Levelling HolyFollow

I levelled from 61-70 as holy, and it's not that bad, especially if you get some good spelldam equips and go shockadin while levelling. The shockadin spec is good enough to heal instances up to heroics, and it's decent solo levelling as well. All in all, levelling as holy isn't the terrible horror that some make it out to be. It's a damn sight faster than holy priests anyway.

Just wanted to add my penny worth. Given that Bliz in their infinite wisdom has not only made leveling "faster" from 1-60 (don't know how fast since all my toons are 60+) as well as lowered the difficulty of all pre-bc instance I don't think that leveling as holy will be that painful.

But that being said,it will be slower than going the usual route of leveling with ret till early 50's.

I'd imagine so. I never experienced holy pre-BC, so i can't say about that. I suppose pre-BC lacks anything in the way of spelldam plate gear, which is more readily obtainable once you get into outlands.

I wouldn't recommend going holy from lvl 10-70 though. Wow is about having fun and i think the key to having fun with a pally is to try all the different specs for at least 10 lvls each.

Long noted for masochistic tendencies, I leveled straight holy and loved it. Since it was my first toon however, I have no complaints about how "slow" it was. Experiencing the content mattered more than racing to 70 at breakneck speed. As best as I can tell though, I leveled at about the same pace as several friends who started WoW at the same time (e.g., a shadow priest and a BM hunter), with approximately the same /played time. A lot of my time was also spent quite idly: a little time in Warsong Gulch, a little running around during seasonal events, a little fishing, and on occasion way way too much time spent watching hawkishly over the AH.

I can only imagine that the 2.3 patch has now made it even less painful. You just need to be able to resist the jeers of the locks, rogues, and hunters who constantly talk about regularly solo'ing elites 3 levels above them, doing all their quests while red, etc.

This might not apply in your case, but I have seen some pallies who claim to be leveling holy who actually start by going down the Ret tree first to grab Seal of Command and then switch to the Holy tree. People who do that seem to have a bit more trouble leveling than I did at the same stage. Getting Holy Shock and 5/5 Divine Guidance as early as possible gives you a bit of "oomph" in solo situations.

Don't worry too much about being Holy in order to be able to heal for pre-Outland instances. If you can obtain a few pieces of good gear to build up a decent healing set, you will still be able to heal effectively in Azeroth as Prot or Ret without worry.

Best of luck whatever you choose.

Darn it, I lied. I just didnt want to admit my "masochistic" tendancies lol. I have two more paladins, one of which is again holy.*cries* help me!



Edited, Jan 23rd 2008 11:59am by Skarlandra

It isn't hard if you have 2 sets of gear. I, for all intents and purposes, leveled holy. I went 11 in ret to get SoC, then I went all the way down Holy until I got Holy Shock. I played with Holy Shock for a level or so before I did a full respec at 61.

It's really all in the gear, stacking str where you can get it. You can still rip through enemies as Holy, while having added survivability from that tree. Ret's dps talents are all-right, but you don't gain a ton of dps from them until you get Crusader Strike really.

Given the same gear, a full ret will kill something 2 seconds faster then my holy/ret hybrid. But in those group or elite quests, I could solo those while Ret is waiting in the trade channel.

Did straight Holy here as well PRE TBC. Long? Yes. Worth it? Yeah. It forces you to instance more, which in the long term makes you a better healer and have nicer gear then the average solo-lvler. Teaches you ALOT about your class... I've healed for ALL the old and new world instances... Save for BT and Hyjal and I have learned a TON about my class.