Loading ...The World of Weapons
Entering Icecrown, we’ve got a number of interesting weapons to choose from and if you’ve kept up with the content, I think you’ll be hard pressed to not have something usable. The larger question though isn’t what is usable, but instead what’s desirable. What didn’t drop for me that should have. Is anything worth still running pre-Icecrown instances for? You bet. Let’s begin.
Heroics
Red Sword of Courage
Upon launch this was the must have weapon that you ran Utgarde Pinnacle for over and over again for and if you’ve just hit 80, it’s still a great first item to pursue.
Axe of the Sen’jin Protector / Teldrassil Protector
Acquired via Champion’s Seals from running Heroic ToC5, this pair of axes offers more of a “sure thing” if you’re unlucky acquiring the superior sword above. It should be noted though for those of you that rollled Orcs that this is the better choice due to it activating your Expertise racial.
Lucky Old Sun
Regular Forge of Soul’s recent addition to the Heroic tanking weapon selection. Nice and fast with excellent itemization. It will serve you well for the short time you’ll use it before acquiring any of the upcoming heroic items.
Peacekeeper Blade
It’s kind of a cardinal rule that if something has an extra socket on the rest of the field, it’s going to be awesome. This blade doesn’t disappoint making it easily the best starter tanking weapon you can acquire out of the easier heroics. [Heroic ToC5]
Falric’s Wrist-Chopper
A welcomed addition to the tanking weapon selection if you’re an Orc. (even better than the blade above for us green folk) It’s not really worth pursuing otherwise. (which should come as a relief to those of you not wanting to brave Heroic Halls of Reflection any time soon)
Rimefang’s Claw
The last weapon you’ll ever need from Heroics. Hopefully you won’t have to farm Heroic Pit of Saron too long for it. So well itemized that it trumps many of the weapons that come from raids. (as you’ll see me indicate later with references to “The Claw”)
Naxx
Slayer of the Lifeless
Similar to the Red Sword of Courage and ultimately, better due to it’s slightly faster attack speed. Your time is far better spent though farming “The Claw”. [Gothik10]
Broken Promise
For it’s time it was a horrible threat weapon, (all slow weapons are) but a beautiful survival-based one. The addition of “The Claw” renders this one obsolete. [4Horsemen25]
Last Laugh
At one point, this was the golden standard of tanking awesomeness when you wanted to show off the cool loot you’d acquired around the tanking watercooler. These days, it’s worse than “The Claw” and isn’t even the best Orc weapon left with Falcric’s taking it’s place. [Kel’Thuzad25]
Ulduar
Stoneguard
Exactly what a tank doesn’t need when acquiring early loot… a weapon without defense. Garbage. Peacekeeper’s Blade, Falric’s, “The Claw”, you named it… all render this “never was” even more obsolete than previously. [Kologarn10]
Legacy of Thunder
Really similar to Lucky Old Sun, just way harder to acquire. The days of tanks using this giant lollipop have long past. [Thorim10]
Titanguard
Another relic of the past content patches that we were really, really excited about seeing that we really, really don’t care too much about anymore. The big 3 from Heroics all are better or close enough to this one to make you better off just skipping pursuing it.
Shiver
These days Shiver is the first raid worth weapon to trouble yourself with acquiring over the current Heroic crop. You’ll need to down Hodir10 on Hard mode to do it which isn’t always the easiest feat, but is certainly significantly less challenging than it once was thanks to the accessibility of superior gear.
Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers
Easily trumps everything before it on the list. Now you’ve just got to convince your guild to kill XT25 on Hard mode over and over again until it drops. (or you could just work on acquiring the following…)
Onyxia
Barely worth mentioning, the Quels are horribly itemized and you’re better off picking up one of the Big 3 Heroic weapons instead of either of them.
ToC
Ardent Guard / Crusader’s Glory
It’s no secret that I love bonus Armor so it should come as no surprise that I love these items. A nudge worse than Sorthalis, but certainly far superior to everything else before them on the list. [Anub10]
Blood and Glory / Honor of the Fallen
The first step beyond Sorthalis, B&G / HotF will require you to down Anub10 on Hard mode with 25 attempts left on your chest. I suppose one could be excited about getting one of these, but you’d be better off instead having one these drop…
Ardent Guard [H] / Crusader’s Glory [H]
The weapon you want to walk into and ultimately finish regular 10 and/or 25 man Icecrown with. They’re simply that good. Have fun farming Anub10 Hard mode for them over and over again on your ICC off days!
Orgrim’s Deflector / Silverwing Defender
Downing Anub25 on Hard mode is an impressive accomplishment. I wouldn’t say these rewards reflect the tremendous effort required though. Similar, perhaps better, perhaps worse than Ardent Guard [H] so if you’ve already got the 10 man blade, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over not getting your hands on one of these.
Enchanting them…
The inevitable question that never goes away that I should have weighed in on long ago. It’s always been about Blood Draining or Mongoose. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I look through the research on the numbers, those are the winners. Mongoose is the best overall enchant. Blood Draining is the best effective health enchant. What you use is really up to you. I prefer the latter, but certainly won’t dismiss the former and may very well be caught using Mongoose if my gut leans that way again.
What about ICC!?
Ya, I probably shouldn’t make you wait on those picks…
Putricide10’s Facelifter gets a slight edge over Marrowgar10’s Bonebreaker Scepter. These 10 man weapons will be a welcomed upgrade to anyone not using something from Heroic ToC10/25. Their Heroic versions are about the same as the Heroic ToC10/25 loot so I wouldn’t get too excited about them from a survival standpoint. The upgraded versions do represent a significant dps/threat increase though which is always nice.
