Protadins Leveling Guide :)

Iloveari wrote:
* Guide to Prot Spec Leveling and AoE Hotspots!

Bored of activating seal of command then surfing the web for 25 seconds? Want something a little more exciting and interactive? Want to solo quests like http://www.thottbot.com/?qu=348 easily at level 40? Try Pally AoE!

Strengths:
-Able to easily solo 4 mobs 2 levels above you, 5-6 equal level or lower, and end fights with nearly full mana and health.
-Very tough in PvP, especially against rogues, fury warriors, feral druids, and enhancement shaman.
-Tanking ability for instance runs.

Weaknesses:
-Fairly slow DPS against a single mob.
-Casters avoid your mitigation and therefore will toast you.
-Ranged are difficult to manage because you can only use SoL to heal if they are close enough to hit.


Let me first say that this guide is a work in progress. As you can see, I am fairly low level still on this toon. Nonetheless, with TBC looming on the horizon and a million pallies about to be created, I thought I'd share my leveling technique with everyone.

Pally AoE? People will surely think the concept is a joke at first. I assure you it is not. I myself have a 60 mage and leveled during the glory days of DM East lasher AoEing, and also the money grinding of the first pull in Strath. I did AoE grind leveling leveling as a mage but this is a whole new ballgame.

The basic idea is to have as much reflection damage and damage mitigation as possible and to fight (preferably) melee oriented mobs. The best possible are dual wielders, but anything that doesn't stun and cast a lot of diseases (cleanse drains mana fairly fast) will work just fine. After some practice you will be able to handle a couple ranged mobs or a caster or two mixed in but they complicate things enormously.

The current implementation of reckoning is what truly makes this tactic come alive. At 5 points, this talent gives you a 10% chance everytime you take damage to proc a buff that gives you 8 seconds where every time you swing you get an extra attack. Fairly yawn in a fight against one mob...but what if there are 5 mobs?

The build: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000
This is what I consider to be the absolute bare minimum. You can cheese it a level or two ahead of time but this is where it becomes most efficient.

The gear:
You don't need super duper awesome gear for this. Mostly whatever you'd normally have would be fine. However, there are two essential things: As good a 1 handed weapon as you can find and a shield with a shield spike. The shield spike is very important. After that, if you can find damage reflection things that's great, otherwise don't stress. See bottom for more.

The buffs:
Retribution Aura(RA): Reflects damage every time you are hit.
Blessing of Sanctuary(BoS): This not only reduces damage taken by 14/19/24/80, but also deals 21/28/35/46 damage every time you block. Coupled with our shield spike (20-30 if you buy thorium), you're returning 40-76 damage every time you block.
Righteous Fury(RF): With our improved talent, this reduces incoming damage by 6%.
Seal of Light(SoL): Chance to heal yourself every time you swing. The bread and butter of Pally AoE.

The strategy:
I am going to assume you are level 35 at this point, so you are in my favorite murloc camp (more on this later). Body pull about 3 or 4 of them and activate SoL. Notice that with several mobs hitting you, reckoning stays up a lot of the time. Thus, you're getting two chances per swing to heal. If you're taking extra damage this fight don't be afraid to judge SoL and then reactivate. With reckoning up thats a potential 4 heals in one swing! Use consecrate once or maybe twice, but I tend to not use it a lot because if you do this correctly you should end the fight with nearly full health and mana, ready to do the next. That is what makes this tactic so efficient, if played carefully there is zero downtime between fights.

As you get higher, you will get Holy Shield. I use this quite a bit, but I normally wait for redoubt to proc first. Nothing irks me more than wasted holy shield charges. However, don't make the mistake of thinking this spell is entirely for damage. Don't forget that for those 4 charges you have an extra 30% chance to block, and every block means less damage you take. It is as much mitigation as it is damage. A nice suggestion from Cathela was to use rank 1 Holy Shield even after you gain higher ranks later because it still provides the migitation and also the proc damage from BoS and shield spike, while being a little more mana friendly.

