Paladin Leveling Guide (part2)

Second part of a guide for those that roll or reroll a paladin. The first part of the guide, addressing levels 1 to 58 can be found here: Paladin Leveling Guide (part1).

This guide is more targeted for those that already have a lvl 80 and can support their alt, but most of the tips can be applied by anyone.
If you have a lvl 80, I can only advise you to send to your new paladin those two heirloom items:
Polished Breasplate of Valor (chest armore +10% xp)
one of these shoulder armors
Polished Spaulders of Valor (+10% xp, physical dps)
Pristine Lightforge Spaulders (+10% xp, healing shoulders)
Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons (+10%, physical dps & resilience)
As I'll advise you to continue leveling in the retribution tree as a dps paladin, I'd take the first ones but they cost emblems, and you could want to use them for your main unless you still have some old emblem of heroism. Then chose one of the second ones that can be bought in Wintergrasp for Stone Keeper's Shards.


Paladin Leveling Guide (part 2, from Outland to Northrend)

The basic advises from the first guide are still valid, I'll rewriting them here because you should always keep them in mind while leveling.

The first tip, which is common to all leveling guides you'll ever find is: maximize your damage output. Don't try to gear for survival, the game isn't that hard most of the time and you'll want to down mobs fast.

The second tip is, try to get a good leveling guide if you want to. If you're new to the game, enjoying the discovery is probably the best thing to do, and using Wowhead to search when you're stuck in a quest will be enough. If you're a bit tired of the vanilla content, or want to reach 80 much faster, then leveling guides are for you. I used Jame's Leveling Guides for my 3 last characters, from 1 to 78 (last levels are not yet in the guide but really not hard to do) both on horde and alliance side, and I strongly advise them.

Ok, now let us start with paladin stuff. You can find all the paladin skills by level on Wohead here, if I'm not direct linking a skill, go there for more info.

About protection and holy leveling

I'm strongly advocating leveling in the retribution tree. By level 60 you should have a talent tree close to this one: Retribution level 60 talent tree.
Though when arriving in Outland by lvl 58, you'll be much less lonely as you'll hit the Death Knight pack of players. I'd still advise you to level by yourself questing in Outland until lvl 60 to get as much quest item as you can, they will be major upgrades for all the slots where you still have vanilla (pre-outland) wow items. Once you feel confident, you can try tanking or healing instances in Hellfire Peninsula (Ramparts & Furnace) and then in Zangarmarsh (Slave Pens and The Underbog). Especially if you have the Heirloom chest & spaulders and even more if you have rest xp, instacing with a good group can be very effective leveling wise, and you'll easily find a group as a tank, and even more as a healer.
If you already bought the dual-specialization talent, or if you can buy it now, this is the right time to try your paladin with something else than retribution. You won't find as many players wanting to do instances before lvl 68-69 and the first Northrend ones.

First part of your Outland time, level 58-63, Hellfire Peninsula

If you want to train new skills, you'll need to go back to Azeroth, there is no class trainer in Outland. Don't jump back trough the Demon Gate, please do yourself some good and go to Shattrath once in Terrokar Forest (you can reach it going west to Zangarmarsh and then south from the Cenarion Expedition point). This trip can easily be done even at lvl 58, stay on the paths, don't venture too much and you'll be safe.
Get the flypath in Shat City once there, jump through one of the portals in the town center and teleport back to Hellfire with your stone. You can then fly to there each time you want to train.

When you first arrive in Outland, don't worry about instances (unless it's a rush for free xp) you need some Outland gear first ! Each quest reward you'll get will be a major upgrade and you'll jump in hit points especially doubling or tripling them in a few hours of questing.
Here is a list of items you can get through solo questing in Hellfire Peninsula:
healing plate chest,
healing or tanking shield,
tanking sword,
dps plate pants,
dps plate chest,
healing plate pants,
healing sword,
tanking/dps plate helm,
tanking plate pants,
free Insigna of the Alliance (to do if you don't laready have one, pvp quest)
two handed sword (best weapon unless you drop an instance one)
There are other very good blue items you can get with group quest and dungeon quests, if you can find a group for them when you have them, go for it.