Finally, Putricide25’s Last Word should be renamed Last Place since that’s about where it sits even relative to the weaker Heroic loot.
Wrap Up
The 2 most important pieces of loot I’ve talked about here are “The Claw” and Ardent Guard [H] / Crusader’s Glory [H]. The former is the best tanking weapon you’ll acquire from Heroics and is significantly better than most raid loot. The latter represents the best, accessible tanking weapon you can wield when walking into Icecrown. I hope you guys have better luck looking for them than I have!
January 14th, 2010 at 1:43 am
i got ardent guard and the claw … always thinking about which one is better. so far im using the ardent guard because of the sexy bonus armor, but i think with the new items slowly making their way into my equipment through daily/weekly dungeons the claw will eventually be better soon. amirite?
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 1:51 am:
I don’t think it’s possible to get too much Bonus Armor. I’d definitely use Ardent Gaurd over The Claw until you can pick up something like Bonebreaker Scepter to beat them both.
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Steele reply on January 14, 2010 4:04 am:
I was thinking something like the more armor i get from all those new pieces, the less valuable the armor on the ardent guard or even the enchant for the back becomes maybe worse then defense rating (borean doesnt work for the back afair)… isnt this true?
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 9:07 am:
Nope. While Armor is affected by diminishing returns, it actually scales linearly in regards to Effective Health (and time to live as well if I recall, but I’m a little hazy on that one) so every point is just as good as the previous point.
This is the overall concept with diminishing returns. It’s why Avoidance has diminishing returns on it as well. It’s not to make the stats worse over time, but instead to prevent the stats from becoming exponentially stronger the more you have of them.
Steele reply on January 14, 2010 9:38 am:
Thanks for clearing that up, gonna put my claw right into the bank then
January 14th, 2010 at 3:15 am
How do you feel about using dps weapons to tank, if you’re overcapped on defence? I know rawr seems keen on the idea for me. (I’ve been unlucky on weapon drops since flame leviathan, which is probably what makes it more attractive.)
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Namthe reply on January 14, 2010 4:07 am:
I’ve started using Bone Warden’s Splitter from marrowgar 10 as my usual tanking weapon. It. Helps a good deal worn threat - I haven’t seen a tank weapon drop since Shiver.
Shiver I keep for high-damage fights like festergut, but if there’s no / little danger of dying I don’t see a good reason not to go with a fast weapon with dps stats on it.
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Namthe reply on January 14, 2010 4:09 am:
“A great deal ON threat”
Damn fiddly phone keyboards.
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Spinks reply on January 14, 2010 5:45 am:
Funny you mention that one! It’s because I picked up one of the bone warden’s splitters last week that I was toying with sticking a bladeward enchant on it and using that.
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Linedan reply on January 14, 2010 8:07 am:
I’m wondering the same thing. I’m still using a Titanguard, but with 570+ defense, have given some thought to looking at DPS weapons as well. The problem is finding a DPS weapon that isn’t horrendously slow. Is Heartpierce too crazy to even think about?
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 9:31 am:
With Daggers using a different AP coefficient (I believe it’s 1.7 instead of 2.4), it’s not worth using a dagger to tank unless it’s a massive upgrade. (like I’m talking if you were using a blue weapon) So unfortunately, I’d say you’re stuck with the Titanguard for a bit longer.
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 9:13 am:
It certainly depends on the fight. I don’t think it’s worth giving up survivability for anything that hits hard, but absolutely I use a dps weapon for heroics. (Blood Fury)
If an encounter doesn’t seem to challenge you survival-wise then absolutely it’s worth using a higher dps, fast weapon to tank. Even Festergut who you probably don’t want to use a dps weapon for all the time, you can swap one on during the portion when you’re not tanking in order to maximize your dps. This is also one of those rare times when a slower weapon is going to be superior since you won’t get 90%+ Heroic Strike up time.
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January 14th, 2010 at 3:49 am
Counting only your own racials, Vene? Shame, shame I say!
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 9:16 am:
Hehe, ya I thought about that after the fact, but then I’d been writing/editing for so many hours that I figured I better post the thing or else I’d end up throwing the thing back in my drafts section for the 4th time.
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January 14th, 2010 at 4:50 am
I have a question that is somewhat related to weapons. Since I play a dwarf, I get 5 expertise when using maces. That’s about about 41 expertise rating if I’m not mistaken.
Now I’m not exp capped (struggling to get good gear with expertise on it). Would it be worth to use say Lucky Old Sun instead of The Claw?
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 9:19 am:
The Claw is still probably a bit better if you’ve got both as an option.
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January 14th, 2010 at 6:30 am
I disagree with Broken Promise being “a horrible threat weapon”. With hit, expertise and the highest damage range among tanking weapons, Devastate hits hard. I still use it in my threat set. Care to elaborate your point a bit more Vene?
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 9:20 am:
Slow weapons are always inferior damage/threat wise to fast weapons for a Warrior because so much of our damage/threat component comes from Heroic Strike. If you’re finding that you’re doing more damage/threat with Broken Promise then you’re not Heroic Striking enough.
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Lindentree reply on January 17, 2010 12:11 pm:
That said, it [i]could[/i] be a better threat weapon on heroics or on any content where rage generation is a problem.
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January 14th, 2010 at 6:59 am
My Dwarf gets an extra 5 Expertise using Bonebreaker Scepter, making it a pretty filthy weapon. Love it.
I actually disagree that Stoneguard was horrible…it worked out well for me before I actually got my hands on any trinkets better than the Pantheon.
My tanking weapon progression went Slayer of the Lifeless, Stoneguard, Peacekeeper’s Blade, Quel’Serrar10 (I don’t think it’s as horrible as you do, especially having that horribly ugly vibrator for so long), Argent Guard, and finally Bonebreaker Scepter.
