Protadin ... To the Ground, Baby !

Ok, who doesn't already know that fateful sentence from Ghostcrawler at whatevercon after the release of WotLK and the ret paladin OP period.
Now it's all about protection paladins, or mostly, and Lay on Hands suddenly becoming too op to live. You can find the changes in the last patch on the PTR on Mmo-champion.
To sum-up here they are :

• Sacred Shield can now only occur every 30 sec. (Up from 6 sec)
• Lay on Hands can no longer be cast on yourself.
• Infusion of Light now also reduces the cooldown on the effect of Sacred Shield by 12/24 sec.
• Aura Mastery now lasts 6 sec. (Down from 10 sec)

There is a "balance" to the Sacred Shield nerf, but only for deep Holy Paladins (read not the arena spec).

• Infusion of Light: This talent now also reduces the cooldown on the effect of Sacred Shield by 12/24 seconds.

This is added to the Divine Guardian / Sacrifice nerf, as you can read on his blog, the Suicidal Zebra explains the 80% nerf of the Sacred Shield for prot paladins.

It's clear that PvE protection paladins are the most affected by the Sacred Shield & Lay on Hands nerf. Holy Paladins regen via Glyph of Divinity will also be affected when they were casting Lay on Hands on themselves.
And now all paladins can't self heal themselves in arena/bgs via Lay on Hands.

As Rhidach is saying on his blog, I can't eat this change is not mostly arena/pvp related. And it severaly screws-up protection paladins ... and all levelling paladins btw.

It's been several years since we started saying PvE & PvP abilities should just be made different (as it's already the case for potions/food/etc...) so that PvP changes aren't that hard to balance if you take PvE into account (and vice-versa). But no, this is probably too much work ... sigh. Well done Blizzard.

edit :
In this post Ghostcrawler announces they reverted the Lay on Hands change ... but he's not promising anything about them not changing it again. Stay tuned for more paladin nerfing news.
And yes it's qquing but such changes are so deep towards the PvE balance that they can't just go silently. We're learning to play a class, we're fighting for spots in raids, esp as paladins were not good at all during the end of BC, either for tanking or healing or even not that good at dpsing. So we won't let our efforts go to waste without a fight, that's all.

Down with Yogg Saron

So I finally killed Yogg Saron (normal 4 watchers, no uberness here) this weekend. I'm a bit sad that it happened on my disc priest before my paladin, but I'm really happy to see the end of this epic fight. Yogg Saron is, for me, the best fight of Wrath up to now, it's 3 very different phases, there is a lot to do for everyone, and especially in 10-Man none is allowed to fumble as we can't tolerate one death or we won't get the enrage timer.

It's really hard to find enough motivated people to finish Ulduar now, but I happened to get lucky on my priest server. I got invited in a guild group extending its tag when they were on Yogg, they wiped on their first night and we wiped again all night on last Thursday. This Saturday, we went there again with nearly the exact same group, everyone knew the fight and we downed Yogg on our second attempt of the night, only our third time on Yogg phase3.
I was the healer of the brain team during phase 2 which is a lot of fun and rush (you don't have much time to think and I fumbled my first brain phases on Thursday). We barely killed him before the time limit though (only 15s remaining) and our tank had 6 adds on him at the end and survived (I love to heal good tanks).

All I can say is that I really like this encounter. It's original, well designed and it reminds me of C'thun :)

I used the BossKillers guide to prepare my raid nights, and it really helped me to not be surprised especially in phase 3 when these guardians hit to hard on the tank (thank you Pain Supression during the last seconds of the fight).

Rhidach's Heroic ToC guide

Not mine, I don't have enough gear to seriously try this one, but a complete and very detailed guide. It is specially tailored for protection paladins but full of tips readily usable as a holy paladin. just go read Rhidach's blog post on How to defeat heroic 10man Trial of the Crusader.
I seriously point you to this one, there are so many tips for a paladin that I didn't think of (not playing prot enough these days) I'm ashamed of my gameplay :P

Thanks a bunch Rhidach :)

Update note 20th November: I've compiled a more complete list, including Rhidach's guide, you can find it on Trial of the Grand Crusader (ToC Hard), Guides & Tips Collection

Waiting for IC ...

