I enjoy prot leveling purely on the simple fact that that I can survive most things. It's not the fastest way to level, its a decent steady pace as you do a lot of reflect and AOE damage so you can pull more than one mob at once where as ret is usually 1-2 mobs at most generally at the same time. For example if you're prot specced and decently geared by level 53-55 you can pull 5-10 mobs at once in Western Plague lands at once and AOE grind there like a mage would.
Early level 1-Mid 30's I highly recommend prot leveling. Yes you can do more damage as ret but you will take more damage and if you don't plan properly you will be blowing CD's and wasting mana left and right. You will have more out of combat time if not played properly. Prot is decent damage early on and your mitigation is substantially higher thus you do not worry too much about overpulling.
I played a paladin in vanilla, I can assure you I won’t be making the same mistake again.
To add detail to this, I had engineering, played Ret, did a lot of PvP and a moderate amount of PvE but it’s just freaking boring. Yeah we got hammer later on which helped quite a bit but just overall the fighting was based on auto attacks and managing cooldowns effectively to best utilise the toolkit.
In a nutshell:
It’s boring, and you will be respeccing to heal in a cloth robe in MC constantly and then grinding bandages and engineering mats just to PvP.
All about perspective. Paladin is a lore heavy class and if you enjoy the class fantasy of it you will have a lot of fun. Majority of vanilla is very simple rotations and can get really boring. Just find what's right for you.
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Hello everyone!
I haven’t been playing a paladin in vanilla, my main was a warrior. Now i pretty sure that when the Classic come out I choose a paladin. I really like the idea of being supreme support and be able to help each class somehow or other. Knowing nothing about this class i started to get into the whole paladin thing and I found myself totally confused with all this blessing, auras, seal and after that a bunch of other spells. So i come up with idea of some spell notes that will help me to overview all the abilities that paladin has. There are 3 pages: Blessings, Seals&Auras and Spells. It’s set up for printing (A3 format and 300 dpi will provide good quality) I wanna share it with you guys. Hope it might be helpful for young paladins as I am. All the abilities were picked in the highest ranks.
There are links to download:
https://ibb.co/NFTbdsM
https://ibb.co/J2vqBSr
https://ibb.co/XJ6VPwj
Depends on the sit reck nerf, but I will still stay in prot to handle a few mobs in case of miss-pull. I suggest sticking to prot, or at least a sword and board. It will be tediously boring so have a tv show going on another monitor or something.
Best of luck to you!
I played Ret back then and i will be playing Ret when Classic come.
The leveling specc from Caspus really looks interesting and i will try it out on a pserver before classci comes and see if it works without pots and good main hand because the first char will mostly not be able to buy good equipment from the ah
Just hit me with any questions you got! I've done it all, Holy, Prot, and Ret. (Ret is my weakest experience wise though). Once you reach around level 15 and start actually having spells to play around with it becomes a lot more than just "Auto-Attacking". Paladins have some of the best survivability in the game and can withstand multiple mobs at once while leveling where as most classes will drop dead. The simple fact of having Holy Light at level 1 puts you at a advantage over others. The moment you log in you can start kite tagging mobs and killing 2 even 3 sometimes 4 defias mobs at once! (Though 4 is pushing it ;) )
i have a question :D, regarding Holy healing in 60s dungeons/raids, Do they contend well against priests/shamans ? since they lack multi target healing, or are they gonna be mostly tank/ot healers ?! and is their mana efficiency as bad as priests?! i know Illumination talent is their best mana regen but that's only viable when ur well geared and have good amount of crit
edit: i just rechecked Illumination on both classic/wotlk because i played allot of hpalla in wotlk pservers, Illumination returns 30% of the spell's base mana compared to 100% in classic ! and Holy Light costs 660 mana at lvl 60, does this mean if i crit a Holy Light, i'll get back the 660 mana ?!
All about perspective. Paladin is a lore heavy class and if you enjoy the class fantasy of it you will have a lot of fun. Majority of vanilla is very simple rotations and can get really boring. Just find what's right for you.
Hi Caspus,
Following your build what seals should I use while levelling? Always unsure what is the correct way ie, if I should unleash (the speed and holy damage one) then refresh and just hit away with righteousness. Not sure if there is a particular rotation or just situational.
Thanks in advance.
I'm very sorry, i've been on vacation and haven't checked backed in a while! For the sake of answering questions despite them already being answered already...
zutch
Holy paladins are amazing healers and come off really strong at the launch of a game. I would argue they're the best healers until late BWL patch. Priests start to really develop once they're T2 geared with Darkmoon card and their mana efficiency basically doubles.
Regardless though flash of light is such a strong spell and is the reason holy paladins are prioritized on Tank healing since they can react faster.
Holy paladins will always have a spot in a raid all the way to KT in naxx. I've enjoyed my time playing it when I did.
...And yes! Illumination returns full mana cost of that spell every crit!
Rolopolo
I like to judge with crusader and then whack it down with Righteousness. Judge when its about to come off CD or if you have a good killing pace going and can kill the mob quickly through judge spamming.
If you decide to go ret for leveling then its basically the same thing except judge crusader and have seal of command up. Seal of command can double as a execute if you treat it so. Judging command while the target is stunned does double damage. So either keep Hoj ready for judgement or wait for a buddy to stun it before you judge command.
My leveling spec isn't what I recommend everyone to do. It's more of a defensive playstyle. I prefer survival over damage. But some prefer doing more damage at more risk...But at the end of the day we are paladins so we can bubble hearth to safety if it comes down to it.
Hi Caspus.
Would you mind sharing your healing build?
Recommend this talent tree, its your basic raiding healing spec, a all rounder as far as buffing goes and support.
Thanks!
I'm going full Ret and then cutting over to Holy. I plan to respec at some point between level 58-60 to a 31/20/0 Holy/Prot spec.
Caspus
Hey Casp, I know you're prot but I was wondering if you've heard about this whole reck dps pve thing going on w/BoS?
Hi, first post here. I started back to classic a month ago, having last played retail about 6 years ago. I am repeating my original journey with a holy/prot human paladin. Just as Caspus set out, holy tree straight to consecrate (the reduced interrupt in healing is also amazing for solo survivability, and good in instances too when you are on heal duty) then into Prot. Got to L34 now and loving it.
It is slow and grindy but the ability to take on mob after mob, and to cope with 3 mobs at a time is brilliant. I did use Verigans Fist til about 30 for soloing, but sword and board all the way now for me.
I love Paladin in groups - the relative simplicity of the rotation means you have a lot of room for situational awareness, to drop a BoP or an off heal, or stun a mob that might afflict a clothie. I have also successfully tanked Deadmines & stockades, though not many groups are excited about trying a paladin, probably because it would mean considering managing their own threat :)
So, having lots of fun in my mid 30's. If you play on Mirage Raceway, give Argrathson a /wave. Theres a free Kings blessing in it for you.