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 9:21 am:
Ya, that’s a good point. If one was a purely 10 man raider, Stoneguard was a nice step up from Slayer of the Lifeless until Peacekeeper Blade came out. Good point.
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January 14th, 2010 at 7:00 am
The usefulness of the Quel is hotly debated. With the up-time on the buff (especially the 245 version) is pretty good, I’ve seen anywhere from 30-60%. Armor is hawt.
I’d replace it with a heroic ardent guard, but no luck there yet.
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Rudiculous reply on January 14, 2010 7:10 am:
Well, the proc isn’t that bad, especially on an avoidance set I could see how this proc could be nice. However, the blade has no strength on it, and the amount of stamina on it is kinda on the low side in my opinion. Like Veneretio said, it has the worst itemization ever.
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Drae reply on January 15, 2010 8:24 am:
Agreed the static itemization on it sucks.
However when the proc is active this sword has more EH and avoidance then any other in the game. I don’t rely on it, but when it procs…
That and I love stacking armor. Just for fun I equipped all my bonus armor pieces for Gormok the other day; with the quel and the Black heart proc’d I’m at like 73% reduction from armor. lulz.
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January 14th, 2010 at 8:19 am
WTB Facelifter.
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January 14th, 2010 at 8:28 am
I am getting near 100% uptime during active combat using Last Word. I’d like elaboration as to why you think it’s “Last Place.”
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 9:26 am:
Because even with literally 100% uptime, the stats/benefits it provides are poor. From a survival standpoint, you’re better off with Peacekeeper’s Blade. Sure, it’s probably better than a good chunk of weapons on the list threat/dps wise, but then if I was worried about that, I’d have listed a lot of dps weapons as well. (which thanks to agility, offer more survival benefits than that weapon too in a lot of cases!)
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January 14th, 2010 at 8:30 am
Been stuck with titanguard too long, use it with bladewarding for non progress fights then if there is a chance I will be low I generally use ardent guard with blood draining, running insanity TotGC10 most weeks though to get one of the nicer weapons, perhaps I will be more fortunate in icc sometime soon and stick mongoose on it for sure.
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January 14th, 2010 at 8:43 am
It’ll be interesting to see what the ICC armour experiment means for loot in Cataclysm. I’m certainly in no rush to replace my Ardent Guard, even with the 10 heroic bonebreaker or facelifter.
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 9:28 am:
Ya, I hear ya. I’m still annoyed though that I never got the Heroic version of Ardent Guard to drop. I may have to convince the gang to go kill him again this week
As it stands with the regular Ardent Guard, I’m conflicted and since survival isn’t a huge issue due to 25 man gear doing a 10 man… I’m leaning towards using Bonebreaker Scepter instead for a lot of the content. (at least after the first few attempts on a boss when I know that survival isn’t an issue)
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Furiat/Vege reply on January 14, 2010 10:01 am:
Long time ago, our first ToGC10 clear, with Tribute to Skill included.
Anub: Crusader’s Glory
Chest: Honor of the Fallen.
Haven’t seen the weapon on normal before that, and second tank was furry one. Lucky me.
As for my weapon progression, well, it was silly:
Blue quest weapon (from Razormane’s Flipper, mace probably)
fast dps weapon #1 from Naxx10
fast dps weapon #2 from U10
Broken Promise
fast dps weapon #3 from U10
Shiver
Both ToGC10 weapons
Seems like some early drops don’t like me.
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Stormscythe reply on January 14, 2010 2:55 pm:
I’m facing the same dilemma. I’ve got regular Ardent Guard and regular Bonebreaker, and no racials that make any difference to either. I’m running ICC-10 only, not venturing into the 25 version.
I’ve got a good bunch of 245, 251 and 264 kit, but the rest of the raid (healers included) aren’t so geared. So I’m very tempted by the Guard for survival, and because armor makes me happy. But passing up a 251 weapon in favour of a 232 blade somehow grates…
Halp!
(Oh, I’m on Turalyon-EU btw.)
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January 14th, 2010 at 9:02 am
Currently switching between Crusaders Glory (h) with Blood Draining and Facelifter with Accuracy according to the content.
Note that Arthas probably drops tank weapons. Possibly one that is the bane of troggs…
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Veneretio reply on January 14, 2010 10:01 am:
Yup, but unfortunately looks to be 2.00 speed.
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January 14th, 2010 at 9:47 am
I personally don’t rate the claw all that highly, mainly because I find the stats it has, while very good, don’t really fit the sets I regularly use.
I have the claw, titanguard, peace keeper, and wrist chopper.
Titanguard is my standard balanced weapon, I sacrifice some avoidance and HP for more Hit.
Peacekeeper is my “this boss can kill me” weapon, it has a straight stam gem in it, and is my highest hp weapon, albeit again, with lower avoidance.
The Wrist Chopper I use when I need more block.
And finally the claw I use when I am going avoidance… the problem is, I very rarely actually do that, and since it has a slower attack speed and no threat stats, I don’t really see it being better enough for survival to justify replacing Titanguard as my everyday weapon.
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January 14th, 2010 at 10:57 am
Another great article.
On the subject of enchants why is everyone telling me to go with Bladeward? I see you don’t include it in your list.
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Seph reply on January 14, 2010 11:59 am:
Bladeward is garbage. The proc is meh and for me I know it hardly ever procced. I still use good ol Mongoose. Crit, Avoidance, armor…. leading to more threat cause of ATT. Gotta love it. And it looks the best…. Lightning on a mace, tyvm
Blood Draining is ok but only activates below 35% (iirc) health so you may never have it proc in a boss fight if your halers are keeping you topped off. The heal can be decent if it crits though.