I don't know about you but I'm seriously waiting for Icecrown Citadel. Not that I've finished
all the content, I've yet to see Yog Sarron die, but that requires several evenings on Udluar and most people don't spend that amount of time on this raid anymore. Too much "free loot" on ToC (normal) or Onyxia or Lolaron to motivate much people about Ulduar.

I still think Ulduar is the best raid from WotLK up to now, despite it being too big, it should have been split in two raids as it was done all along BC. I still have some friends motivated by Ulduar hard modes and we're trying them from time to time, usually one or two nights a week when we are lucky enough to make our suicidal squad (Auriaya with all cats is a crazy fun mess of a fight to heal). If I find ToC hard mode mostly a "gear check", Ulduar hard modes are, at least for some of them, very entertaining.

The first news from the next raid Blizzard is giving us are starting to appear, and the first boss was tested on the PTR these last days (report on Mmo Champion). It doesn't seem super hard, as least on paper, I hope the normal/hard mode gap will be lower then ToC, and my wish is for hard modes to contain more abilities, more strategy than just be a gear check put over a normal difficulty boss.

I guess we'll all see that in IC, hopefully not too long from now, but even more hopefully nicely tested and balanced.

Raid Healing for Holy Paladins post 3.2

This post ended being much much longer than I thought at first when I started it. But I was always adding new views and after a few hours it got quite gigantic. I organized the ideas so that you can pick up what you're interested in or find back some points more easily after reading the whole thing. I'll try to post better inputs on some parts of it later in separate posts if I can find some time for that.
Now let's start with the beast.

It is no news that patch 3.2 changed a lot for Holy Paladins. I have already written several posts on the topic: Patch 3.2 will change just everything ...
You can also find very good analysis of the changes on: Banana Shoulders and Holypaladin.net.

Now what did it changed for me after a few weeks of raiding? Though my experience is limited to Ulduar and Trial of the Crusader 10-Man, I think it is enough to see the big changes that 3.2 brought us.
At first I was very worried with the mana regen nerfs, and for a good reason, I was right. But in the end patch 3.2 gave us so much that I'm not complaining at all, as long as you can adapt to a new style. Let me explain my views, and then talk about gameplay changes.

What changed with 3.2 and how does it impact us?

First big mana & mana regen nerf, Divine Intellect was nerfed from 15 to 10% (about 5% total mana loss) and Illumination was nerfed from 60% to 30% regained from the mana cost of the spell that crits (second nerf it was 100% before WotLK). You can also add the small nerf to Replenishment affecting all mana users. On paper a severe nerf to our mana and regen, and in the game too. Depending on how you played, it will affect you more than others. I had an intellect & crit build so it had a strong impact on my regen and I use Holy Lights much more carefully now while I was sometimes "splash raid healing" with the glyph before, which was an obvious overshot but affordable.

Second change of Beacon of Light and addition of a hot to Sacred Shield, Beacon of Light now works with overhealing and has a 60m range, and if you cast a Flash Light on the target of your Sacred Shield it will gain a hot. The Sacred Shield hot is fine, it is not strong, but it is free, doesn't really cost you any global cooldown (though you have to recast a direct Flash Light on your tank here and there) and helps with maintaining a constant healing influx to your tank (the obvious target of your Sacred Shield). Now the real big boy here is the change to Beacon of Light. It was useful before, and helped you to do a bit of raid healing while still covering your tank. It is now very powerful and allows you to become a full (or nearly) raid healer while at the same time being as reactive as before on your tank and able to land one of these life-saving healing bombs at all time. I'm explaining more clearly that in the next paragraph.

Beacon of Light is your new best friend.

