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Paladin Leveling Guide
The Paladin Leveling Guide
for Cataclysm 4.3

 

Important Notes:

 

  • While this page is updated for the latest Cataclysm patches, it will not be updated further.
  • For the most recent updates, including into Mists of Pandaria and beyond, see our new Paladin leveling guide. That's the page that will be updated for all future patches and expansions. If you have a link to this page please change it to the new page.
  • This page will probably be left up for legacy sake.
  • Changes are coming with Mists of Pandaria, all of that will be covered on the new pages.

 

Now we return you to your regularly scheduled guide:

 

Contents

Paladin Leveling

Other Paladin Guides

 

Introduction

This page has been updated for Cataclysm 4.3

Blood Elf Retribution Paladin Once upon a time Paladin’s were Allliance only and were among the slowest levelers in the game, bringing up the rear in comparison to even other healing classes such as druids, priests, shamans, etc.  However, with the change to experience gain combined with the increase questing experience and a few buffs since the 3.0 (Wrath of the Lich King) expansion, Paladin leveling is easy and PvP is downright... juicy. Since then Paladins have been the weapon of choice for many roles, giving the class great flexibility.

With the 4.0 series of patches the Paladin's mechanics have changed somewhat and the spells and talents have been streamlined, like all of the other classes. They're still very flexible, being able to heal, smash, tank, etc. and are a blast to play.

As a leveling Paladin you’ll excel as a healer, tank, and even deal out solid straight up damage. You have to use your combination of abilities to fulfill a number of conditions: paladins are capable of soloing quest bosses that other classes find impossible and our healing improves our survivability immensely.

Paladins are even capable of area effect grinding. With some decent gear, and some attention paid to heals and bubbles, Pallies can round up several mobs and kill them reliably. Equip a shield at lower levels and Retribution Paladins make excellent dungeon tanks. At 30 buy the "dual spec" ability from your trainer and make one of those builds Protection. Keep the other as Holy or Retribution, depending on your preferences.

If you love to tank? With wait times for random dungeons being close to zero, for tanks, you can easily level all the way to 85 without ever leaving the dungeon system.

All in all Paladins are in fine shape and this one is in ilevel 372 Mists of Pandaria gear. (In the beta you can just buy it all from a vendor.)

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Quick Paladin Leveling Guide

Race: Race doesn't matter much, so pick what you like. Humans might be the best alliance choice, if you have to be efficient. Tauren might be the best Horde choice, for stomp and the extra Stam. Pandaren's cannot be Paladins.

Professions: To expensive to bother with when leveling. If you must then Blacksmithing and/or Inscription might be good choices. Our recommendation is to pick two of the gathering professions while leveling: Herbalism, skinning, mining.

Build and Glyphs:

Stats and Gear:

  • Strength, then more strength.
  • Crit's nice, too. Mastery if you're Protection.
  • Two handed weapons - with the highest DPS numbers you can find.
  • Stam
  • Resilience if you PvP
  • Relics, if you can find them, should have Str and Stam.
  • more stats

Gems and Enchants:

  • Skip both unless you have the gold.
  • Gem for Str.
  • Enchants can be found for cheap, at times. Go for Str, Stam.

Consumables:

  • Potions of mana and/or healing.
  • Potions and/or scrolls of Str.
  • Buffing foods

This page is intended to provide a general overview of Paladin leveling.

For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource on everything Paladin related, from leveling to PvP to Raiding to earning gold, check out the Killer Guides' Paladin guide.

 

Go to => Top - Short - Race - Crafts - Talents - Ret Build - Protection - Gear - Tips - Level Faster

 

 

Races and TradeSkills

Draenei PaladinAs a Paladin your choice of race is restricted to Human, Dwarf, Draenei, Blood Elf, and Tauren. If you intend to raid after leveling then the Draenei are your best choice. For PvP Humans are #1. If you want to look good then your only choice is a Dwarf. Blood elves are left out in the cold here. ;)

That said, I'm quite happy with my Belf Pallies, and the Tauren's War Stomp and extra Stam is nice.

