Leveling a Protection Paladin- Bright Hub

How to Spec your World of Warcraft Protection Paladin to best level in Cataclysm is an oft asked question with the recent release of the new expansion. The cookie cutter Protection Paladin spec has we had all grown to love has been changed by Cataclysm. The best spec to level your new WoW Protection Paladin relies on a few new abilities. These abilities revolve around building and using Holy Power. Fear not though...

Read more: Protection Paladin Leveling Guide

Chosen AoE Tanking

Wondering how the new changes will affect this guide, but so far it is an amazing farming spec. It will also allow you to off tank well and main tank some smaller jobs.

I have found Warhammer Chosen make quite good AoE tanks. You can start this around level 15. You can do it well in groups around level 20 once you receive your AoE taunt. At 25 it really starts to shine. I'll try to point out the best talents I've found at each level (15, 20, 25). This is as far as I've made it so far. I do this mainly in between Scenarios, AoE grinding PQ/Kill task mobs when I can for good XP.

It is important to take Apothecary and Scavenging as your skills. This will allow you to make Thorn Potions and HoT Potions. Use the highest level you can make at the time. Here is a good Google spreadsheet I found with recipe/formula info Apothecary. The Thorn potion should always be up. The HoT potions are just in case, I usually don't need them.

You will be stacking Toughness, Wounds, and Armor gear. You are not worried about Strength for your melee damage as we are more concerned with the mobs beating themselves to death on us.

As far as attacks I am usually lazy. I cycle through the targets reapplying Seeping Wound until they are dead. You can be more involved than this if you want.

My career points I went straight up the Corruption tree and am now bringing up Dread. I have no idea if this is a good idea at this point. It does increase the potency of most of the skills I use to AoE Tank. I guess we'll see.

Level 15
Tanking 3-4 melee mobs at a time
Warped Flesh.
This will proc constantly and absorb damage.
Shield Wall
Not a necessity, but can help offset all damage for 10 seconds while you pop a HoT potion.
Corrupting Wrath
Just run this toughness aura for now.

Level 20
Tanking 6-8 melee mobs at a time
Raze
Your new Tier 2 Morale ability (replaces Shield Wall). This will hit all mobs in front of you for 300 every second for 3 seconds. With alot beating on you its usable every 60 seconds.
Chaotic Advantage This is your 2nd career tactic until we change it in a few levels. Just helps to build action points as you will parry quite a bit.
You also have a few new abilities:
Blast Wave
More AoE Damage. Hit it every time it refreshes.
Corrupting Retribution
Your self HoT Aura to help keep you alive. Run this instead of your toughness aura, unless you like twisting. Ideally twist them both.
Challenge
Only when grouped or to help solo pull. Your AoE taunt.

Level 25
Tanking 6-10 melee mobs at a time, maybe more
Dreadful Agony
This is your AoE damage aura. You should now be twisting it with Corrupting Retribution and Corrupting Wrath. At the minimum twist this with your heal Aura.
Backlash
This will now fill your 2nd career tactic (replacing Chaotic Advantage) causing a DoT on any enemy that hits you. You can actually change this when you get it at 23.

Level 35-40
Tanking anywhere from 10-25 equal level mobs depending on type.
I've added these, buy it is more speculation at this point. Bane shield is an excellent source of AoE DPS, but I am not sure if Baneful Shielding is worth the Tactic slot.
Bane Shield
Baneful Shielding
These two together seem powerful.
I also like these as your 3rd and 4th Tactic slot:
Chaotic Advantage
Mixed Defenses
These two together should keep your Action Points almost full from parrying so much.