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Mjarn reply on January 28, 2010 1:28 am:
If you never went below 35% in a bossfight, then either you or your healers outgear the content, rending any enchant (from a survival standpoint) useless
Blood Draining is brilliant because it works when you need it. It kicks in when the next attack might kill you, and gives an on-demand heal.
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January 14th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Question on armor:
I have always been under the impression that armor only benefits us to 65% due to another 10% damage reduction from D. Stance, and any damage reduction caps out at 75%?
Am I completely off base here?
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January 14th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
I will disagree with you on Titanguard… it is really, really, really easy to farm (you can easily 6 man flame levi on 25 man if people know what they’re doing) and if you bring an engineer he’ll love you forever.
Plus, if you’re gearing up, the Leviathon’s Coil and Mimirons Couplings also drop there!
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Zellviren reply on January 15, 2010 3:58 am:
There’s another reason to go to Ulduar.
It’s awesome.
Forget the loot and get stuck into one of the most well designed and beautiful raids Blizzard ever designed.
As for weapons… I still use The Sun Eater unless I’m progressing.
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January 14th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
i’m using the anub10 normal weapon with blood draining, but i’d really, really like to get my hands on the heroic version. he’s just not cooperating.
after that, i could care less about any of the icc weapons, with the possible exception of professor p’s heroic one.
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January 14th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Wouldn’t the wrist chopper be a better choice for tanking ICC 5 man’s over the claw due to the claws pointless dodge value while in ICC?
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marklar reply on January 14, 2010 5:13 pm:
pointless…?
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Vilereaver reply on January 16, 2010 8:03 am:
Maybe you haven’t been looking at your buffs in heroics lately.
Next time you step into an ICC 5 man heroic, take a closer look at your buff bar. You will notice there is no Chill of the Throne debuff in 5 mans…
Chill of the Throne is only for the raids!
That aside,
1) Dodge is still good inside ICC 10 and 25 man raids, as long as you have more than 20% of it. The debuff takes 20% away, so if you have more than 20%, you keep some.
Most tanks have more than 20% dodge when raid-buffed, so its good to have 20% before buffs.
2) There is more avoidance on THE CLAW than the Wrist-Chopper.
Wrist Chopper has 21 parry (.43%)
Rimefang’s Claw has 21 parry (.43%) and 31 dodge (.73).
.73+.41=2.22.
Claw>Wrist Chopper for avoidance. (Block is not avoidance, and they have the same defense, so defense doesn’t help us choose one over the other).
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Vilereaver reply on January 16, 2010 8:06 am:
Typo:
31 dodge is (.79%)
.79+.43=2.22
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January 14th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
how are any of u warriors having problem with threat?
the debate on any of these weapons if u have them squarely fall in the…just wait till it drops category….i have had no problem with titangaurd and i have had it since the first week uluar came out…..none of my gear has hit on it, its all avoicence so i chose u throw on dps hit trinket and i never miss and my threat is abundant….i am dwarve so i have my stoneform cs etc…..im good to go….now if only the dps and healers can shine through maybe my guild could down rotface n putricede….wither way worrying about what weapon you use is just alot of grief….all i can say is BUY THE BELT WITH BADGES THE ARMOR IS AWESOME….then work on tier gear…once u have the badge tier gear everything else will follow woooot happy tanking compadres!
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January 14th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Last I read (per Tankspot/EJ), you’re wrong about the enchants. Mongoose is better… FOR PALADINS. Blade Ward is better… FOR WARRIORS.
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Zellviren reply on January 15, 2010 4:02 am:
I read those conclusions recently, too; but if I’m being honest, I don’t care.
Blade Ward, in my testing, is crap. Low proc rate for a single parry just doesn’t cut the mustard for me. Mongoose has far higher uptime and gives me far more throughout the fight. But here’s the killer:
I think Blood Draining is crap, too. It’s a viable warrior enchant for Gormok the Impaler (heroic) and that’s it. In pretty much every other encounter, it’s doing absolutely nothing for you.
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Dreador reply on January 15, 2010 7:08 am:
Agree on the Bladeward front. The uptime and proc alone is not enough avoidance, and the effect goes away as soon as you parry. Waste of money. Get mongoose.
Blood Draining, however has more uses than just Gormok, and stating such is ignorant. BD gives you additional EHP when you need it, when your healer is bonespiked or healing a moron dps who stood in the fire, that tiny little heal could mean life and death.
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Zellviren reply on January 18, 2010 4:42 am:
Aye, too strong a generalization on my point; I stand corrected. Equally, though, I’m just not finding that Blood Draining is proccing often enough to justify choosing it over Mongoose. The old “avoidance/mitigation makes the worst case scenario less likely, while EH makes the worst case scenario surviveable” argument applies here.
There are, however, very few fights where I’m under the constant kind of pressure that would see Blood Draining increase in uptime. I used Gormok as the default example, but I’m guessing Algalon may be another one. There are no others that spring to mind where Blood Draining would be preferable to Mongoose.
Seph reply on January 18, 2010 8:39 am:
Agree, BLadeward= crap Mopngoose = the sex
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January 14th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Another great read!
I started reading this and it read like a checklist of my bank….
Red Sword (just had to roll greed so I could put one in my bank!), Falric’s (x2), Claw, & Peacekeeper.
Of course then I have a massive gap until Ardent Guard (N). I find it very hard to put down. I almost rolled on a second one once… just so I could walk around with two…
So is Bladeward really that bad? Or is it more that it’s just not that good?
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January 14th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Gah! I was even going to message you to suggest a weapons post this week. It’s like you’re in my head.
