World of Warcraft Leveling Guide: February 2008

This article is going to review The Unofficial World of Warcraft Paladin Guide by Killer Guides. The Paladin Guide will follow the same format that I used for Killer Guide's The Unofficial World of Warcraft Hunter Guide which I reviewed a while back.

Before I get into the review, a bit of back story is in order. I'd never played a Paladin before in WoW, but a little over a week ago, my server was down so I decided to start a toon on another server. I wanted to try something new. As someone who's played the Horde exclusively, I figured not only would I give the Alliance a try, but I'd got for a class I've never played before. Am I glad I did. The Paladin has been very fun for me and I've enjoyed all the new content available to me. On to my review.

First off, the Paladin Guide is 193 pages long and is in PDF format. The first thing you'll notice about the guide is the title page with a dwarven Paladin that really captures the feel of the Paladin. The Guide is very attractive and would look great printed out - although I didn't print out my guide. My favorite part of the PDF format is that everything is bookmarked for you. Very, very handy.

The writing style is very similar to the Hunter's Guide I previously reviewed. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they were written by the same person. There are a few spelling and grammar errors, but overall the guide is well-written. I love how the guide is organized - everything flows very well.

The Paladin Guide's first section deals with character creation. For me this was helpful since I was starting from scratch. The two primary areas covered are server selection and race selection. If you've played WoW for a while, you're probably familiar with the differences between PvE, PvP, and RP servers. If not, the info is here. The race portion of the guide was quite useful to me. I chose Draenei - largely for the Heroic Presence ability. This section will be largely useless if you've already rolled your Paladin, but will be of some use if you are starting from square one.

Next comes stats and formulas. This section goes into great detail about the different stats and formulas that will affect your Paladin and tells you what stats and attributes are most important for your knight. Some of this stuff is real basic, but much of it goes into much greater depth than I was aware of. This section is very handy unless you have a very strong grasp on what all the numbers mean on your character screen.

Fighting as a Paladin is the next section. I relied heavily on this to help me understand my Paladin early on. The majority of this section deals with how to juggle your Seals and Judgments. There is also a page about buffing which is obviously one of our biggest strengths. How much this section will help you depends largely on how much you've played your Paladin. Being a new Paladin player, it helped me a great deal. If you've got lots of experience with a Paladin, this will likely be largely a refresher course for you.

Healing is naturally another of our signature abilities and the next section goes over this in detail over three pages. As someone, who primarily solos I can't speak too much to this section. The strategies seem sound to me and since the rest of the guide is well-researched, I have no reason to believe this section isn't as well.

The little bit of grouping I've done, I've generally been the tank and the section dealing with Tanking as a Paladin has been invaluable. This section tells you which Seals, Judgments, and Auras are best for tanking as well as other spell that will help you generate threat. There's also a small section on mitigating damage. Very important info if you are going to tank much as a Paladin.

If you like PvP, this next section will be one of your favorites. This section tells you how to beat different classes in one on one duels. If you play on a PvP server, you need to read this section multiple times. You'll want to know exactly what to do against each class without having to think about it so internalize the information. There is also great information about group PvP including Battleground and Arena specific strategies. Very, very handy section!

The next section deals with weapons. Details regarding what types of weapons, the use of two handers vs one handers plus shield, and which stats you should look for as a Paladin on your weapons. There's quite a bit of info packed into those two pages, but if you've been playing a Paladin for a while you probably already have a good idea about how to answer those questions.

The equipment section, dealing with armor, including what armor (also includes weapons to watch for) you should strive for at each level, is pretty lengthy and detailed. For levels 60-70, there are four different "equipment builds" depending on what your Paladin's role is, ie, Healing, Spell Damage, Melee, or Tanking. Each role is subdivided by level: 60-62, 63-64, 65-66, and 67-70. All equipment is linked to thottbot for easy reference. Finally, there is a section on Librams which is very nice as well and includes some sample macros to take advantage of your Librams. I really like this section.

Speaking of macros, the next section deals with macros and addons. I'm embarassed to admit how long I played without using macros or addons. I've since rectified that mistake. These macros and addons are specifically geared toward the Paladin. It amazes me how much easier using macros and addons can make your gaming experience. Love it!

Well, it can't all be good, and if the guide fails in one area, the Leveling Guide section is it. If you are looking for a simple guide giving you general ideas of where to go to level at different points along your path to Paladinhood, this should be fine for you. However, if you are looking for a detailed guide showing you exactly what quest to do at what point including the correct order to do everything to level as quickly as possible, this isn't the right guide for you. If you are looking for a leveling guide specifically, I recommend either Joana's 1-70 Horde Leveling Guide or Brian Kopps 1-70 Alliance Leveling Guide. Those two guides are the ones the speed levelers use to hit 70 at record speeds. This is my least favorite portion of the guide.

Back to the good parts of the guide, Paladin Quests are next. This was a time saver for me as it gives walk-throughs for the various Paladin quests from the first quests on up to the epic mount quests. Quests are also listed for Blood Elves. Strong.

The next two sections of the guide are my favorites. The first of those sections deal with talents. The talents are divided into three parts: Holy, Protection, and Retribution. Each talent is defined, described, and shows what each rank in the talent will do for you. No big deal, right? You can get that info anywhere. True, but the other data provided for each talent is what makes this section shine. First, each talent is graphically rated for usefulness in Raid vs PvP and Group vs Solo. I love this! Second, Commentary is provided giving more specific info regarding what builds the talent works best with. Each talent gets a full page. I absolutely love this section!

As you can probably guess, the next section deals with Talent Builds. There are three Holy Builds, two Protection Builds, and three Retribution Builds. Additionally , there is a Leveling build because the other builds are best suited for the end game. The leveling build will help you get there quicker. I'm still using the leveling build and am extremely thankful to have a map to follow. I figure by the time I get to my upper 60's, I can re-spec to one of the other builds. I really love this section.

Unfortunately, the guide closes with the second section of the guide that I'm not a fan of - the Money Making section. This section isn't bad, but if you are looking for a money making guide, there are much better options. Personally, I recommend, World of Warcraft Gold Secrets if you are looking for a guide to show you how to make lots of gold in Azeroth. Not the best section of the guide.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend this Paladin Guide if you are looking for a guide to show you how to play a Paladin better or if you are interested in using your Paladin for PvP. The Unofficial World of Warcraft Paladin Guide sells for $29.99 and is a great value for people serious about playing Paladins. One thing to keep in mind is that Killer Guides offers all 17 of their guides at a special package price of $79.99. I've got this package, but I've only reviewed the Paladin Guide and The Unofficial World of Warcraft Hunter Guide, so I can't speak to the other 15 guides. If they are of the same quality of these two, the package is the way to go as you will save over $450 by buying the package. Finally, as Blizzard releases new content, these guides will be updated and updates will be available free of charge.