WoW Classic Paladin Guide: Weapon Skills, Abilities, Trainers, & Gear

The Paladin class is exclusive to the Alliance faction in WoW Classic, just as the Shaman is exclusive to Horde. These wielders of the Light are hybrids who can tank, heal, or deal damage. They are extremely sturdy and offer strong support in groups, but suffer from “the hybrid tax,” with other classes generally outperforming them in any given role. Despite this, they are still sought out for raids due to the buffs they bring for the rest of the group.

Paladins bring buffs for just about any situation, with Blessings that improve their teammates’ stats and Auras that buff their resistances. They also bring many of the strongest defensive cooldowns in the game, including Blessing of Sacrifice, Blessing of Protection, Divine Intervention, Divine Protection, Divine Shield, and Lay on Hands. The Paladin is also able to avoid some of the cost that is incurred by most characters when purchasing mounts due to having their own special summoned mounts.

Holy Paladin Healing

Protection Paladin Tanking

Retribution Paladin DPS

Paladin Talent Calculator

Paladin Leveling Guide

Paladin Epic Mount

Paladin Pre-Raid & Best in Slot (BiS)

19 Paladin Twink

29 Paladin Twink

39 Paladin Twink

Roles and Specializations

The three talent trees for Paladins are Holy, Protection, and Retribution.

• Holy
  • Offers talents to buff the Paladin’s healing and the damage of their Holy spells.
  • Holy Paladins are strong single-target healers and are welcome in most raids.
• Protection
  • Provides talents to improve the Paladin’s survivability and threat generation.
  • Paladins are considered the weakest tanks in raids due to their struggles with mana and threat generation in Vanilla WoW. But this specialization is often used in dungeons or for solo farming due to its strong AoE and survivability.
• Retribution
  • This tree enhances the Paladin’s melee damage capabilities.
  • Ret Paladins are among the weakest damage specializations in the game. If a raid brings one it will be for their Paladin buffs and not for their damage output.

View the complete Paladin talent tree in our Paladin Talent Calculator.

Class Feature: Blessings and Auras

Paladins bring a wide variety of buffs for themselves and their allies. Their Blessings include a few highly useful short-term cooldowns, Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Protection, and Blessing of Sacrifice. They also have a variety of long term Blessings as well as Auras, which affect anyone near them:

Each Paladin can have one Aura active and one Blessing up on any given character. Groups often bring multiple Paladins and assign them to different buffs so that the raid can benefit from many of them at once. Maintaining their assigned buffs is a significant part of the Paladin’s job in group content.

Class Feature: Seals

In addition to their group buffs, Paladins also have Seals which only affect themselves. Using the correct Seal is important for being effective in your role. Each Seal offers consistent effects as well as a secondary effect when the Paladin uses their Judgement ability.

• Seal of the Crusader
• Seal of Justice
• Seal of Righteousness
• Seal of Command
• Seal of Light
• Seal of Wisdom

“Seal twisting” is a method that is often used in order to benefit from more than one Seal by alternating them as part of the Paladin’s overall rotation. This strategy is particularly important for Retribution Paladins who wish to maximize their damage output.

Resources

Paladins use Mana as their main ability resource.

Races

Paladins have a couple of Race options. This class is only available for the Alliance faction.

Racial Abilities

Starting Stats

Stat	Dwarf	Human
Stamina	25	22
Strength	24	22
Agility	16	20
Intellect	19	20
Spirit	20	22

Weapon Skills and Armor Proficiencies

Paladins can equip Cloth, Leather, and Mail from level 1 as well as Shields in the Off-hand slot and Librams in the Relic slot. Starting at level 40, they can learn to use Plate armor from their class trainer.

Below is a table of weapon types that Paladins can use and where the initial skill can be trained.

Notable Abilities

Paladins have a lot of useful abilities that will make them a welcome addition to any group.

Utility

• Sense Undead
• Divine Intervention
• Divine Protection
• Divine Shield
• Lay on Hands
• Redemption

Movement

• Blessing of Freedom
• Summon Charger
• Summon Warhorse

Dispels

• Cleanse
• Purify

Crowd Control

• Hammer of Justice
• Repentance (Retribution talent)
• Turn Undead

Threat

• Righteous Fury

Buffs

• Blessing of Freedom
• Blessing of Kings (Protection talent)
• Blessing of Light
• Blessing of Might
• Blessing of Protection
• Blessing of Sacrifice
• Blessing of Salvation
• Blessing of Sanctuary (Protection talent)
• Blessing of Wisdom
• Greater Blessing of Kings
• Greater Blessing of Light
• Greater Blessing of Might
• Greater Blessing of Salvation
• Greater Blessing of Sanctuary
• Greater Blessing of Wisdom
• Concentration Aura
• Devotion Aura
• Fire Resistance Aura
• Frost Resistance Aura
• Retribution Aura
• Sanctity Aura (Retribution talent)
• Shadow Resistance Aura

Debuffs

• None

Paladin Trainer Locations

Paladin class trainers can be found in starting zones and major cities.

Gear Sets

Here are all of the equipment sets for Paladins in Classic WoW, including dungeon sets, raid tier sets, and PvP sets.

• Lightforge Armor (Dungeon Set 1 or Tier 0)
• Soulforge Armor (Dungeon Set 2 or Tier 0.5)
• Lawbringer Armor (Tier 1 – Molten Core)
• Freethinker’s Armor (Tier 1.5 – Zul’Gurub)
• Judgement Armor (Tier 2 – Blackwing Lair)
• Battlegear of Eternal Justice (Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj)
• Avenger’s Battlegear (Tier 2.5 – Temple of Ahn’Qiraj)
• Redemption Armor (Tier 3 – Naxxramas)
• The Highlander’s Resolution (Arathi Basin)
• The Highlander’s Resolve (Arathi Basin)
• Lieutenant Commander’s Aegis (Rare PvP)
• Field Marshal’s Aegis (Epic PvP)

Notable Items

• Skullflame Shield: This shield is excellent for AoE tanking, but it’s a rare world drop that may be expensive on the Auction House.
• Quel’Serrar: This epic tanking sword can be earned by completing a quest that begins with a book from Dire Maul. (Quel’Serrar Guide)
• Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros: One of the first legendary weapons in the game from Molten Core, which is usable by Paladins. (Sulfuras Guide)
• Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker: The most iconic weapon in all of World of Warcraft can be yours as a Paladin. (Thunderfury Guide)

Skill Books

Below are all of the skill books that are available for Paladins in WoW Classic. These books teach new abilities or ability ranks that cannot be learned from trainers. The books are not Soulbound and can therefore be traded or purchased from the Auction House.