As far as leveling goes, none of the racials are any great use, although the Draenei add to your hit chance means a few less miss signs and is a nice thing to bring to raids, where hit rating is very important.

Draenei: You're a squid. Deal with it. Even if you do have arms that put humans to shame.

  • Their racial adds a 1% chance to hit, self only with 4.0 , which has some utility. In the end-game this makes gearing/reforging decisions a bit easier.
  • Their heal is nice, except that you have an assortment of your own. Still, there are times when every little bit helps.
  • Good at Jewelcrafting

Dwarves: Short, blocky, make excellent door stops.

  • Other than their good looks Dwarves have Stoneform, which removes bleeds and such. With the 4.06 patch is also reduces damage, by 10%, for the duration of the effect.
  • Their weapon expertise has some use in end-game raiding, if a mace if the best weapon available.
  • Good at Archeology

Humans: The only proper Pally race, unless you'd rather not be Human.

  • Increased rep gain is nice when looking to gain faction with any of the dozens of factions available.
  • Escape is a very useful PvP ability and will sometimes find use while leveling. This allows the use of two DPS trinkets in PvP.
  • Expertise with swords and maces has some end-game use, in that it saves a few points that can be put elsewhere.
  • Paladins have no use for Spirit unless they're healers.

Blood Elves: Too busy looking in the mirror and playing with their hair to be good Paladins.

  • Best Horde race for Pallies. Well, Ok, they used to be the only Horde race (pre-Cataclysm.)
  • Any Silence effect is nice in PvP, and sometimes elsewhere, and the Blood Elves have a nice Area Effect silence with their Arcane Torrent (which also recovers a small amount of mana.)
  • Good with Enchanting.

Tauren: Big, Fuzzy, Huggable, loveable... perfect for Holy Pallies.

  • War Stomp is a nice area effect Stun, which is useful in leveling and PvP.
  • They also have extra health, which is useful in any situation for anyone. Mooo. Extra health and an area effect stun? Sign me up. Actually, the health doesn't scale well and isn't worth much at high level.
  • Good with Herbalism

Pandarians cannot be Paladins, in case you were wondering.

Go to => Top - Short - Race - Crafts - Talents - Ret Build - Protection - Gear - Tips - Level Faster

 

Tradeskills for leveling

For leveling, skip the tradeskills for the simple reason that they're very expensive to level. If you have the cash then Blacksmithing (for your weapons and plate adorned body) is nice, as is Mining to supply your Blacksmithing skill. If you have a ton of gold then Alchemy has lots of useful potions and Engineering has lots of useful gadgets.

  • Mining, Herbalism, and Skinning are your cash grinding skills. Pick any two. Gather full stacks of gatherables and sell them on the Auction House. Recommended:
  • Cooking has some foods with nice buffs.
  • First Aid is occasionally useful, for those times when you just don't want to spend the mana on a heal, but it's far from essential, especially in Cataclysm. It does give you something to do with all that cloth, though, and you can troll your buddies by bandaging them instead of healing them.
  • The other tradeskills have some nice self only buffs or items, but little utility otherwise and a lot of expense. On the other hand, for end-game raiding, the "self-only" features have definite value. See the Paladin guide for more on those skills.
  • Inscription might be a decent money maker on your server, but it takes a bit of work.
  • Enchanting is another very expensive skill to level, but you can disenchant items for your own use or to sell the parts. If you have enough cash this is a good way to make sure all your gear is "properly enchanted" as you level, you twink, you. ;)
  • Ditto Jewelcrafting. Unike Enchanting, though, you won't see much gear with gem slots on it while you level. Combinied with Mining you can prospect for gems and might be able to find and cut enough to make it worth your while.

Go to => Top - Short - Race - Crafts - Talents - Ret Build - Protection - Gear - Tips - Level Faster

 

Leveling Talents for Cataclysm

Tauren Paladin with no sense of humorIt used to be that Retribution was the only way to go for leveling. Dungeons were hard to get to and PvP didn't give experience. Then came the changes. Now we have the random dungeon finder tool and the battlegrounds (BGs) give awesome XP (if you win.) See our dungeon leveling guide for dungeon tips.

