Leveling in Cata, Holy or Ret?

[pokiemokie]

Hello, before you make any nifty comments, please do read the whole post (and not just the title).

I've been thinking about leveling as holy, basically with an exorcism + holy shock talent/glyph focused build, but ofcourse with 51 points in holy. Getting the reduced mana cost on exo, increased holy shock dmg, etc. Basically trying to buff those spells as much as possible.

The reasons for this being:
- My holy gear (270 avg) beats my ret gear (260avg).
- No downtime, decent dps (burst as well), no chance of dying. I'll be spamming holy shock, exo, while keeping the haste buff up from jotp. Word of glory should be enough to keep myself alive, if not I'll throw in the occasional (hasted) holy light.
- I would be able to avoid the hassle of gathering different gear sets, my holy gear would be the best to have at that level, since I'd be (obviously) picking the holy quest rewards. Therefore if I decided to do an instance my healing wouldn't suffer at all.

I would be stocked up on mana potions, haste potions, flasks.

Now, the main reason why I am in doubt is because I have no access to beta, thus am not able to test it out. Does the no downtime and slim chance of dying weigh up to the loss of dps by choosing holy? It would be really nice if someone could test it out for me, or if somebody has already tested it, to post his findings.

Any (non-trollish) feedback is much appreciated.

[Aldoran]

you will break your finger if you will exospam your way till 85 )

[Simca]

If you want to do instances as Holy and want to have the best Holy gear while you level, leveling Holy is the best way to do it.

It will be slower than Retribution; there is no doubt of that. Especially at 81-82 when combat ratings are still high, Retribution will demolish your leveling speed. As things even out in combat ratings towards 85, the difference will be less profound, but Retribution will still be quite a bit faster.

[Malthanis]

I'd say go with whatever your main spec is (I'm assuming Holy). You'll probably have minimal downtime (especially with a 25% cost Exo and Judgment+Seal of Insight giving mana), and you'll have the extra power behind your heals in case someone attempts a gank (if you're on a PvP server).

[Killora]

If you want to do instances as Holy and want to have the best Holy gear while you level, leveling Holy is the best way to do it.

This is my main concern moving forward. Leveling as holy will slow you down significantly but if you plan to heal you'll be in a twist with ret and holy gear.

[Natrii]

More than likely my pvp holy spec, let me solo while people are trying to gank me, Ignore them and keep killing my quest mobs eventually they will get bored and go away.

[Deleted]

More than likely my pvp holy spec, let me solo while people are trying to gank me, Ignore them and keep killing my quest mobs eventually they will get bored and go away.

Would like to see you ignore my frost/arcane mage

[blahssat]

Your 277 gear won't last much longer than 1, maybe 2 levels at best.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

I've been doing my dailies as holy and I solo elites for funsies in my ailvl 277 holy gear/spec. I used to have a average ilvl232 tank gear set, but since they merged battlegroups or whatever I get instant heal queues so I sold my tank stuff and made myself a solo/DPS holy spec and a heal holy spec.

From what I've played so far... I'm going to assume that leveling as holy(doing quests and what-not) will be very viable. I even DPS the bosses that only need two healers in ICC and get around 6-7k every time. I'm willing to bet that Inquisition will add another level of awesome to this. I'm very very excited to holy my way throughout cata!

I feel the same way brother! Now if i only could get the toc trinket that charges a fire blast every 3 crit. cuz holy pala crit chance is through the roof Also im wondering if i should level in my pvp gear or some of it to piss of the hordes whenever they want to gank a 42k hp 1414 resi holy pala

---------- Post added 2010-11-15 at 08:50 PM ----------

Would like to see you ignore my frost/arcane mage

One mage cant possibly kill a good holy pala 1v1. just forget it.

[valmorgul]

Hello, before you make any nifty comments, please do read the whole post (and not just the title).

I've been thinking about leveling as holy, basically with an exorcism + holy shock talent/glyph focused build, but ofcourse with 51 points in holy. Getting the reduced mana cost on exo, increased holy shock dmg, etc. Basically trying to buff those spells as much as possible.

The reasons for this being:
- My holy gear (270 avg) beats my ret gear (260avg).
- No downtime, decent dps (burst as well), no chance of dying. I'll be spamming holy shock, exo, while keeping the haste buff up from jotp. Word of glory should be enough to keep myself alive, if not I'll throw in the occasional (hasted) holy light.
- I would be able to avoid the hassle of gathering different gear sets, my holy gear would be the best to have at that level, since I'd be (obviously) picking the holy quest rewards. Therefore if I decided to do an instance my healing wouldn't suffer at all.

