Prot Pally Powerleveling - SM Cath

[Vyndree]

The old thread ('http://dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=41394#post41394') didn't have a super descriptive post title, so cross-posting my video here in case people are doing a forum search later. :)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nj5x3M2qpYQ

Strat/Blog post: http://v-boxing.net/blog/videos.php/2008/03/09/powerleveing-sm-cath-with-a-prot-paladin
Youtube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=nj5x3M2qpYQ
Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/780622


My talents (at the time of this video - heavy mitigation/raid tanking): http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tIx0dMgqtVfx

Stats:

Health: 11.3k
Mana: 4.6k
Strength: 209
Agility: 130
Stamina: 811
Intellect: 133
Spirit: 95
Armor: 12203
(Holy) Spell Damage:257
Armor: 12203
Defense: 475
Dodge: 15.56%
Parry: 16.23%
Block: 19.39%


Buffs: (SELF BUFFS ONLY - you can literally solo the instance)

Righteous Defense
Blessing of Sanctuary
Retribution Aura

The "wall of text" that prompted me to make a video instead...

Cathedral is the best for leveling, since you can do it in 3 pulls with "meh" gear. The first pull is the bottom courtyard. Run down the hallway, skipping mobs if you feel like it, and gather up all the mobs in the bottom courtyard. I usually go down the right far side, right middle, left middle, left far side, then head back into the hallway and gather up all the mobs. If you sit inside a windowsill, you'll line of sight the casters into getting close and melee'ing you. The lowbies can stay at the loading area.
2nd pull is the upper courtyard. Leave the lowbies at the right stairs (be careful -- there's a pat) and do the same thing -- upper right side, middle right and grabbing the guys by the door, left middle, left far side, and hten run THROUGH the fountain and jump onto the middle level of the stairs. If I jump correctly, I can get a Gift of the Naaru (dranei racial) or a heal off before they start hitting me again. Consecrate on the middle section of the stairs, and use the upper and lower stairs to line of sight the casters once they run away so they get back into melee range.
3rd pull is the easiest -- aggro the boss. He'll pull the entire room to you. Leave the lowbies at the very edge of the fountain's watermark and pull the mobs JUST outside the door (to line of sight the casters). Do not dps Mograine until you've killed most of the healers first. If you don't have reckoning, parrying the mobs alone will make it so you have reckoning-like speed since it resets your swing timer, which will help you obliterate the healers. Once healers and most mobs are down, kill mograine, which brings out Whitemane. WHITEMANE CAN MC YOUR LOWBIES so be careful!! Kill all teh wizards first -- they will aoe your lowbies if you're unlucky. Spreading out your lowbies will help prevent this, as they only aoe if more than one enemy is in range. By the time whitemane is at enough health to rez mograine, all the remaining mobs will be dead. Kill the two bosses somewhere where it's easy to loot them and you're done.

[Tehtsuo]

I want to have your babies.

[Majestic_Clown]

how weird,
I was doing this at the weekend and did each run in 10 mins, I cleared the 1st tunnel left my shammies there and pulled the last boss whiched pulled the whole instances and then AOE pewpew'ed

went from level 30 shammies to 37 in 8 hours.

will post in greater details.

[Vyndree]

how weird,
I was doing this at the weekend and did each run in 10 mins, I cleared the 1st tunnel left my shammies there and pulled the last boss whiched pulled the whole instances and then AOE pewpew'ed

went from level 30 shammies to 37 in 8 hours.

will post in greater details.

With good gear you can 1-2 pull the instance. 3-pulling works when you don't have the heal-on-block trinket and very little gear (i.e. safemode).

If you want to single pull the instance, all you have to do is gather the bottom and the top of the instance, bubble at the door (to unlock it), throw a heal as needed, aggro boss, jump off the waterfall (throw 2 heals as needed), and aoe wherever appropriate so that your lowbies can get XP.

For a 2-pull, you can aggro the bottom + half the top, jump down the waterfall, heal as needed, aoe wherever appropriate for your lowbies to get XP. 2nd pull, unlock the door, grab the boss and drag him through the 2nd half of the top to aggro whatever's left. Jump down the waterfall, heal as needed, aoe.

[Skuggomann]

Warms my heart wen ppl AoE boost ther lowbees :)

[Silly Gooooose]

damn I can't wait too see the vimeo link. Can you link armory? I'm going to try and find it myself after I make this post, lol. I want to see your gear.