The job of a main tank healer is to always be able to react quickly and do his best to save his tank if a damage spike occurs, which you all know is very common in WotLK. Beacon of Light was created to allow you to do some healing on other members of your raid while still healing your tank, *but* you had to retarget your tank in case of damage spike as any overhealing done was not sent to the Beacon (and hence there was no way to heal your tank for 15K but to target him, unless another member of the raid was also injured for at least 15K, and in a 30m range from your tank). This meant some heavy macro building, using right click to target your focused main tank for example. Or some target change delay, and delay is bad when it's an urgency.
Now all overhealing is also transferred and the range is 60m. You don't have to retarget your tank anymore for this 15K healing bomb, and you can even do it while being too far to even be able to target him, by targeting a member of your raid between you and him.
This is such a strong change that I'd say I'm enjoying raid healing again, it's not any more complex than before (even probably easier if you're following the tips I'm giving later on) but you have much more freedom in who you heal, and it's much less frustrating in the sense you don't have to make this Cornelian dilemma of keeping the strong heals on your mt rolling or trying to help with raid healing.

New Beacon require a new gameplay.

Mostly you have to maintain 4 effects at all time now. Before patch 3.2, depending on who you were healing, the Beacon was not always mandatory, and the Sacred Shield hot didn't exist. So mostly it was only Sacred Shield on your tank & Judgement of Light/Wisdom for your raid. Now a Holy Paladin not using Beacon of Light at *all* times is just a dreadful dumb monkey :P It is just too strong to not be used at all times, unless, perhaps, you're completely sure that only the mt will take damage as in some old vanilla boss fights.

So what do you have to maintain? Beacon of Light (B) on your tank, Judgement of Light/Wisdom (J) on the main raid target (if possible each 20s for the raid heal), Sacred Shield (S) on your main healing target (not necessarily the main tank, I will give an example of that), and the Flash of Light hot (F) on your Sacred Shield target. It requires more attention than before and I strongly advise you to use an add-on to track these 4 mandatory effects that I will name the BSFJ effects.

Gameplay by examples.

As nothing is better than examples, I'll give you what I see as the two gameplay configurations we have now, depending on the boss encounter. As you could guess, I assume that as a Holy Paladin you are assigned to tank healing.
So let's take these examples, the two first beasts of the Northern Beasts trio from Trial of the Crusader.

Gormok the Impaler
This is what I call a single tank situation, it can still require tank switching but at any given time there is only one tank.
Focus you tank (use a focus macro with a shortcut to help if there is some tank switching) and keep at all time Beacon of Light and Sacred Shield on him. When the Flash of Light hot goes down, recast a Flash of Light on the tank. Keep the Jugement of Light/Wisdom up on the boss. And now all you have to do is heal the raid and keep the BSFJ effects up.

The two Jormungars
This is what I consider as a 2 tanks situation (if more than 2 tanks are required, you'll need another Paladin buddy to cover the 3rd tank and helps you on the MT), at any given time at least 2 tanks are taking strong damage, one being the MT usually taking more damage.
The idea is to heal both tanks at the same time, using the Beacon. It was possible before, but it's way more effective now. Cast the beacon on the one you are not assigned to as main healer, and the Sacred Shield on the one you will be targeting most of the time (to maximize the Flash of Light hot uptime). Then cast Judgement of Light/Wisdom on the boss and maintain a regular influx of Flash of Light on your target (with the occasional Holy Light if him or your BoL target needs it).
You're set for double tank healing, and with some training and getting used to it you can mostly heal the two tanks from this encounter alone in 10-Man.

But what about mana regen now?

If you follow the gameplay guidelines I've given earlier, you will see that your tank (which should be your main target during a raid) is receiving a strong and regular flux of healing even if you're mostly casting only Flash of Light on the raid. This is a strong change from before, and means that you should be using less Holy Lights (at least in 10-Man, the boss damage being lower).
But even with a more sporadic use of Holy Light you'll see your mana going down, especially as you should be recasting Beacon of Light for sure each 30s now (I'll have to do the math on the BoL glyph as concerning mana efficiency).
As for myself I went back to the Glyph of Seal of Wisdom (5% healing cost reduction) instead of the Glyph of Seal of Light, and I'm using strong mana regen trinkets and meta-gem. I'm still using my int/crit gear and spec, and it still do the job, I have to use mana potions much more often though, and Divine Plea for these 25% mana as often as I can.
My observation from raiding is that we still have a good lasting power, but we need to be much more cautious with our mana. With my two trinkets () and meta-gem (Insightful Earthsiege Diamond) I can regain more than 2000 mana each 50s (du to the trinkets hidden 45s cooldowns), to which I can probably add about 3000 mana each minute (?) from Divine Plea (I rarely can use it for its full duration but I try to use it each time it's out of cooldown). That's about 5 to 6K mana/minute, not bad without counting any mp5 or spirit (haha).

