Playstyle & Rotation Tariq Fellowship Hero Guide

Playstyle Overview

Tariq is a melee DPS built around the Heavy Strike swing timer and his main resource, Fury.

Fury is a build-and-spend resource generated by your core abilities and spent on big-hitting abilities Hammer Storm, Skull Crusher, and Culling Strike. His swing timer is the thick bar with a red segment on one end and a moving line that shows when you want to use your Heavy Strike.

In Early Access Season 2, Heavy Strike is no longer a "queued ability," but now an instant off-GCD cast that you always want to use when the swing timer line is in the red segment of the swing timer bar. If you press Heavy Strike outside of red zone, you will cast a reduced version that does 80% less damage and incurs a 9 second cooldown (thus causing you to also miss out on future Heavy Strikes).

Heavy Strike is primarily a Fury builder, both in the direct Fury it generates, as well as from Blood & Thunder procs if you are using that talent. It is very important for your throughput that you do not miss out using Heavy Strike with the swing timer, regardless of what build you are playing!

Your Fury spenders Hammer Storm or Skull Crusher will reset the swing timer and pause it during their animations. This means that you should try to use them immediately after using Heavy Strike when you want to spend Fury, instead of resetting the swing timer's progress after it has already started progressing to your next Heavy Strike.

Because of the nature of building and spending Fury, Tariq has a priority system rather than a fixed "rotation":

• Build Fury with Heavy Strike and generators when you have less than 50 Fury.
• Spend Fury by using Hammer Storm in AOE or Skull Crusher in ST if you have at least 50 Fury immediately after your next Heavy Strike. Once an enemy falls below 30% health, Culling Strike becomes the first priority as an execute spender and you should use it whenever you have at least 20 Fury.
• Pool Fury briefly if Thunder Call or Raging Tempest are about to become available as they add extra lightning damage to Hammer Storm and Skull Crusher.

Face Breaker and Left Hand Path

An important note on Tariq's ability Face Breaker and the talent that augments it Left Hand Path:

In Early Access Season 2, Face Breaker was reworked such that it is now always available to press without first getting a "miss" from Wild Swing. However, using Face Breaker without first getting an empowering proc from a miss with Wild Swing will cast a reduced version that deals less damage and puts Face Breaker on a 9 second cooldown, but still granting 6 Fury. When you get a miss with Wild Swing, you will get a proc that will show up as a buff in your important hero buffs list. Using Face Breaker while having a proc causes it to deal normal damage and not incur a cooldown. Because of the frequency that you miss at least one enemy per Wild Swing in AOE, you never want to use Face Breaker without a proc in AOE.

Face Breaker procs do not stack, so you want to consume them before your next Wild Swing. However, if Face Breaker is currently on cooldown, you can still get a miss proc from Wild Swing that will empower your next Face Breaker. This means that in ST fights, you want to use Face Breaker whenever it is available simply for the Fury generation, as the probability that you will get two misses during its 9 second cooldown, and thus munch a proc, is very low.

Furthermore, Wild Swing's base miss chance per enemy is 5%, which increases to 15% if you use Wild Swing against the front of enemies (by standing next to the tank, for example). If you are not using Left Hand Path, then this is something you don't really have to worry about as Face Breaker won't be a significant portion of your damage. However, if you are using Left Hand Path, it is critically important that you Wild Swing at enemies from their front as much as possible to maximize damage from Left Hand Path's cleave effect. This is one of the primary sources of your AOE damage, but standing in front of enemies at all times is easier said than done in some dungeons. As a result, Left Hand Path may be something you talent into and out of based on dungeon and comfort level.

Core Rotation (Priority)

Below I will first cover the core priority for Tariq that you should learn while playing the classic lightning build. The endgame Schism and Square Hammer builds are deviations on this core rotation, and the ways in which they change the playstyle are explained further below.