I just recently got my Crusader’s Glory [H]. Took awhile for it to finally drop. And it did alongside the tank cape on our first A Tribute to Insanity (10 player) cheeve. We’d had weeks of lag, dc, etc. capping us at 49 attempts. It was a welcome sight all around.
The cape means I plan to jump the emblem of frost chest up ahead in my selection queue and get the frost cape later.
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January 14th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Great post.
Could you do a Shields one next?
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Dreador reply on January 15, 2010 7:05 am:
I hate Wall of Terror. Loved it when it got buffed, but now I’ve been unlucky for over a year on shield drops…Thanks blizz.
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Cleaved reply on January 15, 2010 8:26 am:
We have yet to ever see the shield drop off Heroic NRB. It has literally never dropped since we first did Heroic NRB when it was available. In contrast, all the other shields drop constantly and we’ve only seen 2 sets of Heroic Tanking Boots total as well as only 2 Heroic Jugger’s Vitality. Very bad luck for us on certain things…. but we are absolutely swimming in Twin’s Pact and Bastion of Resolve. Just odd how some things always drop or never drop, when the RNG bites you in the ass.
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Kavtor reply on January 15, 2010 11:46 am:
Only 2 heroic Juggs’? You poor thing. =P
We’ve only seen two normal, and no heroic! And no tasty armour necks from twins! Fortunately, Fester likes us.
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Zellviren reply on January 18, 2010 4:44 am:
Bodasafa,
I drafted a shield blog when 3.3 hit, and you just convinced me to post it. You can find it at:
http://deadgoodtanking.blogspot.com/2010/01/getting-your-shield-up-to-date-for.html
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January 15th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Can we expect another tanking axe from ICC10 sometime? I am an Orc warrior, and am playing semi-casual due to a very busy work schedule. Thus I am limited to 10man, normal mode raids only.
As things stand at the moment, I have the choice between Falric’s (which I already have) and Bonebreaker (which I could get) and Facelifter (though my guild is only starting on the second quarter this weekend)… which is a choice I don’t like, no matter which direction it goes in. Except for the greater DPS, it just seems like a sidegrade to me, considering what I’d have to do to stay expertise capped. As said before, other raid content is not accessible to me.
What do you recommend - drop my racial bonus for either of these, or wait for something to come in future ICC quarters?
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Veneretio reply on January 15, 2010 9:26 am:
Currently, I use Ardent Guard since I never was fortunate enough to get the Heroic version of it to drop or I use Bonebreaker Scepter both of which are a nice step up from Falric’s even when considering the racial. (I’m an Orc too)
As to the axe, there is talk of Lich King10 dropping a tanking axe, but it’s also reported that it’ll be 2.00 speed. So it’ll probably not be worth it threat wise, but may be survival wise. Only time will tell though if it actually exists and what the real stats are.
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January 15th, 2010 at 4:09 am
I’d take Blood And Glory to the Ardent Guard or Facelifter…
Ardent has low on equip bonuses, the only thumbs up for Ardent is the Armor bonus.
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Furiat/Vege reply on January 15, 2010 9:16 am:
Well, that’s exacly the best thing about Ardent/Crusader. Good overall weapon with awesome armor.
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January 15th, 2010 at 11:44 am
Great Article Vene, I was fortuante enough to have Anub drop his Argent Guard early in our ToC10 days and got Marrowgar’s scepter on our first trip to ICC. So I consider myself very lucky in the weapon department.
Where I have been very unlucky however is with Shields. Until just this week, I’ve been stuck with the Titansteel Shield Wall. A nice shield when you first start tanking and need the defense but sadly falling behind all of my other gear. This week I got a minor upgrade off Malygos (Barricade of Eternity) but it’s still a far cry from what I’d like. Would you consider doing another one of these articles on shields? My personal strategy is to keep grinding TotC and ICC for the shields that drop off Anub and Gunship respectively, but I’d be really curious to see what strategy you recommend.
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Zellviren reply on January 18, 2010 4:47 am:
I linked my blog on shields above, if you want to take a look at it. However, it can essentially be boiled down into:
Farm the Halls of Reflection on normal until you get the Splintered Door of the Citadel. If you get a group of chums together, you can spend an hour or so, at the most, getting your hands on it.
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January 15th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Awesome article, even though I’m a Pally tank, the comparison was similar.
I recognized each one of those weapons, and have lusted after them or used them each in turn.
However, as regards the new ICC loot
Here is the tanking axe in ICC10 some people were asking for:
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/51947/troggbane-axe-of-the-frostborne-king/
Looks like a perfectly itemized high level axe to me.
Also, be sure to read the comments on http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50179#comments
for Last word before you offhandedly dismiss it.
This seems very thoughtless of you, many people are Dismissing the weapons with procs in ICC, and then they’re turning out to be BiS or close for many classes.
“Interestingly, the proc seems to refresh every 2-3 seconds with a 10 second duration on your personal melee swings. ”
I don’t know how much you value avoidance and such, but 104 stam + 100 str + 300 healing would be a very very nice weapon for me.
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Veneretio reply on January 15, 2010 5:27 pm:
Even with 100% proc uptime, Last Word just doesn’t do it for me. 100 Strength offers us very little and 300 extra healing offers us less. Extra healing is kinda like really bad Block Value since it kicks in after you’ve already been hit. So the way I see it… if I wouldn’t be excited about 300 Block Value, why would I care about 300 extra healing?
Ultimately, the issue isn’t that it’s a proc so it’s bad. The issue is that what the proc has to offer is bad regardless of uptime. Also, keep in mind, we’re not DPSers. Whereas they deal in averages, we deal in moments. Why I push things like Armor and Stamina is because they are what save you in those worst case scenarios. Procs being inconsistent means that by their very nature, they’re useless in the worst case scenario.
