efficiency. And nevermind the rage efficiency of not using that swing for a Heroic Strike and actually gaining rage on the last hit. ;-)



Remember, this entire argument assumes Devastate isn't normalized. Quite a few people believe it is, and if it is, the argument of Sunder -- even improved -- will be even more lost.

The argument is also misleading, and is unfair to Warriors who do not have time to learn any better. That's the root of most arguments against Devastate -- you've started out with the assumption Devastate is bad and found evidence to support it. I also started out with the assumption Devastate was bad, but once I saw evidence that I was wrong, I was able to change my mind.

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Q u o t e:
As well as boosting the threat values of Sunder by 10% as well.

He took it without stance because stance doesn't have a role in the calculatoin. Sunder can be used in defensive stance, and so can devistate.

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/brain fart.

For some reason I thought it only applied to damage.

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Q u o t e:


First, your math is wrong. The global cooldown is 1.5 sec, that means the cycle you are talking about does not take place in 6 seconds but rather 7.5, because you cannot use another ability until a cooldown has finished. Also, for Revenge to take accurate priority you cannot use the 7.5 second cycle, you need to use a 31.5 second cycle (an outline of the deviation is noted above, all rage costs are slightly lower due to human decision as well as server lag -- this deviation would benefit Devastate's rage efficiency over Imp Sunder Armor due to the percentage decrease).

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Uh, 4 abilities at 1.5 second each take 6 seconds total to finish, this is not rocket science, this is basic algebra. Cast spell, wait 1.5 sec, repeat 4 times. Remember, you don't have to wait 1.5 seconds to use that first ability, you use it right away. When you do it 4 times, the cycle is over (6 seconds), and you are ready to begin the next cycle. Anyway, even though Revenge cooldown is 5 seconds, the global cooldown is 1.5 seconds, and since you are waiting for global cooldown at 5 second mark, you have to use revenge on the next global cooldown available, which is at 6 seconds, giving us 6 second cycle (shield slam is also 6 seconds, making it perfect). But I will ignore that for a while, even though your rotation slighly favors devastate, given your rotation's lower percentage of SA to other abilities as compared to 6 second cycle, thus saving less rage per second.

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Q u o t e:

((2 * 6(Revenge)) + (5 * 17(Shield Slam)) + (12 x 10(Devastate))) / 31.5 = 6.88
((2 * 6(Revenge)) + (5 * 17(Shield Slam)) + (9 x 10(Imp Sunder Armor))) / 31.5 = 5.93

Rage-Per-Second Difference: 6.88 - 5.93 = 0.95
Second marker for Heroic Strike: 12 / 0.95 = 12.63

Now, let's use Castigator as an example, as it's a similar to Hatchet and both are fairly achievable (both much moreso than Gressil):

Castigator Threat: 346 * 10 = 3460 / 31.5 = 109.84 TPS
Castigator Damage: 299 * 10 = 2990 / 31.5 = 94.92 DPS

Sunder Armor Threat: 260 * 10 = 2600 / 31.5 = 82.53 TPS

For Improved Sunder Armor to be as efficient as Devastate, using a weapon I said would be very good for low-rage positions such as off-tanking, the Heroic Strike would need to make up the difference between the Castigator TPS and Sunder Armor TPS.

The Difference: 109.84 - 82.53 = 27.31
Heroic Strike with rage saved Threat = 25.29

27.31 > 25.29

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Of course, let's not forget that Heroic Strike cannot glance, which would probably give us additional 150 damage over that time period, resulting in roughly 5 extra TPS. And 25.29 + 5 > 27.31

So even including your flawed cycle that favors Devastate, a slow weapon to take advantage of Devastate (and counting it as non-normalized as well, which favors this weapon again), and a situation in which Sunder Armor's extra rage is spent on rage-inefficient Heroic Strike instead of, say, another Sunder Armor, the numbers still are very, very close, and this is the problem.

If Devastate actually added threat per each stack of Sunder Armor as per description, this would not be a problem at all, and I hope it's a bug, otherwise I believe that Devastate needs a serious second look.

It's a 7.5 second cycle because you originally stated "2 SS/Revenge/SA/SA." That is 5 attacks, or 5*1.5 = 7.5 seconds. The 31.5 second cycle isn't "flawed." In fact, it takes into account the 5 second CD of Revenge vs the 6 second CD of SS. Before you lecture on "basic algebra" make sure you can realize it has already been done correctly.

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Q u o t e:
Of course, let's not forget that Heroic Strike cannot glance, which would probably give us additional 150 damage over that time period, resulting in roughly 5 extra TPS. And 25.29 + 5 > 27.31

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Glancing blows have never been factored into the equation up to this point, so your observation that HS doesn't glance is irrelevant. Furthermore, "would probably give us additional 150 damage over that time period" is hardly a precise measurement. If you had chosen 60 additional damage, we'd be under 27.31 TPS, and if you had chosen 300 damage, well then "clearly" Devastate is teh sucks! Inventing "probable" values is deceptive.

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Q u o t e:
(and counting it as non-normalized as well, which favors this weapon again)

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actually, normalization would favor *fast* weapons, and reduce the threat output of slow weapons.

Your ultimate point seems to be that Devastate and Sunder have very similar rage efficiencies. Lets give you that point for the sake of argument... even given that, Devastate would still be better due to the fact that for the same threat output and efficiency, you are adding upwards of 80+dps that is completely lacking if you were simply sundering.