Leveling as Holy

You can certainly do this, but it will be painfully slow if you're questing. Joining a dungeon team will result in fast XP and is a good way to go. The same is true with PvP, if your teams are winning. Find yourself pocket Rogue or Warrior and stick with him. Here's our Holy Paladin page for builds.

Leveling as Protection

When questing you're halfway between Holy and Retribution. One on one with the mobs goes slowly (lack of damage. You'll be best off when you can be attacking several mobs at once. Round 'em all up and smash 'em down.

As a tank you'll level very quickly in the dungeons, since queue times for tanks are very short. PvP can work even though your one on one damage isn't so hot. You're fairly hard to kill so you can make a good defender until the damage shows up. See our Protection Paladin page for builds.

Retribution Paladins are the Rightous Crusaders who crush opponents with weapons and holy magic. This is the damage and light tanking build and the best for solo and small group leveling. You can quest with the best of them, do some light tanking, bring some nice damage (DPS) to your group, and can even toss out the occasional heal. You might not be able to handle groups as well as Protection, but you do a lot more damage and can kill fast enough to make up for it.

Not to mention what you can do to people in PvP.

Retribution is the spec we'll use for this guide, but if you want to level as Holy or Prot then just jump to those pages and grab the appropriate build.

Mechanics

Paladin mechanics have changed, with 4.0, into a Holy Power system. It's very similar to the Combo Points sytem that Rogues use, except that the Holy Power stays with the Pally, not on the opponent.

From the Devs: This (Holy Power) is a new resource which works similarly to (a Rogue or Druid's) combo points. Paladins will generally want to build up Holy Power until it shines through with a bright yellow glowing effect (3 "points" worth.) Once Holy Power has been built up, it can be consumed to augment existing abilities. For example, Word of Glory can be used to cast an instant-cast free heal. This gives paladins several options for how to spend their Holy Power, depending on the scenario.

As with all the other classes when you hit level 10 you will be given a choice of which talent specialization you will take. For Paladins your choices are: Holy, Protection, or Retribution. Once you pick one or the other you will be locked into that tree until you have spent 31 talent points (eaarned at level 69.) While this will get you to the top talent you can buy whichever talents in the tree that you want, skipping the top if you prefer. After that you can buy talents from either of the other trees.

Retribution Paladin Leveling Spec:

For Retribution Paladins the abilites that you will gain at level 10 are:

  • Templar's Verdict: A strike that consumes 1 to 3 points of Holy Power. Damage increases greatly as the points used increase. Unlike a Rogue's Combo Points the Holy Power stays with you, not on your opponent, allowing you to gain HP from opponent #1 and use it on #2.
  • Shealth of light: Increases your spell power by a % of your attack power and increases your chance to hit with spells by 8% .
  • Two Handed Weapon Specialzation: Increases the damge done with your 2-hander by 25%
  • Judgements of the Bold: Your judgement restores 25% of base mana over 10 seconds.
  • Mastery: Hand of Light (trainable at level 80:) Your Templar's Verdict, Divine Storm, and Crusader's Strike abilities deal additional damage as Holy Damage. Increasing Mastery rating increases the amount of bonus damage.

For leveling talents we're looking for things that improve damage, reduce downtimes, and and that are generally useful (such as speed boosts.) Talents that are purely PvP oriented or group oriented are skipped, though if you group a lot (eg: you're the tank) you might want to grab those. See the notes at the end of this section.

Note that we're not taking all the points in the chosen talents as we want to get int Zeolotry asap. With some of the talents we'll take a point now and come back later for more.

6/4/31 click to view the entire build

  1. Crusade - Rank 3/3 - Increases the damage of your Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous, and Templar's Verdict by 30%, and the damage and healing of your Holy Shock by 30%. In addition, for 15 sec after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor, your next Holy Light heals for an additional 300%.
  2. Improved Judgement - Rank 2/2 - Increases the range of your Judgement by 20 yards. (with 4.0 there is only one Judgement spell .)

