What class surprised you when you leveled it in World of Warcraft?

I have two level 50 Paladins now.

That is two more max-level Paladins than I have ever had. I’m sort of known for my obsessive leveling of the same class over and over again — I’ve leveled a lot of Warriors over the years, and I currently have four level 50 Warriors as well as a level 50 Death Knight. That lone DK was the class I thought I wanted to play on the side from my Warriors. I thought I loved tanking as a Blood DK enough that it would be enough for me to find it my most satisfying alt.

And then I leveled a Dark Iron Dwarf Paladin in Battle for Azeroth and I thought “This is surprisingly fun” — they’ve got a level of emergency reaction and response than I expected them to have, and Retribution was fun, if a metronomic. And then the Shadowlands level squish happened and the leveling changes made me think I should dust off some older alts and get them to max level. And for some reason, I decided to level my Draenei Paladin… after a quick trip to the barber and a revamp of their appearance, because they needed the help.

And then, suddenly, I was level 50. Running around judging things and smashing them in the face with a big hammer in Hellfire Peninsula, wearing the Jade Warrior Pauldrons, I dinged 50 turning in one of the Shatter Points quests. It just sort of happened. I was literally caught up in the whole experience of how Ret Paladin DPS works now, and while I’m terrible, I did enjoy it. A shocking amount, considering I already have a Paladin — but I mostly play her Holy, and I’m somewhat averse to healing in a PUG so I had no real idea of the class.

But I’m really enjoying my new Ret Pally. She’s crazy fun. I was wearing ilevel 48 when I hit 50, and I still managed to run around doing quests and killing stuff — I even did two of the Old God invasions geared in mostly ilevel 45 – 50 gear I’d picked up in Hellfire and I was very happy with the raw survivability and decent damage output I felt like I had. So now, I turn to you — have you leveled anyone that’s turned out to be a lot more fun than you were expecting after the Shadowlands changes?