Paladin Guide

1. Intro
2. A paladins role
3. PvP
4. PvE
5. Gear

• Intro

The paladin is a hybrid-healer class, having a large amount of healing and buffing spells as well as competent melee ability. The paladin can benefit a party or raid group immensely with his different buffing abilities and healing spells. The paladin has a number of melee buffs allowing them to deal more damage and a number of defensive abilities allowing them to survive for long amounts of time in PvP.

Paladins were recently buffed as well in the 1.9 Patch allowing them to be more useful in PvP as well as being able to catch players in PvP. Paladins are now a lot better then they were at PvP.

• A paladins role

Now I'm not going to presume that I know exactly the best way to play a paladin. There are many ways of playing a paladin but I know of a few specific roles that I use myself.

1. The support Damage Dealer/Healer

One of the main roles that most paladins play the paladin hangs in the back heals and comes in for support DPS when needed. A lot of the paladins I see do this and is the easiest thing for a paladin to do and remain useful to his team.

1. The front line damage dealer/back-up healer

Some paladins follow this role though it is ridiculed by other players some times. Generally will want to go with a heavy retribution spec for this role and I would grab some holy points to go along with it.

1. Protection build tank

Heavy protection and a mix of either ret or holy. This is for paladins that want to tank generally works best before the level 60 dungeons, as after level 50 or so the ability to tank versus warriors declines quite a bit in the dungeons.

4. Healbotting for raids

Heavy Holy build mixed with a bit of protection. Your general healbotting paladin for MC, BWL, and ZG. Used by some paladins in Group PvP.

3. PvP

PvP is generally not the paladin's strong-point due to a lack of damage and the ability to catch opponents. Recently paladins PvP ability was improved quite a bit with the run speed buff from Retribution and some other talents we got.

The paladin is generally avoided in PvP purely because of his annoying knack to survive, you can use this to your advantage in a lot of situations as people will either ignore you or try to run purely because of how hard it can be to kill you.

This can be used to the paladins advantage as we can beat on them and outrun them with our 8% speed buff and they are forced to either 1. Fight us or 2. Die.

Paladins can do well vs. most classes as they have a number of extremely useful buffs; the main thing that keeps them down in PvP is their lack of damage. In most situations you will be able to survive until your mana runs out, making it one of your main goals to make sure that you have mana for healing and for damage at all times.

For most classes a paladin will want to merely focus on outlasting them as that is one of our strong points, other classes like priests and such may be harder to fight this way then say a shaman or a rogue.

Mage~

Mages can do quite a bit of burst damage and thus you may want to be prepared to shield + heal at the beginning of the fight. If caught unawares you might get killed before your even able to fight back, this is only for extremely well geared mages however. Most mages can do a large amount of damage but not so much that you die instantly.

Try to outlast their mana pool and melee them down.

Hunter~

Hunters can be a very annoying class to fight as they can kite us back and forth for quite a while sometimes forever. They can also feign death and drop a frost trap thus freezing us in place. Put on blessing of freedom and try to get in close whenever possible. Generally I avoid this class.

Warlock~

Warlocks can be very annoying with their large amount of dots. The good thing is that you can cleanse them. Most of the time warlocks wont prove to be much of a challenge as you can outlast their mana pool.

Paladin~

Paladin versus paladin is a long boring fight. It will just turn into a battle of who can last the longest.

Warrior~

Warrior especially MS warriors can be a hard fight. The 50% healing debuff is really nasty and the ability to do major amounts of damage in a few seconds is bad for us as well. Some warriors such as a fury warrior however can be easy depending on their fighting style.

Rogues~

Extremely easy fight most of the time. Rogues simply cant do enough to us since we have plate armor and can use shields. Some rogues in BWL/MC gear may deal enough damage to kill you but remember if they use all their openers on you just shield + heal.

