Class Guide Paladin

The Definitive Paladin Class Guide, 1-70 and more:

Index:
1.0 - The Light and how to fling it
2.0 - Schools of Thought
3.0 - The 1-60 Grind, Leveling
4.0 - 60-70, Outland
5.0 - 70 and Beyond
6.0 - Talent Builds
7.0 - Gear Guide

1.0 - The Light and how to fling it

Paladins, one of the best if not perhaps *the* best support class in the game, mixing healing, tanking, buffing power and even a bit of damage capability all into one heavily plated well protected player. Paladins happen to be another one of my more favored classes, my first ever 60 in the game shortly after release actually being a paladin, thus a bit of nostalgia affects my appreciation and view of the class.

Judging by alot of the playerbase I've seen attracted to paladins in my personal gaming experience it's probably a good thing to get over the whole "crusader/holy warrior" thing, Paladins may supposedly be a warrior utilizing holy damage instead of straight up melee, but realisticly you'll never approach anyone else damage wise. Paladins are a healer/support class starting around 60+ and that's not going to change anytime in the forseeable future according to blizzard.

Thus before you start leveling up your "holy warrior" I suggest you familiarize yourself with the term "Heal-bot," if you don't like the idea then paladin probably isn't the class for you. Admittedly a paladin can pump out reasonable damage when decked out in full PvP gear, it's just that dealing damage/damage gear gimps everything else that makes a paladin so very valuable in groups, especially in arena teams and more organized PvP.

Skipping our rather pitiful damage however and you see the beauty of a nigh invulnerable tank-like healing machine walking the battlefield, whether that be PvE or PvP, and saving the lives of his allies whilst ignoring any and all damage being sent his way by the traditional healer killers.

2.0 - Schools of Thought

As you may have noticed should you have read the above section, I don't exactly believe very much in the whole image of a paladin as a holy warrior, of course that's not due to my own personal desire but rather due to blizzard's class design. Despite whatever reservations I may have about becoming a paladin "DPSer" there are a few methods of doing exactly that, addtionally other styles such as the tankadin(rotection paladin) or retadin(retribution paladin) do exist.

The main style I described above was that of a holy/protection focused paladin, utilizing our protective abilities to keep him/herself alive while throwing out as much healing as possible, this would of course be more suited as a sort of pseudo combat-medic and thus be specced a bit differently than that of a purely PvE/Raid healer paladin. Raid healing requires pretty much just alot of +healing, a huge mana pool, and as much mana regeneration as possible, PvP healing however requires all of that with a bit more focus on the mana pool, less on regeneration, and an equally huge amount of HP.

Now, a paladin specced for either combat/PvP-healing is obviously not useless in a raid situation nor is the raid healer useless for PvP, both of them simply are that much more specialized into a particular vein of healing, one heals a warrior/paladin/druid tank while the other might end up healing pretty much anyone depending on the PvP situation. This sort of focused gearing/speccing is something you only truly begin to experience at the max level, prior to that you can easily get by with almost any specc as long as you have a halfway decent knowledge of how to heal someone.

Moving on to the other paladin types we have the protection/tank paladin, something that recently became much more viable what with burning crusades paladin tanking gear and new talents/talent changes. Personally I didn't roll a paladin with the idea of tanking in mind but it's obvious from the records of paladins tanking raid bosses and my own personal experience that a paladin is a viable replacement to warrior/druid in the right situation.

Tankadins are quite versatile due to the fact that they remain capable of turning invulnerable, healing themselves, and a number of buffs that can aid the tanking process quite a bit, despite lacking a number of the warrior/druids aggro gaining abilities it really isn't that hard to keep a mobs attention with an organized group.

Finally we come to the retribution paladin, one of the more infamous styles of play due to a large amount of inexperienced paladins choosing this style and thus completely underperforming and generally generating a horrible reputation for the dreaded "Retadin" also known by some as the Retardadin. Just so you know, my first and ultimately favorite paladin also being my first character ever was one of these dreaded retribution paladins, so I'm speaking from experience when I say that it only works for solo grinding unless you're truly willing to put in the effort to gear yourself out correctly at 70 and make your DPS matter.

