Protection Paladin leveling guide

Level as Retribution: a slow two-hander, Seal of Command, Judgement on cooldown, and a healing kit that means you never die to a bad pull and never wait for a healer. From 20 the spec plays itself; from 50 Crusader Strike makes it a rotation. The leveling tree ends on the raid Retribution build, so there is nothing to undo at 70.

Your endgame is Protection, the TBC raid's best multi-target tank and a fine single-target one. Holy Shield and Consecration hold any number of mobs without a target swap, Blessing of Sanctuary and Spiritual Attunement turn the healing you take into mana, and once your avoidance adds up you cannot be crushed. Heroics want you from the day you hit 70; raids want you from Karazhan's trash to Hyjal's waves. One respec at 70, and the tank gear you collect on the way up is the point of the gear section.

Retribution, 1 to 70. You judge, you seal, you swing a slow two-hander, and when something goes wrong you have Holy Light, Divine Protection and Lay on Hands to make it go right. The real priorities in the tree are Seal of Command at 20, Conviction and Vengeance for the crits that feed it, Repentance at 43, and Crusader Strike at 50. Everything else is filler you buy to open rows, and the order below says which filler is worth something while you level (Pursuit of Justice, Crusade) and which is just the price of the next row.

Weapons: slow, two-handed, highest top-end damage. Seal of Command procs are a share of your weapon's damage, so a 3.6 speed mace or sword with a big top-end beats a faster weapon with the same DPS. Train two-handed swords, maces and axes early so you can take whatever the quest hands you; Paladins cannot use staves or polearms. The weapon masters in Orgrimmar (axes), Undercity (swords) and Thunder Bluff (maces) teach the three types between them. A freshly trained weapon type starts at skill 1; beat on grey mobs for a few minutes before you swing at orange quest mobs.

1 to 20. Seal of Righteousness is your fighting seal: holy damage on every swing. Seal it, Judge it, seal it again, swing. Never fight with Seal of the Crusader up; it trades 40% faster swings for 40% less damage per swing and kills slower than Righteousness. Its only job is its Judgement, and at these levels the debuff is small enough that it is worth the mana only on an elite or a long fight: Judge Crusader once to put the debuff on, then go back to Righteousness.

The loop from 20. Seal of the Crusader, Judge it at once (the target now takes extra holy damage for 20 seconds), then Seal of Command and swing. Re-judge the Crusader debuff when it falls off, re-seal Command after every Judgement, because judging consumes the seal in TBC. You never swing with Crusader active for more than the second it takes to Judge it. Blessing of Might on yourself, Retribution Aura until Sanctity Aura at 35, Devotion Aura when something is actually hitting you hard. Consecration when there are three or more.

Why not Protection to level? Protection with Blessing of Sanctuary, Holy Shield and Consecration grinds packs of five or six mobs at once from 30 and is the better spec for tanking dungeons on the way up. It is slower on single targets and worse at long quest chains in Outland where mobs come one at a time. Retribution all the way is the simpler path; the picker's leveling step has the Protection order if you would rather gather than duel.

The rule that governs the order below: a talent row is locked until you have spent 5 × (row - 1) points in that tree, and you have level - 9 points to spend. Row 2 opens at 5 points, row 3 at 10, row 9 at 40. The consequence is that you will buy talents you don't especially want purely to open the next row. That isn't a mistake; it's how the tree works. The order below has been checked against the real tree: every point is buyable at the level it is listed.

Where it ends: 5/11/45, the "Retribution with Kings" build WoWSims ships as its default raid spec. The eleven Protection points at the end exist for Blessing of Kings, and Divine Strength takes the last five because a Retribution Paladin wants Strength more than anything else those five could buy. If your raid already has a Kings Paladin, the alternative is 0/0/61 with the eleven points in Deflection, Improved Blessing of Might and Divine Purpose; the engine validates either.

Pursuit of Justice early is on purpose. Run speed from 26 is worth more than Crusade or Two-Handed Weapon Specialization for the thirty levels where you are walking between quests, and the three points are in the raid build anyway.

Seals and Judgements

A seal is a 30-second buff on you that does something on every melee hit. Judgement spends the active seal on your target for an effect that depends on which seal it was, and in TBC that consumes the seal, so every Judgement is followed by a re-seal. The cycle is the class.

