bodhisattva wrote:
With changes to XP, both from quests and xp needed for each level being reduced its not even a matter of opinion anymore. Ret will get you to 80 faster.
^^
This.
Ever since they not only reduced the XP required to level, but also increased XP gained from quests until Outland (IIRC, they only reduced XP needed in Outland, but didn't modify kills/quests?), everyone knows that even moreso than Vanilla, Quests = Levelups.
The faster you get quests done, is the faster you will level. How do you get quests done faster? You travel faster (Pursuit of Justice), you kill the specific mobs asked for (Ret kills 1-2 mobs faster than Prot does), and return to the NPC (again, PoJ).
Prot leveling was good back in the days where grinding out 5+ mobs at once in the time it took a Ret Paladin to kill 2-3 earned the Prot Paladin better XP/hr while rested. It was most likely used by people who allowed Rested to build up (those leveling Paladin as an alt) and then would take their Prot Paladin into some area where there were large numbers of mobs to be found, and AoE ground them down for massive XP/hr.
But now, with quests giving more, and PoJ helping with travel times, any Ret is going to utterly kill a Prot pally's XP/hr, especially if the Prot pally run out of rested.
I keep preaching Pursuit of Justice, because I know first-hand just how much travel is involved in getting up to Lv60 (there's very little travel in Outland/Northrend as compared to Vanilla), especially in the late 40s to early 50s stretch where quests routinely ask you to go between Feralas, Tanaris, and Hinterlands (and Darnassus if you're Alliance). All of that travelling utterly kills your XP/hr, and unfortunately, many of those quests are chain quests, and some of them open up multiple quests later, but you have to do the chains... I kinda wish Blizz would shorten some of those, but oh well.