PROT or RET

bb hey guys im currently a lvl 27 paladin and have asked my guild and alot of high lvl paladins whats the talnet to do ret or prot all of them said for lvling ret but for tanking and healing go prot 40 and holy 20 i thought hmm i want to deal high damage but i love taking on big groups and i like to heal but i wondered isnt it good to have a big strong 2 hander or a nice 1 hander with a good sheild and block i have no clue im thinking about getting to lvl 40 and going prot but i dont no weather i should can some one please tell me whats better?|||try it out for yoursef and see which one you like best|||Yeah, there isn�t really a best one. Well, there is� at the moment Retribution is rather underpowered for what it�s supposed to be (this is debatable, but not by much :)). Holy is by far the best spec (holy paladins are (arguably again :) better healers than priests at the moment), with Protection coming a far off second.

But, that does not mean that you shouldn�t spec Retribution for levelling purposes. The pros/cons are basically the following (the experts are welcome to correct me if I get anything wrong):

Retribution:

Pros: You can quickly kill one mob.

Cons: You gimp your survivability rather heavily. You�ll have a lot of downtime between killing mobs.

Weapons needed: Slow two hander.

Protection:

Pros: You can �tag� a group of malee mobs, and laugh at them as they kill themselves on you.

Cons: You gimp yourself heavily for PvP and against casters. It can get difficult looting with all of the corpses lying on top of each other :)

Weapons needed: Fast one hander + shield

Holy:

Pros: As I said, arguably the best healer in the game (if you do instances). Great survivability. You also get holy shock which does some nice damage, and can pull. In fact, with the right gear, you can do some serious spell damage

Cons: You�ll have to replace the key your �flash of light� spell is bound to within a week.

Weapons needed: Everything. Change to one hander + shield if you are healing, or pulled more than one mob by mistake.|||I like Kugan's post nice info there:

I'm at LvL 31 and am 100% RET - This has been good for me so far for solo levelling. Big con is if you pull more than 1 or 2 mobs on you. I am trying to keep all my weapon skills levelled up too so I can easily switch from big 2H - currently Verigan's Fist - to a faster 1H and good shield. I am curiuos to see what others say - I too may re-spec at 40 if my group needs a Holy/Pally more then a RET one. I do like being able to "somewhat" tank as a RET and still offer some healing, as a Draenei Pally I aslo have "Gift of Naaru" for healing over time to offer.|||Kugan covered things well, but I'll give my 2c. (I have a 67 holy/prot paladin and a 41 ret paladin)

For the most part, the strengths of the trees are:

Holy - increased healing

Prot - better tanking

Ret - increased damage

One thing I always suggest, and always get, is get deep enough in Holy to get spiritual focus. No matter where your talents go after that, uninterupted heals will save you many a time.

Retribution is generally suggested to be the best leveling build. Only 11 points in and you have Seal of Command which is very good for dealing damage with a slow 2H weapon. The Ret tree also has some other goodies like lowing the cooldown and cost of judgement, and 2H weapon specilization.

Many people respec at 60 to some version of Holy for raiding purposes. With holy spec and good healing gear, paladins are great healers who are very mana efficient. If you are raiding/grouping a lot and healing a lot and want to be the best you can be at healing - Holy is your main tree. 21 points into holy and you can have a basically a mana free critical heal every 2 minutes.

Prot used to be the weakest of the trees (IMO), but has been improved in the releases. Paladins are now viable tanks in many instances and protection is the tree to be a good tank. It is also now talked about as being a good leveling spec, which I think it is, at later levels. Where ret gets a big damage increase at 11 points, early prot is about armor and blocking and defense and stunning. When you get to 20 points you can get reckoning and at 25 you can get 1H specialization. I think at that level it becomes a much better leveling spec than at the earlier levels.

/edited to add one more thought

It is always a good idea to have a good 2H and a good 1H/shield on you at all times, no matter what your build. That way, if you are DPSing with 2Her and get a bad pull (or your groups tank goes down), you can switch to sword/board and increase your survivability against multiple mobs and tank.|||Quote:








I like Kugan's post nice info there:

I'm at LvL 31 and am 100% RET - This has been good for me so far for solo levelling. Big con is if you pull more than 1 or 2 mobs on you. I am trying to keep all my weapon skills levelled up too so I can easily switch from big 2H - currently Verigan's Fist - to a faster 1H and good shield. I am curiuos to see what others say - I too may re-spec at 40 if my group needs a Holy/Pally more then a RET one. I do like being able to "somewhat" tank as a RET and still offer some healing, as a Draenei Pally I aslo have "Gift of Naaru" for healing over time to offer.




Hence why you get SP and as long as you have mana you should be able to survive quite nicely. Plus don't forget if you do run out of mana you can use a pot, then DS and bandage, then BoP and bandage, then pot again for more heals. Your survivability should be just fine with that. I often pull 3 or 4 mob's my lvl and sometimes higher and can survive thru and kill em.

p.s. i usually will end up with 2 HP or so but what a rush.|||At level 62, I ran though a camp of mobs to reach a mining vein. Unfortunately, I came to the end of the world, and couldn't get far enough away to leave combat. I ended up with 8 level 61 mobs on me. It was the most exciting 3 or 4 minute fight I've been in. Potions, bandages, cooldowns, etc... Think it was then that I realized I could "AoE grind" with my prot pally as well as my 60 ret spec did on single mobs.|||Their both good but I think that prot is the best. Because of the new patch we get 15% health bonus. This means we can take on bigger or higher lvl mobs. Ret is my secondary spec though in case I need to kill an elite.|||Quote:








Their both good but I think that prot is the best. Because of the new patch we get 15% health bonus. This means we can take on bigger or higher lvl mobs. Ret is my secondary spec though in case I need to kill an elite.




Over three years late...