Welcome to our Paladin WotLK Classic build guide. Paladins are a favorite in any Wow content due to their devotion to the light to repel any evil they encounter. This makes them suitable for different specs, such as healers, DPS, and tanks.
In WotLK Classic, Paladins are amazing no matter what spec you choose to play. With new changes and additions in Wrath Classic, they have become easier and fun to play and level. They cannot only solo group quests but also deal with a large pack of enemies.
A common Paladin spec many people choose to level as is the Ret Paladin, especially due to their new abilities in WotLK and the speed and ease they provide. This guide focuses a lot on Ret Paladins, but a lot of the tips we provide here can also be applied equally to Protection and Holy Paladin.
In this guide, we go over those helpful tips to effectively play and level your Paladin class. We focus on what to consider when gearing, how to effectively use your abilities, enjoy your game, and level up your character much more quickly.
Paladin General Leveling Tips
As mentioned above, people ask, "should I level Protection or Retribution?" There is a number of ways to answer this question. If you are solo leveling in the open world, Ret will be faster because it kills mobs way faster and very efficiently.
If you plan on doing dungeons all the way when WotLK Classic launches, you should go to Protection because they are more powerful in dungeons.
Also, for Prot. Paladins, you should get the Shield Spike for AoE farming. If you are on a non-fresh server, pick up the Figurine of the Colossus. But if you're playing on a fresh server or boosting a character to 70, you'd want to pick DPS Trinkets such as Strength Trinkets, Strength Props, and Attack Power pops, etc., instead.
If you're boosting a Paladin without decent gears from TBC, for example, then pick up Arcanite Ripper. This item drops from a boss in Karazhan in the WotLK pre-patch event.
You can make use of Divine Shield to prevent fall damage. Sometimes it might be annoying having to go the long route down a cliff so you don't die. With this, Paladins can just jump down and use it before they hit the ground.
You need to pay attention to spells while leveling. It's easy to disregard some spells because you think they don't sound helpful at first. Meanwhile, later on, they can be really important.
As a Ret Paladin, most of your damage will be based on your weapon DPS, not your spell power or rank. This means faster leveling, and you need to upgrade your weapon. Some of your spells, like Crusader Strike, will deal damage based on your weapon DPS. Because of this, you might want to go for a weapon that is slower but deals high damage. Rockslicer, for example, will be better than the Taskmaster Axe as it deals more damage, even though it's slower.
You'll learn Judgements of Justice, Light, and Wisdom as you level. These 3 abilities are an important part of your toolkit and damage. They all deal the same amount of damage, but with effects based on the type of Seal you have active; Seal of Command or Seal of Righteousness. You start with the Seal of Righteousness and learn some other Seals as you level. But the Seal of Command is your go-to Seal as you level as it's incredibly strong.
Justice of Light heals you for 2% of your max health for every attack against the enemy. Since this is the first Judgement you'll learn, you might not use it much once you gain others. When you keep your Judgement of Justice active, your target won't be able to flee from you. It can be of great use in tight spaces. Justice of Wisdom gives you the chance to restore your base mana by 2% for every attack on the enemy. You'll use this one a lot as you can fight without exhausting much of your mana. As Paladin, everything you do relies on your mana, so you always want to keep it up.
You always want to be with the appropriate water for your level as a mana class. This is because you don't want to waste time and wait around to regenerate your mana.
Blessing of Might will be useful. It increases the speed at which you kill enemies, which means you use less mana. Some people find Blessing of Wisdom appealing, but Blessing of Might is better. You always want to keep that one active.
Paladin Playstyle & Rotation
Your Playstyle solo leveling as a Ret Paladin will sometimes be a case of "press whatever is available when ready," but when you have a number of options, you need to prioritize. We'll come up 2 useful Playstyles to use:
First Rotation
General tip - Before you make any pull, you need to ensure that you already have a Blessing, Seal, and Aura Active. As you go deep in leveling, the preference should be the Blessing of Might, Seal of Command, and the Retribution Aura. Before you get the Seal of Command and Retribution Aura, you can substitute them with the Seal of Righteousness and Devotion Aura instead.
Judgment of Wisdom - You will unlock this at Lvl 12, but unlock the Judgment of Light at LVL 4 instead to use before you get that.
If your enemy is below 20% health, cast Hammer of Wrath (Unlock at Lvl 44).
Divine Storm (Lvl 60)
Crusader Strike (Lvl 50)
Holy Wrath - Effective against undead and demons (Lvl 50)
Consecration - Only cast of you're fighting a bigger pull (Lvl 20)
Judgment
Exorcism (Lvl 20)
Second Rotation
General Tip - Clump up 4 enemies as this is how many targets your Divine Storm will hit. If you pull more than 4, your efficiency and health suffer because you'll have to spend mana to heal yourself, although this depends on your gear. Use Seal of Command and Judgements of Light
Divine Storm - Does huge damage
Judgment
Crusader Strike
Holy Wrath - if available
If you have a big pull only, you can cast Consecration
Use Hand of Reckoning for pulls. It also deals damage when you use it as part of your Rotation.
