The path to:

Retribution

A guide on how to smash face

(updated 10/01/08)

Written by Korec.

Help from: Fenarian, Ellach, Cylesta, Archellion, and Semyazza

Index:

I:Introduction to the guide

II:Race Selection

III:Useful professions.

IV:Leveling as Retribution.

V:Talents for Retribution.

VI:Your Seals, what they do, and where to use them.

VII:DPS'ing as Retribution,

VIII:Gearing for Karahzan and Beyond.

IX: Wrath of the Lich King: Changes and edits

X:Tips, Tricks, Useful macro's.

XI:FAQ's (Expertise and Haste here)

I:Introduction to the guide.

First of all, I would like to welcome you to the World of Warcraft, if this is your first character, or “toon” as they will be called throughout this guide. A few other common abbreviations that you will see throughout the guide will be AP, Str, Stam, Int, Crit, and Hst. In short, Hst is Haste Rating, AP is attack power, Str is strength, stam is stamina, int is intellect, and crit is critical strike rating. This guide is meant to help you better gear your Retribution or “Ret” Paladin to do as much damage as he/she can, and have an enjoyable time with your character. The following parts of the guides are suggestions on what to do, the final decision is up to you and you alone.

II:Races

There are currently four playable races that can be Paladins. These are Draenei, Humans, Dwarfs, and Blood Elves. Three of the races are Alliance, Blood Elves being the only Horde race that can be paladins. A quick glance at the table below indicates a few pieces of information that are valuable for the first few levels, and will make a small difference in the future.

Race	Strength	Agility	Stamina	Intellect	Spirit	Armor	Health	Mana
Human	22	20	22	20	22	42	58	80
Dwarf	24	16	25	19	20	34	88	79
Blood Elf	19	22	20	24	20	48	38	140
Draenei	23	17	21	21	23	36	48	95

The first and foremost important stat of a Retribution Paladin is their attack power, which is determined by strength*2 (2.2 with a talent, but that will be discussed later). A human starts with 44, a dwarf with 48, a blood elf with 38, and a draenei with 46. However, this is balanced by agility, which results in crit. It is to the best of my opinion that the best retribution paladin's are Horde Blood Elf Paladins due to the fact they are very well balanced with stats and have a few very nice racial and faction based abilities. This can be changed if you have friends that only play Alliance however, as it is very little fun to play alone. There are certain racial abilities that also might help you pick out just what race you wish your paladin to be.

Alliance

Faction specific seal: Seal of Vengeance:A rather useless damage dealing seal,the following is its tool tip: Fills the Paladin with holy power, granting each melee attack a chance to cause 150 Holy damage over 15 sec. This effect can stack up to 5 times. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts 30 sec.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing 120 Holy damage per application of Holy Vengeance. This seal is nigh useless for damage as retribution.

Human:

Perception - active Activate to dramatically increase stealth detection - Lasts 20 sec - 3 min cooldown

The Human Spirit - passive Increase Spirit by 10%
Diplomacy - passive 10% bonus to faction point gain
Sword Specialization - passive Expertise with Swords and Two-Handed Swords increased by 5.
Mace Specialization - passive Expertise with Maces and Two-Handed Maces increased by 5.

Perception in short makes rogues rather easy to kill, diplomacy makes nasty rep grinds a bit easier to manage, and the expertise off the weapon specs help with the dodges/parries you will encounter as you attack.

Dwarf:

	Stone form - active While active, grants immunity to Bleed, Poison, and Disease effects. In addition, Armor increases by 10%. Lasts 8 sec. - 3 min cool down
	Gun Specialization - passive Your chance to critically hit with Guns is increased by 1%
	Frost Resistance - passive All Dwarves get +10 Frost Resistance
	Find Treasure-activate Activate to see treasure chests on mini map - lasts until canceled - no cooldown

Stoneform is the only reason racially you would roll a dwarf paladin besides for looks or role playing reasons. This increases your armor by a decent amount, and can offer a few more points of mitigation. More importantly, it makes rogues a bit more manageable, as you are immune to their most dangerous debuffs.

