So you want to be a paladin, do you? At level 10, you’re going to be faced with the choice of what paladin leveling build to follow. If you’re not familiar with the class, you might end up choosing the wrong tree. Let’s look at each tree’s specialties so you can make the right choice for your paladin.

If you’re wanting to heal as a paladin, the Holy tree is probably right for you. Most talents in the Holy tree increase your healing spells, mana efficiency, and buffs. Holy is mainly geared towards a a support role, but there are a few moderate damage increases contained in the tree. Overall, it is the weakest tree for soloing, and debatably the best for grouping.

The next option is Protection. The talents in Protection focus on boosting your tanking abilities, increasing your threat building and your mitigation. Though many Protection talents boost your damage, they are largely dependent on reflecting damage back from enemies hitting you. For the most part, Protection is a better solo tree than Holy, and lends itself to grouping equally well.

Last but not least, we have the Retribution tree. The Retribution tree is geared towards turning the paladin into an instrument of divine justice. As you would expect, most of the talents focus on meting out punishment, but a few do boost your survivability and utility. Retribution paladins enjoy the easiest time of solo leveling, but have a more difficult time getting a group than Holy or Protection paladins.

If you’re following a paladin leveling guide, odds are good that they will recommend a Retribution build, but make sure to take your own personal playstyle into consideration.