I know from reading the FAQ and just from general WoW experience that the thing to do when leveling a paladin in a time efficient manner is to go ret until the mid-60s or ret to 35 and then AoE prot grinding.
Sure enough, with my Blood Elf Paladin I poured my points into ret until level 30 I switched to prot (I know, a little early) when I could get Blessing of Sanctuary. With BoS, ret aura, and a shield spike (later a few points into reckoning) I was doing real well tanking instances, and when I did solo I had a fun time experimenting with AoE grinding. The constant blocking I think is really cool.
However, as cool as it is, I really have found that I prefer to heal over tanking instances. As a prot paladin, I kept a set of +int and some +healing cloth for a nice healing set to allow me to be the main healer if necessary. More often than not, I seemed to find myself in more situations when I needed to heal rather than tank. Even though I was prot, I managed to heal exceptionally well spamming FoL and fights would seemingly have to drag for 15 minutes (more and more additional mobs joining in) for me to run out of mana.
Since I enjoyed the healing role I caved in and switched to a holy spec. Why fight what you enjoy doing? I knew that by switching to a holy spec soloing was going to be much more of a *****, but since I enjoy instances so much I figure I would try to spend 90% of my leveling just instance grinding. It's definately slower than soloing/questing due to a fair amount of bad PUGs but the good groups make it all worth it for me. I now enjoy the Holy Light crits along with Divine Favor, Illumination, and the extra mana from Divine Intellect. I love healing even more now that I have greater potency even if the extra potency wasn't necessarily required. It's fun to excel at what I do.
I guess the question is a curious one, did any of you have a similar experience? Did any of you switch to holy real early and decide to level with the same strategy? I understand if most responses are "no."
What I do see in a response to this is, "why not play a priest?" I certainly tried it, but I just ended up missing my paladin. Even though I'm healing with mostly cloth right now, I know it will be replaced eventually by Outland healing plate, and when I do go out to fight monsters on my own it's nice to throw on the mail (I'm level 34), take hits, and be able to be a knight.
More of a spilling of thoughts than a question. It's late for me so that's my excuse.
Edited, Feb 10th 2008 1:00am by Dansmith
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- A new holy paladin :)
A new holy paladin :)Follow
This may sound like ego stroking but what the hey!
I started Holy, loved it and kept to it. But for a while I felt Holy was pure garbage. Because at the time all my friends were just doing "better" in every way. they farmed better, gained lvls faster, got farther into the game. But then the day came... a guild NEEDED healers... not a lock or hunter (what my friends were playing) and I ZOOMED to later content. Then I got GOOD. Barely wiping in PUGS (not just me tho) and in raids rating on top. 8 out of 10 times. My most recent accomplishment was a 47% total heals in Kara... while Kara isn't a gauge on my skill it was nice and I consistantly repeat this... I'm always over 40% :) Today I'm top of Heals and lowest on overheals.
These events have led to the belief that Paladins are "Pound for Pound" the best healers in WoW. I cannot prove it with numbers.. let the min maxers concern themselves with that. But my numbers speak to my ability and the paladin potential.
ATTENTION! It is all opinion!
I started Holy, loved it and kept to it. But for a while I felt Holy was pure garbage. Because at the time all my friends were just doing "better" in every way. they farmed better, gained lvls faster, got farther into the game. But then the day came... a guild NEEDED healers... not a lock or hunter (what my friends were playing) and I ZOOMED to later content. Then I got GOOD. Barely wiping in PUGS (not just me tho) and in raids rating on top. 8 out of 10 times. My most recent accomplishment was a 47% total heals in Kara... while Kara isn't a gauge on my skill it was nice and I consistantly repeat this... I'm always over 40% :) Today I'm top of Heals and lowest on overheals.
These events have led to the belief that Paladins are "Pound for Pound" the best healers in WoW. I cannot prove it with numbers.. let the min maxers concern themselves with that. But my numbers speak to my ability and the paladin potential.
ATTENTION! It is all opinion!
I levelled my paladin as holy 10-70 and never tried anything else, I was tempted to go ret at 57 (when BC reset the talents) but none of the skills seemed that interesting to me compared to what I'd be dropping out of holy).
The killing is fairly slow, but compared to my resto druid (first toon) not terribly bad. 1-60 I levelled in fairly crappy ret gear (mix of strength and spirit) with a 2h weapon, 61-70 was tasty outland loot with spell damage on it. I don't do much on my paladin now, but I am thinking of getting her a ret set together and seeing if that is any better for killing things than her current holy dps set-up.