If anyone has ideas, comments, or experience with AoE tanking please leave your comments so I can try them out. I am by no means an expert. This is just info I have learned as I played around with AoE farming PQ xp in between scenarios. For some reason this play style intrigues me. Remember that melee mobs are easier. Ranged mobs can be a pain unless you have a spot to get out of Line of Sight, and can then pull them to you. Don't ask me why, but I enjoy making huge pulls and watching the damage numbers fly

Choppa AoE guide

Where to grind (general info):

This is the same general info from my Chosen AoE guide, but it should be repeated here. For the best xp find a PQ filled with kill task mobs. If you can find them they should be your level or one higher, lower than that and you should be looking for a new spot. Caster mobs are nice to round up if you can pull them around a corner out of LoS to stack them. If they are melee then just make sure they don't stun/knockdown/disarm/etc. If you can't find a PQ/kill task spot, then just agood fast spawn of kill task mobs. If you can't find these then just a good concentrated spot of anything.

Basic Spec:

Dual Wield. Parry is your friend , the increase in damage from a two hander will not out weigh the lost 10% parry when it comes to AoE grinding.

Spec straight up the Wrecka tree. Get Longer and Stronger, Extra Choppin, and Get to Da Choppa (for some AoE CC when you need a breather).

Tactics:These are no brainers and pretty much cookie cutter by now, but here you go...
Longer & Stronger (heal tick) ( if you have a healer add in another damage tactic instead)
Extra Choppin' (up to nine targets for Lotsa)
Brute Force (added str)
Easy Killin' (Reduced AP cost when raged)

Strategy:

• At low levels use the good 'ol body pull. At higher levels you can pull with your Frontal Cone dot.


• At low level just spam Lotsa Choppin.


• Don't bother using your using exhaustion attacks. You want to keep up your max damage, plus I believe it will stop your heal tick. As long as you are not over pulling the damage + heal outweigh the loss in armor.


• Use you T1 shield morale every time it pops.


• Use heal pots when you need to reduce downtime.


• Use Thorn pots for the added damage.


• Keep the mobs dotted, if the run they should die.


• Run Hurtin Time, it deals good damage when AoE pulling and will enhance your kill speed.


• Don't get greedy. If you over pull and die then you lose time and therefore efficiency.


• AP regen gear or a guild standard with AP regen is always helpful if you have acess to them.

There is a lot of personal preference that can change this info. You may pick up certain skills depending on whether you are grinding straight thru or doing some RvR along the way. But this should give you the basics to get you started.

Leveling as a Protection Paladin - The Basics

Though some of this information is still viable, Cataclysm changed much of it.  Please visit the updated article here.

Leveling as a Protection Paladin can provide good survivability while questing, as well as getting you used to the skills you will use as a tank throughout your career.  With the dungeon finder tab you now have the ability to queue as a Tank and get almost constant groups as you level.  Make sure you join the group near a repair merchant so you can sell and repair in between dungeons.  Many days that is all the time you have before you find another group.  I used a 51/20 build to level and tank.

The Build

Protection

10 - 14 Redoubt

15 - 17 Precision

18 - 19 Toughness (2/5)

20 - Blessing of Kings

21 - 23 Shield Specialization

24 - 26 Toughness (5/5)

27 - 29 Improved Righteous Fury

30 - 34 Reckoning

35 - Blessing of Sanctuary

36 - 39 One-handed Weapon Specialization (4/5)

40 - Holy Shield

41 - 42 Sacred Duty

43 - One-handed Weapon Specialization (5/5)

44 - Improved Holy Shield (1/2)

45 - 49 Combat Expertise

50 - Avenger's Shield











Retribution

51 - 55 Deflection

56 - 58 Heart of the Crusader

59 - 60 Improved Judgements

61 - Seal of Command

62 - 63 Pursuit fof Justice

64 - 68 Conviction

69 - 70 Sanctity of Battle

Stats

• Strength (str)
  
  
  
  • 1 strength = 2 attack power (AP) = 0.14 dps weapon (white) damage.
  
  
  • 2 strength = 1 block value before talents, 1.3 block value with the Redoubt talent
  
  
  • The Divine Strength talent increases total strength by 15%.
  
  
  
  


• Agility (agi)
  
  
  
  • 59.89 agility = +1% dodge chance. This is somewhat less efficient than Dodge Rating at increasing your dodge chance (45.25 dodge rating = +1% dodge chance), but with Blessing of Kings the number decreases to 54.45 agility, which makes it roughly 80% as good as dodge rating for dodge purposes.
  
