I’ve been leveling my Paladin as Prot from 1-63. Its been very effective, the AoE grinding potential has been great, Ive successfully tanked almost every dungeon in azeroth, but I’m getting kind of bored with it. The kill time is getting slower too, being that in in Outland now and the mob health is increasing significantly.
I dont really enjoy tanking. I’ve only been doing it for ease of leveling/dungeon groups, but I play a Paladin to heal endgame. I’m a Holy Paladin at heart and always have been. I’d like to start healing Outlands dungeons to start refamiliarizing myself with the mechanics as a healer, and to start practicing for 70/heroics.
Is Holy really that bad for leveling? All my current Prot gear is +Spell damage/healing and Intellect/Stam, including a spell damage/healing weapon/shield, so I think I wouldnt really have to collect much gear. How about a Shockadin spec - going into Holy for Shock, and then the rest poured over into Ret. Anyone try this and willing to share their experiences/recommendations?
yes, thats specifically what i was talking about and tried leveling as. i dont know how bad holy not shockadin spec is, but it cant be toooo much worse.
Well, I’m saddened but I guess I’ll stick with prot a bit longer and finish it out to 70, as much it makes me want to claw my eyeballs out. Thanks for the feedback!
It’s gear dependent & revolves around whether you like the play style & basic pacing of the spec or not. I leveled my Paladin up as Holy in Classic (& original Vanilla) in basically “of the Eagle” & “of the Gorilla” plate/gear & it still wasn’t bad IMO, even with the lackluster gear itemization of Vanilla. In TBC the gear itemization is so much better than Vanilla that it was a breeze as Holy (while questing also) when I leveled to 70 back during the original TBC with my Paladin. Different play styles for different folks I guess. It wasn’t anything like the doom & gloom (at least for me) that people seem to describe here. I had a lot of fun with it, both from a soloing/questing & healing groups standpoint.
I leveled as holy healing dungeons and then solo questing in hellfire and zangamarsh. I had about 600 spell damage(t2/bwl gear) so it was good dps especially against demons and undead.
Give it a shot & see how you like it as Holy in TBC while questing & grouping - you can always respec if it doesn’t suit your play style or pacing. Both Invoker & Sorcerer (or similar stat) plate/gear is your best friend. My Holy Paladin is still sitting at 60 in TBC Classic, but will be leveling up as Holy as soon as I finish my Druid to 70 here. I’m lucky enough to already have her in the T2 Judgement plate set, with about ~400 spell damage & ~600 healing total, so she will be off to a solid start (unlike the old days when my original human Paladin (or the Blood Elf Paladin I also created) wasn’t T2 Vanilla raid geared going into TBC content).
I leveled holy back in the day. It sucked. Questing sucked, grinding mobs sucked… Even farming ore sucked. It might be a little better now that +healing also gives a bit of + damage, but still… level ret if you want to quest. Stay prot if you want AoE grinding capability and easier access to dungeons. Only level holy if you can farm dungeons.
Shockadin is very bad for leveling. Holy shock costs an absurd amount of mana for the amount of damage it does. Your left using seal of righteous which is also bad. Even if you have the very best gear it will be very very slow. We’re talking like kill 2 mobs in 2minutes then sit and drink for 30 seconds.
Is Ret any good in pure Spell Damage/Int gear with zero strength and a 1h/shield? At this point I’d try Ret for a change of pace but I only have this SP/Int/Mp5 set
I’ve recently been questing on my paladin inbetween healing dungeons. If you treat it as if you’re prot it does fine, you can just heal yourself through it. In dungeons just running in and dropping consecrates adds a noticable amount of damage to aoe packs. That being said, unless you like dungeoning or plan to quest aggressively with a melee, probably don’t do it.