Hello, I’m about to hit 40 and thinking about a Prot/Tanking leveling spec for the last 20 levels. Do you think it’s better to go full prot (Holy Shield) at 40, or spec Consecration from Holy + Blessing of Sanctuary at 41 instead? I’ll be doing a combination of solo questing and dungeon spam as a tank.
Thanks in advance!
I love Prot Pally and Warrior in Classic so huuuge bias.
Totally fun. Most PUG groups seem to prefer it, if you arent locked in to some grindy guild group.
Thing is, at this stage, 40+ are usually alts so most of the pressure is off in having the meta.
Beggars cant be choosers + prot is super reliable and fun!!
I went full prot… but make sure you go down holy and get concecration first though… so you dont actually get holy shield until lvl 51… concecration is more important than holy shield for building and holding threat… you will be fine in uldaman and zg without holy shield… mara will be fine, but princess run is a lot easier once you have holy shield…
stack str and stam…
open with you highest rank concecration and then down rank it after that to conserve mana… Tab through your targets hitting them once at a time and you wont have any problem holding threat…
get a threat meter, if you see someone gaining a lot of threat on a mob, judge that mob…
Exorcism and holy wrath on demons and UD will build a lot of threat…
once you build a lot of threat up you can swap to seal of wisdom…
you dont need to blow all your mana on every pull…
you can start farming jail break when you get holy shield…
mages are you best friend… take 3 mages and let them aoe everything, they wont pull any threat off you…
you will make a lot of friends if youre a good tank…
Meh, as long as you’re getting the 3% hit and reckoning then prot leveling isn’t as bad as everyone says, just be sure to go into holy early to get 10% str the bonus damage on SoR and conc and then you can just swap to a 2h and whack away at them, just be sure to have a weapon with a proc on it, taran icebreaker is amazing and feiry war axe is a great thing up till then, getting the double proc is pretty busty as it’s like a whirlwind at that point.
I went full prot but kept a big 2h and some dps gear for questing times.
Just do (very) green quests. There’s no incentive for doing yellow or orange quests in terms of xp relative to time/effort/dying. Unless you like to torture yourself.
I leveled up to 44 as ret, because it’s a better leveling spec, and then went prot for a few levels to tank Uldaman and Zul Farrak a bunch of times (mostly to farm for Rockpounder and Big Bad Pauldrons). Then I went back to ret again to get to 60 and went prot again at 60 to do all the dungeons and gather decent enough gear.
When I went to prot at 40, I went all the way down to Holy Shield first. That helped with the final boss fight in Uldaman tremendously. Threat wasn’t so much of an issue in that fight as survivability was.
That being said, I would still recommend you get consecrate, then the rest down prot. Something like this:
https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/050501-05305133
Then continue down prot as you level. Reckoning and 1h weapon spec aren’t really worth it for dungeon tanking and leveling (i’d rather put those points in imp HoJ, Guardian’s Favor, and Anticipation).
Your gear priorities when you are 40 and up should be Intellect and Stamina (basically ‘of the Eagle’ gear). Strength is nice for some gear, but it doesn’t help your overall threat that much, only your block amount, and only by a little. It’s not worth prioritizing strength gear just for a slight increase in your block amount. But it’s good to have strength gear for when you’re grinding and solo leveling.
But stamina and intellect are the 2 most important for tanking low dungeons. When you start hitting the 60 dungeons, you will then want to build spellpower and defense gear. The Deathbone set from Scholo is an excellent paladin tanking set. Remember, you don’t want to necessarily gear up like a warrior tank. Strength and agility don’t really help your threat generation. Only holy damage does that, hence having int so you don’t go OOM as fast. A tankdadin stacked with stamina and intellect is a good tankadin.
Ret is still the fastest leveling spec for paladins, because it scales with all the warrior gear that exists in the leveling world (most mail/plate quest rewards and profession stuff is warrior gear). Prot gives you some more survivability, but it’s just a slower leveling experience. SoR will still be your primary seal, and without a bunch of spellpower stacked, it doesnt do much. You will be relying principally on your white damage.
So if you go tankdadin while leveling, you will want most of your XP to be coming from tanking dungeons for people. I honestly love tanking dungeons as a paladin. It’s so much fun and gets even funner from the BRD and DM dungeons up. And tanks are generally the most in-demand class for 5-man dungeons, so you shouldn’t have a problem getting into groups or forming them fast.
EDIT: When you get to the bottom of Prot and get Holy Shield, start putting points in the ret tree for benediction and Improved Judgement are a must. Lower cooldown on judgement means you judge Righteousness more often, meaning your threat is much bigger. In the 60 dungeons your threat means everything when competing with trigger happy mages rogues and warriors.