Weapons - What to use and When?

[Synza]

Currently I have a Sun Eater 'chanted with Mongoose and King's Def. 'chanted with executioner, I like to use the King's for trash tanking and heroics or bosses where I'm confident I wont take enough damage to put my healers under stress. And I like to use the Sun Eater on progression bosses and hard hitting mobs for that little bit more avoidance, I also swap out my brooch for the Maiden neck and my auto blocker for the pocket watch in these situations.

I'm quite happy with the way I'm doing it, but is there any way I could utalize these items more effectively? Mixing and matching to find a mid point in threat and avoidance maybe?

Thanks.

[Hollowskin]

TSE with Mongoose, Maiden Neck-- Tank killer bosses and situations where threat doesn't matter
KD with Executioner, Brooch-- Everything else

Trinkets are a bit more situational, autoblocker I really only use for burst threat on trash.

[Bodasafa]

Id use kings defender with mongoose until you get somthing better and vendor the sun eater. But thats just my opinon. I tanked everything up to hydross and lurker with KD and goose till the Mallet of the Tides dropped.

Far as necks I use Brooch for just about everything. Hard hitting bosses I use the SSO neck with Aldor Dodge proc for extra avoidance.

Trinkets
Standard- Shard & Commendation
Max Threat (Trash mostly)- Shard & Autoblocker
Avoidance (Hard Hitting Bosses)- Pocket Watch & Commendation
Max EH (New Progression Bosses & Magic Fights)- Darkmoon Card Vengence & Commendation

Other than trinkets I swap out My ZA shoulders(Trash) for T4(Bosses).

Everything else stays the same, unless im tanking Hydross.

[Morgo]

Don't vendor the Sun eater, it is simply the best avoidance weapon ingame AFAIk. I still use it for bosses where threat is not an issue in general, or not an issue anymore. I just swap it in towards the end of a fight, when I'm certain that dps won't catch up with me, but maybe some healers are already dead, so some extra avoidance might just save your butt.

[rustyboy]

[item]The Sun Eater[/item] Pure Avoidance (Mongoose)

[item]King's Defender[/item] Effective Health / Threat (Executioner)

[item]The Unbreakable Will[/item] Pure Effective Health (Mongoose)

[item]Mallet of the Tides[/item] -> [item]The Brutalizer[/item] Threat / Mitigation (Executioner)

I like to enchant the weapon for the specific purpose I intend on using it for. That being said mongoose is a very solid enchant for all tanking weapons because it brings both avoidance and threat.

[Kord]

I have a question regarding the OT. Right now I am using a slower heavier hitting weapon (Heartless) for threat generation. Is there a reason to use a faster weapon for threat?

I am thinking since I am OT, executioner would be a better choice and switch to my TSE with mongoose during tank switching on fights like Void Reaver? Or would it be better to just keep Heartless going? I find since i have to stay as close to the MT as possible in order to keep myself 2nd or 3rd on threat.

[Zyffyr]

I have a question regarding the OT. Right now I am using a slower heavier hitting weapon (Heartless) for threat generation. Is there a reason to use a faster weapon for threat?

Assuming you have sufficient rage, faster weapon = more frequent Heroic Strikes = more threat.

[thedrawrf]

I know a guy that swears by a 2.7 or so speed blacksmithing weapon, Dragonstrike - Item - World of Warcraft , and appearently his threat gen is ok. Still, faster the better, imo, thousands and thousands of tanks probably can't be wrong.

[Ukk]

@Zyffyr - You are right in general for a main tank, but for an offtank I believe he is not taking enough damage to generate enough rage for heroic strikes. So heroic strikes should not be factored into his choice.

@Kord - Definitely use executioner for an OT weapon, or any time you are concerned with threat generation over avoidance. A slower weapon should generate more threat as long as it has comparable dps and aggro stats to the faster alternative. [item]Heartless[/item] looks like a great choice in my opinion, although I have never used one.

[ebs2002]

Assuming you have sufficient rage, faster weapon = more frequent Heroic Strikes = more threat.

Only true in "unlimited rage" situations with the slower weapon. In all other cases, the benefit of a faster weapon is that you can dump faster after you've just taken a big spike, and mitigates the risk of losing rage due to taking more damage. In all situations, a faster weapon will give you smoother rage intake via your white damage (which may seem insignificant until you're just one rage point away from being able to shield slam).

[Kord]

I do get the idea behind unlimited rage and Heroic Strike being the best threat generation. I however, am the Off-Tank, and must stay up there with the MT in order to be second on the list of threat. So I have limited rage. Was trying to decide on the Executioner or Mongoose. I went with the Mongoose because it gives crit which generates rage which generates threat. I am going to try and get another equal weapon to (Heartless) and put Executioner on it. Does the increase in damage from Executioner cause enough rage generation due to more damage or does the reduction in armor not factor into a lot more damge? I am not rage capped so more rage is better at this point. I can always start heroic striking if need be.

[SuperFlounder]

This might be a bit unorthodox but personally I really love using this for threat, both bosses and trash. Some tanks I've talked to argue that the devestates suck and the attack power isn't very useful. They have a point. In all honesty, however, my personal experience that its such a good generator of rage that I can pull more shield slams and every manner of ability than I ever could with a slower weapon. The heroic strikes, ofcourse, are also great. I put executioner on mine. If this drops for your raid, don't let it pass you by. :P