Draenei:

	Gemcutting - passive Jewel crafting skill increased by 5.
		e
Gift of the Naaru - active Heals the target 50 + 15/Level over 15 sec - 40 yd range - 1.5 sec cast - 3 min cool down.
	Inspiring Presence (Mages/Priest/Shaman) - passive Increases chance to hit with spells by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards.
	Heroic Presence(Hunter/Paladin/Warrior)-passive Increases chance to hit by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards.
	Shadow Resistance - passive Shadow Resistance increased by 10.

For buffs, this is the race to roll with Alliance side if you are rolling for raids as their additional aura for + hit is loved and can buff your group by a large amount. However, for solo PVP or PVE, their heal over time is less stellar than a flash of light, making them slightly less stellar.

Horde

Faction seal: Seal of Blood: Seal of Blood's tool tip is the following All melee attacks deal additional Holy damage equal to 35% of normal weapon damage, but the Paladin loses health equal to 10% of the total damage inflicted.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing 295 to 325 Holy damage at the cost of health equal to 33% of the damage caused. This is one of two seals that can do DPS and will be discussed later in the guide.

Blood Elf:

Arcane Affinity- passive Enchanting skill increased by 10.
Arcane Torrent: Priest/Paladin/Warlock/Mage/Hunter - active Silences all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec. In addition, you gain 5 + 1/Level Mana restored per Mana Tap charge currently affecting you - Instant - 2 min cool down.
Arcane Torrent: Rogue only - active Silences all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec. In addition, you gain 10 Energy for each Mana Tap charge currently affecting you - Instant - 2 min cool down.
Magic resistance - passive All resistances increased by 5.
Mana tap - active Reduces target's mana by 51 and charges you with Arcane energy for 10 min. This effect stacks up to 3 times. Amount of mana reduced is 50 + 1/Level - 30 yd range - Instant - 30 sec cooldown.

Mana tap and Arcane torrent are decent racials for both PVE and PVP. When you mana tap, it drains a small portion of the target's mana, and can stack on you up to three times. When you release it, it gives you mana, and does an AoE silence, this is useful to interrupt heals and in PVE, help mobs be grouped.

My personal choice:

Personally, I chose to be a Blood Elf. Their racials appealed to me from both a PVE and a PVP standpoint, enabling a small burst of mana, a silence, and their seal, Seal of Blood. Horde Blood Elf's have more versatility, but in the end, the decision is up to you, as it is thought in some upcomming patch the seal will be available to each faction.

III:Professions.

Production Professions :

***** equals how high I rate them, five *'s being best, one * being worst.

Blacksmithing:This unlocks the options for either three weapons that can last you until the Twinblade of the Pheonix. Alternatively, this can give you a very nice chest plate, which can last you until Vashj, or Heroic Magister's Terrace.

Ranked:****

Engineering: Engineering has an item which will last you until the end of the game. You craft goggles for yourself, which are later upgradeable. The final version of these goggles are the best head piece in the game for a retribution paladin.

Ranked:*****

Tailoring:Mostly good for the crafting of expensive goods that clothie or healing classes wish to posses. An alternative is crafting bags like mad and selling them off for cheap prices for good amounts of gold.

Rank*

Alchemy:Creates potions that up certain stats each, mana potions and heath potions to heal you and keep your mana up so you can continue aggressively attacking. Non withstanding, you also gain a Alchemy stone which increases how effective those potions are, upping them an additional 40%. The alchemy stone is less of a deal for horde paladin's, yet a larger deal for Alliance, because they tend to run out of mana quicker due to lack of mana regeneration from spiritual attunement (their seal doesn't hurt them).

Rank:**/**** Alliance

Leather working: Overall, not a great profession for a retribution paladin, you can create a few nice items, but generally, people frown on those who can be in plate wearing mail.

Rank:*

Jewel crafting:This profession, lets you break ore into gems, and allows you to cut gems into gems that can be put into slots. Jewel crafting can make the best neck piece in the game for retribution paladins.

Rank:****

Enchanting: This enables you to take random greens, blues, and purples that you get during leveling, instances, and raids, and allows you to break them down into components you use to enchant. You cannot get your item back. However, due to ring enchants, which is enchanting specific, it becomes much higher rated.

Rank:*****

Gathering Professions: All of these make a lot of money.

Mining: Mine ore for Engineers, Blacksmiths, and Jewel crafters.

Skinning: Gathers pelts and skins for leather workers to use.

Herbalism: Gather mats for alchemists to use.

