Chirality

If I was to re-level as a warrior, I would go 2h with Imp Thunderclap (very worth it) and most importantly Deep Wounds at low levels, and switch to DW Bloodthirst as soon as you can get precision, too (at 43). That bit of healing really adds up after awhile. Two points in Demoralizing Shout are also worth it--you want to minimize the ratio of damage taken to damage done. Stay in battle stance always.

And contrary to what a previous poster said--I would actually prefer Mace Spec over Axe/Sword for leveling. First of all Mace Stun procs a lot more...and you're far more likely to end up taking less overall damage due to Mace Stun than you are due to SwordSpec/AxeSpec killing a mob faster.

Weapon specs are a mixed bag, however. Often the best weapon you have is not the spec you chose. Another reason why DW fury is a good idea for leveling--maces, swords, axes, even daggers. They're all viable and you can upgrade at any time for no cost.

10-25: Parry, TClap, Imp Charge, Deep Wounds, Imp Overpower
25-40: 2H Spec, Deathwish, Weapon Spec, Cruelty
40-45: Respec to full Fury. Cruelty, 2/5 Imp Demo, Commanding Prescense, DW Spec, Enrage, Flurry, Bloodthirst, Precision
45+: Fill out Arms tree. getting Deep Wounds, Imp Overpower, etc.
60+: Once you're in BC, you actually get enough reasonable stats to finish Fury tree and stay in berserker stance while grinding. Rampage is actually decent, if aggravating, to keep up.

 

Zaroua

When using Blizzard, Frostbite is actually a detrimental talent since it separates the mobs you're AoEing. You could take Frostbite over Permafrost for a full Frostbolt spam type build, but early on I find the extra duration and snare to beat out a small chance to proc Frostbite. You also have to remember that if you don't pick either Permafrost and Frostbite, you'll still need to be level 30 to max out Shatter and Ice Shards. There's no arguing that Frostbite gets a whole lot better with those 2 talents than without.


To put it in a different perspective: while spamming Frostbolt, a Frostbite proc will increase the chance you'll kill the mob a bit quicker. The damage increase depends on Shatter and Ice Shards, both of which are very poor at lower levels since your crit rate will be abyssmal and using a Frost Nova to proc a Shatter is a waste of DPS/Mana. Once you get to 50 (Water Elemental), you'll want Shatter and Ice Shards maxed with both pure Frostbolt and AoE specs.

If a Druid specs Moonkin in Darnassus, do the trainers still laugh at him?

 

Zaroua

The problem with switching weapons around is that your DPS and XP/H will suffer immensely when you have to level up a new weapon type.

If a Druid specs Moonkin in Darnassus, do the trainers still laugh at him?

 

Spiry

For alliance warriors, I'd thusly recommend taking Axe spec for arms for the [Bonebiter] which can be acquired if boosted at level 34. It is a great axe and will last well into the 40s.

This is of course, if the player wishes to play as Arms for that period of time. My warrior respecced to fury at 42, due to a lucky blue 1h that dropped for me, along with Vanquisher's Sword from RFD.

 

Prinsesa

That's about right. You can do it a little earlier if, like me, you get impatient, but the general build to start prot grinding fills out at 35, as shown here.

Wrong. The kicker for Prot grinding isn't Holy Shield, it's Reckoning. Reckoning is the key talent for prot grinding because the extra swings let you juggle Light and Wisdom procs to keep your health/mana in the face of 10 mob pulls.

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....63815BffMm.png

 

Pyros

It only takes like 10mins to level weapons skills as a warrior. Spamming hamstring or rend will boost the skill gains, you find a lower level mob so you don't take too much damage and it's rather fast. In comparison doing it with a paladin was like gouging your own eyes out with a spoon. I always found it better to just level whatever you have and use the most powerful weapon for this level range, than keep leveling using subpar weapon choices. 10mins every 7levels are easily gained when using dps blue/purple weaps instead of crappy green quest rewards. I ended up leveling in outlands with like fist(nagrand ring blood) and dagger(terrokar worm), after the initial green quest rewards, for example.

