Rage



Rage is the Warrior's and Bear Form Druid's version of the caster's Mana bar or the Rogue's Energy bar, but works differently in several ways. Rage is required for the execution of their abilities, although standard attacks don't depend on it at all. By default the rage bar is empty, and builds only by being hit, by dealing damage, or by using certain abilties. When out of combat, Rage drains or depletes at a constant rate. The size of the rage pool and the degeneration rate are both constant - they do not increase or decrease with levels, and are not related to any statistics.

There are a few talents which make certain abilities cost less rage to use. And there are a few talents which affect your rage in other ways. Improved Charge (Arms) makes Charge generate 5 (10) extra rage (1 [2] points). Unbridled Wrath (Fury) gives a chance of an extra rage point per hit you deal based on your attack speed, and Anger Management (Arms) which generates 1 rage every 3 seconds.

The Warrior skill Stance Mastery allows the Warrior to retain 25 of his rage points when changing stances. Any additional rage is lost, unless the Warrior has allocated talent points to Tactical Mastery (Arms), which allows conservation of a further 25/50 Rage. Stance Mastery must be trained or else the Tactical Mastery talent has no effect. The combination of these allows a Warrior to retain a maximum of 75 Rage when switching stances.

Rage generation
Rage can be generated with several different methods. The primary cause of rage generation is by being attacked, which varies based on damage taken. Attacks that are blocked, parried, or absorbed (as with Power Word: Shield) also generate rage. The druid feral talent Natural Reaction allows druids in Bear Form to generate 1/3 rage each time they dodge.

Dealing damage to enemies by regular melee attacks generates rage based on damage dealt; however, special attacks against an enemy do not generate rage.

Talents and abilities
Warrior: Druid:
 * Charge
 * Shield Specialization (warrior) (Protection talent tree, tier 1) can generate 2 rage every time the warrior blocks.
 * Unbridled Wrath (Fury talent tree, tier 2) allows additional rage generation per hit. With 5 talent points invested, it yields a 40% chance to add an additional point of rage on normal attacks only (correction - this % is adjusted for weapon speed, and is no longer a flat %. I can't find solid data on the exact formula, but it seems likely the 40% is normalised around a 2.2s swing speed).
 * Bloodrage (Protection ability tree, level 10) generates 20 rage on use and another 1 rage per second for 10 seconds, to a total of 20 rage. It also removes a flat 7% of your health. The amount of rage generated on use can be increased by 3/6 with investment of 1/2 points in Improved Bloodrage (Protection talent tree, tier 1).
 * Anger Management (Arms talent tree, tier 3) generates 1 rage per 3 seconds. Before the patch 2.0 the tooltip claimed it reduced rage decay out of combat by 30%, but it was always generating rage in combat since day one (most likely due to a bug that was nontrivial to fix) and the tooltip was just clarified to reflect the real use of the talent.
 * Berserker Rage (Fury ability tree, level 32) increases the rage generated by being hit for a short duration (10 seconds). Can also generate 10 rage on use with investment in Improved Berserker Rage (Protection talent tree, tier 6).
 * Enrage (druid ability) generates 20 rage, and then generates an additional 10 rage over 10 seconds. Requires Bear Form.
 * Furor grants you a 33/66/100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear Form.
 * Primal Fury gives you a 50/100% chance to gain an additional 5 rage anytime you get a critical strike while in Bear Form.

Equipment that generates rage
Rage Potions, crafted by alchemists, can also generate rage:
 * The quest reward (Alliance) or  (Horde) can be used for 30 rage once per hour.
 * is a rare world drop leatherworking pattern that can be used for 30 rage once per hour.
 * is the warrior's Zul'Gurub Trinket and can be used for 20 rage every 3 minutes.
 * The from Ragnaros can generate 20 rage on a killing blow if the mob would give experience. This effect is limited to once every 10 seconds.
 * The Druid exclusive generates 5 rage whenever the Druid shifts into Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.
 * Rage Potion yields 20-40 rage.
 * Great Rage Potion yields 30-60 rage.
 * Mighty Rage Potion yields 45-75 rage and increases Strength by 60 for 20 sec.

Buffs that generate rage

 * The 2-piece bonus for the Druid Tier 3 set (Dreamwalker Raiment) causes the Druid's Rejuvenation spell to have a chance to generate 2 Rage every tick. Rejuvenation ticks 4 times per cast.
 * The druid Restoration talent Replenish allows Rejuvenation a chance to generate 4 rage (or 8 energy or 1% mana or 16 runic power) per tick.

Rage decay
While not in combat, rage is lost at an average rate of 1 rage per second (2 or 3 each 2.5sec tick). It's quite possible for a warrior to bank rage for extended periods of time. To maintain a constant rage value out of combat, 60 rage per minute, "RPM", must be met. These are the RPM values gained from keeping cooldowns spinning:
 * Anger Management = 20 RPM
 * Bloodrage = 30 RPM
 * Improved Bloodrage = 45 RPM
 * Improved Berserker Rage = 40-60 RPM depending on Intensify Rage
 * Gri'lek's Charm of Might = 6.66 RPM (occupies trinket slot)
 * As only one potion can be used per combat, they can't be translated into RPM
 * The class quest chest and LW belt (1 hour CDs) would be 0.5 RPM each, negligible over time
 * Attacking critters like snakes or rats can be excellent for banking
 * Merely using Improved Bloodrage while having Anger Management is enough to bank rage over time.

Formulae
For the purposes of the formulae presented, we define R to be the rage generated; d, the damage amount; c, the rage conversion value; s, the weapon speed; and f, the hit factor.

Rage is generated by successful autoattack swings ('white' damage) that damage an opponent. Special attacks ('yellow' damage) do not generate rage.

$$R = \frac{15\cdot d}{4 \cdot c} + \frac{f \cdot s}{2} \leq \frac{15 \cdot d}{c}$$

This essentially means that very low damage attacks have a limit on how much they can be averaged up by the f*s component of the equation. It also means that a crit roughly doubles both damage and f, and thus roughly doubles rage gained as expected.

Rage is also generated whenever you receive damage from an opponent (not environmental damage), with:

$$R=\frac{5}{2} \cdot \frac{d}{c}$$

Hit factor
The hit factor (f) is a multiplier based on the type of hit you perform on your target. The values are:

Historical note: Starting in 2.0.1 but prior to 2.0.10, these numbers were smaller. f for a main-hand normal hit prior to 2.0.10, for example, was 2.5.

Rage conversion value
The Rage Conversion Value (c) varies by player character level and is derived from other values within the game such as a mob's hit points and a warrior's expected damage value against that mob.

The formula for calculating (c) is (up to level 70):

$$c=0.0091107836 \cdot \mbox{Level}^2 + 3.225598133 \cdot \mbox{Level} + 4.2652911$$