I would be stocked up on mana potions, haste potions, flasks.

Now, the main reason why I am in doubt is because I have no access to beta, thus am not able to test it out. Does the no downtime and slim chance of dying weigh up to the loss of dps by choosing holy? It would be really nice if someone could test it out for me, or if somebody has already tested it, to post his findings.

Any (non-trollish) feedback is much appreciated.

My two cents, as I've been wondering the same thing myself.

1) Ret is very, very survivable. There is a spec in particular that focuses on maxxing WoG that I sometimes use in BGs. I end up not taking improved wings and... something else (I can get you a link if you're interested.) It's almost 50/50 dps/healing throughput, and while it doesn't hit as hard as a pure dps spec, it would probably be badass for grinding.

2) There will probably be quite a few quests where you won't actually have to choose between caster/melee plate. I.E. only one option will be available. So it's not entirely an either/or from quest rewards. If anything, you can probably prioritize holy gear even while leveling outdoors as ret, since you probably won't want to embarass yourself in an instance w/ bad gear. When I leveled in WLK on my shaman i was enhancement, but built up a very respectable healing set at the same time. It's not a big deal.

3) Since your WLK gear matters not at all for leveling, you should also consider prot. I went 75-80 in WLK as prot and it was a piece of cake. Same spec outdoors and indoors, you can solo any 5-man quest, and the downtime is nil. I haven't played a tank since the 4.0 changes hit, however, so the dps may not be what it once was.. but with vengeance I don't see how it could be that bad.

I guess it boils down to how much time will you be spending in instances. Your gear right now doesn't count for a whole lot, so don't let that be a factor in deciding. I agree with the earlier poster though, that exo spam will break your finger. Why use 8 spells to kill a mob when you can do it in 2.

[Deleted]

For levelling, go ret or prot. They can be very useful as ret destroys mobs quickly but prot has a lot better survivability.

Holy is fun if you don't mind levelling a bit slower but for speed leveling don't choose it.

[Deleted]

I feel the same way brother! Now if i only could get the toc trinket that charges a fire blast every 3 crit. cuz holy pala crit chance is through the roof Also im wondering if i should level in my pvp gear or some of it to piss of the hordes whenever they want to gank a 42k hp 1414 resi holy pala

---------- Post added 2010-11-15 at 08:50 PM ----------



One mage cant possibly kill a good holy pala 1v1. just forget it.

Strange, i do that every day. Hard to time freeze, silence and use of CDs? Sigh

[valmorgul]

Strange, i do that every day. Hard to time freeze, silence and use of CDs? Sigh

Google "no true scotsman" .. there's no way to win this argument. Mages wreck most paladins, but "good" holy paladins are tough. Unless the mage is better.

[Poroxxigar]

I am in a similar circumstance. I'm a casual player and I have a Holy set ilvl ~ 245 and thats it. No Ret or Prot off set. Im thinking of leveling as Holy doing quests and random dungeons. This is the build I'm thinking of using:
http://wowtal.com/#k=7CNJO-f1.a8t.paladin.-1Bmwx
Any ideas are more than welcome.

[Deleted]

[QUOTE=valmorgul;9436309]Google "no true scotsman" .. there's no way to win this argument. Mages wreck most paladins, but "good" holy paladins are tough. Unless the mage is better.[/QUOTE]

EOD.

[Deleted]

pretty sure that ret will be faster than holy, im kinda curious to see if prot is viable.

[Killora]

pretty sure that ret will be faster than holy, im kinda curious to see if prot is viable.

The reason prot was so good for leveling is because it's ability to pull multiple mobs at once. However now if you pull more than 1 or 2 at once, even as prot, you'll get demolished

[belfpala]

At this point, I'm probably going to level as Prot spec in my Ret PvP gear. But then again, I'm on a PvP server.

[Thebigblue]

you might have better survivability, but it will take ALOT longer to kill the mob. And when it comes down to it, you will kill the mob faster in Ret, taking less hits from the mob because it died quicker, while in prot it will take longer, with more hits, to kill. so it evens out a bit, but prot has better chance of not dying by alot.