  3. Rule of Law - Rank 3/3 - Increases the critical effect chance of your Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous and Word of Glory by 15%.
  4. Pursuit of Justice - Rank 2/2 - You have a 100% chance to gain a charge of Holy Power when struck by a Stun, Fear or Immobilize effect. In addition, increases your movement and mounted movement speed by 15%. This effect does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.The former effect obviously has more use in PvP situations than otherwise, but it'll still happen often enough.

  5. The Art of War - Rank 3/3 - Your autoattacks have a 20% chance to make your next Exorcism instant, free and cause 100% additional damage. A talent to be taken later will increase your Excorcism's damage.
  6. Divine Storm - Rank 1/1 - An instant attack that causes 100% weapon damage to all enemies within 8 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totaling 25% of the damage caused.
  7. Long Arm of the Law - Rank 1/2 - Your Judgement has a 100% chance to increase your movement speed by 45% for 4 sec when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.

  8. Seals of Command - Rank 1/1 - Your Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Truth and Seal of Justice now also deal 7% weapon damage each time you swing. In addition, your Seal of Righteousness now hits up to 2 additional targets.
  9. Sanctity of Battle - Rank 1/1 - Haste effects lower the cooldown of your Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities.
  10. Sanctified Wrath - Rank 3/3 - Increases the critical strike chance of Hammer of Wrath by 60%, reduces the cooldown of Avenging Wrath by 60 secs and allows the use of Hammer of Wrath at all times during Avenging Wrath.


  11. Divine Purpose - Rank 2/2 - The following attacks have a 15% chance to cause your next Holy Power ability to consume no Holy Power and to cast as if 3 Holy Power were consumed:
    • - Judgement
    • - Exorcism
    • - Templar's Verdict
    • - Divine Storm
    • - Inquisition
    • - Holy Wrath
    • - Hammer of Wrath
  12. Repentance - Rank 1/1 - Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 1 min. Any damage from sources other than Censure will awaken the target. Usable against Demons, Dragonkin, Giants, Humanoids and Undead. Very nice for crowded areas or in dungeons.
  13. Long Arm of the Law - Rank 2/2 - Finishing this one.
  14. Communion - Rank 1/1 - Your auras increase your party and raid's damage dealt by 3%, and your own damage is increased by an additional 2% at all times. In addition, your Judgement causes Replenishment.
    • Replenishment - Grants up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 1% of their maximum mana per 10 sec. Lasts for 15 sec.

  15. Inquiry of Faith - Rank 3/3 - Increases the periodic damage done by your Seal of Truth by 30%, and the duration of your Inquisition by 150%.
  16. Acts of Sacrifice - Rank 2/2 - Reduces the cooldown by 20% and mana cost by 20% of your Hand of Freedom, Hand of Salvation and Hand of Sacrifice. In addition, your Cleanse will remove one movement impairing effect if cast on yourself. How's that for a nice PvP ability?
  17. Zealotry - Rank 1/1 - Your Crusader Strike generates 3 charges of Holy Power per strike for the next 20 sec. Requires 3 Holy Power to use, but does not consume Holy Power. For 20 seconds your rotation becomes Crusader Strike (CS) > Templar's Verdict or Word of Glory (WoG) > CS > TV/WoG CS > TV/ WoG, instead of CS x3 > TV/WoG

  18. You can now buy talents from the other trees

  19. Eternal Glory - Protection, Rank 2/2 - Your Word of Glory has a 30% chance not to consume Holy Power.
  20. Seals of the Pure - Protection, Rank 2/2 - Increases the damage done by your Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Truth, and Seal of Justice by 12%.
  21. Judgements of the Pure - Holy, Rank 3/3 - Your Judgement increases your casting and melee haste by 9% for 1 min.
  22. Arbiter of the Light - Holy, Rank 2/2 - Increases the critical effect chance of your Judgement and Templar's Verdict by 12%.
  23. Blazing Light - Rank 1/2 - Increases the damage of your Exorcism by 10%.