Consume Art of War procs with Flash of Light to keep your health full, so you never have to stop to eat or heal yourself after a fight.
Always use Blessing of Might.
Gear & Stat Priorities
Strength > Crit > Haste
This is also for the solo leveling Ret Paladin. You want to prioritize getting Strength and Crit pieces. Haste is nice to have, but Crit is better.
Always go for Strength plant gears over Agility gears. This is because it has more armor, so you take less damage, thereby increasing your efficiency as you'll have to heal yourself less.
If you want to Hit cap on mobs that are 2 levels above you, you need to maintain a 6% Hit chance. However, if you aren't going to take on mobs higher than you, then you'll be okay with 3%.
Expertise is nice to have. You sometimes find it on leveling pieces, but your Expertise gear piece won't be better than your Sunwell gear. However, if you're starting on a fresh server or looking to boost your character, then it can be a nice stat to pick up since you're always facing mobs.
Attack Power increases the damage you deal through most of your abilities. It also increases your Spell Power via Sheath of Light.
Agility increases your Crit strike chance a little.
Stamina is already on most gear, so it is available naturally. It increases your max health.
Gearing for Spell Power can be a waste as you normally get most of it from Attack Power and Sheath of Light.
Intellect increases your max mana.
Talents
We decided to add talent builds for the Ret Paladin solo leveling, Tank build, and also the Holy Light and Flash of Light builds for Holy Paladins.
Ret Paladin Solo Leveling Talent
Paladin Tank Talent
Holy Paladin Flash of Light Talent
Holy Paladin Holy Light Talent
Glyphs
While leveling, getting a hold of Glyphs can be tricky, but you can always get some cheap ones at the Auction House. Here are some major and minor glyphs:
Major Glyphs
Glyph of Seal of Command - Using Judgement with Seal of Command active gives your 8%of your base mana.
Glyph of Holy Wrath - This reduces the cooldown of Holy Wrath by 15 seconds. This is useful because Holy Wrath is especially important in fighting Undead and Demons who you will be dealing with throughout the outlands.
Glyph of Judgement - Increase damage done by Judgement, one of your best damaging spells by 10%
Glyph of Seal Vengeance - One of the strongest Glyphs. Increases Expertise by 10. It is especially useful when you are raiding.
Glyph of Exorcism - Increases the damage done by Exorcism, a major DPS spell, by 20%.
Glyph of Consecration - This is a great way to save a little mama while AoEing as it increases the duration and cooldown of Consecration by 2 seconds.
Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Sense Undead - This Glyph deals 1% increased damage to undead when you have Sense Undead active. You should always have it active.
Glyph of Lay on Hands - It reduces the cooldown of Lay of Hands by 5 minutes.
Glyph of Blessing of Kings - This reduces the cost of mana of Greater Blessing of Kings and Blessing of Kings by 50%. Great for raids.
Glyph of Blessing of Might - It makes your Blessing of Might last longer for 20 minutes when you cast it. This means you don't always have to worry about refreshing it.
Profession
A lot of benefits come with keeping your professions as you level in Wrath of the Lich King Classic. Blacksmithing, for example, is not easy to keep up while leveling, but gathering professions such as Herbalism and Mining are easier to keep up for Paladins.
The profession you choose depends on the spec of Paladin you choose and the stat boost you aim for Max skill. Gathering professions will give you skills early that'll scale as you level.
Skinning gives a Master of Anatomy, which will boost your Critical Strike Rating. At 75 Skinning, you get 3 Critical Strike Rating, and at 450 Skinning, 40 Critical Strike Rating.
With Mining, you get Toughness, which will boost your Stamina. At 75 Mining, you get 3 Stamina, and at 450 Mining, 60 Stamina.
Herbalism gives you Lifeblood, a fast heal-over-time on a 3 minutes cooldown. This, in turn, scale your max health.
If you're more interested in crafting things as you level, then Engineering and Alchemy are fantastic choices. The only thing is you might need a lot of WotLK Classic gold to level it up.
Alchemy can improve your leveling speed and experience by allowing you to craft your Flasks, potions, and Elixirs.
Engineering - With Engineering, you can craft bombs, grenades, and some other fun things like fireworks or target dummies.
Jewelcrafting is useful for others when you've maxed out your gear and are looking to raid. When picked with Engineering, you can create 3 special gems to get more stats than when you use normal gems, which will boost your performance.
Enchants and Tailoring can go well together because everything you create will only increase your revenue. You should know that Enchant can be expensive to level, especially when not picked with Tailoring.
Wrapping Up
There you go. This is a guide we made to assist you in getting your Paladin class ready for the big launch, as it contains important things, including tips. We hope you have gained some more insight into the class. You can also check out more WotLK Classic content from us.
