Hooray. Outland. Now this is the real home stretch. This, at least for now, is where most of your adventures will happen. After slogging through the first 20 levels, grinding up to the landmark 40, surviving the boring trek to 50, and eventually making it to The Burning Crusade content, the time has finally come to make that final push. You should probably celebrate a little, because from here on forth you will get new trainable abilities at every level so don't forget to pay your trainers a visit. Although odd-numbered levels usually have higher ranks of old, little-used spells, so it's not a huge deal to skip training between levels. Besides, the first few levels in Outland are such a breeze that you can hit a few levels without getting a chance to visit the old world.

By this time, you really should be riding around on your pimpin' new mount. For Horde players, it's extra special because the Blood Knights get a tabard that's second in coolness only to the Tabard of the Shattered Sun, so there's every reason to complete the quest chain. If you entered Outland at level 58, questing in Hellfire Peninsula should get you past 60 in a very short time. The experience gains from quests are vastly superior to the quests in the old world, as well as gives heftier Gold rewards. This is important because you should be saving your money as early as now (if not sooner) in order to afford flight training.

Poster Tamerland from The Scryers posted an interesting nugget to consider over at the Paladin forums today, stating unequivocally that the Alliance will be getting the Blood Elf-only Seal of Blood in Patch 2.4. Conversely, the Horde should be receiving Seal of Vengeance. What's the big deal, you ask? Well, Alliance Retribution Paladins have been crying for Seal of Blood because it has, with numerous calculations, proven to be the superior PvE DPS Seal. In light of the removal of spell damage in Retribution gear and the focus on Strength (and consequently Attack Power), this has become less of a debate and more of a simple fact. Furthermore, Seal of Blood inflicts damage on the Paladin, which is absolutely great as this is incredibly synergistic with Spiritual Attunement, allowing Ret Pallies to regenerate mana as they're healed. While Seal of Vengeance has been argued to be an excellent tanking seal, Horde Paladin tanks have coasted along fine with Seal of Righteousness.

Up until now, Alliance Retribution Paladins have had to balance spell damage along with other stats to optimize Seal of Command while Horde Ret Pallies happily picked up, um... *cough* Warrior gear. If the changes in 2.4 push through, the removal of spell damage severely gimps Seal of Command for PvE and consequently, raiding Alliance Retribution Paladins (yes, such things exist, believe it or not). Tamerland says that the writing is on the wall, and from the lore-shaking changes glimpsed on the PTR, his claims don't seem too far off. The chained up Naaru in the Blood Knights' basement is gone, and the lovely Lady Liadrin (I had to editorialize that. We swore these blood oaths, you know.) comes to Shattrath City to pledge allegiance to A'dal, who welcomes the Light-stealing, Naaru-shackling, demon-blood using Blood Knight matriarch in a totally WWJD moment. The stage really does seem set for such a change, and it wouldn't be the first time that Blizzard has shaken things up in order to balance things out. Paladins were formerly an Alliance-only class once upon a time, after all. Personally, I'm stoked at the possibility. I'm not too thrilled about the Alliance getting Seal of Blood ("my... precious..."), but if it does happen, it means Blizzard is actually listening to its community -- even if they don't say anything most of the time.