Eh, not really. Root is useful when it's spammable and on demand, but not even slightly reliable as a weapon proc. When you then add the fact that it's very likely to break on the first instance of non-physical damage, it's silly to call Herbalist Spade the best aggro weapon.
In a grind session, it probably won't proc at all on any given mob. Like the odds are maybe 10-20% that you'll ever root a mob, especially once you take resists into account. Root generates almost no aggro through its inherent effect, so it's all predicated on the mechanical aspect of a rooted mob always hitting the closest target.
Compare this to other conventional aggro weapons. When you proc a Frostbringer or whatever, you've almost certainly secured aggro on that mob for the whole 20 seconds it takes to kill it. With a spade, however, you only secure aggro if you proc and it isn't resisted and the root lasts throughout the fight.
Even if we discount mobs that can't be rooted at all (you're unlikely to grind on those), the layers of caveats to root's aggro-holding capabilities make it wildly unreliable as a weapon proc. It's nice on an earth pet that casts it every six seconds or something, but given the abysmal default proc rate and the strong likelihood that any tank in an exp group has crap dex if they aren't buffed by a shaman, it's simply not a good aggro weapon.
Go with weapons for which it doesn't matter if the proc is resisted or not, and where it can't break and become irrelevant at any moment. Besides, you have a 50% higher proc rate when dual-wielding (assuming both weapons have a real aggro proc) than with a 2h weapon. When all of that is taken into account, it takes a special level of ignorance to call the idiot's spade a suitable tank weapon.
As a rogue, I always groan when the tank pulls out a spade. It means he doesn't have aggro 90% of the time, and even when he does proc a root and it isn't resisted, it's unlikely to last more than a few seconds if the group has casters and/or DD-proccing pets. Meanwhile, if the tank knows how the game works and shows up with proper tank weapons, I know that I can go all out as soon as I see the proc graphics of that Frostbringer/Wavecrasher combo or whatever it is he's using. The spade is not a reliable tank weapon at all.
|