Kings Defender for a Tankadin

So we had the Kings Defender drop last night in Kara, since I was building Tank gear the guild leader thought it would be a good tanking weapon for me so he gave it to me. I was concerned about the lack of spell damage on it and did some digging today. From what I have found it isnt the best tankadin weapon. Previously I was using the Seekers Gavel from SSO with +40 spell damage. I have two questions.

1. Which is better for a tankadin? the Kings Defender or the Gavel

2. Is there a way to make the Kings Defender a better tanking weapon. I thought about getting it +40 spell damage. I also considered using SoC since it creates Holy Damage based off of weapon damange.

Any thoughts or comments are appreciated.

Thanks

It's a nice weapon, the King's Defender, but by the time your capable of reaching it, you should be close if not over defense cap as well as the armor cap. (hence why the +spell damage seems the best choice) That being said, while it may be lacking stats in line with adding to your defensive ability (which your not gaining anything of with the current gavel), the weapon seems to shine in t's speed. 1.6 is fast and the dps is significantly higher than your current weapon. This speed should help a bit more with aggro retention when combined with your other abilities and righteousness should be cranking out alot more damage than what you're doing currently.

Perhaps as an alternative, toss the 40 spell damage on it, replace another piece of your tanking gear with a similar +defense stat with a spell damage item and then enchant that item as well. I guess it really comes down to your current spell damage and how close to defense caps you are. You're going to want to push close to 200 spell damage as you can whilst still maintaining your defensive stats.

Hope that helps!
Max

You'll want to keep two weapons, one for most cases with lots of spell damage and another with as much stamina and avoidance as possible for tough boss fights where you don't have to worry about threat (Such as Prince Phase 2, Netherspite). The Kings Defender is an excellent choice for when you don't need to worry about threat.

I'll switch my weapon mid fight if my health is fluctuating alot but my threat is blowing away the DPS. Otherwise, keep your spell damage weapon equiped..

Kings Defender is not a paladin tanking weapon (well, in the current game anyway). You want a spell damage weapon.

There are some limited occasions when you're off-tanking a mob and it's not being DPS'ed and you don't have to worry about threat as much where a little extra mitigation/avoidance would be great for your healer. Suneater is a good example and what I use. But, there weren't many times I used that while raiding (Phase 1 A'lar and FLK add are the only two I can recall atm).

Of course, come expansion, things are going to change a great deal so who knows what you'll need.

As others have said -- it's a good situational weapon, but not something I'd take over someone else. Basically, take it if you were going to have to d/e it anyway, because it may become situationally useful.

As for its use, it's great for periods of time where you already have a threat lead and need additional mitigation. Prince's dual-wielding phase has already been mentioned. Basically, use a spelldamage weapon to gain a threat lead large enough that your DPS won't pull aggro when you switch to the king's defender, use it until the tough phase of the boss ends or you need to generate more threat, and swap back to your spelldamage weapon. Think of the weapon swap like a defensive trinket that's on-use reduces your threat generation and increases your mitigation.

It's also useful for fights where threat isn't an issue -- like tanking Netherspite's red beam.

Personally I would enchant it with defensive stats and do the swap with your normal spelldamage weapon. Don't enchant it with spelldamage, because you'd only be making a great tanking weapon slightly "meh". Get a REALLY good spelldamage weapon with +40 spelldamage, and a REALLY good mitigation weapon with a defensive enchant, and swap them as the situation requires. That way you have two great weapons, rather than one being just mediocre.

A Paladin Tank needs 2 weapons, a spell damage one, and a mitigation one.

One good example is Prince. Say you use S2 Gavel, and Kings Defender.
For Prince Phase 1, you would use S2 Gavel to build your threat lead so that DPS can start sooner.

At phase 2, you want more mitigation than spell damage. Prince hits fasters, and does Sunders. You want to avoid getting Sunders to stack. This is where I switch to a mitigation weapon.

I usually continue using the mitigation weapon until 20%. Then I switch to spell damage as I usually spam Hammer of Wrath at that point in my rotation.