NICE, THANKS

Coming into this a bit late and not sure if this was mentioned already but Winterspring is full of little weakling melee mobs for 54+.
The Ice thistle Yeti's are all 55+ and hit fairly weak, they have a short duration Ice block but it is a seldom cast, and also the spirits in Lake Kel'Theril are easy to aoe down.

love this guide. i went to prot at 31 and havent looked back. being able to take on 3-4 (maybe 5) mobs a level or 2 higher than you and never dying is pretty nice.

Just thought i'd chip in my experience so far.

I started at the hammerfall (dabryiel?) farms grinding on the humans there, solo. All I had was the shield reward from RFK and the 22ish DPS 1-hand axe from RFK.

I was immediately able to do 2-4 mobs at once, and I never died from 31-35 while I was at the farm. By the time I was 34 I found it was most efficient to have about 5-7 mobs on me. Anything less and reckoning wasn't up enough.

Now I'm 35, got the sword of omen from SM quest, and I'm headed out to dustwallow as I type. I would argue it's faster XP to AOE grind 31-35 even w/out full reckoning *if you have some good AH blues*, otherwise I'm not sure how survivable you'd be right away. But, I had about 1500 health when I started and it worked well. I averaged 22-27k xp / hour (some PVP mixed in slowed me down, and it got best when I was 33-34 as the mobs are lower once you hit 34).

One thing to note, this can work in a DUO if you have a druid with you. I had my brother on his druid (same level) pulling stuff from one side and meeting in middle. I'd hit consecrate and, if necessary, taunt any leftovers from him to me, then he'd DPS my target with me. The runenrs would pull more, we could do the entire farm in 2 pulls.

*thanks / bump*

I found it's possible (and easy) from 40-43ish to also farm the bandits + thieves in Tanaris, not too bad. Casters are pretty rare.

I've found having any kind of proc enchant on your weapon can help substantially. I use fiery (but hope to get crusader soon..ish) If you got an epic weapon from 40+, I recommend putting crusader on it, it's the PERFECT enchant for this kind of leveling.

I don't know if it's already been said, sorta skimmed through most of the posts so i might have missed it, but picking up engineering and getting to 175 for Solid Dynamite ( https://thottbot.com/i10507 ) will give you a nice DPS boost.

They are very cheap to make, stack in lots of 20 and getting to 175 engineering isn't very difficult. only problem is they aren't instant, takes about a second to 'cast' but if you time it right it's not bad. At level 35 it's basically 2 consecrations without the mana cost.

You know I heard of the paladin AoE and not untill lvl 38 did I enjoy it

Last night in badlands, Im doing the buzzard wing collect-a-thon by the big skeleton byt he horde camp. I also had the wolf jaw bone collect-a-thon.

hmmm

there are a lot of wolves between here and the buzzard turn in. So I proceeded to get 3 kill 2 get 2 more only stopping once to get mana (no SoW yet : /) so much fun, and those 30 jaw bones were like nothing got a ton of XP and lvled when I did the turn ins. Dare I say a Prot Pali is more fun then a hunter?

I wonder why this isn't stickied :(

I wonder too. I leveled to 60 with it. It was great then and it still is. Sticky it mofos.

Sticky please or just sticky icky...either way...

Give me some sticky!!!

Very good guide...i refer to it often.

I've actually met people in-game who've used this, so also /bump + /beg for sticky

Just started this alt.

This sounds exactly like what I wanted this character to be.

That being said, I have some questions.

1. When does this method of AoE grinding become viable? Should I focus on being a ret pally for the first 30-35 levels and then switch?

2. Once the switch is made, is this set up make for a viable tank in instances? I imagine since you're in the prot tree, you have quite a bit of tankiness, but does the talent combination allow you to be effective if you are part of a group? I ask because I like to run instances :)

3. Is there a point where you should switch from the AoE prot pally spec to something else? I.E. it becomes more sensible to be a standard prot/holy/ret spec as it will get you in more groups (again for instances). I ask this because of the desire to run many TBC instances and how it effects your chances to get in a group again.

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Q u o t e:

1. When does this method of AoE grinding become viable? Should I focus on being a ret pally for the first 30-35 levels and then switch?

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i would go ret until 35. at 35, you can have enough points into the prot tree to get blessing of sanctuary and 5/5 for reckoning

here's what i did at 35:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?0000000000000000000005005133300001500000000000000000000000000000

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Q u o t e:

2. Once the switch is made, is this set up make for a viable tank in instances? I imagine since you're in the prot tree, you have quite a bit of tankiness, but does the talent combination allow you to be effective if you are part of a group? I ask because I like to run instances :)

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Yes. I tanked with my pally in every instance from RFD to BRD. At this level, just having all the points in the prot giving you reduced damage, increased shield damage absorbtion and all that gives you what you need for tanking... just hold aggro and make sure your healer is doing his job :)

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Q u o t e:

3. Is there a point where you should switch from the AoE prot pally spec to something else? I.E. it becomes more sensible to be a standard prot/holy/ret spec as it will get you in more groups (again for instances). I ask this because of the desire to run many TBC instances and how it effects your chances to get in a group again.

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I am 63 and i still have the same spec. I just tanked underbog and slave pens last night. It went well. once you get to 60ish, you should start to get some decent +defense for tanking, but even so plate with spell damage is nice for keeping aggro (plus you'll be 1st or 2nd on the dps charts :D )

once you hit 70 it might be harder, since youll want to focus on tanking, or doing aoe, not both. the more CC that is used, the less aggro you make and the more ineffiecient your aoe prot spec becomes. im sure you could find a happy medium where your not giving up too much one way of the other.. unless your going into raiding... then the aoe spec/gear wont work well for tanking.

This needs to be stickied.

so read this and though it over as I was lvling...

WHY THE HELL isn't this stickied.

I'm loving it at lvl 40 I tried what you said at the start soloing the Stranglethorne Fever quest, um yeah went like cake not even my BM hunter had it that easy. Then I went on the finish Raptor master, then kill king b his 2 summons and 2 adds..then I went nutty and started doing lvl 44/45 STV quests.

on the other hand now I hate you cause I'm lvl 42 and ran out of remotely possible to complete quests : (

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Q u o t e:
so read this and though it over as I was lvling...

WHY THE HELL isn't this stickied.

I'm loving it at lvl 40 I tried what you said at the start soloing the Stranglethorne Fever quest, um yeah went like cake not even my BM hunter had it that easy. Then I went on the finish Raptor master, then kill king b his 2 summons and 2 adds..then I went nutty and started doing lvl 44/45 STV quests.

on the other hand now I hate you cause I'm lvl 42 and ran out of remotely possible to complete quests : (

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Try grinding the goblins from the blue crystals quest, they're really easy and fun (kill tinkerers first)

I got atleast a whole level out of them...

I would like to recommend dragons around Sunken temple for lvls 42-45. There are plenty of them and there is no casters in a 5mile radius

I've been Ret since level 10 and have enjoyed playing this character. After reading this guide, I can't wait to give this a try @ level 35.

For fun, how many of you have solo'd instance mobs near your level with this spec? One person noted that they were able to solo RFD @ 41 up to the 2nd boss. Anyone else? I love going back to the old instances @ 70 for nostalgia's sake, but hitting up an instance near your current level and taking on elites sounds challenging.

If there ever was a topic that needed to be stickied this would be it.

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Q u o t e:
If there ever was a topic that needed to be stickied this would be it.

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Amen!

I switch to this spec at 35, and I am loving.