Minimum Mana Use and Healing Lasting Power

Let us give a look to mana costs now. Just to maintain your BSFJ effects during a minute, you have to cast (with a base mana of 4394 for a lvl 80 paladin):
2 Beacon of Light (35% of base mana),
2 Sacred Shield (12% of base mana),
5 Flash of Light (8% of base mana),
and 3 Judgement of Light (5% of base mana)
That gives you a minimum mana cost of about 6240 mana with 2 Flash of Light counted as a critical (40% crit).
So, just to keep up with the spells you need up at all time you will have a MMU per minute of 6240. Divide your total mana by that and you know how much you can last at the theoric maximum (don't be frightened but now you can see how much mana regen we need).
Now to maintain a regular Flash of Light casting, with 40% critical and 1.5s casting time you'll need to cast 20 Flash of Light per minute, which would cost you about 20 * (3/5*1+2/5*0.7) *352 = 6196 mana per minute.
Add this MMU to the FoL spam cost and you have a rough idea of your mana cost in a raid boss fight. Now calculate your mana regen as I did before, and add in your mp5 (and replenishement if you are sure to have it). Reduce your mana cost by your mana regen each minute, and divide your total mana by that. You will have a rough idea of your mana durability in a boss fight.
Ok this is not easy calculus and you don't really have to do it, but keep in mind that you'll use around 12.5K mana per minute probably half your mana if you have an average gear. Yes mana regen will hurt and you'll have to take it into account much more than before.

And for next time

In my next post I will discuss about healing macros and how they can really change your raiding experience as a Holy Paladin. Being more reactive, keeping up your multiple effects more regularly, avoiding wrong targeting when recasting Beacon of Light (which can be really deadly now) ... all of these can strongly change with macros.
Stay tuned.

If you want more inputs on healing post patch 3.2, you can read the guide on Holypaladin.net, it is full of gear & gemming information.

Holy spec: did you try Holy + Prot already?

As my series on leveling is finished I'm back to talk about healing, gear and specs for patch 3.2. I'm writing an article about general gameplay in raids (that will be way too big ...) but I wanted to point you towards that article from Banana Shoulders: Bubble Spec: the New Hotness.
It's about the "new" Holy & Prot spec based on using Divine Sacrifice. Siha calls it a Bubble Spec and I like the name, it links it to Disc priests shields (and it is damage prevention), and it uses the paladin bubble to save ourselves when we use it.

Clearly, anyone can see uses for this huge raid damage prevention on bosses like XT-002, YS, Anub ... but as crit strength has gone down since patch 3.2 my previous preferred spec (51/2/15+3) has lost some of its punch, pushing the Bubble spec to our attention.

This is not news and several guilds have been using that spec already, but if you've not yet give it a try and see if it'll be the 3.2 spec for you.

Pre-raid gear in patch 3.2

Last article about rolling a new paladin character to 80. This article will target gearing your paladin from fresh 80 to Ulduar raid level (at least enough to start Ulduar without shame). As I'm a healer this will obviously be more healing biased but most can apply to any paladin spec.

Wrath of the Lich King Patch 3.2 changed a lot of things for everyone, and even more for Holy Paladin. The two most impacting changes are:

• changes (read mana regen nerfs, BoL buff) to the Holy Tree;
• changes to the badge system in heroic and raid instances.
  

I'll try to look on these two changes and how it changed things for new 80 characters, and then I'll try to give tips about how to use them to your advantage. I recently leveled a Druid to 80 and got her from fresh 80 to a WoW Heroes rating of about 2246 (Ulduar 10/25 level according to WoW Heroes) in two weeks following these tips. Just so that you know my Holy Paladin has a score of 2290 and I've run nearly all of ToC 10-Man and all Ulduar but for Yog with her (but for Anub as I'm in vacation since he's up).