IV:Leveling as Retribution

Leveling as Retribution is rather simplistic, there are only a few things that you must remember throughout leveling.

1. Your two hander must be 3.5 or slower, this is to maximize the procs of seal of command.

2. Do not use bubble unless you absolutely must, fighting two mobs at once is not important enough, unless you are at 10% mana, and you are about to die.

3. Keep your aura's up all the time, as simplistic as this sounds, it is a common thing to forget and it really does impede leveling speed.

4. Bless yourself with wisdom. Yes, might is nice for how much harder you crit, but the mp5 that wisdom gives you is much more beneficial in that you can keep grinding with less drinking.

5. Don't bother to judge seal of command unless the mod is stunned using hammer of justice. The damage on it when the mob is not stunned is beyond mediocre.

Five simple rules, other than that, its just a mindless attack cycle of auto attacking mobs until level 50 when you gain Crusader Strike. From there your spec should look as follows

Level 50 Paladin (0/0/41)

Holy (0 points)

None

Protection (0 points)

None

Retribution (41 points)

Improved Blessing of Might - Rank 1/5
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 4%.

Benediction - Rank 5/5
Reduces the Mana cost of your Judgement and Seal spells by 15%.

Improved Judgement - Rank 2/2
Decreases the cooldown of your Judgement spell by 2 sec.

Improved Seal of the Crusader - Rank 3/3
In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement of the Crusader spell will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 3%.

Conviction - Rank 5/5
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 5%.

Seal of Command - Rank 1/1
Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to 70% of normal weapon damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts 30 sec.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing 228 to 252 Holy damage, 456 to 504 if the target is stunned or incapacitated.

Crusade - Rank 3/3
Increases all damage caused against Humanoids, Demons, Undead and Elementals by 3%.

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - Rank 3/3
Increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 6%.

Sanctity Aura - Rank 1/1
Increases Holy damage done by party members within 30 yards by 10%. Players may only have one Aura on them per Paladin at any one time.

Improved Sanctity Aura - Rank 2/2
The amount of damage caused by targets affected by Sanctity Aura is increased by 2%.

Vengeance - Rank 5/5
Gives you a 5% bonus to Physical and Holy damage you deal for 30 sec after dealing a critical strike from a weapon swing, spell, or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.

Sanctified Judgment - Rank 3/3
Gives your Judgment spell a 100% chance to return 80% of the mana cost of the judged seal.

Repentance - Rank 1/1
Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation for up to 6 sec. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Only works against Humanoids.

Fanaticism - Rank 5/5
Increases the critical strike chance of all Judgments capable of a critical hit by 15% and reduces threat caused by all actions by 30% except when under the effects of Righteous Fury.

Crusader Strike - Rank 1/1
An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage and refreshes all Judgements on the target.

That gives you your basic needs, from there, I kept selecting certain talents until 70, which finally had my spec looking exactly like the following.

Level 70 Paladin (5/8/48)

Holy (5 points)

Divine Strength - Rank 5/5
Increases your total Strength by 10%

Protection (8 points)

Improved Devotion Aura - Rank 5/5
Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 40%.

Precision - Rank 3/3
Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons and spells by 3%.

Retribution (48 points)

Improved Blessing of Might - Rank 5/5
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 20%.

Benediction - Rank 5/5
Reduces the Mana cost of your Judgment and Seal spells by 15%.

Improved Judgment - Rank 2/2
Decreases the cool down of your Judgment spell by 2 sec.

Improved Seal of the Crusader - Rank 3/3
In addition to the normal effect, your Judgment of the Crusader spell will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 3%.

Conviction - Rank 5/5
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 5%.

Seal of Command - Rank 1/1
Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to 70% of normal weapon damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts 30 sec.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing 228 to 252 Holy damage, 456 to 504 if the target is stunned or incapacitated.

Crusade - Rank 3/3
Increases all damage caused against Humanoids, Demons, Undead and Elementals by 3%.

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - Rank 3/3
Increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 6%.

Sanctity Aura - Rank 1/1
Increases Holy damage done by party members within 30 yards by 10%. Players may only have one Aura on them per Paladin at any one time.

Improved Sanctity Aura - Rank 2/2
The amount of damage caused by targets affected by Sanctity Aura is increased by 2%.

Vengeance - Rank 5/5
Gives you a 5% bonus to Physical and Holy damage you deal for 30 sec after dealing a critical strike from a weapon swing, spell, or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.

