Paladin Leveling Guide

The Paladin is World of Warcraft’s stalwart defender, a hybrid class capable of tanking, healing, and dealing damage. They wield some of the strongest defensive and healing cooldowns in the game, with the most famous being their “pally bubble” that makes them immune to all damage for 8 seconds. Their group utility is just as strong thanks to multiple options for buffing and assisting allies. They make exceptional leveling partners for other classes, but they can also hold their own when questing and farming solo.

This guide will give you recommendations for your build, equipment, professions, rotation, and where to go as a Paladin to get from 1 to 90 as efficiently as possible. You’ll be wielding The Light with the best of them before you know it.

Strengths

• Paladins are exceptionally sturdy. They’re able to use plate armor and shields as well as strong defensive buffs and cooldowns. If that’s not enough to keep you alive, they also have powerful healing capabilities.
• Heart of the Crusader gives the Paladin a passive 20% increase to their mounted movement speed, allowing them to get around the open world a lot faster than other classes.
• You can fill any of the 3 major roles in the game as a Paladin: tank, healer, or DPS. This should make it easy to find groups.
• The Paladin brings a wide variety of strong buffs and utility for themselves as well as anyone they group with.

Weaknesses

• Paladins don’t have any sprint or stealth abilities to help them get around on foot. They also can’t charge or deathgrip mobs like other melee classes can.
• Many of the Paladin’s abilities are situational can can only be used against certain types of mobs or when in a group.
• You’ll have a lot of cooldowns as a Paladin, and keybinding them all and learning when to use them can be a challenge.

Talent Builds

Paladins are hybrids with a talent tree for each of the major roles: tanking, healing, and DPS. Their damage dealing specialization is Retribution, a melee-focused build that will provide you with the fastest kill times for leveling. Many players also opt to level as Protection so they can tank dungeons and pull large packs of enemies at a time. The Holy tree isn’t recommended for leveling since you will have a harder time killing mobs when questing or farming.

Talents

Because of the changes to talent trees in this expansion, all of your class’s specializations share the same set of talent options. Our recommendations for Paladin leveling talents are the same regardless of spec.

• Level 15: Pursuit of Justice
  While Speed of Light and Long Arm of the Law can give you a more controlled burst of speed when you really want it, the constant movement speed buff of Pursuit of Justice is going to pay off dividends as you run from mob to mob and quest to quest.
• Level 30: Fist of Justice
  This ability replaces your Hammer of Justice spell and is effectively the same, but with half the cooldown and twice the range. You’ll be able to use this on any type of enemy, whereas the other two options are more limited. You’ll also be able to continue hitting the mob without breaking the effect, unlike with Repentence, and you don’t run the risk of pulling extra mobs like you do by using Turn Evil for Evil is a Point of View.
• Level 45: Sacred Shield
  This is a free absorption shield that can be thrown up ahead of a pull, and used again as often as every 6 seconds if needed. Eternal Flame requires you to sacrifice Holy Power that could otherwise be used for damage. Selfless Healer isn’t very useful for solo content.
• Level 60: Unbreakable Spirit
  Being able to use your most powerful survival cooldowns twice as often will allow you to be bolder with your pulls. Hand of Purity is too situational for leveling content, and half of the abilities affected by Clemency are not useful in solo content.
• Level 75: Divine Purpose
  This passive ability will effectively give you free Holy Power to spend on damage or defense as needed. Holy Avenger may be better if you prefer a more controlled DPS cooldown and you remember to use it often. Sanctified Wrath isn’t as strong as the other two options.

Glyphs

Like talents, glyphs have been trimmed down and have a more subtle impact than they did in previous expansions. The glyphs below are our recommendations for leveling, but your mileage may vary based on your own preferences and playstyle (and what cosmetic effects you may want). There’s a bit of variety between the specs for Major Glyphs, but not for Minor Glyphs.