This priority looks like this:

1. Weapon ability (Sahril's Reckoning or Void-Touched Hammer) if lined up with Thunder Call or Raging Tempest. (Note that if you are using Visions Of Grandeur, Raging Tempest will reset its cooldown, so you always want to use your weapon ability before using Raging Tempest if both are available).
2. Raging Tempest - Thunder Call - Focused Wrath (Focused Wrath can be used anytime in any Thunder Call window. If you have it up in your ultimate, try and wait for your expertise to stack up before using it to maximize the damage).
3. Free Culling Strike procs from Executioner's Unsanitary Boots.
4. Spend Fury with:
   1. Culling Strike if you have at least 20 Fury.
   2. Hammer Storm in AOE if you have at least 50 Fury.
   3. Skull Crusher in ST if you have at least 50 Fury.
5. Generate Fury with:
   
   1. Heavy Strike if you didn't begin the current swing timer capped on Fury.
   2. Leap Smash if you have less than 75 Fury.
   3. Chain Lightning if you are not capped on Fury.
   4. Face Breaker only if you have a proc in AOE, or whenever it is available in ST.
   5. Wild Swing as filler to try to get a Face Breaker proc.

Note that Heavy Strike, Culling Strike, Leap Smash, and Face Breaker are all off of the GCD and do not interfere with each other. Thus they can be used "at-will" as soon as the right Fury conditions are met. However, they will interrupt Hammer Storm mid-channel, which you normally do not want to do.

Schism Rotation

The Schism endgame build has two important talent changes: You will now be taking Schism itself as well as Mouth For War.

To make the most out of this build, you must first understand how Schism works. Schism grants you procs on a PPM (procs per minute) rate, the baseline for this talent being 3.2 PPM, which scales up with haste (so if you have 30% haste, your Schism's PPM is actually 3.2 * 1.3 = 4.16). The way proc rate from PPM works is as an increasing probability to proc based on time since last proc attempt, in this case the last time you used Hammer Storm or Skull Crusher, regardless if that cast procced Schism. The probability starts at 0% immediately after using Hammer Storm or Skull Crusher, and then linearly scales up to 100% based on your PPM interval, which is just 60 / PPM seconds. For example, if you have 20% haste, your PPM interval is 60 / (3.2 * 1.2) = 15.6 seconds. This means that after using Hammer Storm or Skull Crusher, if you wait 15.6 seconds before using either one again, your next use has a 100% chance of proccing Schism.

What this means is that, with experience, you can get a general sense of your current chance to proc Schism based on how long it has been since you last used Hammer Storm or Skull Crusher. This way you can "fish" for the desired proc in the respective situation - you want to use Skull Crusher to fish for Hammer Storm procs in AOE, or use Hammer Storm to fish for Skull Crusher procs in ST or when you need to burst down a priority target (such as the totems spawned by Corrupted Totemic).

As a rule of thumb, at 20% haste you should spend Fury with:

Mouth For War adds another layer of complexity by allowing you to gain a stack of Focused Wrath from Leap Smash. Note that Leap Smash's base cooldown is 20 seconds, which is close to Schism's base PPM interval of 60 / 3.2 = 18.75 seconds, and also scales with haste. This means that Leap Smash can be used as a convenient rough tracker for your hidden PPM timer, as haste affects both equally, and Leap Smash gives you a Focused Wrath stack that you will want to consume with a Schism-buffed spender.

The gameplay here will involve building up to 100 fury without spending so that you can build up your PPM timer for a good probability to proc Schism, and then you will fish - Leap Smash - spend. Note that after Leap Smash you should always use the appropriate spender for the situation (Skull Crusher for ST, Hammer Storm for AOE) whether or not the fishing cast successfully procced Schism, as the second spender cast will have a next-to-zero chance of proccing Schism anyway.