Retribution Glyphs

One of the big changes in the new (with 4.0) glyph system, besides the addition of Prime glyphs, is that you only have to buy each glyph once and then you know it. You can only load (up to) nine at one time, but you know all of them. This means that you will be able to swap them in and out as needed.

In Mists of Pandaria those Prime glyphs are going away, so you will have 3 each of Major and Minor. No new slots are being added.

In order to switch glyphs youi will need this stuff from the Inscription Supplies Vendor:

  • If you're 80 or less you want Vanishing Powder.
  • 81-85 requires Dust of Disappearance
  • 86+ will require a Tome of the Clear Mind.

You will get access to your first three Glyphs at 25, the next trio at 50, the last at 75.

 

Level 25:

  • Glyph of Crusader Strike (Prime Glyph) - Increases the critical strike chance of Crusader Strike by 5%.
  • Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader (Major Glyph) - Reduces the mana cost of your Crusader Strike by 30%.
  • Glyph of Blessing of Kings (Minor Glyph) - Reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Kings by 50%.

Level 50:

  • Glyph of Judgement (Prime Glyph) - Your Judgement deals 10% more damage.
  • Glyph of Rebuke (Major Glyph) - Reduces the mana cost of Rebuke by 100%. Especially for PvP, nice in dungeons, and generally useful as your level increases.
  • Glyph of Truth (Minor Glyph) - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Truth by 50%.

Level 75:

  • Glyph of Templar's Verdict (Prime Glyph) - Increases the damage of Templar's Verdict by 15%.
  • Glyph of Hammer of Justice (Major Glyph) - Increases your Hammer of Justice range by 5 yards.
  • Glyph of Blessing of Might (Minor Glyph) - Reduces the mana cost of your Blessing of Might by 50%.


Other talents:

  • Eye for an Eye - Returns some of the damage taken by spells to the attack. More for PvP.
  • Guardian's Fervor - More for groups, not so much for soloing.
  • Sacred Shield - 3 sec cast time makes it less useful when the damage is crashing in. Still, there are times where it might be useful, especially in dungeons.
  • Selfless Healer - If you're part of the heals for your group then this is a good talent. If you never heal others then it has little use.

Go to => Top - Short - Race - Crafts - Talents - Ret Build - Protection - Gear - Tips - Level Faster

 

Protection Paladin Leveling Build

Protection Paladins level just fine, especially when they can round up a group and smash them all at once. This build also doubles as a tanking build if you're running dungeons, as well as questing. If you're doing PvP then you're probably better off as Holy or Retribution.

(Click here to view this build)

Protection Talents (33 Points)

  1. Divinity - Rank 3/3 - Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 6%.
  2. Seals of the Pure - Rank 2/2 - Increases the damage done by your Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Truth, and Seal of Justice by 12%. See note below.
    1. Optional: Eternal Glory, 2/2, which gives Word of Glory a chance to use no Holy Power.

  3. Judgements of the Just - Rank 2/2 - Your Judgement reduces the melee and ranged attack speed of the target by 20% for 20 sec. In addition, increases the duration of your Seal of Justice effect by 1 sec.
  4. Toughness - Rank 3/3 - Increases your armor value from items by 10%.

  5. Hallowed Ground - Rank 2/2 - Increases the damage of your Consecration by 40% and decreases its mana cost by 80%.
  6. Sanctuary - Rank 3/3 - Reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 6% and reduces all damage taken by 10%. In addition when you block or dodge a melee attack you gain 3% of maximum mana.
  7. Hammer of the Righteous - Rank 1/1 - Hammer the current target for 30% weapon damage, causing a wave of light that hits all targets within 8 yards for 583 to 873 Holy damage. Grants a charge of Holy Power.
  8. Wrath of the Lightbringer - Rank 2/2 - Increases the damage of your Crusader Strike and Judgement abilities by 100%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Wrath and Hammer of Wrath spells by 30%.