Sanctified Judgment - Rank 3/3
Gives your Judgment spell a 100% chance to return 80% of the mana cost of the judged seal.

Sanctified Seals - Rank 3/3
Increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and melee attacks by 3% and reduces the chance your Seals will be dispelled by 100%.

Repentance - Rank 1/1
Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation for up to 6 sec. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Only works against Humanoids.

Fanaticism - Rank 5/5
Increases the critical strike chance of all Judgments capable of a critical hit by 15% and reduces threat caused by all actions by 30% except when under the effects of Righteous Fury.

Crusader Strike - Rank 1/1
An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage and refreshes all Judgements on the target.

At 70, which is also the standard raiding spec, which will be discussed more in the next section of the guide.

V:Reasons for Talents.

5/8/48 is the standard raiding retribution talent spec. The points in divine strength "Increase your strength by 10%." This will make all attack power instead of 2.0 give you a 2.2 co-efficient, a minor boost at first, but in the end, once you amass around 1000 attack power, your attack power is boosted by 100. Improved blessing of might boosts the attack power bonuses of your blessing by 20% in the end. Benediction makes your judgments more mana efficient, which is handy because you will have a small mana pool. Judgment reduces the cool down on your judgment spells by 2 seconds, again, buffing your DPS by a small amount.



Improved Seal of the Crusader, all attacks on this target while afflicted by this seal will gain an additional three percent chance to crit . Must have talent, your raid's, your pug's, everyone loves it, its a moonkin for everyone.




Conviction gives you an additional 5% chance to crit with all melee attacks. Seal of Command is also your primary form of DPS unless your are a horde paladin, then seal of blood should mostly always be used. This is useful for Curator, and Prince as Seal of Blood hurts you. While this might seem bad at first, with a healer in the raid group, they will heal the damage, thus, via spiritual attunement, you will be getting mana back. Seal of Command is to be used for questing and PVP.

Next three points go into crusader, 3% more damage onto all humanoids, demons, and undead, as most mobs in raid's and all PVP'rs fall under this category, its a must have for you crack addled DPS bunnies.

Two handed weapon spec, increases all damage done by your two handers by 6% when max'd out, need I say more? Sanctity Aura is important for you at the moment (patch 2.323 might change this mind you) as it buffs holy damage done by 10% which your CS and JoB take their coefficients out of, 2/2 improved sanctity aura buffs all damage those in your group do by 2% total.

Vengeance, after you crit, your holy damage AND physical damage, will go up by 5%, this effect stacks three times. A HUGE damage buff, and seeing as how you will eventually have a crit chance of 30% (or that's the idea in the future), you will constantly be keeping this up. Improved Judgment when maxed gives you a 100% chance to have 50% of the mana of your judgments returned, nothing bad or wrong about it, will help you last during the longer boss fights.

Repentance puts a targeted humanoid in a sleeping/stunned state for 6 seconds, not overly useful for PVE, but the talent it unlocks is needed . Sanctified seals grants you 3% more crit chance with all attacks, and they will be impossible to dispel.

Fanaticism increases the chance to crit for all judgments that CAN possibly crit by 15%, and reduces all threat you generate by 30% unless you are under the effects of Righteous Fury.

Crusader Strike

Currently this talent gives you an instant strike capable of procc'ing everything minus your seals that do damage. This is your main attack other than judgments and auto attacks. Also it refreshes ALL judgments on the target, the healing paladins now able to judge their seals for the raid to enjoy.

VI:Your seals, what they do and where to use them.

As retribution you have only a few useful seals, and they will be the only ones discussed, stupid seals that have no use to a ret paladin will be ignored and discarded.

Seal of Crusader: When talented, this increases holy damage taken by 219 and critical chance of all attacks done to the afflicted target by three percent. This should be judged on all targets the group is focused, bosses, trash mobs, you name it, this is the primary reason you are in the group.

Seal of Wisdom/Light: These are used when there is either no healing/tanking paladin in the group, or if the healers are being bitchy and refuse to judge this. Wisdom has priority over light, because this restores mana on attacks, giving the attackers a reliable source of mp5. This is your primary way to restore mana if you are Alliance.