3.0 - The 1-60 Grind, Leveling

Leveling as a paladin is a bit of a grind, seriously, due to our somewhat lacking offensive abilities compared to practically every other class in the game merely compounded by the fact that practically everything is a type of buff and/or something thus leaving us doing nothing but watching as our character slowly whittles down a mobs HP. Yes this is extremely boring.

Sadly unlike some miracle leveling cures like the shadow priest, feral druid, and fury warrior speccs, paladins possess nothing of the sort, our closest "speed leveling" talent build making us about as fast as a speeding sloth and while I expect alot of us have never actually seen a sloth, much less a speeding one, I'll assume you understand what I'm saying.

Due to the revitilization of the protection tree that also is now a viable leveling choice due to a number of combat based talents that can actually help out to a surprising degree, one of the key points being reckoning. Whether you choose retribution or protection you'll have a few different styles of grinding to choose from. one is essentially endurance based, focusing on wearing down each opponent while using heavy armor/mana efficient heals to grind practically non-stop for as long as you want. Another would be more damage based, picking up a 2-hander and using retribution spec trying to maximise our damage with seal of command and more emphasis on higher strength and stamina rather than mana gear.

Either way you spec you'll still encounter the problem of being a slow killer compared to anyone else, thusly I find that a heavy focus on questing rather than grinding makes a paladin level the fastest, normally whether grinding or questing you can achieve a pretty high rate of XP per hour but on a paladin I'd say that purely questing is far more efficient than grinding, at least for the majority of your trek from 1-60. Pretty much any paladin, holy, protection, or retribution, will want to wear some "of the eagle" gear combined with "of the bear" for some strength, health, and a good mana pool.

4.0 - 60-70, Outland

Outlands is much less the breath of fresh air it presents for most other classes and much more the advent of the tankadin. Given that the ability for paladins to actually tank with a respectable level of aggro management was only gained in the burning crusade Outland is packed with gear allowing us to do just that, tank, unlike practically all of Azeroth, and alot of it can be used double purpose for grinding/questing as well.

Fortunately given the immense focus upon questing unlike Azeroth's encouraged grinding you'll find leveling much easier both from the huge XP rewards and from the ability to solo harder mobs/bosses for quests normally requiring 2-3 people. Additionally we gain a few nice spells including an aura that improves mounted speed, thus faster questing, as well as a number of improved seals/judgements and the like.

You may notice quite quickly, as I did, that about 75-85% of all the plate items whether quested or simply found off mobs seem to be made purely for paladins, a ton of great retribution/protection gear coming as world drop BoE blues as well as from instances/elite quest mob rewards. It's quite refreshing really, though I found it somewhat annoying while running my warrior through outlands soon afterwards.

Basically, Outland is a paradise for paladins leveling up and even after hitting 70, so very much in the way of +healing/+holy and any other variety of stats and/or +spell damage or healing you could want is just waiting for you to pick it up off almost every single boss or quest reward/mob in every zone.

5.0 - 70 and Beyond

Once you reach 70 you'll be stepping into most likely one of three possible roles, perhaps even utilizing gear swapping to fit two and as always a good paladin can help at least a bit regardless his or her talent build and/or gear. These main roles would be that of Tankadin, protection spec, Retadin, retribution/damage spec, and healadin(healbot,) also known as holy spec, all of them are viable in one situation or another, holy and protection however are my favored trees.

Protection provides you with all the talents required to begin tanking, some protection paladins even tank the high end raids such as in serpent shrine caverns, magtheridon, and so on, others simply utilize it as a safety build for leaping in to prevent a wipe or just for more survivability when going solo. Whether you want to main-tank exactly or not you'll find that even a small amount of protection can boost your capacity for saving the team when the warrior/druid tanking goes down to a much higher level of success.