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Zellviren reply on January 18, 2010 4:55 am:
I’m with Veneretio on this; I wondered about how compelling the proc would be on the Last Word, but even with 100% uptime the weapon is inferior to everything in iLevel range of it. The strength is higher than default, but not great, and the extra healing is close to being insignificant as it does nothing to alter the result of a swing.
As for the axe from Arthas, I think the defensive stats on it are certainly shiny and would be well worthwhile if they stuck. It’s rubbish for warriors regarding threat, though, as we can’t fit in as many Heroic Strikes with a slow weapon; the opposite of a paladin who gets more from his Hammer of the Righteous from a slow swing.
Therefore, it’s slightly better for a paladin all round but certainly not something any warrior would turn their nose up at.
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Markior reply on February 11, 2010 3:36 am:
What do you think about switching weapons during figths ?
If proc refresh every 3 seconds with a 10 seconds duration, maybe it’s viable to do like this :
- starts figth with last word and get the proc
- switch with another weapon which have more survival stats
- when the proc is over, use last word…
This is just an idea.. With concussion blow nerf and devastate up, maybe we have time to do this ?
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January 15th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
After taking a look the weapons on here I have to say that I hadn’t even thought about picking up the Claw. I haven’t seen the Scepter drop in 10 man, YET… which I’ll definitely pick up when it does so I hadn’t worried so much about it. The Scepter will definitely be my avoidance/stats wep.
I have to saw though, the 245 Quel’s proc is pretty good. I personally feel like the proc is right up there with Mongoose, if not better. With a Quel/Mongoose/Black Heart proc I’ve seen my armor spike to 42-43K+ (mitigating more than 73%). That’s always awesome. Additionally with the speed buff the Quel can get after it. Now compared with the Claw, the stats on the Claw are very comparable. Essentially you’re trading the armor proc for consistent stats.
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January 15th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Hi there. I’ve got a Warrior tank who has been using the Peacekeeper’s Blade for a while now, and just recently had the Claw drop. My thought was: “Cool! An upgrade!” but on review, it seemed as though I should stick with the old weapon. Given that the socket bonus on the PKB is the easiest thing I’ve ever had to ignore when socketing it with +30 stamina, it works out that the PKB boasts 22 sta, 21 exp, and 2 parry over the Claw, while the claw 21 str, 27 def and 2 dodge. Pretty roughly equivalent.
What kicks the PKB into first for me is the swing speed - 1.5 vs. the Claw’s 1.7. While the Claw has better dps, the ability to spam Heroic Strikes 13% quicker is not to be underestimated.
I’m thinking I will be using the Claw for Heroics where I use glyphed Cleave more than HS, multiplying the dps difference between them, but for a Raid I need more convincing before I give up my PKB with its 22 stamina and 1.5 swing speed.
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January 15th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
My weapon progression has been Red Sword>Slayer of Lifeless>Peacekeeper Blade>The Claw.
Now I would just like a new shield to upgrade my Barricade of Eternity.
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January 16th, 2010 at 8:19 am
“Broken Promise - For it’s time it was a horrible threat weapon, (all slow weapons are)”
I read this and it made me think of something I read a while ago. I think it was arguing that tanks that spec’d into Deep Wounds actually got increased threat from slower weapons (I guess as a result of the bigger dots ticking) ? If that’s true then weapons like Broken Promise and “the Quels” aren’t perhaps that bad on threat generation ?
It’s something I read quite a long time ago, so maybe I’ve got my wires crossed - would appreciate any comments if anyone could clear that up.
Anyway, another interesting article Vene. I always come back here to read sensible things when I get tired of explaining why “But how much armor do they have ?” is a valid response when someone says “omfglolz that tank has 44k health” !
P.S.
a +1 from me on the request for a shield round-up. We’re rolling into 25m-Fester and 10m-Putricide and I’m still waving my trusty Northern Barrier around - guess I’ve been a little unlucky on drops from To(G)C, so it would be good to know where to look for some nice upgrades.
Cheers,
Corto (EU-Frostwhisper)
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Veneretio reply on January 16, 2010 9:57 am:
Slow weapons still aren’t worth it even when speced into Deep Wounds. They aren’t worth it even after Devastate got buffed either. Heroic Strike spam is just too vital to our damage/threat.
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Arold reply on January 16, 2010 11:46 am:
I learned this the hard way recently. I picked up Nighttime (rog/shammy axe, http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50191, no one else wanted it). I was thinking that it would be a good threat weapon thanks to Glyph of Devastate and the recent buff.
The difference didn’t break any 5 mans or anything, but going over the numbers it was obvious that I was better off just using my Peacekeeper Blade all the time.
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Corto reply on January 18, 2010 5:35 am:
Thanks for the replies, guess it was something that was more relevant before recent changes so thanks for clearing that up.
January 16th, 2010 at 10:50 am
With abundance of armor on Icecrown pieces, lack of expertise (except on chest and later on, boots) I’m looking forward facelifter and switching it with argent guard.
Last word is on paper very unwanted, but something tells me that with all this items with procs that are awesome in their own roles, Last word is going to prolly prove nice once.
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January 16th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Ran H POS for the first time to completion last night, with a random, (You guys were awesome!!!!).
I entered with 1 guild mate and told everyone up front I was there for the Claw if it dropped. They were all good with that.
The stairs after Ick have been the worst for me, as a prot warrior tanking 5 casters is not easy. Learned the trick from the pug and it worked like a charm. Thanks again!!!
