Paladin PvP Twink – Level 19 Gear and Guide

Making a Paladin PvP twink is my new project. This guide will focus on gear, talents, enchants, and anything else essential for making an elite level 19 Paladin twink.  Warsong Gulch is the only available battleground for level 19 twinks, so learning the layout of the battleground is also very important.

My newest Paladin is a Dwarf, whome I am fondly naming Khode.  I chose a Dwarf because a) I don’t have a Dwarf Paladin, and b) Stoneform.  Humans have a movement freeing passive talent, btu stoneform will suffice just as well.  Last night, I blitzed to level 10 to start some battlegrounds (BGs).  Since Warsong Gulch is the only avaialble BG at level 19, I managed to squeeze two in before heading off to bed.

Twink PvP has greatly increased with Blizzard’s inclusion of experience gaining in battlegrounds.  Many players are opting to partially, or completely level in BGs, making them fairly easy to get into, without long wait times.  Alterac Valley remains the exception, but we won’t have to worry about that for quite some time.

I will be primarily PvP’ing to level, but will still quest to help fill in some of the gaps.  After hitting level 10 last night, I had roughly 590 hit points (HP).  The heirloom gear I had equipped, in addition to some enchants boosted me up quite nicely.  We won both matches 3-0.

I performed particularly well, having no trouble handling the leveling PvPers.  Most of them had equal or less HP than I did, even at level 17 to 19.  As an fyi, I am aiming for over 1000 HP, which should easily be obtainable.

Here are a couple BG ending screenshots:

Now, for the guide element:

Gear

• Head – Lucky Fishing Hat or Green Tinted Goggles
• Neck – Sentinel’s Medallion or Scout’s Medallion
• Shoulder – Polished Spaulders of Valor or Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons
• Cloak – Miner’s Cape or Tranquillien Champion’s Cloak or Sentry Cloak
• Chest – Polished Breastplate of Valor
• Bracers – Rough Bronze Bracers
• Gloves – Thorbia’s Gauntlets
• Waist – Girdle of the Blindwatcher or Deviate Scale Belt
• Legs – Leggings of the Fang or Mighty Chain Pants
• Boots – Savage Trodders or Silver Linked Footguards
• Ring 1 – Seal of Wrynn or Seal of Sylvanas
• Ring 2 – Protector’s Band or Legionnaire’s Band or Heart Ring or Demon Band
• Trinket 1 – Arena Grand Master
• Trinket 2 – Insignia of the Alliance or Insignia of the Horde
• Weapon – Bloodied Arcanite Reaper

Enchants

• Chest – +100 HP or +4 All Stats
• Cloak – +3 Agility
• Bracers – +9 Stamina
• Gloves – +15 Agility or +7 Strength
• Boots – +7 Stamina or Minor Speed
• Weapon – Crusader

Professions

• Engineering – For Green Tinted Goggles, among other nifty Engineering contraptions.
• Mining – Toughness (up to +7 Stamina)
• Herbalism – Lifeblood

Consumables

• Rumsey Rum Black Label
• Heavy Runecloth Bandage
• Elixir of Giant Growth
• Elixir of Minor Fortitude
• Swiftness Potion

Why is Leather Gear included?

The stats on certain pieces of leather gear are very good, far making up for the miniscule difference in armor mitigation.

Where’s the DPS Gear?

It’s there, just not all there.  I opt for high stamina items.  In the 10-19 PvP twink bracket, very rarely will you be one on one, where DPS will win over HP.  The trick to winning and surviving this twink bracket is to outlast your opponents.

If you are wielding some heirloom gear, especially the Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, you are already going to be doing some heavy damage.  Most of your enemies will be sporting leveling gear, hovering in the 400-700 HP range.  You need to be able to survive their barrage of damage, while dealing your own.  Only when you meet a twink just as geared as you (with 1000+ HP), will things begin to get a tad tricky.

Who Do I Target First?

