Confirm Jonas’ comment get Ranker. It’s a life saver.
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I also recommend Unstoppable Force.
If you don’t feel like PvPing, another good option is Dreadforge Retaliator off Emp in BRD.
It has lowerish DPS, but it is nice and slow and has decent stats.
I use unstoppable force and R10 and AV gear. You’re not gonna be some crazy wrecking ball but you can have fun.
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You should be able to weasel your way into any pug MC. You may have to go holy to get a spot but there is nothing wrong with casting flash of light for a hour or two. Absolute cake walk these days.
You probably don’t need to reserve them at this point of the game but I would SR two hand weapons to make sure since that is what you want. For example, SR the Bonereaver and Spinal from Rag and pray for a drop. I guess you could go for sulfuras if you have the money to finish it. At the same time, hope for an Obsidian blade to drop. You’ll get any of the other ones with no competition (shadowstrike and earthshaker).
To be honest, in reck spec with a bit of support, it’s actually not bad! The blue PvP set is actually respectable. If you compare the stats between the blue and epic, they aren’t all that substantial.
The weapon is huge though… but 100% agree that you don’t need it to have fun playing Ret in PvP.
If you’re just doing it for the mount the amount of time spent isn’t really worth it in my opinion. Especially now with reduced mount costs coming with prepatch in January. Takes less time to just farm the 470g difference.
If the pvp gear is going to be useful for tbc (ie not a hybrid class) it can be a very efficient way to get ready though. Rank 11 now and then honor farm in prepatch for whatever off pieces/weapons you still need.
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I didn’t realize we were talking about anniversary, but the OP is indeed on an Ani realm. My mistake 
You’ve supplied some good additional information for this context.
@OP - TUF is probably just your best bet. A single AV weekend should get you your rep if you play a lot of AV. I wouldn’t worry about ranking further, especially if you have your mount.
Going into TBC, they’ll throw weapons at you pretty quickly so I wouldn’t worry about it too hard. One of the first quests will give you a decent green option and the 2nd boss of the first dungeon (Hellfire Ramparts) drops a blue weapon that’s comparable with TUF. These dungeons are going to be a part of your rep grind anyway.
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Appreciate the reply, I just got Ranker up and started doing some AV right now to get ahead
I dont think Ill end up raiding for Vanilla and was wondering if the PvP gear is better than the Pre raid bis items? Really all I have is a bunch of pre raid bis gear
I cannot field that question for a paladin, but I can tell you, it is great for warriors and hunters. The blue sets are solid, and the epic sets are pretty badass.
Hey, now that we are on the subject of paladin pvp gear, at prepatch, do they add pvp gear sets for blood elf paladins? Draenei shamans? I do not recall this.
Loon bis addon will tell you everything
From my own experience, the blue PvP set is better than t0.5 and far less effort. Regarding pre-raid BiS, here’s the wowhead link…
https://www.wowhead.com/classic/guide/paladin-dps-pre-raid-best-in-slot-bis-gear-wow-classic
(scroll down for more attainable alternatives in each slot)
I promise you, the effort you will spend obtaining almost anything on this list other than TUF will just not be worth while. If you already have some or all of this gear, don’t worry about it.
Remember, Outlands content will literally shower you with gear. The intent was to bring you up to MC levels of power, which is more than enough to do the content. In the OG 2006 prepatch I farmed the epic PvP set on my feral druid and that lasted me to 65ish, but it wasn’t really necessary.
Trust me, sir, you will be fine! Farm PvP stuff if and only if you’ve got nothing better to do with your time 
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This thread has got me wondering if TUF would be better than the Halberd of Smiting I’m currently rocking. 
I’ll just have to wait and see what raid we do Friday and see if snag an upgrade for my ret stuff that I only use occasionally anyway.
The PvP gear for paladins is itemized for ret and specifically for ret PvP. So yes, it’s good. The epic PvP set is comparable to t2.5 for a ret paladin. The blue set should be a bit better than dungeon gear.
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I’ve never been all that fond of raiding, so I used The Unstoppable Force as an Arms warrior for a very long time before eventually getting Obsidian Edged Blade. TUF is a good weapon and hits very hard, although the stun proc will not be applicable in all situations.
When I was doing that AV grind, Alliance lost pretty much every match, so I got Ice-Barbed and TUF at about the same time. Also with AV rep you can get a great epic shield, a good blue 1h mace, a really good epic ring, and some other good stuff.
I’d say do as much AV as you can without going crazy, and also check the loot tables on Wowhead for the level 60 dungeons. Someone mentioned Demonshear, which is a pretty good blue-quality weapon. There’s another 2h sword from Dire Maul North, a polearm from Dal Rend in UBRS, and a few others.
No idea what it’s like in Anniversary, but on Era it’s very easy to get into 2SR pugs for Molten Core and Zul Gurub, so if you do one or two of those per week, you’ve got a decent chance to grab a 2h eventually. OEB can drop from multiple MC bosses, if I recall, so it’s relatively easy to get. The ZG sword is from the end boss, so it’s a little harder to get, but you can also free-roll on drops that aren’t reserved and get some other upgrades in the process.
Demon shear (strath live) Good starter, and the proc is insane.
The Unstoppable force (AV rep exalted) EZ mode.
Ashkandi (Black wing Lair) IMO one of the best 2 handers in game, and worth every copper.
Dark Edge of Insanity (Cthun AQ40) Crazy proc, that is very frequent.
Might of Menithil, (naxx KT mace) obvious reasons.
IMO you should collect them all.
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You forgot Corrupted Ashbringer. Not quite as good as Might of Menethil, but it’s RP BiS.
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True, tho the minus 25 stamina or whatever it is.. that’s rough.
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Main spec is Prot, nothing of value for that spec from pvp vendors?
The Blackrock Slicer is good, too, there’s a few like those that are good pre-raid/bis but if you know how to or want to grenade combo or anything the slow 4.0 swing speed on Slicer feels so bad and clunky.
Zin’rokh is a TuF equivalent but a lot of people find raiding for it easy, you know, you could theoretically just jump into ZG, get it the first run and keep grinding AV/R14 or whatnot.
Zin’rokh loses the 2% crit and stun proc, but gains in AP, Stam and 21 minimum weapon damage if you low roll; 196 to 175, Zin’rokh to TuF
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