Paladin Leveling Guide 1-120 Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

Welcome! While this leveling guide is specifically made for the class and specialization(s) listed, we also have a general Battle for Azeroth leveling guide that focuses on the specific features of the Battle for Azeroth expansion including preparation of your mission table that will be used to unlock new areas, progressing on your faction's War Effort to save time at Level 120, and a reminder to keep ALL of the gear you find for the Scrap-o-Matic 1000 or Shred-Master Mk1, which will greatly increase your resource generating capabilities. Please visit our 110 to 120 leveling guide for this information and more (including Heirloom and War Mode advice that also applies to players who are not yet Level 110.

2. Leveling 1-120 as a Retribution Paladin

2.1. Gear Options

When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level, but 2 secondary stats on it instead of 1.

2.2. Level by Level Rotation and Talents

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

Level: 110

2.2.1. Talents to Level Up as a Retribution Paladin

Your first talent row unlocks at Level 15.

Your talent set up should be as follows.

Level 15: Zeal
Level 30: Blade of Wrath
Level 45: Fist of Justice
Level 60: Wake of Ashes
Level 75: Cavalier
Level 90: Selfless Healer
Level 100: Divine Purpose

2.2.2. Rotation to Level Up as a Retribution Paladin

Starting at Level 1, you only have one main attack ability: Crusader Strike Icon Crusader Strike.

Avenging Wrath is your damage cooldown. Use it right before entering combat, as often as possible.
Cast Templar's Verdict as often as possible to spend your Holy Power.
Wake of Ashes is our recommended Level 60 talent. It deals massive damage in a frontal cone. Use it as often as possible against as many enemies as possible.
Cast Blade of Justice when it comes off cooldown, and open all fights with it.
Cast Judgment when it comes off cooldown.
Cast Crusader Strike as often as possible.
Cast Crusader Strike as often as possible.
- At Level 26, Crusader Strike gains a second charge.
At Level 28, you unlock Art of War. It causes your auto attacks to sometimes reset the cooldown of Blade of Justice.
At Level 40, you unlock Divine Storm. This is a Holy Power spender that you use to replace Templar's Verdict in your rotation against 2 or more enemies.
At Level 42, Judgment also increases the damage of your next Holy Power spender.

Summary of Unlocked Abilities for Retribution Paladin

You unlock your first ability of interest at Level 5.

At Level 5, you unlock Flash of Light. It is a single target heal with short cast time.
At Level 8, you unlock Hammer of Justice. It is a single target stun. Use it often, so you take less damage.
At Level 12, you unlock Hand of Reckoning, which is a taunt, forcing an enemy to attack you. Use it to pull mobs from far away with it.
At Level 14, you unlock Redemption. Bring back a dead ally after a long cast time. It cannot be cast when in combat.
At Level 18, you unlock Divine Shield, which makes you immune to all damage and harmful effects.
At Level 22, you unlock Cleanse Toxins, which you can use to remove all Poison and Disease effects from a friendly target.
At Level 24, you unlock Hand of Hindrance, which is a single target slow. Use it as additional means to pull an enemy.
At Level 28, you unlock Divine Steed, which is your movement speed cooldown. Use it to get to mobs and quest objectives more quickly.
At Level 32, you unlock Shield of Vengeance, which is an absorb shield, that will do damage equal to the absorb amount after it expires or if the shield is fully consumed. Use it to deal more damage while taking damage.
At Level 35, you unlock Rebuke. Use it to interrupt your target's cast.
At Level 38, you unlock Blessing of Freedom, which you can use to remove slow effects on friendly targets.
At Level 44, you unlock Heart of the Crusader, a passive that increases your mounted speed.
At Level 48, you unlock Blessing of Protection, which you can use to grant immunity to a friendly target against physical damage, and remove harmful effects like bleeds.
At Level 55, you unlock Lay on Hands, a powerful single target heal equal to your maximum Health.
At Level 58, you unlock Greater Blessing of Kings, a 1 hour buff that you can place on a single friendly target, periodically granting a absorb shield.
At Level 65, you unlock Greater Blessing of Wisdom, a 1 hour buff that you can place on a single friendly target, periodically restoring Health and Mana.
At Level 70, you unlock Retribution, a passive that grants increased damage done and reduced damage taken for a short peroid after any party or raid member dies.