Seal of Blood:THE damage dealing Seal, best in the game over command, due to much theory crafting which is honestly a waste of time due to the fact, if you understand it, you shouldn't be reading a guide, and if you don't then it won't make any sense to you either. It hurts you which sounds terrible. However, this is not the case, because when you get hurt, you get heals, and when you get heals, you get mana due to spiritual attunement. Haste helps its DPS grow, and top end weapon damage is the most important thing to look at when judging its usefulness.

Seal of Command:This is the alternative to Seal of Blood, however, this is based off random proc's, which require a slower weapon to make the most out of the proc's, ideally, 3.5 or slower. This takes some coefficients off of spell damage, which we now (thankfully) lack.

Seal of Justice:When judged, it slows the afflicted down, this is useful for PVP when dealing with restoration (healing) druids.

VII:DPS'ing as retribution

Your DPS cycle is rather basic in PVE solo, and should be the following

Seal of Command – Auto Attack – Hammer of Justice – Crusader Strike – Judgment

In a group situation, it changes only very slightly.

Seal of Blood – Auto Attack – Crusader Strike – Judgment.

This is due to the fact Seal of Blood gets no buff from being judged on stunned targets.

If there are undead mobs, you can change it by adding a Exorcism in there post auto attack pre-crusader strike. to up your damage against them.

VIII:Gearing for Karazhan

There are not many retribution paladin items that are exactly needed but they will help you break into the raiding area.

1. Leg guards of the Shattered Hand: BOE : Blue. These have a healthy amount of strength on them, but their real use is their massive amount of hit that will keep you with a death grip on hit cap for quite some time.

2. PVP gear. Honestly, there is no better stuff pre-kara then PVP gear, s1 or s2 as s2 will be going to honor when the next arena season starts. I highly recommend getting the weapon first, then set epics, moving onto non set. With most of it enchanted you can hit the hit cap with the leg guards, enchants, and the little amount on your blade.

3. Gems. +12 Agility, 3% more crit damage meta. +8/+10 strength red gems, +8 crit rating gems yellow, stam/ap gems that are purple, to keep your meta gem working.

4. Enchant your weapon with savagery for t4 content, mongoose for t5 weapons and executioner on a t6 level raiding weapon, due to the fact that armor debuffs become much more common, and eventually, you will hit that boss as though his armor is zero. The reason for savagery instead of mongoose is rather simple, why would you spend an excessive amount of gold on a weapon you might replace in a week? Tier 5 weapons last much longer, and there are only three viable t6 weapons at the moment that are valuable for ret paladins, so the mat cost gets mitigated with lasting quality.

IX:Useful tricks and macros

• Cap at 30% crit, going higher has a use, but its gimping your attack power. This amount of crit will keep vengeance at three stacks all the time in a raid situation.
  

• /cast blessing of sacrifice(rank 4)[target=”maintankname”] that will cast blessing of sacrifice on the main tank of your guild, who is getting pummeled on by the boss, and a amount of damage gets taken away from the damage he takes, and pulled to you, resulting in heals.

• A little amount of splash damage that will not kill you, will only make you stronger, take only one tick, ask for a small heal, if the fight is healer intensive as it is, do not do this, just on fights that run you oom very quickly.

• Pop this macro when you have 3 stacks of vengeance, you have room for threat, you've just melee'd, judgement, and CS is off cool down.
  

/use (dps trinket)

/cast avenging wrath

/use swiftness potion

X:FAQs

Q:I don't seem to be pulling all that much damage, whats wrong?

A:Your a ret paladin, if your gear is crappy, your DPS will be worse than a BM hunter with no pet.

Q:My guild doesn't let me DPS! They say I have to heal or leave.

A:Either beg them to reconsider and request to be in the melee group (you, feral druid, bm hunter, shaman, warrior works best) or leave the guild if its that big a deal for you

Q:I can't find a group for five mans

A:You really don't need to do five mans minus for rep, and if you can get in the guild that lets you raid as ret, they typically will invite you to a five man heroic or two, or, just get a prot paladin friend.

Q:Ret paladin's can't do DPS.

A:ASSUMPTION WITH NO MATHEMATICAL PROOF! If you pull up the armory of some retribution paladin who is stacked with all greens and blues, then its like linking a fury warrior with the same type of gear, excessive gear dependency is the cause of this.

Q:What is expertise for and should I am to cap it? What is the cap?

