Thinking of rolling a new Ret Paladin? Maybe you’ve gotten half way and are wondering if you’re playing your paladin spec properly?
Paladins as of writing are widely considered one of the more “OP” (overpowered) classes in the game.
Able to both heal and pump out decent damage, paladins are leveling, raiding and PvP monsters.
So if you’re keen to get in while the gettin’s good, this ret paladin leveling guide will help you level your pally in the shortest time possible.
Sword & Shield? *WRONG!*
Sword & Shield? *WRONG!*
Horde Races:
Currently limited to Blood Elves, horde paladins are a relatively rare breed, as opposed to alliance who have been leveling THREE races worth of Paladins for some time now.
Blood Elves racial passive, arcane torrent, is a great addition to your paladin. Its equally useful in leveling, as well as end game dungeons and PvP.
It also has a small mana boosting element which is again great for keeping your leveling pace going when your mana drops low.
Alliance Races:
I understand Alliance players read this blog too, so briefly:
Humans: great pvp and reputation grinding bonuses, but pretty much nothing to speak of that will help level faster.
Dwarves: again, practically nothing. Stone form has very limited usefulness.
Draenei: the best Alliance leveling race – gift of the Naaru is a small heal over time that will hopefully help you get out of a few sticky spots and prevent some corpse runs, as well as giving you greater up time.
You also get the +1% to hit bonus which while you might barely notice will help a little.
Paladin Profession Selection
Herbalism: Best in slot for leveling professions – pick this and use lifeblood often to help you keep alive. Also handy to use this rather than your healing judgements – allowing your mana building judgements to keep your mob killing times fast.
Mining: Meh – its ok… but given you’ll still need to heal up your large HP pool, I’d go herbalism over mining any day of the week for leveling.
Skinning: This should be your second choice, as the bonus ability gives you greater crit strike. No brainer here – more crits = more damage = Paladin leveling machine.
Crafting professions: Leave them all unless you don’t mind leveling a little slower. In a rush to 80 though? Just take skinning and herbalism (you’ll also make way more gold).
Cooking: A possibility, but given it can be a royal pain in the ass to level up in some leveling brackets, you might (nay, you WILL) find it easier to back track once you hit 80… again, you’ll also have tons more gold at 80 to buy food that you can’t find.
1-80 Paladin Leveling Spec
The number 1 leveling spec for Paladins is definately the “ret”, or retribution spec.
Retribution is the paladins DPS tree, Holy is the healing tree, and Protection is the tanking tree. If you don’t care what spec you use as you level up to 80, I urge you to choose ret. It is the fastest — all DPS built hybrids are.
So assuming you’re agreeing with my ret spec for your paladin, here’s the 1-80 talent choices you need to make.
The 60/11 Retribution/Holy Build:
- 5 ranks of Benediction – mana efficiency is key to more dps over time. Less time spent eating & drinking means more leveling.
- 2 ranks in Improved Judgements – since you use your judgements so often, 2 seconds less on cooldowns is handy.
- 3 ranks in Heart of the Crusader – good for solo and group play, increasing your criticals against judgement afflicted targets (aka all of them!)
- 2 ranks in Improved Blessing of Might – BoM is the best blessing to use while leveling. AP (attack power) is one of the best DPS stats you can get, and IBoM gives you another 25%.
- 2 ranks in Vindication – working hand in hand with blessing of might, vindication gives you a chance to reduce your targets attack power by x for 10 seconds.
- 5 ranks in Conviction – stacking with Heart of the Crusader and brings your total crit chance bonus to 8%
- 1 rank in Seal of Command – gives you a seal unique to the Ret spec, giving you a small bonus to fighting more than one mob at once.
- 2 ranks of Pursuit of Justice – one of the simplest and one of the best leveling skills for the paladin. Increasing movement speed by 8% is a god send for levelers who have to traverse large areas of Kalimdor & the Eastern Kingdoms, and is an even better talent with the easier to acquire and faster ground mounts.
- 2 ranks in Eye for an eye – this is another great ret ability that lets you return 10% of all damage cause to you to your attacker. MOAR dps!
- 3 ranks in Sanctity of Battle - another crit increasing talent, further taking your crit bonus to 11%. Also ups damage caused by Exorcism and Crusader strike (two of your most used abilities) by 15%.
- 3 ranks in Crusade – another simple but excellent talent +3% damage caused against all opponents. Don’t scoff at this, it all adds up as you move down the tree.
- 3 ranks in Two handed weapon specialization – another 6% damage increase when you wield a 2h weapon (which you should ALWAYS be doing while leveling).
- 1 rank of Sacrified Retribution – gives ret aura a handy 50% boost in damage.
- 3 ranks in Vengeance – yet more passive dps (always handy) for your pally whenever he deals a critical strike… if you’ve been following my recommendations then that should be OFTEN.
- 2 ranks in the Art of War - passive dps again here, take 2 ranks and get another 10% extra dmg from Judgement, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities.
- 1 rank in Repentance – great for when you accidentally pull more than you bargained for – put the target to sleep for 1 minute… and make sure you don’t use AoE nearby
- 3 ranks in Judgement of the Wise – JoW is possibly one of the best leveling talents – 100% chance to get replenishment every time you use a judgement, which immediately greants you 25% of your base mana.
- 2 ranks in Sanctified Wrath – despite the somewhat cool PvP effects from this talent, we’re concerned more with the 50% extra crit strike chance you get from Hammer of Wrath.
- 3 ranks of Swift Retribution – haste for teh winz! Your auras give you and your buddies an extra 3% casting ranged and melee attack speed.
- 1 rank of Crusader Strike – the staple of the aging Paladin is Crusader strike, you’ll use it often and with its relatively short cooldown its a great dps buff.
- 3 ranks of Sheath of Light – similar to the Shaman’s Mental Quickness, SoL increases your spell power by 30% of your attack power, a great spell damage buff, not to mention the healing over time effect you get from crit heals.
- 3 ranks in Righteous Vengeance – Moar dps again from crits, and with well chosen gear and talents, RV will be doing plenty of DoT’s on your critted targets.
- Divine Storm – the end of tree ret paladin talent. This awesome ability is an insta weapon attack that gives 110% of weapon damage to up to 4 enemies within 8 years. Even better (and perhaps more useful for end game purposes), DS heals up to 3 party of raid members totaling 25% of the damage caused.
So thats my 59 points of Retribution Spec. My recommendation after you’ve filled out these abilites is to hit Proection for 12 more points.
Here’s how your pally should talent his remaining points:
- Divine Strength – 5 points here for 15% extra strength (which will give you more attack power, spell power, and dps)
- Anticipation – 3 points here for extra dodge rating, which will reduce damage taken, increasing up time/survivability.
- Guardian’s Favor – 2 points here reduces your hand of freedom skills cooldown – nothing world beating but we need another few points to hit the next branch in the tree.
- Improved Righteous Fury – 2 points here for another 2% damage reduction.
You’ve probably noticed this is a very ret heavy spec. I’m not heaping 15 or 18 points into prot or holy to balance it out.
When you’re leveling you simply want DPS. Later down the road I’ve chosen some damage mitigation for when you’ll inevitably start doing some Outland dungeons and then Northrend dungeons.
Follow this advice here and I guarantee you’ll never feel let down by your dps and leveling speed as a retribution paladin.
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