Now that the dust is settling a bit, I've been mulling over some choices in blacksmithing specialization. Mind you, this is from the perspective of someone who's not in a deadly rush, and is in an active raiding guild.

First off, let me say a quick thing about why I'm not in a particular hurry to choose. Because of the 5-man and 10-man content, if I want to have any use or draw for my guildies, I better stay protection. Since MC, I've been a fury warrior topping the DPS charts, but those days are only a memory while loot catches up and gear starts to scale/ramp our output. I briefly toyed with tanking heroics as fury and it wasn't pretty. So yeah, if I want to do any group content, I've been pigeonholed into min-maxing for tanking. My desperate hope is that eventually I'll be able to offtank in raid epics well enough to spec back to DPS.

I want to be viable in group pvp, arenas, and soloing as well. So I picked up blacksmithing before TBC with the intention of grabbing one of the craftable epic 2handers. Well, with gorehowls, nexus-reavers, and decapitators left and right, I don't really see the advantage of investing in one of the three weapon specialties. I'm only slightly tempted by the mace/axe because of their slower speed for big slams (the mace has a fun stackable stun proc, too). I've got 9 nethers gathering dust, and I feel eventually I should put them to use along with all the effort I spent leveling smithing.

Gorehowl http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28435
T2 Axe (Mooncleaver) http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28773
just under 3dps difference and roughly equivalent stats

After flip-flopping again and again (axe spec = crit = flurry, but mace = stuns = pvp) I noticed the crafted Kings breastplate didn't really have any peers. Even tier 5 fell short of the T2 Breastplate

Destroyer's Breastplate http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30118
Bulwark of Kings http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28484

I feel like the use effect is a little gimmicky, since 30 minutes is something I'd "save" indefinitely, but regardless, it outpaces all other visible alternatives.

What are your thoughts? Again, this isn't a "Quick I need something NOW so I can own it up in pvp season or top the DMs on Curator." Looking for big picture speculations

Sell your nethers; gold is good.

Since Fury is easier to combo with prot, i'm using it to be as flexible as i possibly can (MT/OT/DPS). Must confess that i did respec to full prot for our first Karazhan adventures since i was MT + RL and didn't want to think about putting in extra effort to mitigation and keeping aggro.

I've specced back to Fury/Prot now using this build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=pZVVzVgxoiuVofVzoh

NOTE: with the next patch i might put those 2 points in imp. beserker into imp. whirlwind (since we'll be prolly won't be starving for rage anymore).

Be aware of the fact that for PVE DPS i dualwield simply because, if youre geared properly, it pumps out more damage than any other build using a twohander (not counting occasional sweeping whirlwinds, single target DPS is where it's at).

Now for my choice of blacksmithing: i'm a hammersmith. Why?

- Armor: The stats on Kings are good. Very good. But not that big an upgrade to questrewards, raiddrops and other stuff. Chances are you will replace the chest for a setbonus or specific role. The weapons stay good for a very long time (especially the third tier).

- Swords: i'm not going to put my upgradable, potentially best dps cannon in my offhand. Ever. On top of that i already have the emerald ripper, which is comparable to Fireguard.

- Axes: allthough i'm an Orc and the weaponskillbonus from my racial is nice'ish in PVE, the stats on that Axe are static. Meaning: as my gear improves the bonus i get from that aswome mainhad deminishes. Also: 40 AP isn't that big a deal on 3.500+ during raids.

- Hammers: Haste is awsome. There, i said it. The fun thing about it, is that the dps you gain from it grows as your gear improves. It also stacks with flurry. Gaining almost 50% attackspeed from doubleprocs is godly. And when i decide its time to toy around in the Arena's i can bake me a Thunder as a bonus.

My personal view from doing both dps and tanking, and I love the dps side of things but after proving myself as a not 3 bad tank i'm not allowed to go fury , when i do get the chance to offspec though (gruul, kazzak) i'm so glad i picked up Macesmith and got my Drakefist Hammer which I currently dual wield with Kings Defender (stupid blackout truncheon has evaded me) the haste proc is so much dmg increase it keeps me top 5 easily, and thats with only heroic/5 man blues