A:Expertise is the chance a mob will dodge/parry/block your attacks. A mob can only block/parry if you are in front of them, which you should never be unless to eat a cleave to get some mana back. Expertise gets capped at 87.36 points of expertise rating, which, in honesty is not worth it. In later raids, you will be able to pick up expertise on random items, however, it is not worth dropping ap and crit for, as most of the expertise loot is tanking gear.

Q:Isn't Haste terrible for Ret paladins?

A:Yes and no, for the following reason. Haste effectively makes your attacks faster, this throws off a slow two hander's proc rate of seal of command, effectively, a waste of time for an Alliance Ret paladin who's damage dealer is command. A Horde Paladin, haste is amazing, as it speeds up attacks. More attacks = more Seal of Blood hits = more damage to you/mob = more dps/heals thus mana.

How to retribution in Wrath of the Lich King

Wrath of the Lich King
(as retribution)

Index:
I: Changes to Talents
II:Changes to Abilities
III: New Abilities (and correlation to retribution)
IV: New Talents
V: Spec choices
VI: DPS rotation and rationale behind it.
VII: Inscription

I :Changes to Talents

Bendecition:
Burning Crusade:15% (5% per rank) mana cost reduction on judgement and seals
Wrath of the Lich King: 15% (5% per rank) decrease in mana cost to all instant abilities
Buff or Nerf: Buff

Improved Blessing of Might:
Burning Crusade: 20% (4% per rank) AP bonus to blessing of might
Wrath of the Lich King: 25%(5% per rank) AP bonus to blessing of might, moved to tier two retribution.
Buff or Nerf: Buff

Heart of the Crusader:
Burning Crusade: Named Improved Judgment of the Crusader, in addition to the + holy damage it increases the chances of all attacks on target to crit by 3% (1% per rank).
Wrath of the Lich King: Named Heart of the Crusader, in addition to your current judgement, all attack your judgments increase the critical strike chance of all attacks on that target by 3% (1% per rank).
Buff or Nerf: Massive buff, allows us to keep Light/Wisdom/Justice judged.

Pursuit of Justice:
Burning Crusade: Increases movement speed by 15% (5% per rank) and reduces the chance you will be hit by spells by 3%.
Wrath of the Lich King: Increases movement speed by 15% (7.5% per rank) and reduces the duration of all disarm effects by 50%.
Buff or Nerf: Buff for ret, if you're getting killed by a aggro based spell, don't pull aggro, buff for PVP as well, getting disarmed is one of our major weaknesses.

Crusade:
Burning Crusade: Increases damage done to Humanoids, Elementals, Undead, and demons by 3% (1% per rank).
Wrath of the Lich Kng: Increases damage done by 3% and damage done to Humanoids, Elementals, Undead, and demons by an additional 3%. (1% per rank).
Buff or Nerf: Buff.

Sanctified Retribution:
Burning Crusade: Named Sanctity Aura, increases holy damage by 10%, Improved Sancity Aura increases damage done by group members by 2% (Three total talent points)
Wrath of the Lich king: Sanctified Retribution, increases damage done by those affected by Sanctity Aura by 2%, holy damage increase folded into all pertinent abilities.
Buff or Nerf: Buff.



Vengance:
Burning Crusade: Gives you a 5% (1% per rank) increase to holy and physical damage after you crit on an offensive ability, stacks up to 3 times.
Wrath of the Lich King: Gives you a 3% (1 per rank) increase to holy and physical damage after you crit on an offensive ability, stacks up to three times.
Buff or Nerf: Nerf.

Improved Retribution Aura
Burning Crusade: Increases damage done by your Retribution Aura by 50% (25% per rank)
Wrath of the Lich King: Lowered two teirs.
Buff or Nerf: Position change

Sanctified Seals:
Burning Crusade: Increases the chance to crit on all seals by 3% and reduces the chance your seals will be dispelled by 100%
Wrath of the Lich King: Moved up three teirs, only change.
Buff or Nerf: Neither, just a position move

Divine Purpose:
Burning Crusade: Reduces the damage done by critical strikes against you by 10% (4%,7%,10%)
Wrath of the Lich King : Raised two teirs, reduces the chance you will be hit by ranged attacks and spells by 4%, your hand of freedom spell has a 100% chance to remove a stun from your target.
Buff or Nerf: Nerf.

