WoW Classic Paladin Leveling Guide 1-60
Welcome to our Classic leveling guide for Paladins. Here, you will learn how to efficiently level your Paladin all the way to Level 60.
If you were looking for TBC Classic advice, please refer to our TBC Classic Paladin leveling guide.
Foreword
While Paladins are not exceptionally fast levels, they do offer a steady leveling
pace combined with a free mount at Level 40 for a consistent, albeit slow experience.
As a Paladin, you are going to want to level as Retribution for the damage since
Holy and Protection just do not offer the same level of consistent damage that
retribution will. While slow, Paladins do have self-healing, powerful cooldowns,
and strong utility that make them relatively safe while leveling, and able to
engage in world PvP when needed to protect themselves. They also will get access
to some of their important buffs like Blessing of Wisdom and
Blessing of Might
early on, which make them great when paired with other people.
Spec Options
Paladins have uses for all the different specs, but Retribution will be the best by far for solo leveling while also allowing you to off heal when needed.
If you are planning to play in a group, Holy is a great option. You gain Consecration
early, you can heal and support the DPS, and you bring powerful buffs.
If you want to tank, you can choose to play Protection Paladin. This will feel slow and clunky for solo leveling, but can be strong in dungeons.
Leveling Quests
To guide you in the class-specific quests you can do while leveling up, feel free to use the following guide.
Leveling in a Group
Contrary to popular belief, leveling in a group can be extremely efficient, even better than solo leveling in some cases. While Paladins are on the slower side for solo leveling, they are considered to be a top tier leveling class when put into a duo or group. If you can find a Warlock or a Warrior to level with, you can support them without powerful buffs and healing while combining for a much higher kill rate than either of you would have been able to get alone.
Dungeon Grinding
One popular leveling strategy that has been developed in the beta over the last few months is dungeon grinding. Dungeons are much easier than people have historically been used to for Classic content, and with a solid group, dungeons can match or even beat the experience per hour that questing gives. Starting from Level 15 as Alliance for Deadmines, you can get into a group and potentially grind dungeons all the way to 60, if that is what you wanted to do. The ideal group comps fall into one of two categories. The first option is a spell cleave group that utilizes multiple Mages and potentially Warlocks to pull large groups of mobs at once, to AoE them down with longer recovery times between pulls. The second option is a melee-based group, mostly utilizing Warriors, that aims to pull consistently with little to no downtime due to the Warriors not needing Mana between pulls. You can make a dungeon group with any combination of classes and specs, but these two have proven to be the most efficient if that is your goal.
Paladin Abilities
Paladins do not have many useful abilities that will be part of your "core" rotation while leveling. This means that you can choose to skip many more abilities than you normally would on other classes, but you will find that it is not needed and could potentially be a bad choice. Since Paladins get a free mount at Level 40 as a class quest, they do not need to save up money early for a mount, meaning they are free to buy more skills. It is better to ensure you have more skills, such as healing and utility spells, to ensure a smoother 1-60 experience than to try to save money early on.
Recommended Skills to Upgrade as a Paladin
Seal of Righteousness
Holy Light
Devotion Aura
Judgement
Blessing of Might
Seal of the Crusader
Divine Protection
Hammer of Justice — Just Rank 1
Purify
Lay on Hands
Blessing of Protection
Redemption
Blessing of Wisdom
Righteous Fury — If you are leveling in a group
Retribution Aura
Blessing of Freedom
Flash of Light
Divine Intervention
Seal of Command
Consecration
Divine Shield
Cleanse
Hammer of Wrath
Summon Warhorse
Summon Charger
Auras
While leveling, you will either want to use Devotion Aura or
Retribution Aura.
Generally, Retribution Aura will be better and result in more damage, thus increasing
your leveling speed. However, Devotion Aura is still nice to have for if there comes
a time where you feel like you need the extra armor, so is generally worth taking
the later ranks of. You can skip Devotion Aura if you want to save gold, however.
Eventually, at Level 30, you will get Sanctity Aura, which will become
your best aura while killing a single enemy. With multiple enemies attacking you,
Retribution Aura will be superior.
Blessings
Early on you will use Blessing of Might as it is the first Blessing that
you will get. At Level 14 you get
Blessing of Wisdom, which will be better
until you decide that Mana is not an issue anymore. This probably will not happen
until the 30s or 40s, but eventually, you will want to swap back to Blessing
of Might to get the extra Attack Power. Remember that a big part of leveling speed
is minimizing downtime, and the extra Mana provided from Blessing of Wisdom can
save you more time than the extra Attack Power from Blessing of Might, so it is
up to you to decide when you want to make the switch.