Holy Paladin Changes in 3.2

I've already discussed the changes to Holy in patch 3.2 in this post. If you've played a Holy Paladin in WotLK before patch 3.2, you should read it, and perhaps even this post on Elitist Jerks. If you're new to paladin healing or have not played a paladin healer since BC or before, then most of what you need to know is:

• your mana is not "infinite" anymore by specing for crit rating and intellect;
• you'll have to use Beacon of Light to be competitive, it is now the main tool of your healing skills and no sane Holy paladin will let it drop down.
  

I'll discuss more about the gameplay changes since 3.2 for me in a soon to be post, give it a look then. What matters for us here that mana will be an issue for you, intellect, mp5 should be big focuses for you in your gear, more than crit or haste, at least at the beginning (spellpower will still be your main gear focus).

Badges in 3.2

The huge change is that all raids and heroic 5-Man instances drop Emblem of Conquest (Ulduar 25-Man badges before 3.2). As you can guess, that allows you to gear in nearly full 213 and 226 gear just by doing heroics.
A lot of people, me into them, think that it is not a good thing, as a way too easy Naxramass wasn't good. This does not push people to do good to get their gear. And if you want to do high level raids (read end of extension arc raids like AQ40, Naxramass 1, Black Temple, Sunwell) gear won't be the only thing you need, and in fact it is the easiest to obtain thing. Skill on the other side needs hours of raiding and training. But I won't talk about that here, it is not the point.
I'm not going to give you the list of items you need. As I strongly incite you to raid at the same time you'll be gearing through heroics. Start with Nax10, proceed until you reach Ulduar, you'll be able to gear up from there. you can use the badges to complete what you'll get during your raids, and all your raids will give you badges too (Nax25 is the fastest source of badges if you can find a good group).

Here are a few pointers about loot lists for patch 3.2: on WoW.com, lots of different posts on The Holy Paladin.net.

Remember also that you can get 2 Emblems of Triumph (for your Tier 9 armor) per day with the daily heroic quest. And you can run the new Trial of the Champion instance in both normal and heroic mode, even normal mode will reward you with very nice items like this "you must have" trinket: Tears of the Vanquished.

Time to gear-up !

My earlier post about pre-raid gear is still useful, you can find it here.
Now how can you get as soon as possible to the gear level to pleasantly run heroic and "easy Nax"?
I'm not going to advise reputation gear, as it'll probably take you time to get these reputation high enough to get anything useful (read epic gear), reputation are useful but focus on the once you want at revered level for your head enchant (Kirin Tor for Holy, Knights of the Ebon Blade for Retribution, Argent Crusade for Protection).
I'll advise you to PvP during you last levels (78+), get the lvl 78 pvp gear and play as holy or ret as you like, your goal will be to get xp and honor points. At lvl 80 you should be able to do buy Epic arena armor and Wintergrasp gear. For that:

• run Wintergrasp battle as often as you can (especially if your faction is on the attack);
• run Alterac Valley as often as you can (best reward in term of xp/honor per hour).

Then once 80, get your pvp gear, complete it with Titansteel gear (head, feet, mace). You should be around half epic. Keep your lvl 78 pvp gear or crafted pve gear, gem for spellpower & intellect. Enchant your epic items (esp. your Titansteel Guardian). You should be ok for heroics and Nax 10 and Trial of the Champion (at least normal).

From there progress with badge gear, what you can get on raids, and what you'll get on the Trial of the Champion normal & heroic (you'll want that mace from the heroic version).

You can also run the dailies from the Argent Tournament, there is ilevel 200 (Nax10) epic gear to get and a lot of pets & mounts of you like them (I'm not the most patient type and never got anything from them).

Final Words

I hope you'll enjoy playing at a Paladin, especially if you joined the rank of the healers in this game :)
Your first days as a Holy Paladin won't be easy as we miss on the mobility part, you can't heal and move nicely. Try to play often with a tank you know, and that will know when to move and when to give you 10s to heal & mana regen, that will really make things easier for you, and that is really the best advice I can give you (especially for heroic timed CoT 4 or heroic Utgarde Pinnacle).

edit:
A first version of this guide can be found here, there are pointers to other good Holy paladin gearing guides.