Repantance:
Burning Crusade: Incapacitates a target, breaks on damage, only useable on humanoids with a 6 second duration.
Wrath of the Lich King: Incapacitates a target, breaks on damage, useable on humans, undead, dragonkin, and demons. 60 second duration.
Buff or Nerf: Buff.

Fanatacisim:
Burning Crusade: Increases the critical strike chance of all judgements capable of critting by 15% (3 % per rank) and reduces the amount of aggro generated by 30% (6% per rank) unless under righteous fury.
Wrath of the Lich King: Increases the critical strike chance of all judgements capable of critting by 25% (5 % per rank) and reduces the amount of aggro generated by 30% (6% per rank) unless under righteous fury.

Precison (protection spec'd talent):
Burning Crusade: Increases chance to hit by 3%(1% per rank), requires 5 points in protection
Wrath of the Lich King: Removed
Buff or Nerf: Nerf

Divine Strength (Holy talent):
Burning Crusade: Increases strength by 10% (2% per rank)
Wrath of the Lich King: Increases strength by 15% (3% per rank). Moved to protection
Buff or Nerf: Buff

II :Changes to Abilities

Avenging Wrath
Burning Crusade:Increases all damage caused by 30% for 20 sec, procs forbearance, and has a three minute cooldown.
Wrath of The Lich King: Increases damage and healing by 20% for 20 seconds, does not proc forbearance, has a three minute cooldown.
Buff or Nerf: Buff for PVP (can wings and bubble at once), Nerf for PVE (less total damage).

Holy Wrath
Burning Crusade: Two second cast time, does 635 - 745 holy damage getting coefficients off spell damage, does damage to all demons/undead within twenty yards 60 second cooldown.
Wrath of the Lich King: Instant cast time, does 777 holy damage with bonus damage off attack power and spell damage to all demons/undead within twenty yards. Also stuns them, 30 second cooldown.

Consecrate:
Burning Crusade: Rank 6 does512 + 100% spell damage over 8 seconds.
Wrath of the Lich King: Rank 6 does 576 holy damage + (Attack power*.32)+(Spelldamage*.32) = toal damage.


Lay on Hands
Burning Crusade: Rank 5 consumes all your mana, healing your target for your maximum health, giving them 900 mana as well, 60 minute cooldown.
Wrath of the Lich King: Rank 5 uses no mana, heals your trget for your maximum health, giving them 900 mana as well, 20 minute cool down.

Hammer of Justice
Burning Crusade: Stuns your target for 6 seconds
Wrath of the Lich King: Stuns your target for 6 seconds and silences the target for 4 seconds

Blessing of Sacrifice
Burning Crusade: Transfers 104 damage taken by the target to the paladin, lasts for 30 seconds
Wrath of the Lich King: Hand of Sacrifice, 30% of the damage the target takes gets transfered to the paladin, lasts for 12 seconds.

Blessing of Freedom
Burning Crusade: Grants immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 sec
Wrath of the Lich King: Hand of Freedom, grans immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 sec

Blessing of Salvation
Burning Crusade: Reduces the amount of all threat generated by 30%, lasts 10 minutes.
Wrath of the Lich King: Hand of Salvation, reduces targets total threat by 2% every 1 sec. for 10 sec.

Blessing of Light
Burning Crusade: Increases amount healed by 200
Wrath of the Lich King: Folded into all healing spells.

Judgement
Burning Crusade: Unleashes a seals energy on a target, granting a debuff depending on seal juedged.
Wrath of the Lich King:

• Judgment of Wisdom: Restores 9% of AP + 9% of Spell Power of maximum mana to the attacker.
• Judgement of Light: Attacks restore [18% of AP + 18% of Spell Power] health to the attacker.
  
• Judgement of Justice: Reduces the targets movement speed, and caps it at 100%

Hammer of Wrath
Burning Crusade : does 665-735 damage, .5 second cast, usable when a target is under 20% health.
Wrath of the Lich King: does [ 15% of AP + 15% of Spell Power + 733 ] Holy damage, instant cast, 6 second cooldown, useable when target is under 35% health.