Oh I also noticed, and was wondering, though I will test it myself.
Run through pulling the mobs with your back to them, or do a wierd dance/jump so that you are still running forward-ish so you aren't slow, but at every jump, turn around so they are not hitting your back, i.e. doing more dmg, and you can't block them.

I'll go test this now, pull the whole room both ways and see which method I end with the most HP.

Also, have you see the new meta from 2.4? Supposedly it gives you 10% more block, gona be OP!

[Vyndree]

damn I can't wait too see the vimeo link. Can you link armory? I'm going to try and find it myself after I make this post, lol. I want to see your gear.

It's not that great, and I was running in that video with a heavy mitigation spec, not really optimized for aoe grinding.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Archimonde&n=Velath
I didn't pick up reckoning and you can see that, with all the parrying going on, my swing timer is lightning fast anyway.

Most pulls I judge/seal wisdom so that I can max rank consecrate. I'll judge light / seal wisdom if my health gets to 30% or so. Light/light is only if I get a hammer of justice and things start looking scary, which really hasn't happened tbh. In fact, I think the only time I've gone light/light is when my shield broke and I didn't notice for a while.

The key here is the Sporeggar rep shield (Ancient Lichen Guard) with a felsteel shield spike. I use a backup shield (which unfortunately doesn't have a spike on it yet, but gets the job done) in case my shield breaks before I notice the durability is getting low.


Oh I also noticed, and was wondering, though I will test it myself.
Run through pulling the mobs with your back to them, or do a wierd dance/jump so that you are still running forward-ish so you aren't slow, but at every jump, turn around so they are not hitting your back, i.e. doing more dmg, and you can't block them.
I see more people doing this if they bless wis instead of sanct. Since I work best in the AD range (35% health), letting them whiddle me down is not much of a concern. If you're really nervous, you can wear Devo aura while you gather them up and do fancy strafing to try to block some attacks, but I was only getting hit for like 10 damage with ret aura, sanct, and my back turned to the mobs.

When you're doing cath for hours and hours you tend to get lazy. I use auto-run on my mouse to gather all of the mobs and I click my buttons so I can use my free hand to play with my cat, change the tv channel, and eat yummy snacks. Woot for laziness.


I'll go test this now, pull the whole room both ways and see which method I end with the most HP.

Try the 2-pull if you get comfortable with the 3-pull. It's really not that bad. I can do the 2-pull pretty easily. Haven't gotten the guts to try pulling the whole thing in 1 pull yet, given my gear.

[Silly Gooooose]

My problem is he is specced holy atm, though he's got decent gear.

How good is that heal when you block trinket? Worth farming it? I mean he does need badges, so w/e.

Also, what libram do you think would be best, I can't decide.

Hes got the one from mother shaz, and could get the badge ones, so idk.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32368

His armory, though 20$ says hes still in heal gear cuz armory sucks :(
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bloodscalp&n=Etel

[Vyndree]

SH is easysauce for a prot paladin tank, so I'd say it's worth it. I'd use the trink if I had it.

As for libram, I use the block% libram, since my primary form of damage is via block. There's also the one that increases consecrate damage, which could also work.

I'd probably go for the Lightbringer since you have it already, and I judge wis pretty often. Holy shield charges fall off pretty quickly with the number of mobs you have, so I'll bet you'll be getting way more block out of the Lightbringer.

[Majestic_Clown]

my pally kit isnt all that

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Turalyon&n=Amarar

[Lyonheart]

lol.I was doing this with my mage.. he is not geared well at all, a few Arena epics and the rest are non heroic blues. It takes me about 7 pulls lol( left side bottom,top,cath.Right side bottom,top, Cath then boss) But i will only do it a few levels here and there. Since playing a paly and shamans are both new to me I want to run them through instances without being PLd to learn how to play them. But it is fun to jump a few levels up every now and then. 8)

[Xorn]

I did this with my Warrior (4/5 S1 + S3 Honor Bracers + S1 2H Mace and some blue stuff), possible for me in 5 pulls if everything works perfect - 10 minutes (a blessing of something is useful for that ^^), first pulling the whole bottom area including the hallway at the beginning (and hopefully not getting slowed down too often with frostbolts - if i get slowed down too much, i have to cancel and just kill what i already pulled together), pulling the whole bunch into the hallway to get the casters in melee-range and then cleavin' and whirlwindin' the hell out of them!

same for the top floor in one run if the frostbolts dont slow me down -> third pull in the cathredral itself (all the mobs directly on the way to the boss), fourth pull all remaining mobs before the boss and with the fifth pull i get the boss himself including all remaining mobs in both corners - without being an undead warrior i would have to use a lot of consumeables but cannibalize 4tw ;)

got my toons from 20 to 40 in about 23-27 hours real time or something, you really stop counting the hours and try not to fall asleep :D at least i tried not to fall asleep

[Zanjii]

Been doing this for a while now, currently locked out because of too many instances lately (Curse you Blizzard!).

