Playstyle & Rotation Tariq Fellowship Hero Guide

Playstyle Overview

Tariq is a melee DPS built around Swing Timers and his main resource, Fury.

Fury is a spend-and-build resource generated by your core abilities and spent on big hitters like Hammer Storm and Skull Crusher. His swing timer is the thick bar with a moving line that shows when your next auto attack will land. When the line reaches the end of the bar, you auto attack and you can empower that swing with Heavy Strike. Near the end of the bar there’s a Heavy Strike window, if you press Heavy Strike in that zone it “locks in” the empowered attack, but pressing any other ability before the swing lands will cancel it, so tracking this timing is important.

You should only use Heavy Strike when you need to build Fury. If you’re already in a good spot on resources, you’re free to spend Fury aggressively on Hammer Storm / Skull Crusher unless you’re intentionally banking Fury for an upcoming Thunder Call or Ultimate window. This makes your gameplay less of a fixed rotation and more of a priority system:

• Build Fury with Heavy Strike and generators when you’re low.
• If you're not spending, absolutely maximize Wild Swing + Face Breaker, Left Hand Path adds quite a lot of dps to Tariq. Tip: If permitted and no mobs that cleave or backstab, stand in front of the mobs with the tank to get more Face Breaker procs
• Spend Fury on your big hitters whenever you’re not prepping for major cooldowns.
• Pool Fury briefly if Thunder Call or your ultimate is about to come off cooldown so you can front-load damage.

Ideally, you want to enter each pull with a Schism proc ready, allowing you to open with a juiced Hammer Storm or Skull Crusher inside your cooldowns early in the pull, setting the tempo for the rest of the pull.

Rotation (Priority)

This priority looks like this:

1. 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).
2. Fated Strike (Fateful Basher ability) - Press this off cd as much as possible, can hold for a few seconds if you have a cooldown coming up so you can maximize the CDR with your damage amps. Each Fated Strike usage gives +10 Spirit when using Visions of Grandeur, great for increasing the number of Ults you can get in.
3. Leap Smash - Try to line it up with your cooldown windows and use two during each window with Fateful Basher
4. Hammer Storm or Skull Crusher depending on AoE or single target (or when trying to fish Schism)
5. Chain Lightning - Has less of a priority when running Schism build, more of a priority when running Lightning Build
6. Heavy Strike + Face Breaker - Face Breaker is off GCD, I am pressing the button after every Heavy Strike and Wild Swing if it's up.
7. Wild Swing + Face Breaker - When not spending, maximize as many Wild Swing Face Breaker as possible as Left Hand Path does a LOT of damage.
8. Culling Strike (Putting Culling Strike at the bottom since it's only useable at 30% and really only great to press in single target, but you can throw some in in AOE on the priority mob if you wish)

You have a handful of ways to generate Fury, but only a select few finishers to use what you build. These finishers include Hammer Storm, Skull Crusher and Culling Strike. Hammer Storm can be considered your multi target spender, Skull Crusher single target, and Culling Strike is a single target execute type ability for when your target is below 30% health. Culling Strike is not worth using when multiple targets are present unless you’re wanting to focus down a priority mob.

One thing to be aware of is taking advantage of your off global cooldown abilities and using them as much as possible. (Left Hand Path, Face Breaker)

Outside of your rotational abilities, we have a handful of cooldowns and interactions worth noting. Thunder Call empowers your spenders to deal Lightning damage, Focused Wrath is a buff to 2 of our spenders, making them deal more damage and have a reduced fury cost. This should be used on cooldown.

Then we have Tariq’s ultimate: Raging Tempest. Raging Tempest doesn’t change the way we play but it further empowers our Thunder Call for its duration, dealing more damage and increasing expertise by 1% stacking up to 20 times. You also gain 30% haste for 20 seconds.

To talk about Leap Smash and the importance of it a bit more, you must hit the mobs with the damage in order for them to take the 20% increased damage from your legendary, so absolutely make sure to hit as many mobs with it as possible, and use Leap Smash as much as possible ensuring you have it in your cooldowns at least once per cooldown or twice when using fated strike.