 

Mountie

Not really sure why people are complaining about Prot pallies having difficulty with caster mobs. I would just gather 2 or 3nearby melee types, head over to the caster and let reckoning kill it. Casters typically have very low hp and there are not many places where you sit back and say "boy, all the mobs here are casters" most packs of casters have a mix with a few melee.

It's really a shame they removed the campfire damage, that was another easy way to force-proc reckoning to kill problem mobs or solo elites. The real strength of the prot pally is that when the game gets hard, the prot pally gets better.

 

Prinsesa

Echoing Pyros and tying it up with the Prot Paladin discussion, weapon skills are no big deal for a Prot Paladin, since Reckoning lets you get lots of swings very quickly.

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....63815BffMm.png

 

Pyralissa

It really is just a matter of personal taste. Protection is fun because it's different than just about anything else, while Retribution can feel similar to other melee classes (especially before Crusader Strike). Luckily there's a fairly steady progression of Ret friendly weapons throughout Azeroth.

Does the cost of constantly reapplying shield spikes to shield upgrades become a problem at any point? For whatever reason all the guides I've seen about leveling protection seem to include a fairly high amount of twinking, but that is probably more due to maximizing speed over absolute necessity.

 

Prinsesa

Not really - I leveled Prinsesa as Prot, and I totally mean never doing any quests between 35 and 60, and never really had issues with shield spikes.

The lower grade ones (up to Mithril) you can pick up for chump change, and even a Thorium shield spike is worth like one daily's worth of gold if you have a 70 to feed you some cash. It was actually harder actually finding a Blacksmith who knew how to make them, especially that rare Warrior who's exalted with Thrallmar.

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....63815BffMm.png

 

Ataraxia

I disagree with leveling Arms as a Warrior. While Imp Tclap is nice, I'm of the opinion that leveling Fury, 2H or DW, is the most appropriate. A lot of early Arms talents (for leveling) are throw away, other than Imp Overpower. Cruelty, Unbridled Wrath, DW Spec/Enrage are much more useful leading up to what I believe to be the biggest argument for leveling Fury: Imp Slam. The importance of Imp Slam is huge since it gives you an extra attack in your cycle well before level 40 when you'd get Mortal Strike or Bloodthirst. Otherwise you're pretty much relegated to Thunderclapping for extra damage.

Not only will a budding Warrior get experience in timing Slam with the swing timer, but it works if you're dual wielding or using a 2H. Imp Slam allows for versatility as well since you can easily switch between a 2H and two 1H weapons if you happen across a really good item (Whirlwind Axe, for example) in one style or the other (weapon skill not withstanding).

Upon obtaining level 40, you can easily respec and lose Slam in favor of Bloodthirst and put more points into Dual Wield Specialization. Given all the XP quests throw at you now, 3/3 Precision will come fast after the watershed 40 ding.

 

TheCutlery

People level characters without Minor Run Speed on their boots? I sure as hell don't, and even if you do go ret, you can put those 3 points to WAY better use in Conviction at that level and just get a speed enchant. 3%crit > 7% speed at level 25. Don't get me wrong, I like PoJ, and I've actually worked it into my Prot build starting at level 61, but it's still just fluff and doesn't really account for the massive kill rate difference between ret and prot. I can kill about 5-6 in the time it takes ret to kill 2-3, and I don't need to heal when I'm done doing it.

Exactly. It's because they either haven't tried it, or haven't really TRIED it wholeheartedly. Last night I was doing the mushroom sample collection quest in Zangar for Leesa'oh...I'd round up about 4 melee ogres and one shaman, and just kill the shaman first. He dies in no time flat, and when he's dead all the other ogres are between 60-75% life. It's not inefficient at all, people just look for excuses to defend their "ZOMG HUGE NUMBERS" Ret stuff. The downfall of the prot pally is other classes ruining all your fun. Pretty much all day long you have people stumbling upon you and hustling to help you in the face of what they see as an insurmountable pull...and it's stuff you do all day every day.