In almost all scenarios, you want the healers eliminated as quickly as possible.  Healers will be primarily attached to a flag carrier, as well as a team (or individual) attacking your own flag carrier.

Priests tend to be the easiest for Paladin Twinks to chase down.  The Fear is a nuisance, but nothing a Paladin cannot overcome.  If you’re a human, you even have a free escape talent.  Druids are usually the hardest, with Shaman recently surging in popularity, and right behind the druids.

In the case where there is a fleetfooted flag carrier, such as a Shaman or Druid in travel form, or a sprinting Rogue, I make them my top priority by stunning or slowing them in any way possible.  I’ll crank out as much damage as I can, and then the chase is on.  You can only run so far, because I will get you in your base!

Hardest Class for a Twink Paladin to Kill?

That’s easy, just a medium geared Hunter can give us all kinds of trouble.  A level 17 to 19 Twink Hunter, fully decked in PvP gear is almost certain doom.  IF you have to take these guys on, one on one, close the gap between you as quickly as possible and do not let them get away.  They will trap, freeze, wing clip, and have their pet slow you down in a seemingly endless kite-fest, until he or she has whittled away all your HP.  Hunters are very dangerous.  If you are in a large free-for-all in the middle of the battleground, and there is a titan of a Hunter wreaking havoc and decimating your ranks, find him and give him all sorts of hell to distract him.  Hopefully there will be enough of you still alive to gang up on him, but the Hunter is by far the deadliest enemy for a Twink Paladin.

Second to the Hunter is probably a Rogue.  Rogues are going to punch out huge burst damage, but then that damage dwindles rapidly if you survive the initial onslaught.  Then the tide turns in our favor and we can usually burn them down.  Watch out for the hardcore Rogue twinks, they can be just as bad as Hunters if a skilled player is controlling them.

Level 10-12 Update

Upon entering my first battlegrounds, I was sporting around 900 HP fully buffed.  That was around 200 to 400 HP more than most of the people in there.  Very rarely do you see players hitting 1000 HP any more.  That’s not because they aren’t out there, it’s simply due to the number of PvP levelers out there now.

I found myself able to hang with most of the players, even the level 18 and 19 toons.  I did have a much higher ‘miss’ percentage, however, on those higher level players.

Hunters gave me the hardest time, and I found a new ‘duo’ of PvP pairs that was working extremely well.  I have run into a large number of hunter/warrior combos in the battlegrounds.  The warrior is rocking heriloom resilience gear, and is high on HP.  They charge in, hamstring you, and then conintue melee as the hunter picks you apart from a distance.  Very tough to handle.  If I went after the Hunter, he would continue a kite fest himself, rendering me almost completely incapable of any DPS.  I was able to take down the warrior occasionally, then work on the hunter, but that only is attributed to my higher HP.

Level 13-15 Update

Now I am above the 1000 HP mark, reaching 1191 HP fully buffed at level 15.  I haven’t even equipped by best-in-slot level 19 twink gear yet! I have also been picking up the Battleground daily quest for additional honor.  I have enough honor to purchase my level 18 PvP WSG gear, but not enough tokens.  I will need a total of 70 WSG tokens, and only have 43 at the moment.  I should have 70 by the time I reach 18.

The Hunter/Warrior combos are still very tough.  If I can get to the Hunter quick enough and stun him or her, then I might have a chance.  I can now handle the Warriors with relative ease, but the Hunter factor still is the real problem.

Shaman dropping totems to slow me down are only 50% effective, as I can usually strike them down as I am running before they take effect.

Now that I am usually highest HP, even at level 15, I have become a primary flag carrier.  Healers are now drifting to accompany me, which really helps.  Even with a plethora of abilities to keep me alive, it can still be tough at times, especially when I have 4 or more players on me.

Levels 16-18

Pure domination.  This is where Paladins start separating themselves from the rest of the twink 19 bracket.  Pushing 1400 HP in most battles, I became the primary flag carrier, even over most Druids and Shaman.  Even the geared travel form classes would pass the flag to me with my HP, and escort me out.  This isn’t cockiness by any means, it’s just smart gameplay.

