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Want to level your paladin as a tank? You got it! Before the Dungeon Finder tool was launched in December, finding level-appropriate instance groups was well nigh impossible. Occasional knots of newborn death knights might putter about in a favorite Burning Crusade instance to scoop up some gear. The rest of the pre-Northrend instances remained ghost towns, populated only by speed-running level 80s who were farming or running low-level buddies through some quick levels. But the Dungeon Finder has re-invigorated the instances of Azeroth, Outland and beyond. What does that mean for leveling players? If you love to play in groups and instances or if you're looking ahead to raiding and want to lay down your skill base now, you can.

If you plan to spend most of your time running quests solo or with only a few other players, a Retribution (DPS) spec still makes more sense. "How many times do you really have to kill 20 mobs?" rhetorically asks Adam Holisky in a recent The Queue. "In the old world, sure, it happens enough -- but you can't really get into the meaty prot paladin points at that point, anyway. Most newer quests these days require you to kill one or two mobs in close proximity to each other and then go over and find another few mobs to kill. You rarely can pull entire areas and be effective with your AoE to the point of having an advantage over being retribution."

But if it's tanking you want -- and instances you want it in -- you're in luck. Protection is the spec you want, and our special series from Gregg Reece's The Light and How to Swing It shows you how.
The low-level paladin tank, Part 1 Threat, avoidance, mitigation, attributes -- we look at the basics of tanking.

The low-level paladin tank, Part 2 What talents should you train on your way up as a tanking paladin?

The low-level paladin tank, Part 3 Paladins have a lot of tricks and tools at their disposal. We'll show you what to use and when.

The low-level paladin tank, Part 4 Here's the inside line on the consumables, macros and add-ons that make your paladin a streamlined tanking machine.

Learn more

• Read more about paladins at The Light and How to Swing It.
• Looking for information on warriors? Read The Care and Feeding of Warriors.
• Looking for information on druids? Read Shifting Perspectives.
• Looking for information on death knights? Read Lichborne.
• Learn more about tanking in Tank Talk.

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Filed under: Paladin, How-tos, Instances, Features, Leveling, Guides, WoW Rookie