Schism Rotation

The Schism priority looks like this:

1. Thunder Call
2. Leap Smash
3. Chain Lightning (if you need the Fury, do not use if you are capped)
4. Hammer Storm (with Schism proc - combine with Leap Smash if using legendary cloak)
5. Face Breaker
6. Heavy Strike when you need the Fury and it lines up well with your swing when already wild swinging and face breaking.
7. Wild Swing + Face Breaker
8. Skull Crusher to fish.

The main idea behind the Schism build is to fish for Hammer Storm Schism procs by using Skull Crusher as priority in AoE. It is important to also make use of every Face Breaker proc where possible to maximize Fury generation from it and damage from Left Hand Path. Do not over use Skull Crusher trying to fish, you will lose damage overall. A good tip for Schism build that's been working for me is in the first pull I just play it as usual, spending on Hammer Storm basically until you get a Skull Crusher Schism, and just not spending that Skull Crusher Schism for a while until you can somewhat know that pressing that empowered Skull Crusher will give you a Schism Hammer Storm. Do your best to go into every new pull with a Thunder Call and Schism ready to go, ESPECIALLY for your ult window this is very important.

Chain Lightning usage also becomes significantly less important with this build, but Heavy Strike becomes more significant, so I would recommend this build if you're comfortable with the swing timer.

Example Openers

Single-Target Opener

In single target, your standard opener (with all cooldowns available) looks like this:

Opener:

1. Heavy Strike
2. Fated Strike (from Fateful Basher)
3. Raging Tempest
4. Leap Smash
5. Chain Lightning or Skull Crusher (if you’re already full Fury)
6. Thunder Call after Raging Tempest ends

After that:

• Weave Leap Smash on cooldown with Chain Lightning and Skull Crusher.
• Use your second Fated Strike when the first CDR buff falls off.
  • You get this second use because your Ultimate resets your Weapon Ability thanks to Visions of Grandeur.
• Continue building and spending Fury, pressing Schism procs as they appear.

Focused Wrath usage:

• Use Focused Wrath toward the end of your Ultimate to maximize damage, since it gives you Expertise.
• You can use Focused Wrath early with a guaranteed Schism Hammer Storm if you want, but the ideal case is using Focused Wrath + Schism proc later in the Ultimate for bigger value.

Schism Hammer Storm on bosses:

• Schism Hammer Storm is still worth pressing on bosses, especially if:
  • The boss has adds that need to die quickly, or
  • You need extra cleave without wasting damage.

AoE Opener

In AoE, the opener is very similar, you just swap Skull Crusher for Hammer Storm:

Opener:

1. Heavy Strike
2. Fated Strike (from Fateful Basher)
3. Raging Tempest
4. Leap Smash
5. Chain Lightning or Hammer Storm (if you’re already full Fury)
6. Thunder Call after Raging Tempest

Then:

• Weave Leap Smash on cooldown with Chain Lightning and Hammer Storm.
• Build and spend Fury normally, and use Schism Hammer Storm when you successfully fish a proc with Skull Crusher on priority targets.

Schism Behavior & Tips

From testing, Schism often doesn’t proc in the first ~35–50 seconds of a Dungeon, sometimes you’ll see one proc at the end of your first Thunder Call, but it’s mostly RNG.

After the first pull, it tends to line up closer to its 3.2 PPM expectation. You’ll need to “feel out” when to fish with Skull Crusher. There’s no fixed rule, but a great habit is to try to fish a Schism Hammer Storm at the end of every pull when only 1–2 mobs are left. That way, you go into the next pull with a strong Schism Hammer Storm ready.

Starting with Heavy Strike

You open every pull with Heavy Strike because your weapon is always ready to swing as you run into a new pack. Getting that first Heavy Strike out sets your swing timer and Fury generation up cleanly before you start dumping cooldowns.

Openers Without Ultimate

When your Ultimate isn’t available, the structure is almost identical:

1. Heavy Strike
2. Thunder Call
3. Leap Smash
4. Spenders
5. Chain Lightning if you need rage

Use Fated Strike after Leap Smash, then go straight into Hammer Storm and your normal rotation, Leap Smashing off cd.

The main difference is that you won’t get the extra Fated Strike usage from the Ult reset, so you just treat Fated Strike as a normal CDR + damage button and keep your usual build, spend, fish Schism flow.