Major

• Level 25: Glyph of Double Jeopardy
  Whether you’re pulling multiple mobs or chaining them, you should be able to get some extra damage out of Judgment with this glyph.
• Level 50:
  • Protection: Glyph of the Alabaster Shield
    More damage for one of your core abilities is a solid choice here.
  • Retribution: Glyph of Mass Exorcism
    Adds some AoE damage to Exorcism. It does reduce it to melee range, but you’ll be casting it at that range anyway.
• Level 75:
  • Protection: Glyph of Word of Glory
    You won’t want to use Word of Glory just for this damage buff, but it’s a nice bonus when you need to heal anyway.
  • Retribution: Glyph of Inquisition
    You should be able to get a lot of use out of this while killing mobs solo.

Minor

• Level 25: Glyph of Righteous Retreat
  “Bubble-hearthing” is a time-honored method of ditching undesirable situations for Paladins. With Divine Shield only lasting for 8 seconds, you’ll need this glyph if you want to be able to nope out before it expires.
• Level 50: Glyph of the Mounted King
  This glyph will save you from ever needed to worry about refreshing Blessing of Kings while you’re out in the open world.
• Level 75: Glyph of the Falling Avenger
  It’s unfortunate that you don’t get Avenging Wrath until level 72, because having a slow fall ability can be especially useful in the early levels when you don’t have a flying mount. It will still be useful for getting around Pandaria, and it will give you a panic button in case you fall off a cliff so you don’t have to waste your Divine Shield to avoid dying.

Stat Priority

Always try to stack your main stat above all. For both specializations, that will be Strength.

Equipment

Paladins are able to equip Axes, Maces, and Swords (both One-Handed and Two-Handed) as well as Polearms. Protection Paladins will always want to use a One-Handed weapon while Retribution Paladins should use a Two-Handed weapon. Paladins can’t Dual Wield. Weapon upgrades will often be the biggest damage increase while leveling. If you’re using an Heirloom weapon, it will upgrade automatically each time you level.

Paladins can equip Cloth, Leather, and Mail from level 1, and they can use Plate starting at level 40. It you use Plate heirlooms, they will automatically be treated as Mail for the first 40 levels. From level 50 on you will always want to wear Plate Armor due to your Plate Specialization passive ability, which gives a 5% buff to your most important stat. Before that, feel free to wear whatever gives you the best stats. Paladins can use Shields, and a Protection Paladin should always have one equipped as it is required for some of their abilities. The Relic slot is gone from the character window in Mists of Pandaria, so you won’t be able to equip any of the old class-specific Librams anymore.

Heirlooms

Heirlooms can considerably speed up the leveling process by granting you increased experience gains and making your character a lot stronger. They’re also a lot more convenient than having to replace your gear every few levels. To get heirloom equipment for your Paladin, you’ll have to buy it on another character who has enough of an appropriate currency.

Any heirloom gear is better than nothing. If you happen to have some lying around after leveling another character, feel free to use them rather than buying new ones (as long as the stats are good for you). But these are the best pieces if you’re looking to purchase some Heirlooms specifically for leveling your Paladin:

Professions

You can approach professions while leveling in one of two ways: you can either start working on the skills you want to use at level 90 or you can pick up some professions to help you along the way. It’s more efficient in the long run to level your endgame professions at the same time that you level your character, but most professions will significantly slow down the leveling process if you do this. So if you just want to make it to level 90 as quickly as possible, it might make sense to grab something else for the time being.

As far as professions that specifically make leveling easier, gathering skills are the best choice. Herbalism and Mining have been changed in Mists of Pandaria to allow you to gather materials from any node in the game with a level 1 skill. These two professions, along with Archaeology, also give you character experience as you gain skill. On top of that, all three gathering professions – Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning – each offer useful passive bonuses that can help you in your journey, even if you don’t bother to level them at all.

Crafting professions require a lot more work (or a lot of gold to buy the materials on the Auction House). Many professions will allow you to craft items that you can use while leveling, with Blacksmithing and Engineering being particularly useful. It’s not really worth leveling them just for that, though. If you pick up a crafting profession, it should either be in preparation for endgame or as a means of supporting your other characters.