Oh no! Something went wrong! I have adds, SoL didn't proc, reckoning didn't proc, there are casters/ranged, etc etc etc. Things do go wrong. However, DO NOT PANIC. Most likely you will be fine, you forgot you are a paladin! Wait till you get down to about 10% health and then bubble and heal! If they bring you down again, LoH and keep going! I have pulled off some crazy fights that I thought were completely lost just by sticking it out.

Q u o t e:
If you find yourself higher level and have a lot of +spell damage, consider using Seal of Wisdom/Judgement of Wisdom or some combination of SoL and SoW (i.e. judge SoL then use SoW), that way you can use consecrate more without sacrificing all your mana. If you have enough spell damage doing more DPS might be worth the occasional drinking.

Q u o t e:

Since consecrate receives such a huge coefficent from +spell damage gear, using a low rank consecrate (which will receive the full bonus just like the high would) with high +damage is an extremely mana efficient method of damage.

Misc. Tips:
-Make sure SoL is up at ALL times.
-Make sure you are swinging. If the one you are targeting is running away, swing at another one till it comes back or you are in range.
-Don't forget to judge SoL often, especially when it has <5 sec left.
-Don't spam consecrate. You want to have high mana at the end of the fight. However, don't forget that it is there...it can be great damage when you're fighting 6 things at once.
-Don't give up. Carry potions just in case, I find mana potions to be more effective.
-Be aware of the situation. Is this mob going to flee at 15%? Can it draw enough adds to kill me?
-Remember, every mob fighting you multiplies your DPS. If you have to fight one thing, look around and see if there are any other mobs you can drag your target over to just so they are hitting you. You'll find this greatly increases your efficiency.
-Up against a caster? Don't forget Hammer of Justice to stop the cast! If you are against a healer be sure to save your HoJ for when they heal.

Here is a video I threw together in about 20 minutes in badlands, its about 10 minutes of fights. It's not anything awesome, all I'm trying to show you is the build's effectiveness.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...74108358&hl=en

A little commentary on the video:
I am level 42 in this video.
-First, 4 dual wielding ogres, all level 41. Notice I burn a lot of mana in the first fight. I just wanted to display the DPS power of the build in that first fight.
-The second fight is against 4 level 43-44 elementals, much more normal and is a very typical example of what you'll be doing. Notice my HP and Mana at the end.
-The third fight more of the same elementals. I included this to show how even a bad pull and very few seal of light procs don't really hurt you that badly. Even though I lose a lot more life in this fight than the others, I encounter little to no downtime because of it. Notice how I can drag them over and pick up another in the middle of the fight and that doesn't hurt either, something you'll never see a mage do.
-The fourth fight was just to show how tough this build really is. It's basically me taking on 6 mobs (Boss Thog'run and crew) including 2 ranged, 2 melee, and 2 casters all level 41ish and I don't even need to blow a cooldown.
-Notice in the last fight I encounter the bane of Pally AoE: The hero factor. Everytime someone sees a paladin fighting a bunch of mobs they immediately run over to try to save me for some reason. You have to ask them not to or they'll try to pull mobs off you.
KEY POINT:
- In every fight notice how I make sure ALL the mobs are in front of me whenever possible. This is because you cannot block (or parry?) when the attacker is behind you.
- Notice in fight 3 when I go to get the last elemental, I hit each of them first to make sure they don't leash like the first one did. Consecration does NOT stop them from reaching the leash point.

Another video submitted by Novara, this video shows my absolute favorite place, the Duskwallow Murlocs:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...62007611609317

This new video is myself as a level 35 pally taking on 16 murlocs 4-6 at a time in one continuous fight.
NOTE: This video is not an example of the real grinding technique, this just shows how tough you can be. It's just for entertainment purposes. For normal grinding you only want to kill 3-4 at a time (or whatever you find your personal threshold to be that allows you to finish with full mana/health).
High Quality: http://files.filefront.com/protvsmur.../fileinfo.html
Google: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...09157025&hl=en
About my gear in this vid:
I'm using mostly crappy greens I've picked up along the way. The only two items that matter are:
My shield is Vile Protector, from http://www.thottbot.com/?qu=1049 which is the easiest decent shield before the SM shield at 39. It has a Iron shield spike.
My weapon is Sword of Omen, from http://www.thottbot.com/?qu=1048 which is accessible at 33 for horde.