  9. Reckoning - Rank 1/2 - You have a 10% chance after blocking an attack for your next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec to generate an additional attack.
  10. Shield of the Righteous - Rank 1/1 - Slam the target with your shield, causing Holy damage. Consumes all charges of Holy Power to determine damage dealt:
    1. 1 Holy Power: (610 - 1) damage
    2. 2 Holy Power: (610 * 3 - 3) damage
    3. 3 Holy Power: (610 * 6 - 6) damage
  11. Grand Crusader - Rank 2/2
    When your Crusader Strike or Hammer of the Righteous deal damage to your primary target, they have a 20% chance of refreshing the cooldown on your next Avenger's Shield and causing it to generate a charge of Holy Power if used within 6 sec.

  12. Vindication - Rank 1/1 - Your Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous reduce physical damage done by their primary targets by 10% for 30 sec.
  13. Holy Shield - Rank 1/1 - Increases the amount your shield blocks by an additional 20% for 10 sec.
  14. Guarded by the Light - Rank 2/2 - Increases your Word of Glory by 10% when used to heal yourself. In addition, any overhealing will create a protective shield equal to the amount of overhealing that lasts for 6 sec.
  15. Divine Guardian - Rank 1/1 - All party or raid members within 30 yards, excluding the Paladin, take 20% reduced damage for 6 sec.

  16. Sacred Duty - Rank 2/2 - Your Judgement and Avenger's Shield have a 50% chance of making your next Shield of the Righteous a critical strike. Lasts 10 sec.
  17. Shield of the Templar - Rank 3/3 - Reduces the cooldown of Avenging Wrath by 60 sec and Guardian of Ancient Kings by 120 sec. In addition, your Divine Plea will generate 3 Holy Power.

  18. Ardent Defender - Rank 1/1 - Reduce damage taken by 20% for 10 sec. While Ardent Defender is active, the next attack that would otherwise kill you will instead cause you to be healed for 15% of your maximum health.

Retribution Talents:

  1. Crusade - Rank 3/3 - Increases the damage of your Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous, and Templar's Verdict by 30%, and the damage and healing of your Holy Shock by 30%. In addition, for 15 sec after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor, your next Holy Light heals for an additional 300%.
  2. Improved Judgement - Rank 2/2 - Increases the range of your Judgement by 20 yards.

  3. Rule of Law - Rank 3/3 - Increases the critical effect chance of your Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous and Word of Glory by 15%.

Glyph of Crusader Strike (Prime Glyph)
Increases the critical strike chance of Crusader Strike by 5%.

Glyph of Hammer of Justice (Major Glyph)
Increases your Hammer of Justice range by 5 yards.

Glyph of Righteousness (Minor Glyph)
Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Righteousness by 50%.

Protection Glyphs

One of the big changes in the new glyph system, besides the addition of Prime glyphs, is that you only have to buy each glyph once and then you know it. You can only load (up to) nine at one time, but you know all of them. This means that you will be able to swap them in and out as needed. You'll need to get some stuff to do that from the Inscription Supplies vendor, but you'll never have to buy another one once you have them all.

In order to switch glyphs (get this stuff from the Inscription Supplies Vendor:)

  • If you're 80 or less you want Vanishing Powder.
  • 81-85 requires Dust of Disappearance
  • 86+ will require a Tome of the Clear Mind.

You will get access to your first three Glyphs at 25, the next trio at 50, the last at 75.

 

Level 25:

  • Glyph of Crusader Strike (Prime Glyph) - Increases the critical strike chance of Crusader Strike by 5%.
  • Glyph of Hammer of Justice (Major Glyph) Increases your Hammer of Justice range by 5 yards.
    • Optional: (If you're running low on Mana) Drop Glyph of HoJ for Glyph of Ascetic Crusader, which reduces the mana cost of your Crusader Strike by 30%.
  • Glyph of Blessing of Kings (Minor Glyph) - Reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Kings by 50%.

Level 50:

  • Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous (Prime Glyph) - Increases the damage of both the physical and Holy components of Hammer of the Righteous by 10%.
  • Glyph of Holy Wrath (Major Glyph) Your Holy Wrath now also stuns Elementals and Dragonkin.
  • Glyph of Truth (Minor Glyph) - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Truth by 50%.
  • or Glyph of Insight (Minor Glyph) Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Insight by 50%.