Rotation

Now that you’re all set up, here’s what buttons you should push and in what order!

The first few levels will have you keeping Seal of Command active and using Crusader Strike and Judgment on cooldown. Once you reach level 10, you will be able to start using more of your build’s rotation below.

Protection

Prioritize abilities near the top of this list, only using the abilities lower down if the conditions for previous abilities are not met.

• Maintain your Seal buff:
  • Seal of Insight unless you don’t think you will need the healing (level 32+).
  • Seal of Truth otherwise (level 24+).
• Use Word of Glory if you need to heal and have Holy Power available.
• Use Shield of the Righteous if you have enough Holy Power (level 40+).
• Use Crusader Strike on cooldown unless you have full Holy Power.
  • If you are fighting 4 or more targets, use Hammer of the Righteous instead (level 20+).
• Use Judgment on cooldown unless you have full Holy Power.
• Use Consecration on cooldown if you are fighting 4 or more targets (level 34+).
• Use Avenger’s Shield on cooldown.
• Use Holy Wrath on cooldown (level 20+).
• Use Hammer of Wrath on cooldown if available (level 38+).
• Use Consecration on if you are fighting fewer than 4 targets and everything else is on cooldown (level 34+).

Retribution

Here is the order in which you should prioritize your abilities as Ret.

• Maintain your Seal buff:
  • Seal of Righteousness if you are fighting 4 or more enemies (level 41+).
  • Seal of Truth otherwise (level 24+).
• Use Inquisition if you don’t have its buff (level 81+).
• Use Templar’s Verdict if you have 5 Holy Power.
  • Of you are fighting more than 2 targets, use Divine Storm instead (level 34+).
• Use Hammer of Wrath on cooldown if available (level 38+).
• Use Crusader Strike on cooldown.
  • If you are fighting 2 or more targets, use Hammer of the Righteous instead (level 20+).
• Use Judgment on cooldown.
• Use Exorcism on cooldown.
• Use Templar’s Verdict if you have 3 Holy Power.

Where To Level

Getting Started

Like all classes except for Death Knights, you’ll begin in the starting zone for your character’s race. Completing your starting zone should get you through the first dozen or so levels. After that, you can head to your faction’s capital city to train professions, use the Auction House, and decide where to go next. A good place to start is the Hero’s Call Board in the center of The Trade District in Stormwind City or the Warchief’s Command Board in front of Grommash Hold at The Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar. This board will always have a couple of quests directing you to a zone in your level range.

Leveling Beyond Your Starting Zone

Level 20 is when you’ll be able to get your first mount. As a Paladin, you’ll automatically learn the level 20 and 40 riding skills, and you’ll receive special class mounts for each. After that, you should train new riding skills as soon as they become available to help you get around more quickly. Don’t forget to also train your professions, upgrade your gear, and pick up glyphs when you have new slots available. At level 30, you can learn Dual Specialization from your class trainer, which will allow you to have an alternate build that you can swap to when you feel the need.

For the first 58 levels, you’ll be questing or dungeon grinding in Classic zones and instances on the continents of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. When you get into the higher levels, you should head to the next expansion’s zones as soon as you’re able to: Outland at level 58, Northrend at 68, Cataclysm at 78, and Pandaria at 85. There’s a big jump in loot and experience for each expansion that makes it well worth abandoning whatever you were doing before and moving on.

If you’re using a Protection build, remember that your Holy Wrath spell stuns Demons and Undead, so you may have an easier time in zones where those mob types are prominent.

If you’re not worried about taking the fastest, most direct path to level 90, feel free to break up your leveling process by trying out different activities. There are plenty of things to do in World of Warcraft that grant experience besides questing and killing mobs. You can get a little bit of experience from gathering with Archaeology, Herbalism, or Mining. You can run dungeons with other players, or compete against them in PvP battlegrounds. The new pet battle system also gives experience.