It depends on what you have available.
My options:
-27/29 1hander no proc + 25ac shield with 10 fire/cold/magic and some hp
-38/46 2hander 150 stun/dd with 45ac and different stats/resists
Benefits of sword/board for me are really limited to just the ability to bash on demand and the resists.
Benefits of the 2hand? More mitigation, fewer ripostes, a lot more damage, a proc that helps me conserve mana on the aggro front. Yeah shield aggro is more potent but my 2hander has almost double the AC. Average incoming hit is lower and with the slower swing speed there are fewer of them.
The procs that fire and the mana it saves translates to more *other*. Flash of light is cheap and sustainability indefinitely but the savings over time means I have more available to patch heal self/others, lull, buff/rebuff etc.
For me the choice is clear. 2hander is my workhorse and the shield only comes out when I need to bash. After the last patch it runs circles around my sword/shield for dps. Before the patch they were pretty close. I do all my serious tanking with it. Ironically I assist dps on raids with my sword/shield as the lack of proc helps me not accidentally steal aggro (it’s happened a few times in HoT if I get one of those lucky proc streaks at a bad time).
If I had a rockin ToV sword/board with high ac on both I’d probably use that the majority of the time. Then again ... I also have access to ToV 2handers which are significantly better than the 38/46 I presently use.
2handers are in a really great spot these days. Tier for tier they always do a lot more damage so it really boils down to how much a shield is going to help you survive and whether or not you need bash on demand. Unless you are undergeared your healers should have no problems keeping you up on mundane content.
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