Level 75:

  • Glyph of Shield of the Righteous (Prime Glyph) Increases the damage of Shield of the Righteous by 10%.
  • Glyph of Hammer of Wrath (Major Glyph) - Reduces the mana cost of Hammer of Wrath by 100%.
  • Glyph of Blessing of Might (Minor Glyph) - Reduces the mana cost of your Blessing of Might by 50%.
  • Drop Kings and pick up Truth or Insight.

Notes:

  • I like to run Seal of Insight when tanking for the heal and the mana restoration. It makes you much more durable. If you always run with Insight then Seals of the Pure (#2 talent, above) is not useful. You won't get Insight until level 32 though, so wait until then if you want to replace the talents with something else.

 

Go to => Top - Short - Race - Crafts - Talents - Ret Build - Protection - Gear - Tips - Level Faster

 

Gear & Notes

The Stats

Gearing a retribution paladin used to be tough at times, at any given time you’d have numerous priorities to consider, such as whether increasing your mana pool for more seals/judgements is a better idea than just boosting strength, etc. Or should you get the gear with high Strength or high Stamina? What about Spirit?

With Cataclysm the equation is easier.

(It's looking like this equation will be much the same for Mists of Pandaria. )

Strength is by far your best stat. Fortunately all of your gear has Str.

At lower levels you will run out of mana occasionally. Buddy up with an Alchemist, or buy the mana potions, and you'll be fine. At higher levels, esp. with Blessing of Might the mane issues go away unless you're casting a lot of spells.

Short stats: Strength and Stam, then more Str. Crit is your #1 secondary stat.

  • For Protection: Str & Stam, Mastery is youir #1 secondary stat.

Long stats:

  1. Strength is all powers for breaking heads and is your #1 stat, by far.
  2. Hit rating is more for PvP and even more for Raiding, not so important for leveling. 5% is quite adequate for PvP and questing and 8% is good for all your melee attacks against dungeon bosses. Your Sheath of Light give you 8% spell hit, so any spells you cast will be covered.
  3. Expertise keeps the other guy from avoiding your strikes. Good threat stat for Prot, but the threat changes in patch 4.3 make it a bit less valuable.
  4. Crit rating is very important for Ret, Not so much for Prot.
  5. Spell Power only appears on some trinkets and enchants and, other than Exorcism and your heals, your not casting much in the way of spells.
  6. Intellect expands your mana pool and improves spell damage and spell crits, but since you won't be casting much in the way of spells Int isn't valuable.
  7. Stamina is important if you're getting killed, otherwise you don't need much. If you're on a PvP server you might want more. Protection values Stam a lot more.
  8. Agility is useless to you.
  9. Spirit is useless to you unless you're a healer.
  10. Mastery is a big snooze for Ret., the #1 secondary stat for Protection.
  11. Resilience - only appears on PvP gear and then only at mid to high levels. Very important if you PvP, useless if you don't.

 

Plate is your armor (from 40+.) Know it and love it. Stick with plate. Before level 50 you might find pieces of mail armor might have better stats at any given level, and plate might be unavailable, so go ahead and use that mail piece, if it's an upgrade.

At level 50 you get Plate Specialization which gives you a 5% bonus to your primary stat (Str for Retribution) if you have Plate in all armor slots. This will make plate superior to any other choices from level 50 onward.

Gear? See above. You're not terribly gear dependent, but we all love the good gear. You can get better gear from instances or the Auction House or PvP honor vendors. Upgrade your weapon every few levels and the rest of your gear whenever you feel the urge.

  • Level 70: Do some PvP before this then buy your epic arena gear from the Arena Legacy Vendors. This will keep you well geared until...
  • Level 77: Put away all heirlooms and start buying and using Cataclysm gear. The stats on that stuff are WAY better than almost anything else at this level. Send all your regular (level 80 capped) heirlooms to your alts.
  • Level 81: Put your level 85 heirlooms (guild cloak and helm) back on.

Mists of Pandaria green gear starts at iLevel 372.