The killing is fairly slow, but compared to my resto druid (first toon) not terribly bad. 1-60 I levelled in fairly crappy ret gear (mix of strength and spirit) with a 2h weapon, 61-70 was tasty outland loot with spell damage on it. I don't do much on my paladin now, but I am thinking of getting her a ret set together and seeing if that is any better for killing things than her current holy dps set-up.
Heh at some point of the OP I thought it was myself writing. Tho I did Protection up until 58.
Same thing tho, switched to Holy and learned to love it. Always liked instancing better then questing, and the slower lvling never bothered me.
I also tried priest for a while, but abandoned it. There just something about Holy Pally that priest does not have.
I simply love when things go wrong (or right at the start of some boss), popping Vengance of Illidari (trinket) along with Divine Illumination (Or Favor, I always forget which one is which), and getting the entire party to full HP using almost no MP at all.
But since I'm writting here, lemme ask you older Holy Pally something: What's the Holy Paladin's role in raids? How does it work? I'm not even 70 yet, but I'm trying to find out ahead of time. It just seems to me that Paladin's cures are a bit too slow to be reliable against a mob that can drop the tank's HP down a big chunk in one hit.
Same thing tho, switched to Holy and learned to love it. Always liked instancing better then questing, and the slower lvling never bothered me.
I also tried priest for a while, but abandoned it. There just something about Holy Pally that priest does not have.
I simply love when things go wrong (or right at the start of some boss), popping Vengance of Illidari (trinket) along with Divine Illumination (Or Favor, I always forget which one is which), and getting the entire party to full HP using almost no MP at all.
But since I'm writting here, lemme ask you older Holy Pally something: What's the Holy Paladin's role in raids? How does it work? I'm not even 70 yet, but I'm trying to find out ahead of time. It just seems to me that Paladin's cures are a bit too slow to be reliable against a mob that can drop the tank's HP down a big chunk in one hit.
25 posts
I rerolled a BE paly about a month ago. I'm currently level 53 and I've been Holy since level 10. My RL questing buddy rolled a rogue so he's pretty much my damage. Since we're questing partners, I'm pretty dependant on him. However, if he's not gonna be able to play for whatever reason, it's nice to type "healr LFG [insert instance]" and get a group for an instance to make up for the exp lost.
One thing I love about being holy is that my friend and I have a very high survivability chance. We can survive much harder groups of mobs than we would if I was ret. Another thing, now that I'm in the plaguelands, it's nice to have the +bonus dmg/healing gear since it gives Holy Wrath and Exorcism an extra damage boost.
One thing I love about being holy is that my friend and I have a very high survivability chance. We can survive much harder groups of mobs than we would if I was ret. Another thing, now that I'm in the plaguelands, it's nice to have the +bonus dmg/healing gear since it gives Holy Wrath and Exorcism an extra damage boost.
Quote:
But since I'm writting here, lemme ask you older Holy Pally something: What's the Holy Paladin's role in raids
I believe in raids as a holy paladin you would get assigned to heal only the tank/off tank since paladins make very good single target healers(never been in any of the 25 mans yet myself but this Is my understanding from guildchat and reading this forum). But correct me if i'm wrong anybody.
Skarlandra wrote:
Quote:
But since I'm writting here, lemme ask you older Holy Pally something: What's the Holy Paladin's role in raids
I believe in raids as a holy paladin you would get assigned to heal only the tank/off tank since paladins make very good single target healers(never been in any of the 25 mans yet myself but this Is my understanding from guildchat and reading this forum). But correct me if i'm wrong anybody.
Pretty accurate. But you're also going to be a big buff bot.
Thilis wrote:
Another thing, now that I'm in the plaguelands,
Mmmmmm, Plaguelands -- A perfect Paladin playground! I love to go stand in the middle of Sorrow Hill and fire off a Holy Wrath and see what comes running.
Pallys can also be useful as Raid healers in places like Gruul where the raid is spread out due to the low cast time. There isn't a hell of a lot of raid damage if everyone knows what to do so a pally can just run around and top people off. Proper group healers can then focus on the melee group which stand to take a lot more dmg due to their proximity to eachother.
Edited, Feb 12th 2008 9:54am by bawbaag
Edited, Feb 12th 2008 9:54am by bawbaag
In a 25 man raid you'll generally have at least one other (if not more) healers assigned to healing the tank with you. So between you keeping the tank up won't be as much of an issue.
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