Paladin LevelingFollow

Yes, yes, I see that there are many paladin leveling builds and guide, and yes I have read quite a few of them, especially now that I am leveling an alt that is a paladin, and I still have questions.

My paladin is going to be used for PvE, and mostly questing at that. The AoE build of the prot spec looks fun, but I'm not sure how useful it would be for questing, and the type of grinding that is contained in that, so perhaps Ret build is for me?

What I would like to know, from those who have been paladin for much longer than me, is which build would be most efficient for questing to gather xp.

Also, (even though I'm only level 12 right now) I find that I am having trouble with mana, much moreso than I thought I would at this point. My current routine is Seal of Righteousness > Judgement > Seal of Righteousness, and if it is a runner I use Hammer of Justice, or Judgement, and Blessing of Might every 5 minutes.

My current weapon is a 2h axe, should I use that most of the time, or should I use 1h +shield for melee heavy areas, and 2h for caster?

Thanks for all the help ^_^;

Using a 2h axe is alright, but have a shield/weapon combo handy, and keep uprgading them through quest rewards and dungeon loot, etc. I got myself a really good 1h sword at 28 from the WSG vendor which actually did better damage than the polearm reward from the paladin quest.
I'm now 35 and still using that same sword, so the time taken to get 30 WSG tokens was a very good investment. Still no 2handers, that do significantly more damage, to be seen.
When training a new weapon type, you don't really need to slow down much since you're still dealing damage through retribution aura, concecreation and judgements. So picking up a new good hammer isn't much of a hassle to a paladin as it is to, say, a rogue.

Thanks for the replys.

I dont tend to spam my judgement every time it is up, I usually only use it for "pulling" though I will use it if theres a runner I need to kill before it aggros more stuff.

Also, thanks for the tip of starting with SotC, that should help some, especially with mana costs.

As for the spec, I'm assuming I should go ret? Any tips that could be provided would be great, as I have no idea where I should put the points, as it seems that I cant really build anything that seems to be worth the points to me.

For example:

Ret

This is what I consider my best planned out ret build, starting in ret until I got repetance, then going over into holy for imp SoR, but I'm not sure if I'd use it when I'd have SoC. Ignorance is why I am having trouble building :/

Though the though of being able to stand anywhere and take a beating using something like this:

Prot

seems pretty yummy though, but the damage would be low, I know.



Edited, Apr 29th 2007 7:09am by skonatha

Most people will tell you that Retribution is the best spec for grinding, and they're not wrong if you look at it on paper, but from personal experience I found Protection to be much more facilitative. I could solo quests with my Protection build that I had an extremely hard time with with my Retribution build. In addition to that, you'll have a far easier time getting parties for instances if you can main-tank or main-heal; DPS'ers are a dime a dozen, and it's rare a party is going to call on you for that express purpose.

That said, I do recommend you level with Retribtion until at least 34 for Protection (when you can max Reckoning), and probably up to 40 for Holy. I honestly don't know about Holy, I've never leveled with it, but you really, really want to wait until you have Reckoning in Protection or it'll be unbearably slow for you.


Your only problem here is just that you're so low. Don't worry about. You're not even to the point in the game yet where items start coming with stats significant enough to have a noticeable impact on play beyond the basic functions of your class. Once you get into the late teens and early twenties, focus on loading up on as much "of the eagle" mail as soon as possible and you'll be fine.

Still, your routine could use a little fine-tuning. Start fights off by judging Seal of the Crusader to increase the holy damage on your strikes with Seal of Righteousness up. Trust me, it may start off slower, but you'll kill faster overall. This early on, don't bother Judging unless you really think you'll need it to finish a fight. Just save your mana to heal up before you move on to the next mob afterwards. Later on though, you'll be Judging at every opportunity once your mana pool can support it.


Like I said, stay Retribution until at least the mid-30's. You'll have to use a two-handed weapon until then (it doesn't matter what kind, just use whatever has the best stats). If you stay Retribution or go Holy at that point, you'll probably want to keep the two-hander on. If you switch to Protection, you'll definitely want to go sword-and-board.

Questing = Ret
Grinding = Prot

Thats always been my rule.

Ret is more efficient at single target DPS, while prot is only more efficient when you are fighting 3+ mobs at a time. Since questing generally involves single mob fighting I would recommend that.

Also, gear while leveling 1-58 is more in favor of ret with warrior type of gear. You dont get a lot of plate +dmg/int/sta gear until the outlands.

My 2c, thought it seems that my opinion is one of the minority these days.

oh, and Skonatha, go train on swords ASAP. i don't remember what level you need to be but i haven't used an axe or hammer in some time.