Once you have your first Outland gear, and you have the first quests for the Hellfire dungeon: Weaken the Ramparts, it's time for intancing a bit. You can do Hellfire Ramparts, you'll finish this quest and get a new one on the last boss (drop). Then you'll get two new quests for Hellfire Furnace.
Both of these instances are done a lot by players arriving in Outland, and you should search for a group for them until you've finished questing in Hellfire Peninsula or reached lvl 62-63. You'll get a lot of blue items in them, several you will keep until probably level 65 or even 68 in Northrend.

Questing in Hellfire will be a bit hard at level 58, it'll get way easier with a few more levels and Outland gear. Once level 61 you should cruse through quests with haste. I'd advise you to move to Zangarmarsh once level 62 but you can stay there until you're nearly 63. Most quests will start giving less xp once you hit level 63 and mobs won't be worth much anymore.

Second part of your Outland time, level 63-65, Zangarmarsh

Once you're 63 or close by, Zangarmarsh (just west of Hellfire Peninsula) will be your leveling zone. You can up your Cenarion Expedition reputation here, for those that care about titles, it's linked to the Cenarion Guardian title.
There are a lot of quests here, most are level 60 to 64, so all the first ones will be easy if you're level 62, and you'll cruse through them as you did in Hellfire at the end.
You can find a list of all the zone quest on Wowhead, direct link here: Zangarmarsh quests.

There are two instances in Zangarmarsh: the Slaves Pens (lvl 61-63) and the Underbog (lvl 63-65). You can probably do them until you're level 66 or even 67 for the Underbog. They will also probably be the last instances you'll easily find players to do in Outland, the next one is The Aucenai Cripts in Auchindoum, Terrokar Forest, but it is a lvl 65-67 instance and most players are rushing their levels to 68 then to reach Northrend.
Remember to use the Looking for Group tool and select all the instances you want to do, as for Hellfire Peninsula, there are quests in these two instances. One can be found at the entrance of the instances, under the huge pump in the middle of Serpent's Lake, you'll have to find 4 npcs, 2 in each of the instances (look for them on Wowhead first if you don't know where they are). Two quests for the Underbog are linked to the Sporegar reputation and are very worthy, so go do some of the sporegar quests in the west of the marsh, and run an Underbog once you have them, even if you're already 66 or more, you'll like the rewards :P

Third and last part of your Outland time, level 65-68, Nagrand

I don't think Terrokar Forest is useful but for Sattrath. Once 65 I strongly advise to find a group the the Nagrand "arena", the Circle of Blood at the north of the zone. It's a group quest, you'll have to fight 5 bosses in the circle. It's hard to do without a good group, probably need a lvl 57-58 group, but it is very very often rushed by high level characters for their friends. So keep a sharp eye on your zone chat and jump in if you see anyone asking for more or offering a free run :P
These quests will give you a huge bump of xp, a nice weapon, and free potions.

Nagrand is a zone full of quests (again) mostly kill stuff quests with the return of Nesingwary (you can find his camp in the north east of the zone, near the east Zangarmarsh entrance). You'll kill beasts, ogres ...etc until you hit level 68.
Don't forget to stay in the Underbog instance Looking for Group tool, if you don't have the sporegar quests already, or if you want a bit of change from time to time. You can be teleported to the stone instance and teleport out with your stone once done. No running, no time lost. Just in case try to look for a group for the Auchenai Cripts and Mana Tombs, in case some players want to do them. They're a bit harder though.

You'll get fast levels in Nagrand and a few hours questing here will bring you to 68. And then ... it's time to move again, leave Outland and go to Northrend (through harbors in central towns such as Stormwind, Orgrimmar or Undercity).

If you're following James Leveling Guide, you'll find that I'm not really on the same levels. This is because his guides were written before the huge LK experience nerf for lvl 60-70 and before Heirlooms with xp bonuses where included into the game.
If you ever need a bit more xp, you can use his guide for Terrokar Forest (lvl 62-64) and Blade Edge Mountains (lvl 67-69).

Have fun, by these levels a retribution paladin with a good weapon is really a lot of fun to play and nearly never stops to rest ^.~

updated 11/12, changed the outland trainers section