2.3. Retribution Paladin War Mode Talents for Leveling

In this section we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Retribution Paladin-specific PvE talents.

2.3.1. General PvP Talents

Relentless is a passive ability, but it does not automatically remove crowd control abilities. Instead, it reduces the duration.
Gladiator's Medallion is an on-use ability that removes all movement impairing effects and all loss of control effects.
Adaptation is recommended; it is likely your most passive choice since it will automatically remove loss of control effects over 5 seconds.

2.3.2. Retribution Paladin PvP Talents for Leveling

Hammer of Reckoning is an active ability with 30 yards range and a 48-second cooldown. When you or allies with your Greater Blessings take damage, your gain Reckoning. Consume 50 stacks of Reckoning to deal a massive amount of Holy damage and gain Avenging Wrath for 6 seconds.
Divine Punisher causes two consecutive Judgments on the same enemy to generate 3 additional Holy Power.
Lawbringer causes your Judgment to apply Lawbringer to initial targets hit for 45 seconds. Casting Judgment causes all enemies with your Lawbringer effect to suffer up to 5% of their maximum Health in Holy damage.

Luminescence Icon Luminescence, Blessing of Sanctuary Icon Blessing of Sanctuary, Ultimate Retribution Icon Ultimate Retribution, Seraphim's Blessing Icon Seraphim's Blessing, Vengeance Aura Icon Vengeance Aura, and Law and Order Icon Law and Order have limited use for PvE content in terms of increasing your damage in the open world in a small group setting. For the purpose of leveling, the choices above are better options.

2.4. Legendary Options

If you are just coming out of Level 110, you will probably have a number of different Legendary items to choose from. Your Legendaries' special effects will stop working at Level 116, but until then they can be a very powerful addition to help you level up quickly. These are our Legendary recommendations for leveling as a Retribution Paladin in Battle for Azeroth:

Sephuz's Secret is a must, giving you passive movement speed. Hammer of Justice and Rebuke will allow you to proc its special effect constantly in the open world. It is by far the best leveling Legendary.
Aggramar's Stride is a must, giving you 75% of your highest secondary stat rating as speed rating. You want to have Haste as your highest secondary stat, so that the Sephuz's Secret Haste proc gives you even more movement speed.

2.5. Quest Rewards

You should equip new quest rewards when their item level starts beating out your previous set of gear. If you are currently wearing Tier 21 gear, it is best to let the quest rewards significantly beat your existing item level before using them. With that said, you will unlock Azerite pieces early on, which are worth using over Tier gear in most circumstances.

If possible, we recommend holding on to all Quest Rewards you do not use. They can be scrapped for material resources for profession crafting.

2.6. Consumables

There are several consumable items that can be purchased that will help you with your leveling speed.

Skystep Potion increases your movement speed by 150% for 8 seconds. It has a 1-minute cooldown. This is extremely useful and should be used often and aggressively for any travel that is more than ~100 yards long.
Gunshoes are an Engineering item that increase your movement speed by 200% and allow you to walk on water for 25 seconds. These will make you almost as fast as a Flying mount. We recommend having a lot of these, and using them whenever you are traveling more than ~250 yards.
Goblin Glider Kit is very useful for covering long distances from high places.

2.6.1. Gunshoes Macro

The Gunshoes will not let you stop moving for as long as they are active. Using this macro twice will click the buff off and allow you to stop.

#showtooltip
/use Gunshoes
/cancelaura Gunshoes

2.7. Congratulations!

Congratulations on reaching Level 120! Now that you have hit Level 120 we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level. To get yourself prepared for the end-game content ahead, we strongly recommend this Battle for Azeroth Raiding Lexicon/Spreadsheet by Medivh. It is a gold trove of information that will help you when gearing up in Battle for Azeroth and more.

3. Leveling 110-120 as a Protection Paladin

Leveling as Protection is extremely efficient, as long as you chain pull AoE packs and kill multiple mobs each time. It should always be your focus as Protection to pull lots of mobs, as it normally takes a similar amount of time to kill multiple mobs as it would a single one. Even if you only have to fight one enemy, you should look to pull any others around it, since it will barely change the time spent fighting. Being able to stay alive and survive pulling multiple mobs becomes more important in the later levels, especially past level 116.

