Is the (Holy) Paladin the better Warrior?

[Tal]

Paladin will level faster but you may grow bored rather quickly.
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Post 40 the levelling speed slows down dramatically.

[Treesh]

While the interface is turned off, I naturally cannot use any of the Warrior's special attacks, i.e. Heroic Strike, Rend, Sunder Armor, Thunderclap etc, so he just fights automatically using the normal attack with the occasional, automatically generated Critical Strikes and Enrage in between.
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That is just odd. I can still cast heals and spells with Aleri when I turn off her interface for screen shots. I'll have to play around with one of my warriors and see.

[Kevin]

A far as Warriors goes, I've made an interesting observation:

I often make in-game screenshots for my personal game archive, during which I switch off the interface (Alt+Z). While the interface is turned off, I naturally cannot use any of the Warrior's special attacks, i.e. Heroic Strike, Rend, Sunder Armor, Thunderclap etc, so he just fights automatically using the normal attack with the occasional, automatically generated Critical Strikes and Enrage in between. The funny thing is, when I'm done taking screenshots (monster is dead) and I turn on the interface again, that the Warrior has 1.) a full Rage bar (because no special attacks were used) and 2.) he has almost the same hitpoints (damage taken) as if I had used all special attacks in a fully controlled fight! Also, the fight hardly took longer than with the special attacks, which leads me to believe that the Warior's special atttacks, with the exception of crowd control, are just cool looking special effects with hardly an effect as far as DPS is concerned :)
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You can use the special abilities with the interface turned off if they are bound to a hotkey and you press that key. I do that with Gnolack at times. If you know your hotkeys well enough you can play with the interface down.

[mjdoom]

Paladin will level faster but you may grow bored rather quickly.
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First I must say, I've never gotten a pally past low 20s (in beta and I have a 19 in retail). That said, ask anyone on Stormrage and you will know that I have levelled my warrior extremely quickly and a solid majority of his playtime has been solo. He has occasionally picked up some duos and of course has run all of the instances with groups but still soloing has been mostly his way of life. A few notes:

- He has had the benefit of an older brother and a great guild to help him with some green equipment along the way (most blues have come from instance runs). A warrior's equipment is very important to him so this is not to be overlooked.

- Once you learn your limits and know the layout of the game dying is not really that much of a problem. My deaths are relatively infrequent and mostly happen in clumps when I get it set in my mind that I am going to keep trying some difficult task until I get it. Still, my experience with getting a previous character to 60 helped me learn the lay of the land and this helps a lot. With a warrior your high armor will allow you to run away fairly well. That combined with hamstring/piercing howl will let you run away from bad situations fairly well as long as you make the assessment that running is your best option early enough.

There is nothing to be ashamed of if you run away a bunch. Then you can just med up and try that pull again, using what you learned the first time.

- The only offensive (by way of extra damage) talents I have taken thus far (56 now) have been cruelty for crit chance and improved overpower, that's it! Keep in mind I previously levelled a disc/holy priest to 60 so my tolerance for level speed might be higher than most, but I've still been able to level my warrior quickly enough for my tastes with a protection oriented build.

- The biggest factor in the discussion of levelling speed is questing efficiency IMHO. This is really my most important point. Knowing the game; where the quests are, what order to do them in, what ones will give you decent rewards, etc. is a humongous boon to levelling speed. Some of the things that Bolty talked about in his power-levelling guide come into play here. I don't consider myself to be rushing my character to 60 (although I am focused on it) as I still get to "see" everything (although I burned through a few instances just once because I don't like them as much :P) and do a lot of the quests and other things in the game. I still get distracted by guild chat and private conversations, but the fact that I know where to go and a good order to do things in is the number one factor in my levelling speed.

Due to this I'm not sure that you can really make arguments on the levelling speed of these two classes (or even any two classes). Familiarity with the game is the biggest factor from my perspective, not the class you are playing.

I do think that pallies are relatively "safer" for solo play as they have myriad panic buttons to save your bacon and thus excellent survivability. Still, if you are already familiar with the game I think you can be just as safe with a warrior in many cases. It just requires more awareness of the situations you are in.

- mjdoom