Well, when TBC first hits it will be hard to replace TF on a tanking warrior (the buffed Thunderclap helps somewhat, but not enough imo). Even comparing Kel sword drop Hungering Cold to TF, and you still can argue one is better than the other.

Some Pallys have TF already, so you would not be the first if you got it. I could understand a Pally getting it over a Rogue (when looking towards TBC), but for a Warrior, the weapon is hard to replace.

Given the drop rate, you could run MC every week for now until TBC hits and never see a Binding, or just see the same Binding over and over.

Whatever you want to do, make sure the Warriors understand beforehand your plans.

[edit] never mind sorry, image hosting screwed.

Apologies

Just for clarity, I've raided extensively on both a paladin and a warrior.

TBH, thunderfury is really a waste on a paladin. No, I'm not just saying that to fuel the class debate. You have to consider that TF is not a weapon, it's a raid tool. There are two reasons to equip it on someone - they're your main tank and the extra threat gained from proccing the hate will allow your raid to dps harder - or secondly, you want the slow debuff on hard hitting bosses so that your tank takes less damage. In the first instance you want to give it to your main tank, in the second instance you want to give it to someone who is going to be attacking a *lot* to proc the weapon as much as possible.
It just so happens that both criteria are satisfied by a main-tank warrior. However the second criterion is satisfied by dps wars and rogues too.

Considering where to put your TF is a decision about how to best employ a raid tool.

Frankly, paladins don't attack much - auto attack only, and then only when they don't have to cast some spell with a cast-time. They have no instant melee moves which can be used to increase the proc-rate. A rogue or a war will proc the debuff off revenge, HS, autoattack, MS, BT, hamstring, Sinister Strike, Evisc, etc. And both of these two classes are more or less guaranteed to be actually hitting the mob close to 100% of the time - maximising the uptime of the debuff. I don't have TF personally, but I've watched both paladins and wars using it - and the war procs it a *lot* more.


That being said, come TBC, I expect the usefulness of TF to wane - replaced by better stuff for all classes.

Short Answer: Yes

Long Answer: Look at the post above mine.

And add to that the observation, that the one paladin on our server who had TF (the first one on our server in fact, made 3 hours before mine ^^) was harassed for having one ON EVERY occasion.
If you love to get whispers like "Lol, Pala!" a lot, then go ahead ... because thats what you will be getting. It was that extreme on our server.

BTW the pala quit

regards

Ok, so it sounds like people feel it's mostly a prot warrior weapon, due to the aggro, which I admit I did see. The only reasons I was leaning to wanting it, is the tanking and reckoning changes in TBC, where I feel the lower dps of the weapon is fine, due to the aggro generation which is the most important to me. Double attacks for 8 seconds with this weapon seems kinda crazy to me. I realize that currently, it's better in the hands of a warrior, but I was hoping the expansion might change things(as warriors imp thunderclap will duplicate the effect). I guess we won't know until we see the gear, encounters, and final talent changes.

The only issues I have remaining, is that we had about 3 main tanks (by main, I mean they got all our inital tank gear so far). One went dps, and the other wants to, and is passing all tanking gear to the other up and coming tanks. The last tank is actually sticking to Prot, but he's not real liked by the other warriors and a few others, and we may have quite a few /gquits if he gets it. The other prot warriors we have, don't have real good gear yet. But I suppose that's an issue I have to work out with the guild; I'll talk to them about it.

Thanks for your input, guys.

Last question: Do you use the guild bank to pay for the weapon? Or do sort the wheat from the chaff by giving it to the person who can afford to upgrade it on his own? This would seem to seperate who really wants it, vs. who just wants a free legendary.

As was mentioned above, Thunderfury is a raid tool. The question here is more 'Is my guild willing to pay for this tool?' Something related to consider would be repair costs. Does your guild pay for them? If not, your main tanks are already putting out quite a bit of money on a regular basis. As a rogue, I've spent 50g on a night of wipes, I believe our tanks were up in the order of 80g, for the same.

I know our guild paid for the one TF we do have, and will happily pay for a second, should the bindings drop.

Last question: Do you use the guild bank to pay for the weapon? Or do sort the wheat from the chaff by giving it to the person who can afford to upgrade it on his own? This would seem to seperate who really wants it, vs. who just wants a free legendary.

Our guild members handled 65 transmutes free, donated 20 bars or crystals, and the remaining 80 crystals were bought by the warrior. We are a relatively young server, so the prices for crystals were between 13-20g each. Add in 15 transmutes at 5g each, and 400g in vendor mats (elemental flux) for the elementium bars, it can get costly.

It is a raid tool, and allows people to dps a lot more in fights, but to ask the guild to pay for a weapon held by one person may be tough.

/derail

I'd like to thank this board for the best source of information on Thunderfury I've found. We wouldn't have known the value of crafting this sword without the knowledge in this forum.

On the flip side, it's also a ton of aggro, rage-free.

I got the Elementium for mine from the guild, but got all the Arcanite Bars myself as soon as I got my second binding.

The guild leader took 3000g from the guild bank and made his elementium bars as soon as he got his first binding.

He never got his second binding.

Personally think the sword is wasted on a dps warrior. Better to give it a rogue. And ironically, i'm a dps warrior. Reason is, is because it has SOOOOO much aggro that most of the threat you're dishing out is from the proc and not from actual dmg. Pretty much a waste. The only fights you can really use the sword are patchwerk and thaddius. Even then i'd imagine it's risky on thaddius. A rogue on the other hand can feint and vanish to his hearts content while keeping the proc up consistently. That's just my 2c anyway.

And in regards to Phantom's problem, are any of your rogues consistent and a core member who will always be there? That rogue is the one that should be getting it imo since your tanks are all shady. There is nothing worse, short of a guild disband, than a TF leaving your guild for "greener pastures."

I am a self supporting MT (used to buy even flasks of titans) and I paid for the elementium for TF (the guild helped a bit also, but mainly with transmutes)...I did that in order to advance faster in MC/BWL etc, help the guild's progress.

I guess I was lucky to be a successful blacksmith (you see, I invented this concept of selling on credit, with no interest; basically I trust people to pay me back in a couple of weeks, sometimes months and I offer best prices etc. Make a friend or two in the process as well...Equipped half of alliance on my server with Arcanite reapers and heartseekers, sometimes even horde).

I love that Thunderfury, makes holding aggro so much easier, so that I can concentrate more on other areas of tanking, such as surviving etc

PS

My main is of course a warrior lol