Paladin Leveling Guide (part3, end)

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), second part for lvl 58 to 68 is here: Paladin Leveling Guide (part2).

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.

Paladin Leveling Guide (part 3, your time in 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.

I've written my views on leveling as a protection or holy paladin in Paladin Leveling Guide (part2). Though a dps (retribution) spec will level you faster, if you intend to tank or heal at level 80, I advise you to get the dual spec talent (that you can buy for 1000 gold) and try instancing with this spec. Retribution will be better for solo questing, but you'll find a group easier as a tank or healer, and will get used to what you want to play later on with your paladin.

The 2 weapons that will bring you to 80

When you arrive in Northrend, your first objective should be the Axe of Frozen Death, it's a @H Axe that you will probably keep until lvl 75. It is roughly equivalent to the 2H axe dropped by Prince Malchezar at the top of the Karazhan tower, which was a beauty coveted by many arms warriors.
It can be reached completely solo by horde players, you will need a group of at least 3 with a good healer to get it on the alliance side (trust me the last quest on the alliance side is suprisingly hard).
If you follow James guide, you'll get it fairly late especially if you're alliance. I'd advise you to get it earlier and get it enchanted with a +85 attack power as you'' play with it for a few levels.

When you reach lvl 75 it will be time for you to go to Zul'Drak if you're not yet there and do the Arena of Anguish series (remember the Arena of Blood in Nagrand, it's the remake) to get your De-Raged Waraxe. Once again enchant it with a +85 attack power, you'll probably keep this axe until 80.
The arena can be done with a good group of lvl 75 characters, but you will often find people helped by level 80 characters in full epics doing it, if you can find an easy spot, take it by all means, this axe will be your best friend for a long time.

If you're searching for a Holy paladin weapon, it'll not be too hard to find decent quest ones. If you want a good one, I'd advise you to befriend the Kalu'aks that have a very nice lvl 78 blue healing mace, you can also get nice healing weapons in several instances.

As for tanking weapons, the choice is much more scarce. You'll probably have to use a one handed dps weapon (at least there are some with endurance & expertise like this one) until lvl 74. At lvl 74, get one or two friends and go get the Ragemane's Flipper (elite quest lvl 74). You'll probably keep it until lvl 80.

Where to go and what to do when you arrive ?
(zones to level in)

Not considering the notes about getting your weapons before (it all depends if you're using an heirloom weapon) here is the order I'll advise you to follow in Northrend.
I'll advise using Jame's guide in that order:
Howling Fjord : lvl 68 to 70
Start with Howling Fjord questlines, until you reach quests which are lvl 71. It should be at the end of the "pirate" part of Jame's guide. Try to do the Utgarde Keep instance before leaving the zone.
Borean Tundra : lvl 70 to 71/72
Switch to Borean Tundra by Kalu'ak tortoise boat, and do all of it and the Nexus instance.
Howling Fjord : lvl 71/72 to 73
Back to the Fjord, finish the quests, do the elite ones if you can, do the Utgarde Keep instance if you've not done it before.
Dragonblight : lvl 73 to 74/75
Dragonblight is your next zone, there are two instances in the zone, you can do them whenever you find a group for them. This zone is huge, and there are several elite quests that require a group but are nicely rewarding (follow Jame's guide).
Zul'Drak : lvl 75-76/77
Zul'Drak is a good zone to level in, you have the Drak'tharonKeep (lvl 74+) and Gundrak (75+) instances into it, and the Arena of Anguish (see before).
Grizzli Hills : lvl 76-77
If you're not yet 77 then go to Grizzli Hills and grind quests until you are.
Scholazar Bassin : lvl 77-78
Do the Nessingwary quests if you want the achievement, do the Oracles/Frenzyheart quests for the faction rewards if you're not into achievements (they start with this quest).
Storm Peaks & Icecrown : lvl 78+
These zones are full of great quests, that will provide you with items still useful at lvl 80 and are very nice story wise. You will also be able to start your Son of Hodir faction grind for your shoulder enchants (with this quest).