Iloveari wrote:
Grinding Spots:
I NEED YOUR HELP!
This will be the major “in construction” section. For now I only have up to level 42 experience, except for what I know from my other level 60s. I encourage you to share your spots and experiences with me so that I may add them to this list! I will continue to update this with new places!

Level 31-33: In Northfold Manor (Arathi Highlands), Dabyrie Farmstead, west of Hammerfall (horde only)
Level 35-38: Duskwallow Marsh: Murlocs.
Level 38-42: Badlands: Earth Elementals, Ogres, Troggs, Coyotes, Mountain Lions, Vultures.
Level 41-43: Swamp of Sorrows: Murloc Cave (watch out for swamp talker, he's 50 and a Caster)
Level 45-48: Tanaris: bajaken.
Level 46-48: Tanaris: Ogres.
Level 48-51: Tanaris: Thistleshrubs
Level 43-46: Ferelas: Woodpaws
Level 46-48: Ferelas: Hippogryphs, Yetis
Level 48-50: Ferelas: Harpies
Level 48-50: Blasted Lands, Nethergarde Miners. This is a horde only group.
Level 50-51: Western Plaguelands: (Sorrow Hill) Undead mobs
Level 53-54: Western Plaguelands: (Felstone Field) Undead mobs
From 54-60: Western Plaguelands: Scarlet Lumberjacks
From 52-60: East Dire Maul: Lashers
Level 54-56: "The cave in the northern part of Iron Tree Woods in Felwood. Level 54ish mobs that don't hit very hard, are bunched fairly near together, and have a chance to drop living essences which sell nice."
Level 58-62: Hellfire Peninsula: Unyielding footman on the ridge near the thrallmar camp at the armory.

62-66 Zangamarsh and yes mostly quest XP probably half each level that is how many quests and things you will be doing if you do most of them. Cenarion rep Sporeggar rep Kurenai rep (starts off in zanga for telaar in nagrand for alliance). The best spots in this zone are toss ups really there isn't much of a camp anywhere in this zone without caster mobs of some sort that can mess up a nice pull. The best 62-64 camp I felt was the naga camps there are plenty of islands with almost all melee naga which you can pull probably 3-6 at a time without a caster.

63-66 I would do ogres the shamans can heal sometimes however the ogres all along the road are easy pulls in 2-6 depending they are level 64 mobs. You can also do the ogres in and around daggerfen village and across the shroom bridge as well. The greater sporebats also congregate near here there is a large spawn of them usually around the bridge area which can help if you need to kill for the buff or for items to ah like fertile spores (rep turnin) or strange spores a component for the popular cooking sporeling snack for hunter pets.

60-62 in zangamarsh for rep per kill and rep turnins you can farm the bog lords and giants and the hydras in the dead mire just run around and pull them but it's doable for a ae pull. The bog lords drop tendrils for a rep turnin till friendly.
Level 66-70: Blade Mountains (Deaths Door): Death's Might, Death's Watch, Void Hound, Death Forge Oversmith, Deathforge Technicians.


All that aside, DON'T NEGLECT QUESTING. Prot is still very good at questing, especially kill quests or quests like Stranglethorn Fever where you are forced to fight multiple things at the same time. A combination of questing and grinding is the best way to level quickly.

