Leveling as ProtectionFollow

Let me start off by saying I've never leveled as anything but DPS. My hunter and mage are obviously DPS, but my Druid and my DK were both leveled as DPS to where they are now. I decided I'd try something different with my Paladin. I'm now level 55, specced Protection, and I'm having fun. Its challenging because my gear isn't the greatest, but that's better than just cutting through the mobs. Some semblance of difficulty is there, and I love it

Edited, Mar 12th 2009 4:20pm by crazyrick

Learn to AOE grind. It's fun and not too hard once you get the idea. You could work on it in the Plaguelands.

Very good way to burn through mobs.

IMO, it is better to wait until you have Hammer of the Righteous before respeccing to Prot.

Going Prot Pre-HotR is a waste, that single talent alone accounts for quite a large amount of your DPS, without it, your only attacks are Judgment and your Shield, and Avenger's if it was up when you pulled.

Once you get HotR, though, you pretty much have everything in the Prot's repertoire, and can get to it. I find that Prot is very easy to level, albeit a little slower. Much, much more survivability and it is much harder to die unless you take on something you've no business trying to fight yet (usually in the case of elites). An elite your own level is generally safe, except for Group3 quests, some of those are very difficult if not outright impossible (I'm pretty sure Overlord is still impossible to solo at the appropriate level). Most Group2 quests are easily solo'd.

Thanks to BoSanc, you will never run out of Mana unless you're blowing heals like crazy (usually a sign you bit off more than you can chew), don't pass up the Avoidance gear while you quest, every Block, Dodge, and Parry will give you mana (and of course, make you take less damage), which is the whole point of being a Prot Paladin in the first place.

Defense Rating doesn't mean much while you are solo grinding; save that for dungeons and go for Avoidance and STR while leveling. When you get to 78-80, _that_ is when you wanna make sure you get up to 540 def.

I lvl'd ret until recently, i recently change to prot at level 61 as it is much better. I went from killing 3-4 mobs and dieing everynow and then, now i can do like 7-8 mobs my lvl no prob. Once you hit the Outlands, everything you get from quest replaces you gear, i went at 58, by 63 i had all new awesome gear :)