Like playing a melee mage

So paladin reached level 20 the other night and is now 21. He's picked up some really cool spells (really cool comparied to Judge+auto attack, anything is cooler than that, srsly) that include Exorcism, or exo, Consecration, not concentration, and retribution aura. Oh and i talented into seal of command. the awesomeness. so with those additions to my routine, my fights begin with exo to pull, then judge light/wisdom depending on what i need, and its usually wisdom now with exo in the mix. before exo, i had zero mana issues. i mean i only run low on mana when i have to heal myself. but now, im actually using it to cast exo. and maybe a consecration depending on the pull.

I remember the days of magery... in fact, i started off as a mage a very long time ago. i didnt know too much about the game then, or about how best to play a mage. all i did was cast frostbolt and fireblast, and then learned frost nova was great to use against melee's who are too close. at around level 40, i got used to dying, but also got good enough to know my surroundings, path out the pull/fight, and nuke them down without gaining adds. this paranoia of my surroundings has lead to pretty decent tanking skills. decent. yes. so when i got exo, i felt like i was back on my mage again, this time without the frostbolt animation or the many many deaths. dying as a mage is never fun, since running back to your body requires a lot of time, but also when rezzing, i needed to make sure no one was around. a mage with half their mana/health isnt going to last too long to wolves.... or hogger. but a pala... they can rez and be fine and dandy. not only are they tougher, their cooldowns are reset. yep, BOP, or HOP now... hand of protection can solve any aggro problems upon rezzing. just heal yourself and pop a mana pot and its like you've never died.

and so exo makes it feel like im playing a mage. but a melee one. only because once the mob actually gets to me, i attack with my sword. i really need an upgrade to my gear tho, since running into deatholme, i've found myself needing to toss on my shield to survive. it doesnt really matter much since i saw that my 1hander does the same damage as my old 2hander. i've hand my 2hander since level 12. granted, getting an appropriate-level 2hander may have been the better choice, but considering i had a shield and sword as quest rewards, i found it more expedient to just use them. i survived longer. plus every single low level hammer, sword, or axe was being sold by one guy, for 30 gold a pop. he's basically cornered the 1-30 market in terms of gear and weapons. but not jewelery. aparently there's still a billion others leveling up jc, which drives down the prices for necklaces and rings so much that the guy doesnt even bother with that market. its great for my pala, as he's an enchanter who may need to DE some cheap wares soon. However, its horrible for my JC, who's at 420 skill, and ready to make more jems to hit 450, because everything that he makes will have to be sold off cheaply since EVERYONE is a JCer. lol. no really... there's so many JCers and so little demand, it drives me kinda nuts. but anyway, back to the topic at hand.

so back on track. i like exo to pull, and the 12 seconds or 15 seconds cooldown isnt that bad, until you get mobs that die after 5 seconds of combat. it seems that, when killing undeads, i finish looting about a second or two before exo refreshes. with non-undeads, since exo does less damage, its usually refreshed by the time im done with the mob. it also has a casttime, so using it while in melee isnt really a good idea. tho it can be done. so its great as an opener, but useless during the fight.

seal of command is probably doing just the same amount of damage as seal of righteousness. i havent really experiemented with recount, but the difference is this... with SoComm, i get several hits per fight for decent damage per hit. with SoRight, i get a constant stream of damage per fight with very low damage per hit. what does this all mean? it means that the damage totals the same, but SoComm is bursty, and SoRight is a bit of a slow burn. Overall, im not sure which is better 1 on 1. but im for dam sure that SoComm is better when up against more targets.

Consecration. Oh the mana hog. only good when up against 3 or more targets, otherwise, its not mana efficient. it may help with killing mobs faster (slow burn, like seal of right, but slow burns on everyone in its area of effect). so its a tossup. if i have a few targets, i will use it. if i have one, i wont. if i have two, depending on how rich i am, i will use it or not. all depends. its really not all that. i dont even really use it when tanking heroics, so why use it here?

Retribution aura. quite possibly why i've been taking more damage lately. how? i dropped devotion for retribution. less armor, more damage returned. good stuff if you want to kill things faster. bad if you're killing an elite or boss. not much else to say about this.

So those are all the notable things at level 20. oh and at 21 i dropped a point into Pursuit of Justice. absolutely zero dps boost. but it helps when running from one mob to another, or when riding to my next quest objective, or when running away from mobs. My second point into it will increase my run and mounted speed by 15%. huzzah!

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So my next problem is leveling between 20-40. i know where i'd like to go at 40 (tanaris->hinterlands->searing gorge, as those have been pretty simple questing in the past) but between 20 and 40 there's several places that seem... ugh. thousand needles, ugh. hillsbrad, ugh. stonetalon mtns, ugh. desolace, ugh x10. what i've avoided for the longest time, mainly due to rumors of nonstop gankage, is Stranglethorn vale. So STV->Marsh->STV->Marsh->tanaris. because STV has a 20-ish range at the southern end, and a 30-ish range at the northern end. (obviously i dont have a clue what STV is like, so its late 20s by grom gol and gets higher as you spread out west and south, with the area just outside the nessingwary basecamp as the lowest level) also because Duskwallow marsh has a 20-ish range by Brackenwall village and a 30-ish range by mudsprocket (see how i know the towns in duskwallow marsh? cos i've leveled all my toons through there, but never... never STV. where did i go instead? arathi highlands).

By all means. i wish to skip Desolace.