Race

Paladin

04-06-2008 wowgoldgathering

For levelling PvE there are two strategies that can be followed:

mainly retribution spec, two handed weapon, preferably a slow swinging high damage blue. This is combined with the Seal of Command for high damage.
protection spec, fast one handed weapon, shield, Seal of Light, Blessing of Salvation, Reckoning, Holy Shield. With this spec you can take on at least four or five enemies at a time at your level in mele. Currently this is my preference, retribution is very mana intensive and you can only hit one enemy at a time. My recommendation would be to start off with retribution for the firepower until you get to around level 35 and then switch to the protection spec for the goodies that heal you while dealing damage to multiple attackers with much smaller cost in mana. Ok you don't kill individuals as quickly but it is great fun fighting three or four monsters at a time and finishing with half health left.

One hand vs two handed conundrum:

one hand

best with protection spec

can hold a shield for about 40% more armour so you die less often
with a very fast one-handed weapon (less than two seconds per swing) the Seal of Light judged and Seal of Crusader you get healing with every hit so the more often you hit the more healing you get. This is the slowest way to kill anything but your health declines very slowly: this is the way to tackle multiple enemies, you prevail through attrition.
I didn't try this till level 60 where it works nicely but a slow one hander (2.5 sec swing) with a shield gives a nice compromise between killing speed (kill most non-elites up to level 60 in less than 30 seconds) and the amount of health and mana left after a fight (i.e. avoiding health/mana break downtime).
- Seal of Crusader
- Judge
- Seal of Righteousness
At level 60 I am mainly using either a fast one-hander with multiple mobs or a slow one-hander for faster health/mana efficient kills. It is easy to switch one-handers and seals if you get adds in a fight or to despatch the last opponent quickly.
Sharpening Stones or Weightstones are useful for increasing your dps: 8 more damage on a weapon that hits every second means 8 more dps. 8 more damage on a weapon that hits every four seconds is two more dps so these stones on a two-hander are not so effective.

two hand

best with retribution spec

more power kills baddies faster
with Seal of Command can hit very hard
better for PvP

It took me some time to realise that you can heal yourself in the Divine Protection Bubble. Fundamental Paladin tactic. You can also heal yourself after stunning an opponent. This way you can save your Divine Protection for emergencies. The Concentration Aura is reasonably effective if you are only fighting one enemy.

The Blessing of Protection is almost as good as the Divine Protection/Divine Shield bubble but doesn't stop spells. However, against mele you can use it first and then use the Divine whatever a minute later when things are getting really desperate.

Divine Shield, Divine Protection and Blessing of Protection have seperate cooldowns so in one long fight you can use all three, although you have to wait a minute between each one or you will get an 'Immune' message.

If you feel like jumping off a cliff Divine Shield can be used to survive hitting the ground.

The paladin gets a summon warhorse spell at level 40. Just go see a paladin trainer and buy the spell for 90 silver. There is no extra training to pay for, you automatically get 75/75 riding skill. If you like you can muy another mount (e.g. as a dwarf I could buy a ram) and use the free riding skill. The regular mounts take the same three seconds to summon, use up a bag slot but don't use any mana). At level 60 the paladin must run some unpopular high level dungeons to complete the epic horse quest. I saved up 600g to just buy one. My epic mount isn't as exclusive as the paladin mount and I can't call myself a real paladin so that's my credibility blown. Reader Sarah says that the Paladin epic mount quest isn't as difficult as some sites make out but I think it depends largely on whether you can get the groups together to do the raids.

I took up mining and blacksmithing to complement my paladin mele skills. At player level 40 and blacksmith level 200 there is a quest that rewards you with an epic one-handed weapon which is ideal for a protection spec paladin. To get it you need 120 mithril bars and some other stuff, it's not a fighting quest but a farming and money making quest. The quest starts from 'Hank the Hammer' in the dwarf district of Stormwind.

Paladin's can heal themselves but it is still worth learning first aid and using bandages because:

it saves mana. In a fight mana is everything, bandaging in the bubble will help conserve it.
it is quicker than eating food: eight seconds to bandage, twenty to eat.
instead of carrying around half a dozen different types of food, you only need one or two stacks of bandages.

Race

Paladin

gold gathering

powerleveling

Class

Reputations