Dinging My Second 80

My paladin is 80 now (and still with Justicar Pauldrons and Brutal Gladiator's Ornamented Legplates), much sooner than I would've done if not for the Lunar Festival rush, but it's cool. Maybe I'll get some arena action in on him before season 5 is over, and since my guild has no other healer alts at 80, it looks he'll be in demand.

Leveling with him was a different experience from Hana and it's largely a product of the different times I leveled them. On Hana there was also a big push to 80, because Wrath had just come out, but because it had just come out there was a lot of running of instances and she ran almost everything as she leveled.

Also, because she was in a leveling crunch, she rarely had rested experience left by the end of any given night. She dinged 80 shortly after entering Sholazar Basin, and I was doing almost every quest I could get in each zone for achievement reasons.

With Gillien I primarily did rep quests. Though I still did both Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, I skipped anything that didn't give me rep unless it was just too damn convenient not to. I only did the Kalu'ak up to Honored, even though Hana had gotten to Revered just through quests, because I wasn't interested in most of their rep items as a holy paladin who occasionally tanks.

On Gillien I also had more rested experience to work with and ended up dinging 80 shortly after starting Zul'drak, a full zone behind my druid. (Going from HF/BT -> Dragonblight -> Grizzly Hills -> Zul'drak -> Sholazar Basin.) If I hadn't skipped quests I probably would have dinged back in Grizzly Hills, which I find just mind boggling. There are so many quests in Northrend it's really amazing how much content there is. My paladin has almost four full zones of quests left should I feel the pinch for gold.

But there are also things I feel I missed in my second leveling rush to 80. Because of the time sensitivity, I tended to skip instances and just quest, most of which I did late at night after raids. While I did tank a lot in the beginning while I was still gearing Hana, I stopped after Azjol-Nerub, and if there's one regret I have in leveling as fast as I did, it's that I didn't repeat my string of holy-spec tanking in Northrend that I had in Outland.

On a more spec-related line, I'm also disappointed I didn't heal very many instances either. I fear that once I step in my first heroic (which may be as soon as tonight after our Malygos-25 run) I may turn out to be a very stupid healer and there will be dead people all over the place.

My spellpower is 1300+ as a fresh 80, which I feel should be decent for the easier heroics, and with some help I should be able to gear up fast. Our guild often runs 10-man Naxx on Friday nights, and apparently there's a healer shortage for that kind of farm content so my newly 80 paladin may be drafted for raid duty a little sooner than expected. I'm pretty excited about going, assuming I feel geared for it when the time come. While I love the idea of picking up oodles of spellpower plate over the course of a one night Naxx clear, I don't want to feel like I'm completely freeloading.