starting builds

[KysenMurrin]

I thought there were 8 or so dungeons, and none of them level 90?

(Admittedly I've not paid much attention.)

[Sagara]

4 level-up dungeons, 9 heroics:


Mogu'shan Palace
Shado-Pan Monastery
Stormstout Brewery
Temple of the Jade Serpent

Gate of the Setting Sun
Siege of Niuzao Temple
Scarlet Halls
Scarlet Monastery
Scholomance

Updated: WOwpedia states that Niuzao temple and Setting Sun are heroic-only. Hun? Okay. Edited

[KysenMurrin]

Ouch, didn't think they would make any of the Pandaria ones heroic-only.

[Sagara]

Yeah, feels pretty weird. 2 instances for 85-87, two more for 87-90. I would have guessed something closer to Cata with a couple covering the 86-88 range.

[Fetzie]

There are no level 90 non-heroic instances IIRC.

[Worldie]

They specifically said that "level cap normals" pretty much ended up making no sense since 90% of the playerbase just skips them with AH BoEs.

[Sagara]

Still, it feels odd havin so little instances on the way to cap. It felt different in Cata.
Then again, re-reading Wowpedia, we only had 4 instances to cap too, as LCoT, GB and HoO were ment to be cap-level dungeons.

WotLK had 8 to cap, and, amusingly, by the same metric, BC had 8 as well. BC was more numerous only in the number of cap-level dungeons at a whopping 7 at launch (against 4 for WotLK and 3 for Cata)

[Worldie]

Reasoning for Wotlk/TBC having 8 is that they had double of the levels to cover

[Sagara]

The thought NEVER crossed my mind *whistle*

Also amusing, BC had eventually 8 cap-level dungeons and 16 heroics, which WotLK eventually equaled. Cata, on the other hand, had 7 dungeons totals, but an impressive 14 heroics when the dust settled.

So a wild guess is we'll be again getting new 5-mans over time. I wonder if those will get a Challenge Mode (probably), and what the rewards will be (probably still cosmetic).

[Mannstein]

Back to topic:
Prot/ret
Aflic/Demo
Holy/Prot
Mark/BM
SP/Holy
Prot/Arms
Blood/Frost
Ele/Rest
Guardian/Rest
Only change at the end is that Main is Ret/Prot since lvl 10/40.

[KysenMurrin]

They specifically said that "level cap normals" pretty much ended up making no sense since 90% of the playerbase just skips them with AH BoEs.

Which is why I assumed there'd be normal modes below cap for all the new instances.

[stevos]

I leveled most of my alts through dungeons in Cata and it was bad enough only have what 6 to play with, 4 is going to be a killer. 85-88 was pretty quick on Beta but the final 2 levels are going slowly for me because i am having to run a dungeon balanced around level87.

So yeah Ret and questing seems best.

Saying that with less mana problems and no cd on WoG, prot leveling might be fun like it was in WotLK.

[Nikachelle]

Ugh, I hadn't realized about the lack of leveling dungeons. I like questing, but I always intersperse it with dungeons. My paladin's current specs are prot and holy... and I've got zero gear saved for ret so uh... shit. I'll probably just stick to leveling as prot I suppose (not like leveling holy was really an option).

[benebarba]

Paladins do it with protection.

This.

better leveling through AOE questing.

[Gab]

Seems like Ret is the way to go for leveling, much faster than prot. You can tank 4-5 mobs safely with sacred shield and some WoGs thrown in here and there. HotR + DS + SoR melts aoe packs from my experience so far in the beta (lvl 89).

And for all of the rare quality quest rewards you can choose which spec you get a reward for, it's only uncommon rewards that are automatically determined by your current spec it seems.