Priests~

Priests are a hard fight depending on their build. Put on your damage buffs and try to stay at an even level of dealing damage and conserving mana. Always remember your HoJ (Hammer of Justice.) This is an extremely useful spell vs. priests as it allows you to finish them quickly before they can get another heal off.

If it's a shadow priest make sure you have enough hp to last through a silence spell. Most of the time holy priests are more annoying then shadow priests due to their large mana pools. This allows them to survive for quite a while.

Druids~

Druids, like priests are an annoying fight give that they have a survivability that rivals even yours. Generally it's a contest of who can last longer when fighting a druid. Some druids are moonkin and thus easily killed. Moonkin just doesn't deal enough damage to kill you pretty much.

Shamans~

Shamans are pretty much the hardest fight for a paladin; if the shaman is purge happy then you can cast a rank 1 of any blessing and let him waste mana. Most shamans will actually continue to purge useless blessings off of you thus giving you the upper hand in the mana department.

Put on your best 2hander if you have one and try to deal a lot of damage while being conservative with your mana. Remember that they can interrupt heals so start casting a useless spell and they might waste ES, thus allows you to heal.

4. PvE

Paladins are an immense help in group PvE and PvP. You have a lot of really nice buffs for your group depending on the situation you can use different spells to suit the needs of your party. Most of the time soloing as a paladin isn't recommended as you don't have the damage generally to make it efficient.

I've seen paladin/rogue or paladin/hunter teams work very well as the paladin will tank monsters and buff the rogue/hunter allowing the rogue/hunter to deal insane dps without being slaughtered by monsters. This works very well on elite mobs as well as bosses.

Given the paladin's ability to heal and his high armor rating you can also solo elite monsters with a 2handed weapon if you want to. All it takes is a bit more healing and you're fine. Another good thing about some of the paladins abilities is that from 50-60 a lot of the monsters are undead.

This allows paladins to actually speed up in leveling from 50-60 as our anti-undead abilities are pretty good. I would recommend if possible always killing undead 20+ as they are the fastest grinding for us.

Undead areas note: I will update this part with more grinding spots later.

Duskwood graveyard 23-29: Pretty good area for 24-32 paladins, watch out for Mor'Ladim he is a very dangerous undead elite monster that is hard even for level 36+.

Sorrow Hill 52-60: Very nice area right next to a graveyard as well as having a ton of undead to kill. Great way to get argent dawn reputation, runecloth, and experience all at once. Right next to the ruins of andorhal.

Ruins of Andorhal 56-60: Nice area full of undead same drops pretty much as sorrow hill just more money/loot as it is a slightly higher level area.

Western Plague lands 50-60: This entire zone is filled with undead and thus is the best zone for paladins to level up/grind for money in. Almost everything here can give you scourge stones and thus allow you to get a bunch of argent dawn reputation.

Raids-

Paladins are extremely useful in raids especially after 1.9. Our buffs can help a raid quite a bit and our healing is fine as well. In a raid you will pretty much be heal-botting the entire time as that's what we do best sadly.

Most of the time your build if you are purely doing MC/BWL/ZG/AQ is to have heavy holy tree and a bit in protection for BoK (Blessing of Kings.)

5. Equipment

+Healing Armor

Head:

Whitesoul Helm

Chest:

Bracers:

Emberplate armguards of healing

Hands:

Cragfists of healing

Vicegrips of healing

Peacekeeper Gauntlets

Legs:

Legplates of the Destroyer

Peacekeeper Leggings

Neck:

Animated Chain Necklace

Barbed Thorn Necklace

Rings:

Chivalrous Signet

Emerald Flame Ring

Fordring's Seal

Maiden's Circle

Songstone of Ironforge

Trinkets:

Royal Seal of Eldre'Thalas

Second Wind

Boots:

Crystal Lined Greaves

Peacekeeper Boots

Belts:

Belt of the Ordained

Zandalar Freethinker's Belt

Back:

Archivist cape of Healing

Cloak of the Savior

Crystalline Threaded Cape

Deep woodland's Cloak

Hakkari Loa Cloak