Notable Gear:
I am only listing a few of the multitude of excellent items out there. I don't plan on spending much time on this part, but this is just to give you an idea of what to look for. Remember, proc chances multiply when you have multiple mobs hitting you. 5 mobs hitting you makes a 3% chance to proc into 15% chance.
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=4601 : Mmmmm, proc heals! Wonderful!
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=23125 : Damage AND heals! Even better!
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=16361 : Extra swings = more heals!
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=5297 : Damage reflection!
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=38134 : Everyone's favorite trinket finally has a use!
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=4936 : Great proc for AoEing!
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=16361 : Great melee trinket, exceptional for our tactics.
Weapons:
I greatly prefer fast weapons to slow ones. Fast weapons = more heals. However, beggars can't be choosers, and slow weapons work as well so...
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=16653 : Extra swings = more heals!
http://www.thottbot.com/?i=38570 : Extra swings = more heals!

Enchants:
Crusader and Lifestealing would really be great, fiery not bad either. I have read that since procs per minute are based on weapon speed, and reckoning are extra swings, the proc rates double when reckoning is up...however I haven't seen this "proven". Regardless, extra heals and damage is always good no matter what.
Also if you are cheap, you might consider http://www.thottbot.com/?i=4478 as it is an easy quest to do and a neat little extra bit of damage.
Another useful thing is a weapon chain, as SoL doesn't work when you are disarmed! Normally you'd have to avoid mobs such as the bloodsail swashbucklers in STV, but with a weapon chain they are fair game!

A word on Shield Spikes:
No respectable PAoEladin does not have a shield spike. It really is a huge benefit to your damage, as you will be blocking a whole lot, especially when you get holy shield and double it with redoubt. Here are your choices:
Iron Shield Spike: 11-16(?) dmg returned, cost is typically 1g or less http://www.thottbot.com/?i=4575
Mithril Shield Spike: 16-20 dmg returned, cost is typically 1-3g http://www.thottbot.com/?i=16755
Thorium Shield Spike: 20-30 dmg returned, cost is typically between 8-20g http://www.thottbot.com/?i=7535]
Note that it says "Requires Blacksmithing", that means it takes a blacksmith of the required skill to apply it to your shield, much like an enchanter applies an enchant. You do not have to be a blacksmith to have a shield spike.

For a more indepth discussion of Prot AoE gear, check out this wonderful thread: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...65367598&sid=1

Later I will update this with consumable information, such as using http://www.thottbot.com/?i=9054 or even http://www.thottbot.com/?i=33842 to up your damage! Skulton also recommended http://www.thottbot.com/?i=28925 which could be a noticable damage increase and is cheap to make and use.


Here are a few builds to keep in mind. If you have a special build in mind, feel free to suggest it and I'll add it to the list! Please explain your choices!

0/26/0 (Level 35)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=aZVhtI00zx
The base. Has the most important things. You can swap 3 Toughness into Imp HoJ if you like, you can drop BoK if you like. The important parts are Redoubt/Shield Spec, Reckoning, and Blessing of Sanctuary.

0/31/0 (Level 40)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=aZVhtI00zxp
I recommend shooting for this right away. At this point you can then branch off and pick up something else (Spiritual Focus for example) if you're not interested in Avenger's Shield.

10/31/0 (Level 50)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sxxZVhtI00zxp
Spiritual Focus directly after getting Holy Shield. Very nice for level 50.

Punjabb wrote:
While soloing i found 3 pretty good spots for which there were optimal conditions for AoEing solo.

First was in Shadowmoon Valley in the Ruins of Karabor, blood elf side. Being a scryer i figured wow this would be a great place to grind some rep. I first tried grabbing all of the melee mobs on the entrance ramp, but soon found out that this wasnt gonna work as all of the blood elves there have blood heal and can put the nasty spellbreaker debuff which cuts your magic dmg by 75%. I went further into the ruins in search of better mobs to grind on and found the demon hunter initiates and supplicants beating the crap outta each other and wondered if i could pull all of these at once. mounted up, gathered them and killed them all. these mobs die very fast, hit fast and do little dmg very optimal for aoeing. only drawbacks with these guys is the slow repop time, there is a nasty elite quest mob that patrols the area with a hard hitting melee attack and a mana burn, and only some of these guys actually drop loot. If only this place had more packs of these demon hunters this place would be amazing.


