Eld's Gear

I posted in the warrior forum looking for advise on Prot spec grinding and weapons, seeing as how The Planar Edge is not that great a tanking weapon. I was considering switching to Swordsmith for Fireguard. The following is a reply I got which was really insightful, a rarity in the wow forums.

Well, given I am human, the Fireguard is better over Gromtor's Charge, however, in your case, I would not make the effort for a couple of reasons.

Axe specialization for an Orc is key, stick with the Axe. Gromtor's charge works in
your favor in two ways. One, specialization means you have 5 points in favor of
reducing parry/block. Two, Defense. Given you are arms, your gear probably
hasn't seen a lot of 'pro-defense' and you want to build that up to get
Uncrittable as well as getting serious stamina gear as your expectations will
now be about taking hits and trying to avoid them.

You will also pick up other weapons that will have better defense and stamina, like King's Defender in Chess Event in Karazhan. Now unlike my situation, I am stacked up a bit more on defense, in the 510-512 range for avoidance as well as not fully stacking up on stamina, but taking advantage of agility for dodge and armor. The time it will take you to become a Master Swordsmith will not be worthwhile to get
Fireguard/Blazeguard, more so on the fact if your Tanking gear is defense starved. This is also taking into consideration you putting 5 points into Anticipation to get the extra defense.

Right now, your main focus should be the following:

Stamina - Baseline, get above 10k, 11 to 12k would be better.
Defense - 490 minimum
Avoidance stats - Work on getting Dodge close to 18%, Parry to 15% and Block to 19% overall, pre-buffed. You will find tanking items that will bolster areas.
Strength - Bolsters your attack power which you will need for threat and helps with block value
Agility - Bolsters your crit chance, your dodge and armor which helps in mitigation and threat generation

While +hit would help a lot, your focus is going to be less about worrying about hitting a lot and more about just taking a crapton of hitting or avoiding it. Most fights will involve more about you taking hits, even as an offtank, because most of the mobs are now hitting upwards to 3k+, so more stamina and avoidance better.

On the solo side, I have favored Dual Wielding and DPS gear that is a little higher on +hit and +crit ability. The reason is due to faster rage generation and dumping ability. With fast weapons, in my case, a Blazeguard and Fireguard, Devastate, rend, thunderclap soloing hasn't been a problem with most 70-72 mobs. Elite wise, you will be better off in prot and defensive stance to mitigate the blows and also needing someone to back you up, but normal ones, I was able to fight 3 melee types consecutively with some decent DPS gear.

I don't favor the 2handed weapons mostly because of the slow speed in order to get the big hits and on a miss, that means much more waiting to get rage. Dual Wielding, you can afford a miss or two and still generate rage from another blow. But you also have to have 'fast' weapons. Given Planar Edge is a 2.7 weapon, for main hand, hopefully you will have a fast 2nd hand weapon to do some strikes with the offhand. Between 2handed and your planar edge, it is a toss up which would be better in your case.