Heroic Strike

Heroic Strike is a warrior ability learned at level 1. It is an instant melee attack dealing physical damage. Heroic Strike shares a 1.5 second cooldown with Cleave, but is not affected by the global cooldown. Heroic Strike is a rage dump, a relatively inefficient attack designed to be used "when you have more Rage than you can spend."

Passives

 * Taste for Blood (Arms): Gives your Overpower a 30% to grant a buff improving the damage of your next Heroic Strike or Cleave by 100%. Lasts 15 seconds, stacks up to 5 times.
 * Ultimatum (Protection): Makes your Shield Slam critical strikes to cause your next Heroic Strike or Cleave cost no rage and be a critical strike.

Heroic Strike and Cleave
Heroic Strike shares a cooldown with Cleave, and they are very similar abilities. They are both instant attacks that are off the global cooldown, and they both cost the same amount of rage.

Heroic Strike is always preferable in single-target situations; in multiple-target situations, Cleave may have the potential to deal damage more quickly and efficiently, but Heroic Strike may still be preferred in order to kill a single target more quickly, reducing damage taken. Cleave is limited by the fact that it can break crowd control, and also generates aggro on multiple targets, which may or may not be desired.

Usage
The main strength of Heroic Strike and Cleave is that they are not on the global cooldown. This allows them to be used at any time without interrupting the warrior's rotation, making them useful for disposing of excess rage, or for adding quick burst damage. When accumulating more rage than is being spent, they can and should be used to convert this rage into extra damage, essentially generating free bonus damage. However, Heroic Strike and Cleave both deal very little damage for their rage cost, making them generally the least useful way of spending rage; other abilities such as Slam deal far more damage for the same rage. They are therefore best used only when you have so much rage that rage will be wasted if they are not used (however, certain abilities and glyphs can provide exceptions to this rule - see below). Heroic Strike can also be useful in PvP for instantly dealing extra damage to an opponent, helping to quickly overwhelm them.

The proper use of Heroic Strike is essential for both Fury and Arms warriors who are fulfilling the DPS role in PVE. One of the biggest mistakes new Warrior DPS make is using Heroic Strike too frequently, rather than waiting until the situation demands it. It is absolutely not recommended to macro Heroic Strike into another commonly used attack such as Overpower while in group play.

Exceptions
Heroic Strike and Cleave are generally very inefficient abilities, only to be used when generating excessive amounts of rage. However, a number of abilities and glyphs provide exceptions to this rule:


 * Deadly Calm: Lowers the rage cost of your next 3 Heroic Strike/Cleave attacks to 20, making them somewhat more efficient options.
 * Taste for Blood (Arms): Potentially increases Heroic Strike/Cleave's damage by 100%, stacking up to 5 times. With sufficient stacks, Heroic Strike/Cleave become extremely efficient options, and should be used to take advantage of this.
 * Ultimatum (Protection): Potentially grants free Heroic Strike/Cleave attacks. Warriors should always take advantage of procs from this talent, effectively gaining free bonus damage.
 * Glyph of Hindering Strikes: May make Heroic Strike/Cleave more desirable by saving the global and rage otherwise spent using Hamstring.
 * Glyph of Incite: For Protection warriors, this can grant free Heroic Strike/Cleave uses, which should always be taken advantage of.
 * Cleave also benefits from Glyph of Overpower, making its use slightly more desirable.

Trivia

 * Heroic Strike is a basic Warrior spell in Hearthstone. The flavor text reads: "Really, if you're a hero, this is every strike."