Retribution wants two-handed weapons for everything. Save the Weapon and Shield for Protection. You want the 2-hander with the highest DPS possible, which usually means the slowest weapon you can find. You special attacks are all based off the weapon's average damage. 2-handers with Strength and Hit/Crit rating are awesome.

Note that your Two Handed Weapon Specialization gives you more damage with 2-handers. None of your talents (or those of Protection) give you anything with one-handers, thouigh Prot will be using the 1-handers anyway.

Gems and Enchants - Enchants can be very expensive, so skip them until you have the gold. You'll level fast enough that you will outgrow your gear quickly and the enchants probably won't be cost effective. Gems are a nice little boost for when you find that piece of socketed gear. You won't see many gem slots before 60, though.

If you are going to use gems and or enchants then pick the ones that give you the stats you need, whether it's strength, stam, or whatever.

  • Gems: Gems for strength
  • Mastery gems for Prot.
  • Enchants: Str and Stam are often cheap.

Sometimes you can find gems and enchants for very little gold, so it's worth looking occasionally.

Go to => Top - Short - Race - Crafts - Talents - Ret Build - Protection - Gear - Tips - Level Faster

 

Paladin Leveling Tips

Unless you're tanking, and you won't be before level 15, use a two-handed weapon. You'll use Crusader Strike to build up your Holy Power (which will appear on a "meter" right under your mana bar.)

With one to three points of Holy Power you can fire off Templar's Verdict or World of Glory or other abilities. Three points gives a much better result than one or two.

Have a Seal and Blessing of Kings or Might up at all times.

As you level you will be better able to control groups of mobs.

Keep in mind that Protection Pallies are much better at the tanking game.

  • Don't gimp yourself, equip a two-handed weapon. If you're grouping and you are not the tank then turn off Retribution Aura and Rightous Fury in favor of other things that generate less threat.
  • If you're tanking instances at lower level (and you can) then equip a shield and one handed weapon. Keep Rightous Fury and Retribution Aura up to greatly improve your threat.

  • Always get the biggest bags you can afford. More space means fewer tips to the vendor to dump stuff.
  • Carry a couple of potions of water breathing for those times when you'll really want one.
  • Potions of healing are nice for those time when Word of Glory and the mana just aren't there
  • Ditto for mana potions

  • Consumables, such as buffing foods and potions of strength, are very nice to have and will both speed up your leveling and reduce your downtime.
  • Make an alt (alternate character) just to sell stuff on the Auction house. Gather stuff while questing, mail the white and better stuff to the alt, then get back to work. Log into the alt when you're done and sell the stuff.
  • Questing with a compatible partner reduces the XP per kill, but increases the kill rate more then enough to compensate, so dual up when you can. There's also less downtime, so that speeds things up, too. Priests and Druids go very well with Paladins.
  • Daily quests (from 70+) are a nice way to get XP, gold, rep, and some items.
  • PvP, endless shopping, and other time wasting activities can be great fun, but will slow your leveling.

  • PvP in the Battlegrounds, on the other hand, gave give up some nice XPand gives you honor points which you can use to buy some nice gear at mid levels. If your team is winning then you can level very quickly in the battlegrounds.

  • Always log out in an Inn, for the Rested XP Bonus.
  • If you really want to get to 85 fast then you should invest in a leveling guide.

 

 

1-90 Paladin Leveling Guide

As you have noticed there are thousands of quests in the World of Warcraft and a few zillion monsters to slay (not even including other players.) Keeping track of all those quests, looking up the details and figuring out where to go and what to do can become a drag. Mists of Pandaria adds another five levels to the equation.

If you're using Dugi's Guide you will be leveling quickly regardless of patch or expansion:

Brand new to WoW? Heirlooms from head to toe? Using Recruit a Friend? No sweat! YDugi's has you covered and you will never again wonder where to go or what to do. You will probably never even need to look at your quest log again.

Hitting the level cap will be a snap. Dugi's is always 100% ready for whatever updates to the game that Blizzards brings us. Grab your copy now and see how quickly you can get to max level!

 

 

 


 

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