A thorium shield spike (20-30) is 4 thorium bars, 8 dense stones and 2 Essence of Earth. EoE is dirt cheap on the AH, and we've got a couple stacks in the guild bank anyway. 4 thorium takes about 3 minutes in EPL to get, and stones are inconsequential. It's a pretty minor expense considering my paladin was never without a BoE epic shield leveling from 31-62. I think I only made 3 anyway...one for [The Green Tower], one for the [Wall of the Dead] and one for [Skullflame Shield].

 

Smurrf

1 handed weapon skills on pallies are phenomenally easy to pick up, if you're prot. I picked up my first sword shortly after switching over to prot on my pally, then did an AoE melee pack. I watched my weapon skill go from 7-115 in a single fight.

If you have a twohander...find a lock who can banish a demon and doesn't mind sitting with you for ten minutes or so. Same deal.

 

Aranan

Imp Revive Pet 2/2 is more favorable than Thick Hide 3/3 (vs your 1/3)?
How useful is Bestial Swiftness when the pet is ultimately limited by how fast you are?
Is Catlike Reflexes a wash, then? It seems like reducing damage your pet takes by 9% would be pretty noticable vs 2% extra damage.

 

Spiry

I'll put my oar in as a hunter here too.
While mine hit 60 back in 2005, I still have some points to make.
Bestial Swiftness is a wasted talent, there is no need for your pet to move that much faster for one reason:
You have a boar. Charge is THE best ability for holding aggro, as it adds the attack power bonus to Growl and then their next physical attack. Just make sure you keep charge at max rank and everything is sunshine and daisies.

You also only need 4/5 Frenzy, as any raider will tell you, the 80% is enough to keep near 100% uptime, especially after you get Kill Command combined with Focus Fire. This frees up a point for either 2/2 Animal Handler which is highly recommended and 3/3 Ferocious Inspiration, the tree's group viability, as you really should be doing instances.

 

Pyralissa

I actually preferred starting with 21 points in Marks than moving over to beasts. Lethal Shots, Go for the Throat and Rapid Killing are absolutely delicious talents, far more satisfying than anything in beasts until much deeper talents. After Scatter Shot the tree gets very weak, very fast, but you can start building up Beastmastery at that point. I never had aggro issues using a Boar (even with the massive gap in Boar skills throughout the 40-50 range).

 

Zaroua

The pet's gonna die a lot. A lot. And then it'll die some more. Adds, elites, instances, lag, not paying attention, lvl 70 gankers, etc. Those are all causes for pet deaths.

Bestial Swiftness makes your pet get to your target faster, thus get aggro quicker. It really makes the difference between pulling aggro and the mob dying before it reaches you and pulling aggro and having to spend mana kiting/FDing the mob or waste time (and take damage) in melee. The best way to see the difference it makes is to have your pet run to a target inside a cave.


Catlike Reflexes won't reduce the damage your pet takes by 9%, but it'll be a decent reduction. Basically the idea is this: if a mob can't kill your pet with melee hits, it doesn't matter how much survivability your pet has. If it can, odds are that having a bit more dodge and armor won't matter either. And while on the subject of pets, Hunters leveling up should spend a good portion ofpet points into the different resist trainings available (Nature, Shadow and Fire being priority). Caster mobs will destroy your pet, not melee types.

If a Druid specs Moonkin in Darnassus, do the trainers still laugh at him?

 

Perakles

PoJ is approximately the same speed increase over minor run speed as minor run speed is over no enchant. Implying that it's absurd to level a character without minor run speed while at the same time poo-pooing Pursuit of Justice seems a little weird to me.

Basically, until you hit 40, any runspeed increase you can get is likely to be the biggest available improvement to your XP/hour, and even after 40, PoJ gives a benefit to mounted speed until 62 when you get Crusader Aura. Personally I'd take PoJ over crit, but it's not an either/or choice. The next tier up in the retribution tree is pretty craptacular for levelling purposes, and you're effectively looking at sacrificing 1 point of Crusade for a 7% movement speed increase.

