Joining the club, just one leveling questionFollow

With Blizzard's epic fail at improving Priest PvP survivability, and adding a bazillion gimmicks to DK tanking, I decided to address this issue in what seems to be the only viable way - roll a Paladin and use the upcoming dual-spec feature to fill both roles eventually.

At level 11 now, I am looking at upcoming spells and talents, and cant help but wonder... Am I to be an auto-attack monster until Crusader Strike becomes available at 50? There is like absolutely nothing to do in between Judgements, Consecration doesn't become available until level 20, Hammer of Wrath not until 44. Exorcism is apparently going to be changed to affect all targets rather than just Undead & Demons, but other than that?

I guess what I'm getting at is whether it would be more entertaining to level 20-50+ as prot rather than retribution, or if the early damage boosts in the Ret tree are significant enough to fight boredom due to having to wait for ability cooldowns. At the same time, will the early protection talents be good enough to even consider multi-mob pulls at lower levels?

There obviously have to be some milestones along the way to 80 - good opportunities to switch back and forth to try different things. Would be awesome if you could point those out to me.

If you are simply addicted to button mashing, then Ret Paladin will probably be boring for you until at least level 50, but even at level 80 you spend at least SOME of your time auto-attacking. If you manage your cooldowns well, it won't be a LOT of time just auto-swinging, but there will be some.

The big advantage to Ret Paladins (enen at the fairly early levels) is that even your auto-swings should be doing a pretty big amount of damage!

So, if your goal is to be a constant button masher, Ret may not be for you. If your goal is to level VERY fast and to be very versatile and still deal a ton of damage at endgame, then Ret probably IS for you. If your goal is to solo pretty much any group quest in the game (even if the elite is a few levels above you), then Ret is for you.

Sometimes it is more fun to just watch the big numbers flash up on the screen as opposed to having to mash buttons ALL the time for max results... I think you will get used to it.

Yeah I love the Ret rotation. After playing my Hunter with the "1980 Track and Feild" smash it to win DPS macro and also my "build combo points for rotations at all times" rogue I seriously start to get caarpel tunnel in my left hand. (You can tell I am older becuase only the old schoolers wil get the 1980 track and feild video game reference) ( remeber the pencil between the knuckles at the arcade?)

I still have cooldowns to manage but the rotation is not so OCD manic an I love that about Ret.

Yeah, I got a glimpse of Paladin survivability when in utter desperation I hit Lay on Hands, hoping for the best, and found out that it would in fact heal me up to full in an instant.

What about glyphs? Obviously Glyph of Judgement first, but what about the 2nd slot at 30 and the minor? Seal of Command and BoM?

Thats one thing that makes me dislike my 68 DK is constantly having to look at cooldowns. Never seen no decent macro's. So I made a ret pally and I'm just powering through mobs. I fought a mob last night that is 7 levels above me. Its crazy how much damage they do and I hope they don't ever nerf retribution even when I switch to prot for Hellfire etc etc. I've seen paladins come along way from were they used to be pre BC. Enough said back to ret stuffs.