Flag Carrier

At this point, if I grab the flag and the other team has ours, I head straight for them to meet head on.  Not many Horde flag carriers were surviving the impact of myself and my escort.  Focusing on me, they were struggling to get my HP down, while the rest of my BG team picked them off one by one.  I still helped out and got some kills of my own, but my purpose was to survive.  And for the most part, I did.

As the flag carrier, it is my job to see the flag safely back to our base.  Unless there were some very geared hunters and rogues waiting for me in the tunnel, I usually charged straight through the tunnel every time.  Otherwise, I’d take the ramp. Very rarely would I go through the Horde graveyard on my way out.

Making a beeline for our base, I’d enter through our tunnel.  If we were against some good Horde players, I would wait on the roof, allowing line of sight issues for hunters and casters, and giving me a number of escape routes.  If we were dominating a lower level Horde team, then I would wait in the flag room.

Always cap when possible.  Don’t hold the flag to farm kills.  That’s poor sportsmanship and will tarnish your name very quickly.

You also begin to notice at these levels that you are clearly a strong point in your group, and players tend to stick with you.  Healers drift towards the flag carriers and/or strongest DPS players naturally, and other DPS also latch on to take advantage of Horde players focusing attention on the strongest links.  These group mechanics only help survivability, and further increase your chances at winning the BG.

At level 17 and 18, you are a very good solo fighter as well.  Try picking a fight against two higher level Hunters and you may have issues, but for the most part, you should have no problem dispatching opposing players 1 on 1, 2 on 2, or at times even 3 on 3 and more.  I remember one time entering the Horde flag room with 5 Horde in there.  I thought about running out very quickly to wait on reinforcements, but my team was busy fighting in the middle of WSG.  So I charged in, and found myself against a lvl 13 Druid, lvl 15 Priest, 2 lvl 14 Rogues, and a lvl 16 Hunter.  To my luck, none had and HP over 600.  Druid and Priest were healing, so I two-shot the Druid, used HoJ on the Hunter, and went to work on the Priest.  When the Priest was down, I took the Hunter down next, though he kited me and the Rogues got to whittle away my HP.  I was at around 30% HP when I could focus on the Rogues.  One went down quick and the other continued to pelt me with flesh wounds as I grabbed the flag, and headed for the tunnel, afraid my kills would rez and come back to the flag room.  Using Judgement as I ran, the final Rogue went down.  Khor 5 – Horde 0.

Horde Twinks at Night

Oh, there is a different breed of Horde players at night.  I got my first real taste of good, healthy competition.  Went 3-4 on the night.  Not quite the domination, even though I was level 18.  Good job Horde, you guys simply skewered us at times.  I don’t mind losing, especially when I see exceptional teamwork at play.

My favorite instance at this level was when I pulled 3 WSG matches in a row versus the same 3 Shaman working in tandem.  No, they were not 3-boxing either.  These lvl 19 Troll Shaman were working together, grabbing flags, and killing our flag carriers with almost military-like precision.  Using combos of totems, heals, and DPS, I think I only managed to snag the flag from them twice in the whole of three matches.

When I did manage to get the flag back to our base (of course one of them had theirs as well), they other two would come hunting me. Although their DPS wasn’t top notch, their survivability was, and they made quick work of my healers, before eventually dragging me down…numerous times.  Bravo guys, well played!

Level 19

Level 19 saw me soar to over 1500 HP.  I was a Wrecking Ball.  Literally.  I thought this area would be tons of fun, but were so dominant in these WSG battles that level 19 flew by in a matter of hours.  My last WSG at 19 sent me into 20, ready to grab my mount and start defending Arathi Basin, where the true test of twinking lies.  There the Horde are much stronger, faster, and smarter than your average Alliance team.  Go Horde.