So a few questions here pertaining to prot leveling.
I’ve done some research already on this but am wondering about community opinions. I’m going to reach 60 soonish and want to spec into prot eventually.
The thing is I still want to do some solo questing in addition to tanking a dungeon every so often (I’m assuming this is not possible as Ret) so…
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How much faster is Ret compared to Prot really? As Ret I can only really fight one or maybe two mobs at a time as prot I’m assuming 4-5 is doable is the kill time just that much slower as prot that ret is still faster?? (My assumption is spell power helps a lot in TBC for this)
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For prot what kind of gear am I looking for pre-60? Should I be focusing on getting defense stats? int? stam?
Or… should I just stay as Ret for now?
Ret is probably up to 30% faster but thats if youre just trucking down one mob at a time.
Prot and holy handle multiple mobs better, imo. You can quest level as any spec with Pally - its not going to be fast but little down time.
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depends, prot is a serious drinker, sure you can pull mutliple mobs but to be efficient and kill them fast, you will have downtime drinking but its dolable
I mean even as ret I’m having to stop and drink about every 4-5 mobs anyway. So I don’t imagine it’d be much different.
Prot leveling seems slow, but it’s still fun. Totally different experience than anything i’ve done in wow. Loving it.
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personnaly, my plan on the paladin i’m currently lvling, lvl 53 atm, is to stay as ret for the moment, grab plate pieces with def ratings on them and once i get in outlands going prot for dungeon grinding if i don’t stay ret
Ret is a lot faster than Prot for killing mobs one at a time. Prot will be faster for aoe’ing down packs of mobs. The thing is there aren’t that many areas where aoe farming is good. The mobs need to be closely grouped, be all melee, and not have annoying abilities like stuns or silences. There are a few spots (like in WPL) but not many so a lot of people just grind those spots over and over instead of questing which seems kinda boring to me.
Pre-60 it’s primarily stam and defense for suvivability. Int and spell power for threat/damage. How you balance the two is up to you, but I found I needed more survivability than anything.
Up to you. I personally leveled my paladin as prot and had no regrets. I will do so in outlands as well when I get to it. It’s great in dungeons, you get groups quickly, and questing is doable even if it’s a bit slower.
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Ret is faster at killing mobs one at a time and considerably faster at questing and getting to resource nodes (mining, etc). Prot, however, is considerably more useful in dungeons, so you’ll rep up a lot faster as prot while also leveling at the same time. Dual spec would be great, but since we don’t have that, I’d say at 60 you’ll get things done faster as prot, both dungeon leveling and rep grinding.
I concur, they need sponsors as much as we do.
Signed/
A Boomkin
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Who’s harder to level, Prot or Holy?
What? I don’t understand this. Consecration itself is more Damage per mana as you rank up, with rank 1 being the worst. I don’t have Rank 5 yet on my Paladin (2 bars from 60), but Rank 1 is around 0.93 DPM and Rank 4 is around 1.03 DPM. (Note: This is as Ret with 15% Physical/Holy up, but no spell power atm) Even if you take base mana costs, with 0 SP into the calculations, Rank 1 is 0.53 DPM and Rank 4 is ~0.72 DPM.
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Ret is a serious drinker lol, Paladins have a drinking problem
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Because of spell damage coefficients.
Rank 1: 50% of spell damage
Rank 2: 64%
Rank 3: 79%
Rank 4: 93%
Rank 5 and 6: 100%
It’s not as important below level 60, but once you start getting spell damage gear, were talking about numbers like
120 mana for 64 + 50% of spell damage
versus
505 mana for 384 + 100% of spell damage
Say you have 300 spell damage.
You would get 214 damage from rank 1 at 120 mana so 1.8 damage per mana spent
versus
684 damage for 505 mana so 1.35 damage per mana spent
This is why prot paladins at level 70 keybind rank 1, 5 and 6 of consecrate.
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I’m leveling as Prot. It isn’t worth killing mobs unless you can grab a few at a time.
If you’re going to pull 1:1 ret is for sure faster. BUT - the main benefit for me is I can tank or heal a dungeon with no effort. Lots of stam and spellpower is all I need.
It’s been really smooth.
As far as using the downranked consecrate that someone asked about - you can afford to down rank as I’m sitting at 500 SP in my quest gear and greens and my R1 ticks for about 60 a tick vs 93 for max rank and the mana is so much more efficient.
I do drink a lot. But when I pull say 11 vultures at once, it takes me as long to kill them as it does 3 on a ret pally. I drink after it, but I also drink after as a ret. So it’s basically the same. Just a different flavor.
I find myself more survivable as prot in WPVP and I can win fairly easily against warriors/rogues/ferals/hunters. Locks and Mages can nuke me. Shaman it’s a bit rough, but you can at least get away, make them bored, or make ganking you not worth the time.
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Damn, thank you for breaking this down. This was great.
I tried killing a few things as prot… Didn’t like it. Ret is simply more fun.
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As Prot you can AOE level 60-70 and it can be decently fast but you’re going to miss out on Rep, so at some point you’re going to have to spend some time questing if you want the Rep sooner, some quests are not friendly to AOEing but finding someone to group with should be very easy right now.
That’s something I wonder about. As ret you kill mobs one by one but as prot you can pull 5+… so what’s the comparison between how long it takes prot to kill those 5 mobs vs how long it will take ret? I imagine it’s quicker for prot…