2 wipes on Scourgelord and and 3 deaths for me. The claw dropped!!! Wow had good luck.
Swore to my guildie I would never go through there again and then spent the night thinking about it. I’ll go again.
One thing I don’t like with the Claw is the lack of hit rating. I was, and still have, Red Sword of Courage. I was at 260 hit but the upgrade to 3 t9 pieces and the claw puts me at 155… time to start re-enchanting..
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Bodasafa reply on January 16, 2010 2:35 pm:
Ive tanked a lot of content with as low as 22 hit rating. Including 25 man Beasts Heroic. Don’t make gearing choices based on hit. If you get it on your gear that’s a clear upgrade then great.
But don’t go looking for it.
If your worried about taunts pick up the taunt glyph.
Maintaining 26 expertise skill (or going beyond) does you far more favors that hit rating ever will.
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Zellviren reply on January 18, 2010 5:02 am:
In addition to the entry from Bodasafa, it’s worth noting that the Icecrown drops have a lot of hit rating. I’m practically at the cap now without even trying, so I wouldn’t look for it - just be patient and it will come to you.
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Dreador reply on January 18, 2010 5:57 am:
Farm up some Pillars of Might and get the badge loot, you’ll get rid of quite a bit of that pesky stuff.
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Zellviren reply on January 19, 2010 1:28 am:
Actually…
What’s dropped for me so far has made me have a look at my gear, generally; and deviate somewhat from Vene’s “top 10 EoF picks”. At this point, I’m using Rhinolicious Wormsteak to keep my expertise at the magic 26, but I’m now looking at going for the EoF non-set chest, followed by the set shoulders and gloves for the 2-set bonus.
I don’t need all the hit I’ve got and would much rather the points budget was spent on something else.
Like bonus armour…
January 17th, 2010 at 6:31 am
Well I would just like to point out a slight discrepancy in your post, and a disagreement. I honestly don’t think the peace keepers blade is that good, as you pointed out, a weapon without defense on it is exactally what a new tank does not want, and the peace keepers blade doesn’t have any defense on it. But it really isn’t as much as a problem now as it used to be, with T9 being free, and all. Also I am currious why you rank soltharis above the ardent gaurd.
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Dreador reply on January 18, 2010 9:25 am:
Just put a defense gem in the yellow socket if it hurts you that bad.
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January 17th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Last Word is terrible?
The proc is up all the time - sacrificing defence (big deal), and ~1% avoidance from Blood and Glory for 100 strength and +300sp to ALL healers healing you.
With all due respect, pick one of them up and then re-assess your opinion. A lot of what you write makes sense - this is one of the times you are wrong.
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Veneretio reply on January 18, 2010 12:06 am:
Scroll up and you’ll see that I already commented on why it’s bad.
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Seiru reply on January 26, 2010 6:25 pm:
From what I’m hearing from other tanks, Last Word procs pretty much every swing, and the buff lasts 10s.
I know it’s kind of out there, but do you think it would be feasible to make a weapon macro (or even a mod) to keep the buff up, but use the actual weapon as little as possible (around 2 out of every 10 seconds)?
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January 17th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Meh, I meant Orgrim’s Deflector > Last Word, not Blood and Glory.
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January 18th, 2010 at 8:25 am
I love lists. And I especially LOVE your lists! Can’t wait to see the shield one.
Enchant question:
Currently running around with the Peacekeeper (with Bladeward on it but up for change) and The Claw with cheap BS enchant atm. I’m planning to re enchant both weapons as I use them for different sets (capping expertise or max EH).
Moongose on one and Blood Draining on the other? Or just one of them on both? Or maybe Accuracy for threat? Or pick up dps weapon for HC farming?
*$
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Veneretio reply on January 18, 2010 7:10 pm:
I’d go with Mongoose for “The Claw” and use it basically all the time.
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January 18th, 2010 at 10:13 am
Going to be playing around with last word this week. Crusaders Glory will still be in my bags, and the H25Anub weapon will still only be used for my unhittable set..but the 300 extra healing from last word may prove to be amazing in 25mans when you have so many hots rolling and a good amount of heals dedicated to you. Yea, it only kicks in after you get hit, but it speeds up recovery time (topping you back off) by a good margin you have a good number of incoming heals
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January 18th, 2010 at 10:15 am
**by a good margin IF you have…
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January 19th, 2010 at 6:57 am
How do you evaluate the value of weapon dps, as far as tanking goes? I ask this specifically in regards to Last Laugh vs Falric’s wrist chopper (as an Orc, obviously). Currently I use Last Laugh, and frankly the wrist chopper seems like an underwhelming upgrade, which I suppose is not a surprise considering it’s only 6 iLvl higher.
From an offensive perspective, it seems to be the difference between 24 hit rating and 15 strength and 7.2 weapon dps. Defensively, it’s effectively 4 stamina vs 4 defense and 13 parry. You’ll have to forgive me, but that doesn’t seem like a very compelling upgrade at all, offensively or defensively. Maybe my sense the value of 8-15 weapon damage is off, though, which is why I ask.
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Dreador reply on January 19, 2010 1:02 pm:
TBH Falric’s is only good if it’s all you have access to. I’d still use Last Laugh.
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Zellviren reply on January 20, 2010 4:36 am:
I agree with Dreador, but don’t DE/vendor ‘da choppah - it’s still probably the best weapon you can use if you’re off tanking Anub’arak’s adds.
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Dreador reply on January 20, 2010 10:23 am:
^ enchant with agility if you’re short avoidance as well for that fight. Gimmicks anyone?
January 21st, 2010 at 6:57 am
1st time poster - long time reader.
Just wanted to say thanks for another excellent article and debate.
Keep up the good work!