You will also want to line up your normal Focused Wrath stacks from the 90-second cooldown with your Schism-buffed spenders inside Thunder Call if possible. However, if you hit 100 Fury before Leap Smash is available within a few seconds, you should just spend down the Fury normally according to the chart above, as it is better to not overcap Fury than it is to sit at 100 Fury and wait for the PPM timer to hit 100% (though there are situations when this might actually be optimal, specifically when you need to guarantee a Schism proc to help you burst down an enemy about to spawn in).

Notably Schism's PPM timer does not start in a dungeon until your very first Hammer Storm or Skull Crusher use. This means you should use Leap Smash as soon as the countdown timer starts, and then as soon as it finishes, use Leap Smash to generate 25 Fury, and Bloodline will give you 1 extra Fury to get you to 26, allowing you to immediately channel 1 tick of Hammer Storm before mounting up. This allows you to go into the first pull of the dungeon with the PPM timer already built up, so that opening with Skull Crusher has a very high chance of proccing Schism for Hammer Storm. Because the PPM timer continues to elapse outside of combat, this is the general pattern you will want to follow for every pull: if you are going into a new pull without a Hammer Storm Schism proc, your chance of proccing one on an opening Skull Crusher is high to begin a pull with a burst of AOE damage.

The playstyle of the endgame Schism build is recommended if you want a slower rotation that rewards planning ahead, as well as knowing how to use the flexibility of Schism to generate the right procs in the right situation to seamlessly switch between strong ST, strong AOE, and strong prio within a single build.

Square Hammer Rotation

The endgame Square Hammer rotation is the same as the core rotation with one key difference: Left Hand Path makes it so that using Hammer Storm is now a damage loss compared to Wild Swing. So long as you don't already have a Face Breaker proc, Wild Swing has higher priority than Hammer Storm, as it generates high-value Face Breaker procs in AOE that deal large amounts of cleave damage due to Left Hand Path.

If you accidentally mis-press Face Breaker and put it on cooldown, and then generate a proc with Wild Swing, you can then use Hammer Storm (in combination with Focused Wrath) to pass the time while waiting for Face Breaker to finish its cooldown. Furthermore, Wild Swing is also higher priority than Chain Lightning while fighting more than 4 targets. You don't have to worry about your Charged Up stacks from Square Hammer as your Blood & Thunder procs will automatically consume them for you during Thunder Call. In ST fights, nothing changes from the core rotation and you should still spend down Fury with Skull Crusher.

This playstyle deals endgame-competitive levels of both AOE and ST damage, but is very punishing as its AOE damage is reliant on not mis-pressing either Face Breaker or Heavy Strike and putting them on cooldown. These two abilities will contribute most of your AOE damage due to Left Hand Path and Blood & Thunder.

The reliance on Left Hand Path may push you into dangerous positions as you want to use Wild Swing against the front of enemies as much as possible to maximize Face Breaker procs. On the other hand, because you don't care about Fury in AOE, you have the freedom to hold onto Leap Smash as a mobility tool for minimal damage loss. This build has weaker on-demand prio burst damage than the Schism build, but requires much less planning ahead and proper sequencing of abilities.

The playstyle of the endgame Square Hammer build is recommended if you want a punishing fast-paced Guiter-Hero-esque rotation that requires less cognitive load than Schism and instead rewards pure reactivity and consistency.

Interface Options

One of the most basic but important things you can do in Fellowship is mark specific targets or locations. In the Input Settings you will notice you have the ability to keybind “Mark Unit” and “Mark location”. These can be exceptionally useful for designating targets to kill or important stack points on bosses. I use mouseover mark for my kick as its easier to just mouse over a mob and mark it. Also I recommend using the "quick cast" option under targeting mode so you can just press your Leap Smash button over your mouse cursor to instantly Leap Smash and not have to press the button and then click to Leap Smash. Have a good keybind for setting your interrupt target, triggering interrupt target, and your regular kick.

Buffs and Debuffs

Fellowship has now made it way easier to keep track of your buffs and your debuffs, having an option for "important hero buffs," "hero buffs," and "hero debuffs." Place these in spots that work best for you.

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