venomous axe or sarnak wh?

[Snaggles]

The only reason a Venomous axe is "good threat" is that your melee damage is horrid in the low levels so a 84dd proc is a gamechanger. Hell at level 20 a cleric's smite is on par with all the best caster nukes. At level 60 that same proc is 2.8 dps on a 2 proc per minute average...essentially nothing.

In the low levels and some content threat simply doesnt matter much. Stuff is dying too quickly and the consequences aren't grave. DPS should still be dumping aggro if possible but too much aggro on a HK Noble is totally different than a raid mob or anything that can enrage. Just burn it down and keep pulling. Once stuff gets really nasty focus on the basic tier upgrades. This typically means a Frostbringer, something decent in the offhand (I used a Ykeshan War Club and then a Sarnak Warhammer). If you can loot an infestation throw that Frostbringer in the offhand and you're basically good until epics or ntov stuff.

In the higher levels and end gear you really should be balancing your setup (or at least one of them) for threat/aggro:

1.) Max haste cap per level cap: Every swing rolls your weapon ratio for melee threat. Per the wiki with a warrior if you are trying to keep aggro at 54 off a level 55 rogue it's going to be a chore. Double backstab and a 10% haste cap benefit. Another reason it's good to plan ahead for a worn haste upgrade. If you have an enchanter in your group they can do Wonderous Rapidity at level 58 but you are still under the haste cap without a 34/36% worn item at lvl 60 and thus you're doing less threat than you can simply by swinging without procs.
https://wiki.project1999.com/Haste_Guide
Haste Caps
Level Max total haste permitted
1-30 50%
31-50 74%
51-54 84%
55-59 94%
60 100%


2.) Pick high ratio weapons: Damage bonus scales so at 60 an infestation at 9/18 will pull in a bit more swing-threat than a frostbringer with a slightly better ratio of 12/22. This is why I want to pull my hair out when people are main-handing a WESS on blue in 2021 with a frostbringer in their offhand. Just swapping that combo will pick up about 14% threat in ratio alone...not to mention your offhand does not swing at a 1/1 ratio of the mainhand. Gear to try and do some damage; don't just pick proc aggro or you will be living in a perpetual fight of catching up via RNG dice rolls. Not to mention one of the huge perks of a warrior tank is they actually do damage.

3.) Pick quality procs: You get 400 hate for one of these effects whether it lands or not stun/slow/interupt/poison counter/blind/ac debuff/tash. Having 50 poison counters doesn’t matter anymore unless that comes with like 200/tick poison damage. A DD or actual damaging dot on top of one of those "threshold effects" is just frosting on the threat cake but only if it lands (no dd land = no aggro). Assuming the effect lands and goes past 400….A Frostbringer is about 450 threat; an ykesha proc is about 474; a Scepter of Destruction is 680...if any of those DD's resist you just get the 400. Landed dots will roll into tick dps threat as well. For what it's worth if you can pick a WESS to offhand or Trochilic's Skean or a sarnak warhammer I'd personally go with the sarnak because stun is actually helpful and you likely will keep it around for some reason.

Snare whips, DD's without a secondary component are sub 400 hate. If you need that effect or are trying to do a ton of low-aggro damage sure swap them in. They are just horrid for actual tanking stuff. If you can hold aggro with a snare whip proc your dps arent great or are walking on eggshells for you.

So in short: Cap haste, pick dps weapons with great aggro procs or at least decent dps ones with great aggro procs. Pray for RNG and let the dps die if the stuff is hard...that's on them. I'm skipping clickies and all the other stuff because this is already 500 words too long.