For your weapon , I would definitely go for an axe and/or a Dragon Scimitar. Monkey Madness is needed for the Dragon Scimmy and OSRS Gold it does take time but it's definitely worth it for training strength. Whip, on the other hand is fantastic for attacking as well as defense.

Dragon Defender is good (once you actually get it). Also for a good set of gloves, I would suggest using RFD to get Dragon/Barrows gloves. Heck even Mithril gloves are excellent. To acquire them, you'll need to prepare a Recipe for Disaster, and I highly recommend you to do it in the best way you can...

I'm always asking the same question. I think slayer isn't much better than it was in the past (just observed what happened to the whips). ABBY DEMONS are the best place to camp for 75-125+ kills , only to get the possibility of a 900k-1.5mil drop? Then for a drop of 3 mil is a different story.

Slayer is a great way to improve your melee skills, therefore if you're planning on taking up training, consider it. Its a nice way to break the repetativeness of training with a single monster. There is no way to tell if someone doesn't have 85 Slayer, Abby whips are only 1 in 540 not the 125 kills you can get camping. The main benefit of Slayer does not come from huge drops, it's the small ones which add up as time passes, and clues when you use them and if you are clever with your herb runs in between tasks.

You're right, I don't have 85 slayers. However, that Buy RuneScape Gold doesn't mean I don't know the basics about it. There are reports of not getting a whip drop in the 4-6 hours of constant killing. The reality is that the whip is an extremely rare drop. Every help site you visit will identify the whip as one of them.