• Seal of the Crusader: 40% faster swings for 40% less damage per swing, which is a wash at best and worse than Righteousness in practice. Never fight with it active. Its point is its Judgement, which makes the target take more holy damage for 20 seconds: seal it, Judge it immediately, then seal the one you fight with. At low levels the debuff is small, so save the step for elites and long fights.
• Seal of Righteousness: holy damage on every hit, no proc chance. Your seal from 1 to 20 and the tank seal later, because its threat is reliable.
• Seal of Command (talent, 20): a chance per swing to deal a share of your weapon damage as holy. Scales with slow weapons and crit. Your seal from 20 until Seal of Blood.
• Seal of Light and Seal of Wisdom (30, 38): small health or mana back on hits; their Judgements put the same effect on the target for everyone who hits it. Judgement of Wisdom on a boss is what keeps a raid's casters going.
• Seal of Justice (22): stuns on hit sometimes, stops runners on Judgement.
• Seal of Blood (64, Horde only, the reason Blood Elf Paladins out-damage Alliance ones): extra holy damage on every hit at the cost of a little health back to you. The raid seal.

Blessings

One blessing per Paladin per target, ten minutes each; Greater Blessings at 52 last thirty and cover a whole class for a Symbol of Kings each. Might (attack power) for melee and yourself while leveling; Wisdom (Mp5) for casters and healers; Kings (talent, +10% stats) for anyone when you have it; Salvation (26, less threat) for every damage dealer in a group with a real tank, never on the tank; Sanctuary (talent) on the tank; Light (40) on the tank you are healing. Blessing of Protection (10) makes the target immune to physical damage and drops their threat, so it is the healer's panic button and never the tank's. Blessing of Freedom (18) breaks and prevents snares.

Auras

Always one aura up. Devotion (armor) when things hit you, Retribution (holy damage back to melee attackers) while questing until Sanctity (talent, +10% holy damage) replaces it, Concentration (22) in any group where you heal, the resistance auras on the fights that call for them, and Crusader Aura (62) the moment you mount; it is 20% mounted speed and most Paladins forget to switch back.

The three saves

Divine Protection (6) and Divine Shield (34) make you immune for a few seconds; Shield also drops your damage and cannot be used for a minute after it ends. Lay on Hands (10) heals the target for your full health and empties your mana, on an hour's cooldown that Improved Lay on Hands shortens. Lay on Hands on a tank in a dungeon is the save that gets you invited back.

Macros for the things you do under pressure, so you never target-swap to save yourself:

#showtooltip Lay on Hands
/cast [target=player] Lay on Hands

#showtooltip Blessing of Protection
/cast [target=mouseover,help][help][target=player] Blessing of Protection

#showtooltip Holy Light
/cast [target=mouseover,help][help][target=player] Holy Light

The mouseover form is the healing habit worth building at level 20: hover a party frame, press, and your target never changes.

Healing while leveling

Every dungeon from Ragefire Chasm to Scarlet Monastery will take you as the healer whatever your spec. Holy Light is the big heal, Flash of Light (20) the cheap fast one, and the mana rule is the same as every healer: a low-rank Holy Light on a tank at 70% beats a max-rank one at 90%. Carry a few Intellect and +healing pieces, switch to Seal of Wisdom and Judge it on the boss, keep Concentration Aura up, and nobody will care where your talents are.

Train every new spell rank the moment you can afford it; an old rank of your main nuke is the most common reason a level feels slow. Keep your bags clear of vendor trash before leaving town, and pick up every flight path you pass; the map is the biggest time-saver in the game.

Leveling set (Retribution): two-handed weapon damage and speed first, then Strength, then Stamina, then crit and Intellect. Mail until 40, plate from 40, and a good mail piece in your 40s is still better than a bad plate one. Intellect is not wasted on you: every point is mana for Judgements and Holy Lights, and Divine Strength and Blessing of Might cover the rest.

Protection at 70, in order:

1. Defense to 490. Uncrittable against bosses. Nothing else matters until this is done; Anticipation gives 20 of it.
2. Uncrushable. Dodge, parry, block chance and 5% boss miss, plus Holy Shield's 30% block while it is up, must add to 102.4%. With Holy Shield that leaves about 67% from gear and talents; Redoubt procs cover the gap on hits. Block rating is the cheapest of the three to buy.
3. Stamina. After the two thresholds, health is what keeps you alive to crushing blows you have not yet reached the threshold against, and raid bosses hit hard.
4. Spell damage. Every threat tool you have is holy: Holy Shield, Consecration, Seal and Judgement of Righteousness, Avenger's Shield. Spell damage is threat; a tank Paladin stacks it where a Warrior stacks attack power, and the healer gear with Stamina on it is yours to roll on.
5. Block value. Holy Shield's damage and Reckoning scale with it, and every block is damage not taken.
6. Intellect and Mp5. Mana is threat; Spiritual Attunement (10% of the healing you receive back as mana) and Blessing of Sanctuary carry most of it, Judgement of Wisdom and a little Intellect do the rest.