3.1. Gear Options

3.2. Level by Level Rotation and Talents

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

Level: 110

3.2.1. Talents to Level Up as a Protection Paladin

Your first talent row unlocks at Level 15.

Your talent set up should be as follows.

Level 15: Holy Shield
Level 30: Crusader's Judgment
Level 45: Fist of Justice
Level 60: Cavalier
Level 75: Unbreakable Spirit
Level 90: Consecrated Ground
Level 100: Last Defender

Rotation Priority to Level Up as a Protection Paladin

Since Shield of the Righteous Icon Shield of the Righteous is off the global cooldown, you can use it independently of the rest of your rotation. It deals AoE damage in front of you and gives you Armor when used.

Cast Avenging Wrath on cooldown, making sure that you pull large numbers of mobs when it is available.
Cast Avenger's Shield as soon as it is available.
Cast Judgment.
Cast Consecration, if you do not already have it placed on the ground.
Cast Hammer of the Righteous.
Cast Consecration to refresh its duration when everything else is on cooldown.

3.3. Gear

Below is a list of useful legendaries, trinkets and Azerite gear that you should aim to use when leveling.

3.3.1. Legendary Gear

If you are just coming out of Level 110, you will probably have a number of different Legendary items to choose from. Your Legendaries' special effects will stop working at Level 116, but until then they can be a very powerful addition to help you level up quickly. The best Legendaries for leveling are ones that either decrease kill time, make you able to run around faster, or a combination of both. These are our Legendary recommendations for leveling as a Protection Paladin in Battle for Azeroth:

Sephuz's Secret is a great legendary, both for speed and damage. It procs automatically with Avenger's Shield, so you do not have to worry about activating it.
Aggramar's Stride are great for passive movement speed. Try to stack Haste on your gear to maximize the increase.
Tyelca, Ferren Marcus's Stature is your highest damage output legendary. If you want to focus on a bit more damage over speed, use this legendary and spec into Redoubt and First Avenger.

3.3.2. Trinkets

The best trinkets for leveling as Protection normally allow you to have some form of on-use burst damage to take down multiple targets and speed up your combat times. Passive trinkets can still be useful, but these are our recommended picks:

Umbral Moonglaives deals AoE damage in a large area over a few seconds, with a medium cooldown.
Toe Knee's Promise deals AoE damage over a few seconds, but requires mobs to be grouped up nicely. It is on a short cooldown.
Diima's Glacial Aegis deals AoE burst damage around you, on a short cooldown. It is important to note that this stops working at level 116.
Riftworld Codex is a great trinket for survivability, should you have trouble surviving your large pulls.

3.3.3. Azerite Gear

Many Azerite traits are fairly low impact, or just dealing a little damage or healing. That being said, if you can manage to stack 3 of the same trait it can start to add a fairly solid bonus.

Soaring Shield makes Avenger's Shield hit an extra target, but multiple Soaring Shield traits do NOT make it hit more extra targets.
Inspiring Vanguard increases the chance for Grand Crusader to trigger, but multiple Inspiring Vanguard traits do NOT increase the chance to trigger.
Vampiric Speed provides solid healing as soon as enemies start dying.

3.4. Protection Paladin War Mode Talents for Leveling

In this section, we will rank the best PvP talents for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Protection Paladin-specific PvE talents.

3.4.1. General PvP Talents

Relentless is a passive ability, but it does not automatically remove crowd control abilities. Instead, it reduces the duration.
Gladiator's Medallion is an on-use ability that removes all movement impairing effects and all loss of control effects.
Adaptation is recommended; it is likely your most passive choice, since it will automatically remove loss of control effects over 5 seconds.

3.4.2. Protection Paladin PvP Talents for Leveling

Warrior of Light passively increases the damage dealt by Shield of the Righteous by 30%. It also decreases the Armor gained, however leveling content generally does not hurt as much, so more AoE damage is very good.
Unbound Freedom turns your Freedom into a mini sprint.
Steed of Glory increases the duration of Divine Steed by 2 seconds. It also knocks enemies back, so beware of using this after grouping up large numbers of enemies.

3.5. Quest Rewards

You should equip new quest rewards when their item level starts beating out your previous set of gear. You will unlock Azerite pieces early on, which are worth using over Tier gear in most circumstances.