The main source of damage for the Paladin is spells and melee. He doesn't have any special melee skills, but can dish out a great deal of damage through normal attacks alone. The damaging spells the Paladin has are actually Seals which he can put on himself. Having a Seal active is like having a buff, there are several types of Seals and each give all sorts of buffs. Releasing these Seals on to an enemy will cause massive damage. With those in mind, the best PvE build would have to be the Retribution tree. This tree specializes in melee and Seal efficiency. The Protection tree improves your defenses while the Holy tree improves heals and buffs. It's best to go full Retribution with a little exception, the first 5 talent points you get should be trained in Divine Strength in the Protection Tree. I've seen this in my leveling guide and in some other Paladin leveling guide a friend has.

In the Retribution tree, start with Benediction and just work yourself down, don't train Deflection. I've read in a World of Warcraft Paladin leveling guide that as you are after damage, Deflection is just a waste of points. On the second horizontal line, specc all of those abilities to maximum level and then go down the middle line. This spec is best used in solo leveling. That is very good considering that a guide in World of Warcraft focuses on quests and quests are meant to be soloed. The Paladin is a very strong class so any gear will be fine. The best gear to have because of stats and relatively low price is the green Bear set. This set will concentrate on Stamina and Strength. Those are the only two attributes that are needed, besides armor of course. Money need to be invested in the best weapons available. The weapon of choice needs to be two-handers. Wearing a shield and a one-hand weapon as a Ret Paladin is just wrong.