Avoid Strength, attack power and Agility pieces; they are Warrior tank gear, not yours. Keep the Retribution set in the bank for dailies; Protection in Retribution gear quests slowly.

Quest levels by zone, Horde side. A zone is comfortable when your level sits inside its range; move on when the quests turn green.

Dungeon ranges are the levels the quests and drops are tuned for; you can enter earlier with a group that knows the place. In Outland, every dungeon has a heroic mode at 70 that needs a key from the matching reputation at Honored.

You have not picked professions yet, so this section is the advice on which to take; pick them in the character card and it becomes the route.

The two questions. Do you want the profession to make you stronger at 70, or to make gold on the way? The crafting professions with a bind-on-pickup payoff (Tailoring's cloth sets for casters, Leatherworking's sets for mail and leather wearers, Blacksmithing's Armorsmith and Weaponsmith lines for plate, Jewelcrafting's trinkets, Engineering's goggles, Alchemy's flask that lasts through death) make you stronger and cost gold to level. The gathering professions (Mining, Herbalism, Skinning) make gold and cost nothing but detours. The usual answer is one of each: the crafter your tank gear wants, and the gatherer that feeds it.

For a tank: Blacksmithing with Mining for the Armorsmith chest if you wear plate, Leatherworking with Skinning for the Dragonscale sets if you wear mail or leather, Jewelcrafting with Mining for a tank trinket, Engineering with Mining for the helm and the pull.

Leveling a profession costs the least when you do it while you level the character; every zone's nodes and drops are the ones the route wants at that skill. Pick early.

0/49/12. The Ardent Defender build, the one WoWSims ships as its default Protection spec. Nothing from the leveling tree survives except the twelve Retribution points, which are Benediction, Improved Judgement and Deflection; the Retribution damage talents go.

The core is not negotiable: Redoubt and Shield Specialization, Toughness and Anticipation, Improved Righteous Fury, Blessing of Sanctuary, Holy Shield and Improved Holy Shield, One-Handed Weapon Specialization, Combat Expertise, Ardent Defender and Avenger's Shield. The flexible points are Reckoning (threat while you are hit; drop ranks for Improved Devotion Aura if your raid leans on the aura) and the last five in Deflection.

The other build, 0/40/21 "Sanctity": gives up Ardent Defender, Avenger's Shield and two ranks of Reckoning for Sanctity Aura, Crusade, Seal of Command and Pursuit of Justice. It is more threat and more damage and less survival, and it is the better build for heroics and Karazhan, where threat on five mobs matters more than living through a Gruul crush. Switch to Ardent Defender when you progress on bosses that can kill you.

Raid job description: Righteous Fury on before every pull (it drops when you die; it is the first thing to check after a wipe). Seal of Righteousness up, Judgement of Wisdom on the boss unless the healers ask for Light. Avenger's Shield to pull, Holy Shield on cooldown whether or not you are being hit, Consecration on cooldown when more than one thing is on you and whenever mana allows on one thing, Judgement of Righteousness on cooldown, Exorcism and Holy Wrath on undead and demons. Blessing of Sanctuary on yourself from another Paladin if there is one, Kings otherwise. Your mana is Spiritual Attunement, so the healers healing you is your mana bar: Blessing of Wisdom does less for you than Sanctuary does.

Multi-target is where you shine. Holy Shield damages every attacker that gets blocked, Consecration ticks on everything in it, and Retribution Aura punishes every hit. A Protection Paladin holds Karazhan's trash, Shattered Halls' packs and Hyjal's waves without a target swap. Single-target threat is fine, not Warrior-level; on patchwerk-style bosses, Judgement of Righteousness and Seal of Righteousness carry it, and spell damage on your gear is the stat that raises it.

When to respec: at 70, or in your 60s if you have been tanking every dungeon on the way and want the Sanctity build to do it properly. One respec, about 50g.

Pre-raid gearing, the short version.

1. Defense to 490 from normal dungeon blues and quest rewards first; no heroic group wants a crittable tank.
2. Heroic dungeon blues with Stamina, block and spell damage. Prioritize the heroics that are also reputation: Honor Hold or Thrallmar Honored for the first heroic key, then Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, the Sha'tar and Keepers of Time for theirs.
3. Crafted plate from the auction house where it beats the dungeon drop; the Felsteel and Khorium pieces are made for you.
4. Quest blues from Nagrand, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley fill the rest; the Shadowmoon and Netherstorm tank rewards are better than most heroic drops.
5. A fast one-hander with spell damage or Stamina and the best shield you can find; a healer's mace with spell damage is a tank weapon for you.