Two observations:
1. Figurine of the Colossus is the best damn item in the game if you want to do this.

2. Once you reach a certain level of avoidance, more block wont help you at all.

Granted, my paladin is very well geared, but he has so much dodge/parry/miss that I barely block anymore. Hence all the extra block rating in the world doesn't help me. You might want to consider if this is the case for you too, before getting block items or, heavens forbid, the block libram. That item is so poor for this purpose its sad. If you can 2-pull this instace, I doubt you won't have gear good enough to not be pushing Block off of the charts with Holy Shield up. In my gear I have 0% chance to be hit by a level 40 mob. Without Holy Shield active. Holy Shield gives 30%, and the Libram gives another 5%. 135% avoidance is no better than 100% avoidance.

[finalwish]

I used to do this pre-bc but as holy, it was harder then but i managed by holy shocking myself and concecrating as much as possible with ret aura on. Was doing the whole thing in 3 pulls as well. But now it is even easier to do. Only problem is the repair bill you will get if you are holy, i havnt tried prot cause i didnt feel like respecing my friend's pally.

Tho since then i have found better PLing strategy, but i am not a multiboxer (wish i had money to upgrade) so i am sure the PLing with pally is faster for multiboxers. Oh BTW, the more low level you bring in the group, the better the XP will be, so if you DONT have a full grp, ask some noob to PL them for a small fee to help cover the repair cost, shouldnt be hard to find.

My new way of PLing in cathedral lv 20-40 is with a Warlock or a Spriest. But you might need a decent amount of gear to pull off but is much faster. start by doing some testing with your DoTs, see if your strong DOT is able to kill a mob without casting anything else. If it is, then go pull 8-10 mobs (10 if you are quick and good) and bring them back at the entrance, have your lowbie sitting at the end of the hallway where he is still in range of the mobs to see them, make sure you pull the hallway first so you dont aggro. then DOT all of em up and as the first mob you dotted is about to die, zone out. Now your low level will receive full amount of XP for each mobs as if he soloed them all (about 470xp per mob at lv 20, about 700-750 per mob peak at lv 36-40, some mobs are worth 50% xp for some reason i dont know) repeat until you reach the cathedral gate and reset the instance (it is slow enough to not be bothered with the 5instances/hour). lv 20 to 34 or so will take you about 13-17min per level and then past 35-40 it will take a little longer per level to about 25-35min at the end.

[Silly Gooooose]

I used to do this pre-bc but as holy, it was harder then but i managed by holy shocking myself and concecrating as much as possible with ret aura on. Was doing the whole thing in 3 pulls as well. But now it is even easier to do. Only problem is the repair bill you will get if you are holy, i havnt tried prot cause i didnt feel like respecing my friend's pally.



God tell me about it... All my mains have ever been clothies, and even in t6 my warlock is still 2.5g a death.... so I was in for a big shock when I found it costs me like 5-10g a run, just from being beat on in plate, and lets not get started on deaths.... It's insane... I feel bad for any1 who raids on a tank / pally :(

[edit] Is the Vimeo link up? :)

[Vyndree]

I used to do this pre-bc but as holy, it was harder then but i managed by holy shocking myself and concecrating as much as possible with ret aura on. Was doing the whole thing in 3 pulls as well. But now it is even easier to do. Only problem is the repair bill you will get if you are holy, i havnt tried prot cause i didnt feel like respecing my friend's pally.



God tell me about it... All my mains have ever been clothies, and even in t6 my warlock is still 2.5g a death.... so I was in for a big shock when I found it costs me like 5-10g a run, just from being beat on in plate, and lets not get started on deaths.... It's insane... I feel bad for any1 who raids on a tank / pally :(

[edit] Is the Vimeo link up? :)

Had to wait for my upload quota to reset on Monday, and I'm not allowed to upload anything while Suvega is raiding. ;)

I'll see what I can do to upload it right before I head to bed.

[Vyndree]

Vimeo Link: http://www.vimeo.com/780622

[Ellay]

I find blueberries very sexy and wish I was alliance sometimes :P

[Heenan]

Bumping this because I am trying it for the first time very soon. Is this still the preferred method?