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January 21st, 2010 at 9:21 am
Should add Thunderfury to the list, imo.
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January 25th, 2010 at 8:33 am
I’m currently running with the Bonebreaker and I have it enchanted with accuracy. Some people question my enchanting choice, but I stand by it, because nothing sucks for threat more than missing your attacks. I am barely sitting at the hit cap right now; 10 man airship hates me and won’t drop the tanking ring.
In regards to Thunderfury, a paladin friend of mine uses it to tank heroics and is highly effective with it. Cracks me up.
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January 27th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Are you so sure that Faster weapons are always better even with the changes? Bear in mind, that heroic strike itself doesn’t scale at all, 0, nothing, it just changes a white hit to a yellow hit, adds a static amount of threat, and adds a small amount of damage. The majority of the threat (and damage) that it does comes from the weapon swing itself (and incite/deep wounds/etc), and not the bonus damage and threat on the ability.
So, given the above, as weapons do more damage, and since devastate damage and threat DOES scale with ap, weapon damage, and weapon speed, it seems to me that there is a point where the greater damage and threat from devastate would outweigh the lost bonus damage and threat from extra heroic strikes. I am not saying you wouldn’t still heroic strike on every swing, just that having them come slower might not matter so much.
A slower weapon would probably also let us convert a larger percentage of swings into heroic strikes as well. Take Rotface for example. When he sprays on the raid, I go from full rage to empty if I try to heroic strike the whole way through. With a slower weapon, I would be burning off rage and a slower pace, and might actually be able to bridge that gap with full heroic strikes.
I don’t know if we are there yet, as I am not quite sure how to do the math on it, but I think the general theory is sound. Also if I plug my numbers into the tanking spreadsheet from tankspot, and change the weapon speed from 1.6 to 2.6, I see almost no change with 100% heroic strikes, and an increasing benefit as heroic strike percentage drops.
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Kobeathris reply on January 27, 2010 10:47 am:
Just as a quick example, each heroic strike does 495 bonus damage, and 259 bonus threat, or 754 bonus threat total (before modifiers, I am pretty sure all modifiers would work out in the end as they would apply to devastate as well)
With a 1.5 speed weapon, that provides 503 TPS at 100% heroic striking
With a 2.6 speed weapon, it would provide 290 TPS at 100% heroic striking
That means that in order for a 2.6 speed weapon to be more beneficial than a 1.5 speed weapon, it would need to increase your total TPS by more than 213 (And bear in mind, that is going from the absolute fastest speed to the slowest). With Devastate and Deep Wounds both benefiting from a slower weapon, I think that may be the case IF AND ONLY IF your base weapon damage and AP is high enough.
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thebitterfig reply on March 8, 2010 9:13 am:
the parts of devastate that scale with AP are normalised, and will probably be even between fast and slow weapons, so we only need to look at some weapons and their average damage. an ilvl 251 weapon (icc10) with 1.5 speed will have an average damage per hit of 358. with a slow 2.6 speed, the average damage per hit will be 534.5. the difference is 176.5, which, combined with the 120% modifier of devastate, is 211.8 per devastate. presuming you devastate about 50% of the time (for easy math rather than complete accuracy), that’s 105.9 tps, or about 107 behind if we use a slow weapon. if we presume around 33% devastate, we’ll be about 143 tps behind, before deep wounds. deep wounds won’t be too big a buff for a slow weapon since while fast and slow will cause as many devastate and shield slam crits, a fast weapon will get about 70% more heroic strikes (and thus heroic strike crits) which will take a lot of the edge off the roughly 70% bigger deep wounds ticks from a slow weapon. so, we’re looking at less than a 150 tps drop between the fastest and slowest weapons, and possibly as little as a 100 tps drop.
i think a lot of us would trade a hypothetical hit/parry weapon for a dodge/parry one with the same weapon speed, due to the increase in survival. we’d keep the hit one on hand in case we need a pure threat weapon, but we’d swap unless we really needed that hit. however, what about swapping a 1.6 speed weapon with parry and block rating (falrics, for example) for a 2.5 speed weapon with armor and dodge (a slow ardent guard)? i think that given the major buffs to devastate recently, we’re in a place where the tps loss of a slow weapon is small enough to be worth swapping a slow weapon with good itemisation over a fast weapon with poor itemisation for general purposes, with the standard caveats of altering gear depending on the fight.
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February 3rd, 2010 at 12:35 pm
OK dumb question but I need help as a warrior with titanguard would it be a bad idea to use gutbuster as I have been very unlucky with any other weapon drops
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Kobeathris reply on February 5, 2010 9:15 am:
Depends if you need survivability or threat/damage.
I have Rimefang’s claw as my defensive weapon, and the Frost Giant’s cleaver for threat/damage, just depends what you are going for.
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February 5th, 2010 at 7:20 am
Have to say my tanking luck runeth over. Ran H HOR for the first time a couple days ago. Before we started had a DK tell me “Good Luck. I have 5200 GS warrior and I still have a hard time with this one.” Glad he only had GS and not Elitist Group, probably would have voted to kick me. My GS is, well idk, don’t use GS.
In the first wave no one died, lost a 1 in the second wave. Wrist Chopper dropped.. woot. Torn between the Claw with Bladeward and Wrist Chopper.
Needless to say, DK had to leave after trash before Gauntlet.
We tried the “hide behind the LK” trick, sadly this got fixed. Did it the normal way, we made it to the last wall. SW on CD and I went down. Third time was a charm, found a better hiding spot and pulled off a victory!
Sorry DK guy, its not just GS it can be skill. I had a great 4 behind me, good dps and great heals.
2nd time the neck dropped. LOL
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