Leveling a Ret: BoM vs. BoWFollow

It changes as you level.

Right off the hop you will get more bang for your buck from BoM. As you get past lvl 20 you will find BoW is the better of the two.

it really cuts down on your downtime

All right then. Thanks.

What about the gear, though? Should I still wrinkle my nose at leather drops or am I going to become very unpopular with the Rogue population in the near future? Is sacrificing plate for strength, agility, attack power and crit worth it?

I plan on going Holy once I reach the end. Shocking mobs to death just doesn't cut it at the moment, though. And I don't like PuGs enough to grind instances.

As a long time ret pally that did the 70 respec to prot, I'd say once you hit like 63+ I'd do my respec then to holy and then just hit instances with your guild. I know that on my server healers and tanks are scarce so you can pretty much pick and choose who you want in your group. Plus by respecing at 63+ you won't have as hard of a time getting geared for kara if you plan on raiding.

For me respecing at 70 wasn't to bad because I had a good idea of what instances would most likely drop the stuff I needed, and as a prot pally I could pretty much roll on any warrior drops that might drop. From what I've seen in the lvl 70 instances, plate healing gear is fairly rare, so just keep that in mind and if you don't want to respec quite yet keep any healing gear you get doing instances to make the respec a lot easier

One man's trash is another's treasure...

Because my Paladin leveling knowledge is limited to 1-60 in Azeroth whereas several posters here have done the grind in Outland as a Retribution Paladin. I have often wondered if using BoW and not having to sit and drink was faster than using BoM and drinking every now and then. Instead of doing the math myself, I found my way to this forum in hopes that someone had already done the hard work. Isn't that why we're all here?



No ****, Sherlock. I kind of figured that out during the first two levels as a Paladin. What I'm asking is whether someone has the knowledge to say "Using BoM and drinking is much more efficient than using BoW and not drinking." But thank you for taking the time to reply to my trash post, though. I know it must've taken quite a toll on your self-discipline.



Exchanging the oxygen in the air you breathe with carbon dioxide would send you flying into unconciousness. Thanks for the protip, I admire your experience on the subject.

Hard work? How long would it take you to experiment with one or the other in a questing/grinding session and see which feels right to you?

yeah, for grinding i'd recommend the zero downtime of BoW. for instances, you'll get most dps with BoSalv unless your tank generates enough threat for you to use BoM. BoW in instances would be my third choice blessing (unless i can skip BoSalv then it'd be second).

as far as gear, for grouping with others any armor with the right melee stasts is ok since unless you're planning on OTing much.. for grinding/questing some lighter armor is ok but i'd try to keep your armor a bit higher since you'll be getting hit. you'll want to find a mix of higher armor value and higher melee stats. your stength as a ret is killing fast, so the better your melee stats the less each mob has a chance to hit you. too little armor and the few hits you do take will require more downtime healing/eating. i personally use devo aura solo'ing to minimize downtime since i don't have full plate. i recommend trying it out and seeing if it works for you. this is also why in my guide i reccomend improved devo aura instead of the um, shield talent (forget what its called off the top of my head) to get to precision in prot.

So druids, hunters and locks are all cut and dried and don't have situational aspects? Good to know!

The point is, and I'll try to word this as gently as possible, seals are situational. There's NEVER going to be one perfect seal. I know, this probably strays quite far from the flowchart of druid/hunter/lock styple of play. Oh wait! It doesn't! Oh hell I failed at gentility. It's common-freaking sense. Need mana? Maybe, you think, SoW might be useful? Need health? Hmmm, there MAY be a seal for that.... dunno.

Prefer to bandage or like to finish at better health? Use SoL. Don't give 2 craps about your health knowing that with seals and judgements you can make it up? Use Wis. Don't care either way and want to whack crap? Use something else. The combinations of seals, judgements, etc are so varied that you need to experiment - or at least tell us what you're after beyond "which is better".

Sure you can get all snarky and insulting and such. In which case I reccommend the Seal of Teat or the Judgement of Suck.

If you haven't figured something that basic out by the time you hit 61... I think it's time to re-roll. Or maybe quit the game entirely. I'm dreadfully curious, Mazra... did you figure out anything about your 'Lock, or did someone instruct you how to play that class from word-one also?


It helps me. And I don't know if you've picked up on this yet or not, but I really don't care how hard and how often people rate me down.


I don't really think I need advice from a lemming. If someone has told you how to play every aspect of your class, then you really don't know the first thing about how to play it. You're just going through the motions. Rather than having you just parrot me the advice everyone else has given you, if there happens to be something I can't figure out on my own--which I'd rather do in the first place--I think I'd much rather talk to the guy who taught you how to play, because he might know what he's talking about.


There are two ways you could react to my words in this thread. One is by abdicating all personal responsibility and getting angry at what I say. "It's not my fault. You're to blame."

The other option would be shame. "Wow... I played a class for 61 levels and I can't figure out the most basic mechanic it has. I mean, I could, but... that would require thought and effort on my part."

If you take anything from our exchange, I would like it to be the ability and willpower to think, learn, and make decisions for yourself. In fact, I'm doing my civic duty as an adult by trying to help you grow into a mature, responsible one yourself. I'm such a great guy. =D

Edited, Feb 2nd 2008 10:39pm by Gaudion

Okay, this is going down a very wrong path, very fast. Gaudion, believe what you may about me and my knowledge of the game, but I am fairly good at the classes I play. My experience with the Paladin class predates The Burning Crusade and after the launch of the expansion I haven't had much interest in that particular class. Took a Hunter, Warlock and Druid to level 70 before I turned my interest back onto the Paladin.

And I'm no lemming. If I was a lemming my main wouldn't be a Druid. I rolled that Druid back when no one was rolling Druid other than out of curiosity, by mistake or because they wanted a challenge.

Do I know how the various seals work? Of course I do. I know when to judge what seal and when using another seal is more useful. Do I know how the various blessings work? Of course. I know that Blessing of Wisdom enables me to go on for longer while Blessing of Might makes things die faster. That's not the thing here. I wasn't asking for help regarding the functions of the various Paladin spells. I was simply asking if anyone had some experience with the two blessings for leveling. Whether drinking a lot while using Blessing of Might would be worth it, or if Blessing of Wisdom and almost no downtime is better (like I do now).

It wasn't the ultimate question about life, death and all that stuff, no. However, I wasn't aware that one had to produce epic litterature on this board to be worthy of a decent reply. I'd like to think that even simple questions would be answered with the same respect as a complex mathmatical question about end-game raiding. What if I my question had been something like "Which blessing to use on <insert raid boss>?" Would you have given me the same bullsh*t "trial and error - go figure it out, lemming" answer?

We've had our disagreements on the Shaman board, Gaudion, but you're taking it to the next level. I'm not going to rate you down out of the blue, but you keep pouring out personal attacks á là Barrens General Chat. It pisses me off, because it shows a lack of respect towards fellow posters. No one forced you to read this thread. No one forced you to reply. In fact, I'd rather see that you didn't from now on.

As for the rest of the posters who helped me out, thanks. I've done some testing and I still can't quite figure out if using Blessing of Might while drinking is worth it, so I'll go with your advice and keep Blessing of Wisdom up instead. Will save me a few pennies on water as well. Thanks again.

Edited, Feb 3rd 2008 11:29pm by Mazra