The real new skills until 80.

The first one is Divine Plea at level 71. That will strongly change your mana regeneration, and can make leveling as protection doable (though a little slow still). This skill gives you back 25% of your mana each minute.

The second one is Shield of Righteousness at level 75. Only usable with a shield, this is another help for protection leveling, and a huge aggro boost if you're tanking.

... and now you reached 80, good job, now what to do ?
That will be part of a next article where I will try to advise the fastest path itemization-wise, to reach up-to-date raid status as soon as possible (I went from fresh lvl 80 to a gear roughly ok for Ulduar 25 in 2 weeks on my druid with the patch 3.2 token fest).

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

WTB more instance servers.

Additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later.

Ok, we all know this by now, or if you don't see what it is, you're really only playing solo, and never put a foot into instances for months.
Since a few patches Blizzard decided to put a limit on the number of instances up at the same time on their instance server. If the goal is reached, which is to prevent horrible lag during raids, that we experienced during the early months of Lich King and were driving us crazy on boss fights like Thaddius. The side effect is that a lot of us can't enter instances, or have to wait sometimes half an hour, mindlessly trying to enter an instance to be able to play into it.

Instances limit & patch 3.2
Some will say I'm qqing, and that Blizzard has already said they are aware of that problem and are trying to solve it. But still, I can only see it as a very bad commercial/design choice to release patch 3.2 that is obviously sending back everyone into instances, before they fixed that problem.
Nowadays I don't even try to play when I'm back from work, between 7pm and 9pm it's just too tedious to try going into an instance and I'm not really fond of going back and forth (or strafing left/right for the fast paced ones) for 15-20mn before being allowed to play.

Several computer for several game servers, but not as you could expect.
Each game server is separated onto several physical machines, Azeroth, Outland, Northrend and instances/raids are on 4 different computers, that group these world parts for several game servers (it's not clear if, for example, all the northrend parts of a whole battlegroup are on the same computer but it's the idea).
That will explain, if you didn't know it, why sometimes your world server (Northrend) is down while some of your guildies, or some of your alts can still play (in let say Azeroth).
That will also explain why it's not that easy to just "add some muscle" to the computer in charge of the instances to solve the problem. That's why Blizzard is saying it's complex and they need time.

Instance servers have a memory cap.
The problem seem obvious if you're a little into computer science. The instance server has a limit of hardware memory, when that limit is reached it has to "swap" his memory with virtual memory which is emulated on the hard-drive of the computer. The problem is that when it does that, the access time is about 100 to 1000 times slower on this "swapped memory", which is then producing server lags for the players in the affected instance. So, especially as Blizzard does not own the servers on which the game is played, the only solution they found is to limit the number of instances to avoid the memory swap problem.
They also installed a priority onto entering instances it's mostly LK raids > LK heorics > LK instances > older raids & instances. If you've tried to do a raid or vanilla instance during peak hours ... you're probably still trying :P

A temporary solution, instance queues.
What I'd like to see, as probably many people, is a queue. When you try entering an instance, you get into a queue and you're ported into your instance when it's your turn. Mostly what they did for Wintergrasp in the last patch.
This won't fix the problem, and they have to develop new code to be able to dynamically share several computer for the same "instance server" when needed. This is an obvious choice and necessity because all game servers don't have the same size, and the number of instances required by the players isn't at all the same during a day. But this type of coding is way more complex than the static allocation they are using right now, and it requires a lot more testing, what they are, I hope, doing right now.
Nevertheless, instance queues are a relatively simple to code patch that would make most of us much happier than the current situation. At least you can queue for your instance, and then go do your dailies for example instead or completely wasting your time trying to repeatedly enter the instance (because you have to do it if you ever want to play it ... which is what is driving me crazy).

You're all welcome to comment with your views and ideas on the instance cap. Not that Blizzard will ever read this blog, but I'll be curious to see if this problem is common to the US and the EU for example (as I think it is reading blogs & forums on both sides).