When tanking you'll need alot of mana and more importantly methods of mana regeneration whilst in combat, a major one would be using the seal/judgement of wisdom as almost all tankadins do, another would be dropping a blessing of light on yourself and throwing out flash heals inbetween hits to save your healer some mana over a long boss fight or simply throughout a dungeon. Finally, I think you can only truly appreciate a self-healing capable tank when you've seen one in action or played one, it helps alot.

Heal-botting is quite simple, not much has changed since 60 except that we now possess the ability to jump in and prevent a wipe should the tank die, of course don't think you'll hold a candle to the true paladin tanks but it's still possbile for any paladin regardless his or her build. Other than that all we get is better mana regeneration, combat healing capability, and an overall improvement healing wise, paladins have actually begun to surpass priests and druids healing wise in certain quite situational cases, othertimes they simply make better healers because they live where others die.

Finally, retribution, unfortunately I don't have much to say about retribution, all there is to it is that it's marginally improved over your previous level 60 retribution incarnation, you still deal pathetic damage in anything but the best gear possible and you still don't present anything worthwhile that a holy, protection, or even better a paladin with a bit of both couldn't bring to the table in much greater amounts. Essentially what I'm saying is that only play this to either level or mess around in your top of the line raid DPS gear, that is of course unless you happen to have great masochistic tendencies.

6.0 - Talent Builds

7.0 - Gear Guide

Helm:

Mask of Penance - Drop(Steamvault)
X-52 Technician's Helm - Quest Reward
Cover of Righteous Fury - Quest Reward

Neck:

Necklace of Eternal Hope - 25 Heroic Badges
Karja's Medallion - Quest Reward
Natasha's Guardian Cord - Quest Reward

Back:

Bishop's Cloak - 25 Heroic Badges
Light-Touched Stole of Altruism - Drop(Heroic Auchenai Crypts)
Avian Cloak of Feathers - Drop(Sethekk Halls)

Shoulders:

Justice Bearer's Pauldrons - Drop(Heroic Hellfire Ramparts)
Spaulders of the Righteous - Drop(Botanica)
Uvuros Plated Spaulders - Quest Reward

Chest:

Breastplate of Many Graces - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
Gilded Crimson Chestplate - Quest Reward
Leonine Breastplate - Quest Reward

Wrist:

Bracers of Dignity - Drop(Heroic Arcatraz/Mana-Tombs)
Fairweather's Wristguards - Quest Reward

Hands:

Gauntlets of the Righteous - Drop(Shattered Halls)
The Hands of Fate - Quest Reward
Gauntlets of Purification - World Drop BoE

Belt:

Girdle of Divine Blessing - World Drop BoE
Khorium Belt - Crafted
Lightwarden's Girdle - Quest Reward

Legs:

Starcaller's Plated Legguards - Quest Reward
Consortium Plated Legguards - Quest Reward
Legplates of the Righteous - Drop(Black Morass)

Boots:

Golden Cenarion Greaves - Quest Reward
Boots of the Righteous Path - Drop(Heroic Arcatraz/Shattered Halls)
Ornate Boots of the Sanctified - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)

Rings:

Ring of Convalescence/Ancestral Band - Vendor(Honor Hold/Thrallmar Revered)
Cosmic Lifeband - Drop(Mechanar)
Celestial Jewel Ring - Quest Reward

Trinkets:

Scarab of the Infinite Cycle - Drop(Black Morass)
Bangle of Endless Blessings - Drop(Botanica)
Xi'ri's Gift - Vendor(Sha'tar Revered)
Lower City Prayerbook - Vendor(Lower City Revered)

Weapons:

Gavel of Pure Light - Vendor(Sha'tar Exalted)
Hammer of the Penitent - Drop(Mechanar)
Lightsworn Hammer - Drop(Shattered Halls)

Shield:

Crystal Pulse Shield - World Drop BoE
Silvermoon Crest Shield - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)

Two-Handed Weapons:

Torn-heart Axe of Battle - Quest Reward
The Oathkeeper - World Drop BoE

Librams:

Libram of the Lightbringer - Drop(Botanica)
Blessed Book of Nagrand - Quest Reward
Libram of Divinity - Drop(Scholomance)