The heroic keys are reputations from the dungeons themselves: Honor Hold or Thrallmar, Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, the Sha'tar and Keepers of Time, each to Honored. Tanks get the keys first because tanks get the groups first.

Karazhan attunement starts in Deadwind Pass and runs through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Arcatraz to Black Morass. Do it as you gear; every one of those dungeons drops something you want.

Start reputations before 70. Every Outland dungeon reputation reaches Honored from normal runs on the way up, and Honored is what buys the heroic key. Cenarion Expedition (Coilfang), Honor Hold or Thrallmar (Hellfire Citadel), Lower City (Auchindoun), the Sha'tar (Tempest Keep) and Keepers of Time (Caverns of Time) each gate a heroic; run the normal versions while they are your level and the keys are waiting when you arrive.

Pre-raid gear is dungeon blues, reputation rewards and crafted pieces. Heroics drop the best of it and pay Badges of Justice for the rest. Quest blues from Nagrand, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley fill the gaps; do not skip the last three zones' quest lines on the way to 70, they are the fastest gearing there is.

The Karazhan attunement (the Master's Key chain through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Old Hillsbrad, ending in the Black Morass) is the first raid gate on the Anniversary realms; start it the week you hit 70 because it takes a group for every step.

Anniversary realms have Dual Talent Specialization, so the cleanest plan is two trees: level in the one you chose and carry the endgame build in the second slot from the moment you can afford it. Check the trainer for the price in game; sources disagree on what TBC Anniversary charges.

Reading an order from any level. Every talent order on this page is a list of which point to buy at which level, and the trees in the talent section have a level slider that can show any of them. To respec into a build at level 48, pick that build above the trees and drag the slider to 48: the highlighted cells are the 39 points to buy, in the order the table lists them. Every order has been checked so that each row is open by the time you reach it.

Into Protection. At 70, or in your 50s if you are tanking every dungeon you see: follow the Protection raid order from the top. Switching before 40 is not worth it; Holy Shield is the point and it needs 30 Protection points. A Retribution Paladin who respecs Protection at 51 has Holy Shield the same day and Avenger's Shield at 60.

The number to budget: 50g per respec on original rules, the dual-spec price once on Anniversary. A Paladin who respecs at 40 and again at 70 pays well under 60g total; nobody should be flipping specs per dungeon.

Paladins live and die by timers: seal duration, Judgement cooldown, the Crusader debuff on the target, and in a raid, who has which blessing.

• PallyPower: assigns and casts blessings for every Paladin in the raid from one frame, and tracks who is missing one. Mandatory from your first raid; useful from your first dungeon.
• WeakAuras: seal missing or about to expire, Judgement ready, the Judgement of the Crusader debuff on your target, Holy Shield and Consecration cooldowns, Righteous Fury missing (the classic tank-Paladin embarrassment).
• Healing frames: Grid with Clique, or Healbot, so that mouseover healing from the basics section becomes click healing.
• A threat meter (Omen) in every group; you are the one reading it.
• One boss-mod addon, DBM or BigWigs, not both.

The addons that pay for themselves on any class: a quest helper (Questie) so you stop reading quest text for coordinates; a bag addon (Bagnon or similar) so you can see what you are carrying; a boss mod (Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs, never both) the day you start dungeons; and WeakAuras once you have a cooldown or buff you keep forgetting. Bind every ability you use in a fight to a key before you hit 20; clicking is the single biggest thing that makes a character feel weak.

Ticks are remembered in this browser for this class and spec.

Now

• Benediction 5/5, then Improved Judgement; Seal of Command the moment row 3 opens at 20
• Train two-handed swords, maces and axes; grey-mob the skill up before you need it
• Fight with Seal of Righteousness (Command from 20); Crusader is only ever sealed to be Judged, never swung with
• Lay on Hands and Blessing of Protection macros from the basics section on a key
• Redemption at 12 from the class quest; carry Symbol of Divinity

40 to 70

• Level 40: plate, Summon Warhorse, Blessing of Light; Repentance at 43, Crusader Strike at 50
• Greater Blessings at 52; carry Symbol of Kings from then on
• 60: the epic Charger; 62: Crusader Aura, and remember to switch back when you dismount
• 64: Seal of Blood replaces Seal of Command
• Respec Protection 0/49/12 at 70, or in your 60s if you tank every dungeon on the way; budget about 50g

At 70

• Defense 490 before the first heroic; uncrushable before the first raid
• Righteous Fury on, Blessing of Sanctuary on, Seal of Righteousness up, Judgement of Wisdom or Light on the boss
• Avenging Wrath at 70; Honor Hold or Thrallmar for the heroic keys