Slam

Slam is a weapon-dependent ability that causes 145% weapon damage plus X, consumes 15 rage and generates no extra threat. As of Patch 3.0.2, Slam no longer resets weapon swing, but rather suspends it. The default cast time is 1.5 seconds, and it is not interrupted by damage, unlike most spells.

Slam also gets more benefit from slower weapons than Mortal Strike/Whirlwind/Overpower, due to it not being normalized. So while Mortal Strike does better damage with slower weapons due to higher damage range, Slam gets a higher bonus from weapon speed (that is not normalized for non-instant attacks). It was once the only warrior ability with a cast time, but Shattering Throw, added in 3.1.0, is now the second warrior ability with such a mechanic.

It is learned at level 44 for.

Talents

 * Improved Slam: reduces cast time by up to 0.5/1 seconds and increases its damage by 10/20%.
 * Bloodsurge: 10/20/30% chance to make the next Slam free, instant cast and deal 20% more damage for 10 seconds, after using Bloodthirst.

When to use Slam
As stated above, use this instead of Heroic Strike if using two-handed weapons. As a general rule of thumb: if your weapon speed is greater than 2, Slam is preferred over Heroic Strike. Here comes the math:

Ignoring Heroic Strike's damage buff against targets and considering the un-talent-buffed Slam (Rank 6), then the DPS by Slam is greater than the DPS from Heroic Strike when:


 * [(Avg. Weap. Dam.)+140]*1/1.5 > [(Avg. Weap. Dam.)+176]*1/(Weap. Speed)

Where (Avg. Weap. Dam.) is weapon dps multiplied by its speed. Rewriting this inequality as a function of average weapon damage vs. weapon speed gives:


 * (Avg. Weap. Dam.) > [264/(Weap. Speed) -140]/[1-1.5/(Weap. Speed)]

or, for any rank of Heroic Strike and Slam:


 * (Avg. Weap. Dam.) > [HS*1.5/(Weap. Speed) -S]/[1-1.5/(Weap. Speed)]

where "HS" is Heroic Strike's damage bonus, and "S" is Slam's damage bonus.

Bingo! now we have a criterion for deciding if our weapon warrants the use of Slam. All you have to do is plot the function above and see whether your current weapon has an (Avg. Weap. Dam.,Weap. Speed) combination that places it above the line formed in your graph. If it does...use Slam. If it lies below the line...use Heroic Strike. More simply, any weapon with a speed greater (i.e. slower) than 2 will warrant the use of Slam.

Other considerations
Note that Slam generates much less threat than Heroic Strike, which can be useful in Secondary Tanking.

Slam is affected by the Global Cooldown, which means that even if it is talented to a 0.5 second cast, you will still have 1 second left on the Global Cooldown before you can do anything else. This does not, however, make Improved Slam useless, as your auto-swing will begin 1 second sooner than if you did not have talent points spent in Improved Slam.

As an alternative to the slam/auto-swing rotation this skill can be used to deal a series of blows with just 1,5s cast time. This is only useful to quickly finish off weak enemies when you have lots of rage to spend, bringing their life down under 20% to execute, and can make a sense if you want to take full advantage of short-time buffs.