I just started a paladin, and really started in WotLK. I’ve started as ret, but it’s much easier to find groups playing as Prot (to be expected). Should I respec to prot or will it be possible to tank spec’d as ret if I find some tank gear
I doubt you will find many dungeon groups at low levels in a world without rdf.
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You can tank fine with righteous fury on. TBC might be when it gets a little dicey. At that point decide if ya wanna dungeon or quest and go that spec.
Also you can heal too.
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Tanks and heals will always have an easier time getting into a group.
If you’re looking for solo content (questing in the open world) then ret is for you.
Dungeons/with a group then holy or prot and you’ll easily get into a group without much in the way of effort.
If you opt to stay ret, then it’s going to take a bit more effort to get a group (just the same as any dps role).
Honestly leveling as prot isn’t horrid compared to ret. Ret will kill quicker but prot will be pretty darn durable.
Which play style do you enjoy more? Stick with what you like, first and foremost.
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yes it will be. in fact it will be better to start out as Ret anyways due to Seal of Command giving you extra cleave damage
You actually can tank dungeons pretty well as Retribution. It will really only start becoming a hindrance when you start approaching the high 50-60s if I remember correctly, though gear can bridge a LOT of gaps.
I would highly recommend leveling as Ret. It’s easily one of the very best leveling specs in the entire game, let alone for just Paladins. You’ll have tons of armor from your gear, you have plenty of self-healing, you have several fantastic tools for survival/CC, very powerful cleave is baked directly into your regular single-target rotation, you can do huge AoE pulls without having to play differently or using a non-standard spec/build, and it’s fantastic for PvP.
I would only recommend playing Prot if you think you’ll probably have an easy time spamming dungeons, or if you just happen to really love the playstyle. Prot is a perfectly fine leveling spec, but it just isn’t amazing like Ret is. The only thing you’ll really gain from playing Prot is more survivability, but you won’t need it. Once you get Divine Storm, even in mostly pretty bad gear, you should be able to kill packs of 5 mobs at a time without blowing any cooldowns, and almost always ending the pulls with full health and mana. With cooldowns, that number can get ridiculously high (15+) depending on the situation. The mobs’ leash distance is basically going to be your limit as a Ret Paladin.
Just keep a good shield and one-hander on you and you’ll be set!
you can tank with ret until mid 50s. Just carry a shield. Then switch to prot if you want to run dungeons more often.
I was in a group with my little rogue and a paladin was tanking SM armory and cita, he was wearing greens and a normal weapon (no heirlooms) he was doing fine only died twice in the many runs and 1 wasnt his fault (healer went afk in mid pull) but he was pulling giant packs of mobs (4 or 5 total pulls from zone in to big door). Paladin sure looks like a fun class to play also with the giant dps buff they got, i was in a 25man ulda pug raid and 7 of the top 10 dps spots were paladins. Some even had as much as 13k on pulls the only ones that matched dps numbers were shaman… Poor mages and rogues were back at 6-7k.
So you picked a real winning class to try wow with!
- 1-60 doesn’t need a tank build to tank. You simply need a shield.
- There isn’t likely to be many groups anyway.
It really depends on server but I do not recommend you swtich to prot. Just get dual spec at 40 and try to pick up some prot pieces as you go.
Heroics, and H+ may have an easier time finding groups but finding a raid spot as a tank is much, much harder. The whole 1-1-3 ratio goes out the window in 25 mans. You don’t need 5 tanks, half the time you don’t even need 2. Being DPS main or evening having the ability to DPS will go a long way.
I’m prot/heal and in hindsight, were I to roll again, I’d go prot/ret
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Yep - and if you can find large packs of AOE mobs you can pretty much AoE grind them as Prot. That said, you can probably Tank all the vanilla stuff as some variant of Ret and you’ll quest faster as Ret.
oh for sure, it’s a great leveling spec. I just had a lot of fun leveling as prot.
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