  
  • 52.08 agility = +1% melee crit chance.
  
  
  • 1 agility = 2 armor.
  
  
  • Agility is often overlooked as a tanking stat, but it's actually an efficient way to get avoidance, mitigation, and threat from one stat.
  
  
  
  


• Stamina (sta)
  
  
  
  • 1 stamina = +10 total health (hp).
  
  
  • 10 stamina = +3 spell power (SP) from the Touched by the Light talent.
  
  
  • The Sacred Duty and Combat Expertise talents increase total stamina by 8% and 6% respectively, for a total increase of 14.48% with both talents. If you're buffed with Blessing of Kings or Blessing of Sanctuary as well, then each additional point of stamina increases your total health by approximately 12.6.
  
  
  
  


• Intellect (int)
  
  
  
  • 1 intellect = +15 total mana. This increases the size of your starting mana pool and the maximum amount of mana you can store at any point. It also increases the rate of mana regeneration from effects that restore a fraction of your mana pool, such as Replenishment, Blessing of Sanctuary, and Divine Plea. This is a nice effect, but it doesn't make intellect worthwhile as a stat for tanking gear.
  
  
  • 166.67 Intellect = +1% chance to crit with spells, but all Prot paladin offensive abilities except Exorcism use the melee crit rate.
  
  
  
  


• Spirit (spi)
  
  
  
  • Increases mana regeneration outside of the five-second rule. As a tank, this effect is negligible (and frankly it's negligible for all paladin specs).
  
  
  
  

(The Protection Paladin Field Manual, 2009)

Gear

A good/decent 1 handed weapon. (blue when possible, heirloom if you have a sugardaddy 80 on your account, equivalent to your level)

A good/decent Shield with a shield spike. (iron, mithril, etc)

All other gear can be greens/blues from AH and quest. You can also collect gear by tanking dungeons.  Lots of blue drops and completion rewards.

Buffs

Retribution Aura(RA): Reflects damage every time you are hit.

Blessing of Sanctuary(BoS): This not only reduces damage taken by blocking it increases Strength and Stamina as well as regens mana.

Righteous Fury(RF): With improved talent, this reduces incoming damage by 6% and increases threat for tanking.

Seal of Light(SoL): Chance to heal yourself every time you swing. (use when leveling)

Seal of Wisdom (SoW): Returns mana back to you with every swing. (use when leveling

Seal of Command/Corruption: Increased damage output while tanking

New Pally Tank Blog - ByBaylor.com

ByBaylor.com tags itself as the blog for Pally tanking for random heroics.  There is a ton of useful information.  It covers boss and trash mob tips, gold farming instances, gearing your Pally, and general Pally info for all three trees (Prot, Ret and Holy).

He uses a good combination of articles and videos to show the strengths and how-to's of Pally tanking.  Here's a brief sample of how to use Judgements for chain pulling in Nexus.



So make sure you check out the site, you won't be disappointed.

Paladin Powerleveling with RAF

Here is a list of instances you can powerlevel guildies or Recruit-A-Friend accounts.  The 300% XP bonus from the RAF accounts will allow you to level from 1-60 in one (very long) day.  This is by no means set in stone, they are only recommendations.   A lot of the instances overlap, some are more PL friendly than others (SM Cath is heaven). There are others, but this should get you started.  These should work for any class that is able to lay down respectable AoE.

Levels	Alliance	Horde
1-10	Quest	Quest
8-14		Ragefire Chasm
10-15	Deadmines
14-19		Wailing Caverns
15-25	Stockades
19-25		Razorfen Kraul
25-42	Scarlet Monastery	Scarlet Monastery
40-50	Sunken Temple	Sunken Temple
42-52	Zul'Farrak	Zul'Farrak
50-55	Statholme	Statholme
52-56	Blackrock Depths	Blackrock Depths
55-60	Hellfire Ramparts	Hellfire Ramparts

If you have any others that work really well let us know!