Second place i went to was Death's Door in Blade's edge mountains. This place is wonderful btw. All demon mobs, fast respawns, low hp, low damage output, all melee AND THEY ARE DEMONS. There are 4 good spawns spots with a good amount of mobs in each. I started in the south with the engineer type guys, then middle south with the melee felguard type guys, then middle north with more felguard types, and ended up at the northern part with yet more of the felguards. Once u get the pattern down, fly back to the beginning and start the gauntlet over. At my peak i was pulling in around 40-60 marks per hour, getting the occasional fel armament, various greens, a few blues, lots and lots of netherweave, vendor trash as well as very respectable silver drops. I spent the better part of the weekend here and traded all my marks and fel arms for signets and arcane tomes and was able to go from honored to exhalted with scryers in a very short amount of time.


Lastly is my absolute favorite spot to grind. South of area 52 in netherstorm, the zaxxis ethereal looking guys. There are TONS AND TONS of these guys to kill. Always can pull 10+ due to the amount of mobs in the area mixed with their respawn time makes these guys absolutely wonderful for an AoE hotspot. I divided this place into 3 parts. West middle and east. West being south of the busted up fel reaver ( by manaforge b'naar), middle near the quest guy, and east being the debris field south of 52. sorry for the vague area descriptions, working atm and dont have coords with me so going from my memory =(. here i was pulling somewhere around 80-100 zaxxis insignias an hour and just got exhalted with consortium last night after only a few short days of grinding this place. With netherweave going for easily 4g a stack on my sever, the vendor greys and having a friend disenchant all the greens i get and selling the dust and planars on the AH, i make a killing farming 10+ mobs at a time with little to no downtime.

As for instances the few instances im convinced are designed for pally tanks are Shattered Halls, Botanica, and Black Morass. Just make sure you bring a good healer, one you know and trust, and any other 3 classes. Im always a fan of bringing aoe classes, mages locks to a lesser extent hunters. i never have the mages worry about CC, just make sure your healer is spamming heals and you spam max rank consecrate and let your dps give you a lil bit of time to get some hate on all them. use LoS to bring casters into consecrate and watch everything die in a flurry of aoe madness, HoJ and taunt any runners that might get out and enjoy your rep gains.

with less than optimal groups i was pulling 35 min shattered halls runs and 35-45 min botanica runs ( exhalted sha'tar and still havent seen the pally shoulders drop from Laj QQ).

As for gear, i just use my normal instance tanking gear to minimize damage taken with a few different pieces which are nice for aoeing. Sporregar honored shield with felsteel shield spike = amazing for AoEing ( wtb lvl 70 dmg return sheild QQ), spend the time to get honored with these guys if u plan on doing any type of AoE grinding as you wont be disappointed. I know my gear isnt optimal for AoEing, but the enchants for my healing gear have gotten quite expensive and ate all my gold. i plan on adding more spell dmg to my gear setup and hopefully the mana return trinket from the last boss in hero underbog will drop for me one of these days.

As for my way of actually aoeing my method may be a bit different than some of yours but what i do is mount gather as much as i can dismount, seal light, pick a mob judge light and then seal wisdom. hit avenging wrath my AoE healing trinket (figurine of the colussus from blackheart the inciter in shadow labs heals 120 health each time u block and crits for 180, absolute must have for AoErs) hit holy shield and spam top rank consecrate with Imp righteous fury, bless of sanctuary, and ret aura. When the mob dies that you had light judged on, judge your sealed wisdom on another mob and seal light. i like to alternate judging wis and light and keep the opposite sealed to keep both mana and health about equal while still using top rank consecrate to kill as fast as possible. this also allows for very little downtime when the pull is over. maybe a bandage every few pulls was about all i needed.

sorry for the book, grammar, run-ons (its early) etc etc, but i wanted to share my experiences with the rest of the pally community as i feel prot AoEing is an incredible incredible strength for the paladin class as it allows for our defensive nature and dmg over many targets to shine with some practicality and financial gain.

Questions, comments, feedback, flames are all more than welcome. Enjoy!!