My pally hit 70 and has pretty much blah gear, but I've farmed out 3 of the sporeggar shields. I should have spikes on them tonight.

Or should I use finalwish's method of DoT farming with my sPriest? She is fully epic'd so it should be fairly simple. The only issue I can see is the hassle of tracking which mobs are dotted up and which one is about to die before zoning out.

I ask this because I'll need to transfer my pally over to my last account if I want to xp farm with her, while my sPriest can do it right now.

[Tdog]

Bumping this because I am trying it for the first time very soon. Is this still the preferred method?

My pally hit 70 and has pretty much blah gear, but I've farmed out 3 of the sporeggar shields. I should have spikes on them tonight.

Or should I use finalwish's method of DoT farming with my sPriest? She is fully epic'd so it should be fairly simple. The only issue I can see is the hassle of tracking which mobs are dotted up and which one is about to die before zoning out.

I ask this because I'll need to transfer my pally over to my last account if I want to xp farm with her, while my sPriest can do it right now. You don't need an exceptionally well-geared prot pally to make this worth your while. In fact I just finished running a team through SM with a pally in nothing but level 67-70 "of the sorcerer" plate gear in a prot build. If your gear is as bad as my horde pally (which it doesn't sound like yours is) you can just use SoL to make up for alot of gear. Later zones though would require a better geared pally to be effeicient enough to boost with.

As far as the dot/zone out thing I believe Blizzard nerfed that in 2.4.

[Heenan]

Ahh, okay. Thanks Tdog. I will most likely move my pally over then and try this out. :)

[Kaynin]

I boosted with my enhancement shaman, single killing the instances. (Tho, really fast and most one hit kills, almost not needing to stop running ever. :P )

And leveled from 31-40 in no time, about roughly 50 minutes per level average.

Sure, it's no prot paladin, but not much slower either. x)

[Maz]

And leveled from 31-40 in no time, about roughly 50 minutes per level average.
Holy crap! I get nothing like that single killing with my rogue :(

[Heenan]

Are you saying just grinding anywhere in the world yields the same results? Grinding while doing all quests is what I gather.

I have noticed since coming back that the 20-60 XP change is ridiculous. I am on my 3rd casual day and they are already 25. So I question the need for using this strategy. Also, leveling them up the normal way is a lot less boring. And your weapon skills won't suffer from being powerleveled.

[Vyndree]

When I did my Pally to 70, I was average abotu 45 minutes - 1.5 hrs per level just doing quests. Thats with 2 - 4 70 Shaman behind him, blasting everything.

You don't need an instance to "boost"

This works if you KNOW where to quest. :) 30-40 was always my worst favorite leveling (ganking, high amount of travel, etc) so I opted for the brainless method that was safely tucked within the instance.

I did have an enh shammy try and "gank" my paladin when I was resetting the zone. He had to run away since he nearly killed himself thanks to prot paladin reflective damage. ;) All he had to do was stop autoattacking, hehehe.

[Kaynin]

And leveled from 31-40 in no time, about roughly 50 minutes per level average.
Holy crap! I get nothing like that single killing with my rogue :(

It might be your approach tho.

My reasoning was this.. A paladin still has to run through the instance tagging all mobs along in order to fart them to death after the pull was made. I figured. If I can one shot most mobs, do a shock on those that live, I can run through, while killing all mobs.

In the end it is -still- somewhat slower then a paladin, but it's quite near it! It didn't work for me this well anymore in zf and up tho. :p

If you go single killing but actually stop at each mob, every mobs adds a second or five extra, on a level, that's a lot of 5 seconds. Trick is to keep running while killing. :p

[Tdog]

When I did my Pally to 70, I was average abotu 45 minutes - 1.5 hrs per level just doing quests. Thats with 2 - 4 70 Shaman behind him, blasting everything.

You don't need an instance to "boost"

This works if you KNOW where to quest. :) 30-40 was always my worst favorite leveling (ganking, high amount of travel, etc) so I opted for the brainless method that was safely tucked within the instance.

I did have an enh shammy try and "gank" my paladin when I was resetting the zone. He had to run away since he nearly killed himself thanks to prot paladin reflective damage. ;) All he had to do was stop autoattacking, hehehe.Jame's leveling guides are probably the best free guides you're going to find. http://www.wow-pro.com/leveling_guides ('http://www.wow-pro.com/leveling_guides') I've be doing the out a group power booster on my horde teams since I only have 1 booster horde side atm. Instance boost 4 of the team up about 8 levels ahead of the 5th, then use those 4 to boost the 5th with quests. Works pretty well but once I get a 2nd booster horde side I'll just go back to boosting 4 with one booster than the 5th with my 2nd booster.