Seals
One of the most common questions that Paladins have is which seal to use, as there
is generally lots of confusion around seals, specifically Seal of Command.
Seal of Command is a great seal, but does damage based off your weapon damage. Additionally,
it only can proc 7 times per minute. This means that if you have a faster 2H weapon
with a lower damage range, Seal of Command is not worth using. In that case,
Seal of Righteousness becomes better due to its flat damage added per hit.
With a faster weapon, you will proc the extra damage from Seal of Righteousness more
often, making it much better. The specific cutoff you should be looking for is a
3.5-second weapon speed. If your weapon is slower than 3.5, then Seal of Command is
better. If your weapon is faster than 3.5, then Seal of Righteousness is better.
While using these seals you should always use
Judgement on cooldown for the
on-demand damage. On longer fights, specifically if you think an enemy will take
more than ~30 seconds to kill, you can swap to
Seal of the Crusader just to
use Judgement and then promptly swap back to your previous seal. This will place
a 10-second debuff on the target that increases their Holy damage taken, but will
be refreshed be melee attacks.
Leveling Strategy
Your leveling strategy as a Paladin is quite simple; auto-attack enemies
to death while using Judgement on cooldown. If you are too low, use
Flash of Light or
Holy Light between enemies to get yourself
back up before going again. When your Mana is too low, drink. There is not a ton
of nuance to the Paladin leveling gameplay while soloing, and the best way to level
is to focus on just keeping your leveling speed consistent while minimizing downtime.
If you find yourself using too much Mana you can delay Judgement slightly to make
more use of your natural Mana regeneration between casts.
As stated above, the main thing to focus on is
consistency to try to minimize downtime. Use Judgement on cooldown,
keep your seal of choice up, and heal when you need to. Try to maximize your use
of your natural Mana regeneration between Judgement casts, but sometimes you will
need to drink. If you are going to heal, always do it in bursts to not affect your
natural Mana regeneration as much. Remember that you should be following the 5-second
rule, which is that you will only start naturally regenerating Mana after not casting
for 5 seconds, meaning you can delay casting for longer if you feel like you are
consuming too much Mana and need to regenerate more.
Professions While Leveling
If your goal is to hit Level 60 as fast as possible, it is not recommended to pick up professions while leveling. However, some professions are very useful for either leveling or at Level 60 and can be worth the time investment while leveling. First Aid is a must-have profession at max level due to the no Mana cost healing it provides and learning it early on can be useful while leveling. Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning all are great choices for making gold towards your first mount, and can also be useful for helping to level other important professions later on, such as taking Mining to help level Engineering.
If you are going Holy at Level 60, it might be advisable to take professions that you can level without needing to kill enemies, such as Herbalism and Alchemy.
How to Advance as a Paladin at Level 60
By the time you hit maximum level, it will be very helpful to read the rest of our guides. Pick Holy Paladin if you intend to heal at maximum level, which is the preferred specialization for a Paladin looking for a raid group, but Retribution Paladins are also viable raiding options. Protection Paladins are not as popular or as strong at 60, but can be useful to tank dungeons.
You are also welcome to catch up on what to do in PvP combat with our PvP Paladin Guide, and to start you epic mount grind with the help of the Goldmaking Guide for Paladins!
Changelog
- 18 Nov. 2024: Page updated for Classic Anniversary.
- 29 Aug. 2019: Improved presentation of talent picks by level.
- 14 Aug. 2019: Page added.
More Classic Paladin Guides
Classic Leveling Dungeon Guides
Classic Profession Guides
Classic Reputation Guides

This guide has been written by Abide, TBC veteran for nearly a decade. Abide is a Warrior tank and multi-class expert currently playing on Faerlina as Horde. You can find him in the the Icy Veins Discord. You can also see him live on Twitch.
- New Cataclysm Classic Valor Cap Set to Week 2 Due to Bug
- Season of Discovery Naxxramas Soft Reset Issue Fix and Warning
- Cataclysm Classic: Hour of Twilight Is Now Live!
- Currency Conversions, New Caps and Ways of Acquiring Them Coming With Hour of Twilight Patch
- Season of Discovery Hotfixes: February 14th
- Auction House Update and Countdown Phase in Cataclysm Classic: February 17th
- Classic Hardcore, Era, and Anniversary Realm Black Lotus Respawn Rate Increase
- Massive Nerf Coming to Firelands With Release of Hour of Twilight