Time for a "How to levelup an Expansion Paladin Guide", from both old and new experience. Ive played paladin from the summer 2005, and I really love this class. And now (finally!) when the horde is being able to roll Paladins, there will be many new paladins who have no clue (or just a little) how to level one.
This is what Ive used with my last lowbie paladin on live and with my bloodelf paladin on the beta.
Note: This is basicly for new horde rerollers, the talents works for allinace of course but the areas is horde :)
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This is a PvE Questing&Grinding guide, nothing less nothing more. Dont complain if you dislike this while PvP/Instance (it works for tanking tho, but pretty worthless at healing).
The point of this build is: You can collect alot of Strenght gear, without getting worried about your mana since almost all of your damage come from your autoattack (Might sound boring, but this is the paladin class when its being effective :) and even being able to use Blessing of Might without mana issues. Altho, from level 1-30~ your manapool will empty rather fast but regenerate fast as well, so intellect isnt needed tbh.
Main damage talents: Reckoning&Seal of Command. Both are based on proc system, Reckoning procs 10% from every hit meanwhile Seal of Command is a 7procs per minute system - wich "forces" the paladin to only focus Maxdamage to get maxeffect on Seal of Command. Both scales with Melee damage, therefor your priority for stats is same as a warrior.
How-To-Reckoning: Since Reckoning procs 10% everytime you are getting hurt (melee or ranged, not dots) its alot more effective to fight 2 mobs or more at the same time to have it up most of the time. Seal of Command rank1 + Blessing of Might and Retribution aura/Sanctity aura is the buffs to have, and then you wont need to do anything else (Boring? I find grinding boring so making it effective with minimum efforts is really good IMO :) . The best part about not using any mana (except for Seal of Command/Heals / Cleanse(or purify) is that you are ready for PvP all the time.
-Added 2 options for level 35-
Level 10-34: Retribution.
Talents:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZZV0xtbcu
Many will ask why Pursiut of Justice, and this is why: You run ALOT on lowlvl, those 8% do help really much tbh, not to mention while getting to new zones (Traveling from Silvermoon to Barrens takes a while tbh), and dont forgett getting to Hillsbrad without summoning escort.
Judge with Seal of the Crusader after lvl 20, before you will do more damage by just judging with Seal of Rigtheousness.
But at 20, you will be able to get Seal of command but without the luxory by getting the weapon alliance get with its 99 maxdamage (totaly imba at lowlevel) and kinda slow speed. We will be using Sin'Dorei Warblade
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22995 rather than wasting time to get our lvl 20 polearm (wich costs 1g or 80s if honored to learn)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25464 . By the time you will have this polearm, you would easily gain 1 or 2 levels by questing - waste of time IMO.
The thing is now - we wont have a slow 2hander like alliance paladins, wich makes seal of command weak - due to the PPM system is best with slow 2handers. I found Seal of Righteous doing more damage from 20-40, when I had Judgement of crusader up. Due to SoR cannot be dodged / missed / parried it will give more DPS than SoC. This changes later tho, when the new ranks of SoR doesnt get alot stronger like it do on lowlevel and when your gear gets better and better (Seal of Command scaling is extreeme - bonus from Attackpower&Meleecrit&Spellpower)
On the beta (and my lowlevel pally Ive played with a while ago) used SoR from lvl 1 to 40 due to I didnt have any good 2hander (high dps&slow), and it went fast as well.
Aura to use: Retribution aura
Seal to use: Seal of Righteousness or
Seal of Command IF you have a slow 2hander.
Option 1
Level34, respec to:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=aZVhth0h0x Protection.
Reckoning, is the ultimate grindtool we have. With it, we dont have to focus to get intellect (to being able to judge for DPS / heal up often etc) since it gives us a 10% chance to double our melee damage for 8seconds, at the cost of getting hit (wich you get when you grind). Protection gives alot of nice defensive abilties as well, such as Thoughness -10% more armor / Improved Righteous Fury - 6% damage reduce.
Aura to use: Retribution aura
Seal to use: Seal of Righteousness
Option 2
Stay with Retribution up to 45, then respec to reckoning+SoC. Only do this if you have a slow 2hander with high maxdamage, else SoR will be more powerfull if you have a fast 2hander (wich is good for SoR)
From level 35/45 to 59- go
Retribution+Protection Continue with Retribution:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZVhth0h0xZE00tbcu
Reckoning + Seal of Command (at level 40, were you can get slower 2handers than before) will give exellent grindspeed. Using Seal of Command rank1 for grinding costs almost no mana, makes you never go out of mana, and being able to use more attackpower&crit gear :)
Aura to use: Retribution aura until you get Sanctity aura
Seal to use: Seal of Righteousness untill you get Seal of Command
59 and beyond! Time for Outland, this time you have to chose yourself, either if you liked this grind build or if you want to specify some other spec to do all the new instances (tank/heal or dps/support?)
I hope this helps many new paladin players, or even old ones as well who didnt level up for a while.
I have leveled 3 lvl 60 paladins myself, and Im planning to make a Horde paladin as well and this is the way I will go.
Edit: Updated a longer intro, wich more basic info about gear / talents.
Weapon guide:
20:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22995 (elite q in Ghostlands)
30:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=6687 (from RFK)
40:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=7723 (from SM, no bonebiter for horde but
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=7721 for a 1hander. Mograines might works better with SoR than SoC due to the fast speed. Good choise if you respecced to Reckoning already.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=10758 - For SoC, and if you want to farm a rarespawn inside RFD
44:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=9413 (from Uldaman) thx Kaaleppi
50:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=17766 (from Mauradon) and
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=17705 as 1hander
51:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19106 (AV reward)
55:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11931 from Brd or
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=13167 from LBRS
A full prot guide found on the US board:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=67158029&sid=1&pageNo=1
This is for the ones who loves 1h+shield rather than big 2handers :)
Updated links, they all should work now! Big appologie for the time when they didn't work, but since this tread was removed from the stickies (just added a link) I didn't check this tread for a very long time!