[TerminatriX]

is there any list of reflecting items like shield from Sporeggar and Darkmoon Card: Vengeance ? :huh:

[Vyndree]

My reasoning was this.. A paladin still has to run through the instance tagging all mobs along in order to fart them to death after the pull was made. I figured. If I can one shot most mobs, do a shock on those that live, I can run through, while killing all mobs.

Body pull + consecrate will tag ALL of the mobs. :)

I found my elemental shaman couldn't even compete with the paladin, considering that if a totem killed a mob on its own, it would not be considered "tagged" and no XP would be earned. Totems are considered "pets". An enhancement shaman, perhaps, but the pally can gather everything up all at once with minimal effort.

Warlocks are great, though, when they cast siphon on almost every mob. :)

[Kaynin]

My reasoning was this.. A paladin still has to run through the instance tagging all mobs along in order to fart them to death after the pull was made. I figured. If I can one shot most mobs, do a shock on those that live, I can run through, while killing all mobs.

Body pull + consecrate will tag ALL of the mobs. :)

I found my elemental shaman couldn't even compete with the paladin, considering that if a totem killed a mob on its own, it would not be considered "tagged" and no XP would be earned. Totems are considered "pets". An enhancement shaman, perhaps, but the pally can gather everything up all at once with minimal effort.

Warlocks are great, though, when they cast siphon on almost every mob. :)

I know, I don't totem kill. :p My enhancement shaman had like a 80% chance to one shot any mob in sm cath, so I could keep running while mobs just died while I ran. So, killing while you run. ^^

Works for enhancement anyhow. And yes, not as fast as a paladin, as sometimes I have to run after runaways and such, but I still dont have downtime this way. ^^

Oh well, my alts are all 70 now. :p

[Vyndree]

I know, I don't totem kill. :p My enhancement shaman had like a 80% chance to one shot any mob in sm cath, so I could keep running while mobs just died while I ran. So, killing while you run. ^^

Works for enhancement anyhow. And yes, not as fast as a paladin, as sometimes I have to run after runaways and such, but I still dont have downtime this way. ^^

Yea, I just wanted to disambiguate since your original post made it sound like pallies had a hard time tagging mobs. ;)

I didn't have any decent single-dps classes at the time (ele shammies still have to wind up their casts regardless of whether they 1-shot the mob) so solo-killing wasn't too much of an option. Whatever works for you -- just be careful not to get the boss (who MC's) or the aoe'ing mages near your lowbies.

[Rms]

I just the same thing a few days ago to get my 2 new shaman to 40, except I used my frost mage.

[Occam's Razor]

So does this only work if you have more than ONE lowbie in your party?

[Vyndree]

So does this only work if you have more than ONE lowbie in your party?

It will work, but will be less effective than if you have a full party of lowbies and ONE 70.

Check out the page on XP on wowwiki ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Mob_XP')-- it explains alot about how party composition affects experience.

[Mercurio]

This is how I got 8 guys leveled up from 25-40.

Single pulled the instance each time - capped the instance reset in about 30 mins, then logged on a team of 5 70s to do dailies for about 30 mins

Exp is really ridiculous.

Course, my pally's gear is pretty good: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormreaver&n=Astaria

[Tdog]

This is how I got 8 guys leveled up from 25-40.

Single pulled the instance each time - capped the instance reset in about 30 mins, then logged on a team of 5 70s to do dailies for about 30 mins

Exp is really ridiculous.

Course, my pally's gear is pretty good: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormreaver&n=AstariaBoosting thru SM isn't about good gear it's about using your paladin's talent and abilites correctly. I can one pull all of SM cath on my BE pally with nothing but "of the sorcerer" greens I bought her off the AH just like I can do with my Draenei paladin with 11k hp and 950ish spell dmg in her BT healing gear. Using SoL and strafing can make up for a ton of gear differences in the lower zones. Spiritual Focus + Concentration Aura also go along way when there is no mobs with shield bash or other interrupts in the mix. Once you get past ZF however gear does begin to become an issue.

[Klamor]

ahh... i remember those days, boosting my mage through cath w/my brother's holy pally

i got around 3-4k in gold from selling all those greens/silk :)

here's his character now.... pretty much the same armor i think - http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Hakkar&n=Vangarde






just remember NEVER try to heal while the grp is attacking you, always lead to top of fountain and jump down to heal.... i learned that the hard way.... about 800g for repairs and i learned my lesson