I leveled my paladin as Protection, AOE grinding from 35-62, but with the change to quest XP 20-60, I can't really see Protadin grinding being advantageous over mashing things with a giant mallet and picking up 5-7k quest XP for every 10-20 kills.

 

Dioneirra

I'd like to disagree with you on all three mentioned points. First of all, while leveling, your pet will not die alot. While this might have been the case before the pre-60 level change, you really have to do dumb things now to let this happens. Adds are no problem at all, you will always be several level higher than the actual quest area, the level speed is so fast, it's sometimes not funny to visit a new area and only look at light-green/gray quests. Elites might be a problem sometimes, but, there are almost no elite left before the outland. Even the once infamous multi-mob fights (for example Mokk in Stranglethorn Vale) have usually been cut down to single mob encounters. It is not uncommon to gain ten level without seeing a single elite mob at all nowadays. Instances, well, if you play them (the loot really has improved, if the level speed wasn't that fast, it would be twink heaven) and your pet dies, either your tank or you are doing something wrong. Not paying attention is obvious a valid reason, but player specific of course. And ganking only refers to PvP-servers. While leveling a second hunter for farming purpose, i had to rez my pet maybe once every 10 hours playing average. This will not justify Imp Revive Pet i would say, so it's more useful to choose another one.

The second choice you describe is directly connected to your playstyle, so it is not valid for all players. It is not uncommon to use a boar as a level pet, because it offers exactly the effect you desire (very fast contact with the mob, and as a bonus, slightly higher initial aggro thanks to the AP-bonus). On the other hand, pulling aggro from your pet, well, your problem again. Bestial Swiftness in its actual incarnation is mostly a wasted talent, sadly.

Catlike Reflexes on the other hand are well worth the investment. While not that much of a lifesaver (besides the lucky dodge strings), it will reduce downtime in playing due to healing your pet, which is always a gain during the leveling time. In the Outland, a dodged hit from a heavy hitting Elite Mob, or a small group of splitting Mobs (Farathlon Giants are a nice example for both) will make the difference of Intimidation being ready again or a dead pet. While useless in the endgame, i would never want to leave this talent out, it has proven worthwhile a numerous times.

 

• Pyre

A couple of things I've noted as I've leveled my horde Paladin:

1. Spiritual Focus is less helpful to protection paladins than you'd think. Paladins can't block/parry/dodge while casting spells, so even with no pushback there's 2.5 seconds of increased incoming damage and no outgoing damage. Paladins have enough other survival tricks that in-combat healing is rarely required.

2. I leveled 1-35 as ret, then switched to prot at 36 (mainly because I had a Green Tower sitting in my bank). Prot really improves at level 40 with holy shield, however, and without twinkage 36-40 may have been faster as ret.

3. If you're thinking of switching to prot around this timeframe, there's a quest in Dustwallow Marsh for a fast one-handed axe that works extremely well for prot paladins.

4. I've leveled almost exclusively through quests. Most of the quests I've done require either a certain number of kills, or a certain number of drops off those kills. I believe prot has been more efficient than ret, since I can gather large numbers of kills or drops at a time. Moreover, the type of targeted assassination quests where ret would be more efficient than prot take a very short time as either spec, while getting 50 of various varieties of bear ass takes significantly longer.

5. The more mobs you have attacking you at a time, the more efficient protection is. Get used to zooming out your camera view and backing up while attacking to agro other mobs or packs of mobs.

6. I believe protection leveling is much less gear-dependent than ret, since most of the damage you do is passive, coming from talents and spells. The only real requirements are a decent shield with a spike, and a one-handed weapon with a speed faster than 2.0. Beyond that, there aren't really any requirements, though items like the truesilver bp (or other similar items with proc effects) are helpful. It's true that there's a definite lack of itemization diversity in early plate, but honestly just stacking stamina works surprisingly well.

7. The bane of protection spec are chain casters, but I've found them to be extremely rare so far. Most mobs tend to forget about casting once you interrupt them once (arcane torrent is vastly underrated), and will thereafter happily beat themselves into submission. The few that violate this rule can be reckoning slaughtered using tips outlined upthread.

 

TheCutlery