III :New Abilities (and correlation to abilities)

Sacred Shield
Rank 1 80 Each time the target takes damage they gain a Sacred Shield, absorbing 500 damage and increasing the paladin's chance to critically hit with Flash of Light by 50% for up to 6 sec. They cannot gain this effect more than once every 6 sec. Lasts 30 sec.
12% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast

Pertinence to Retribution: Throw a shield up on yourself, doing a little less than a priests bubble. Whenever you get a art of war proc, you should cast flash of light on yourself while this shield is active, with a 30% spell crit chance (spell crit and melee crit now are the same stat), it will be a 80% crit chance on your heal. This in turn, if it crits, will give a heal over time due to Sheathe of Light (talent discussed at a later time)

Divine Plea
71 You gain 25% of your total mana over 10 sec, but the amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50%.
Instant, 1 min cooldown
Its like a mages evocation, but it’s a activated and not channeled. Think of it as a heal over time, instant cast, which restores mana instead of health.

IV :New Talents

Divine Storm
Rank 1 11 2 An instant weapon attack that causes Holy damage to up to 4 enemies within 8 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totaling 20% of the damage caused.
12% of base mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 10 sec cooldown
This Talent, by far, is the most damage ability we gain in the expansion. It offers a ton of single target damage, as well as a viable form of AOE with a bonus heals attached to it. It should be cycled into your rotation as often as possible

Righteous Vengeance
Rank 5 Increases critical damage bonus of your Judgment and Divine Storm spells by 25%.
Bonus critical damage by an increased 25%, no matter on what ability, is always very welcome, increases critical damage bonus by 5% per rank.


Swift Retribution
Rank 3 Your Retribution Aura also increases casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 3%.
Increases your raids haste rating by 3% as well as your own, this effect is in addition to the 2% more damage done in your raid


Sheath of Light
Rank 3 Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 30% of your attack power and your critical healing spells heal the target for 60% of the healed amount over 12 seconds.
From the onset, this is a slightly odd talent for most. Why would we want a ability to increase your spell damage and benefit healing? Most of our abilities now share coefficients (15% spell damage 15% attack power as an example), it provides a way to upgrade the 15% spell damage from 0 to 607. Which is a extreme increase of power. The heal over time also helps with a flash of light critical, instant cast due to art of war, with bonus crit from sacred shield.


Sanctified Wrath
Rank 2 8 3 Increases the critical strike chance of Hammer of Wrath by 50%, reduces the cool down of Avenging Wrath by 60 seconds and while affected by Avenging Wrath 50% of all damage caused bypasses damage reduction effects.
Your Hammer of Wrath’s critical strike chance will be 80%, which is now instant cast, and does a lot more damage. Not to mention, your Avenging wrath has a one minute cool down, and negates pain suppression and plate armor.


The Art of War
Rank 2 Increases the critical strike damage of your Judgment, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities by 20% and when these abilities critically hit your next Flash of Light spell becomes instant cast.
Coupled with all the other bonuses critical damage, your critical strikes on Divine Storm and Judgments have their damage increased by 95% more damage when they crit, and your crusader strike does 70% more damage when it crits. In addition, when any of these do crit, your flash of light becomes instant cast, which raises your survivability (instant flash of lights every seconds)

Judgments of the Wise
Rank 3 Your Judgment spells have a 100% chance to grant the Replenishment effect to up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of their maximum mana per second, and to immediately grant you 20% of your maximum mana.
Retribution used to suck up your mana, you had to budget, you couldn’t use consecrate rank one or it would eat your mana as well. This talent changes that, your mana being restored as quickly as it rains. Replenishment effectively makes you a melee mana battery, IE melee shadow priest

V: Spec choices

Max DPS spec
Holy (5 points)

    5/5 Seals of the Pure

Protection (5 points)

    5/5 Divine Strength

Retribution (61 points)

    5/5 Benediction
    2/2 Improved Judgments
    3/3 Heart of the Crusader
    2/2 Improved Blessing of Might
    5/5 Conviction
    1/1 Seal of Command
    2/2 Pursuit of Justice
    3/3 Sanctified Seals
    3/3 Crusade
    3/3 Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
    1/1 Sanctified Retribution
    3/3 Vengeance
    2/2 Improved Retribution Aura
    2/2 The Art of War
    1/1 Repentance
    3/3 Judgments of the Wise
    5/5 Fanaticism
    2/2 Sanctified Wrath
    3/3 Swift Retribution
    1/1 Crusader Strike
    3/3 Sheath of Light
    5/5 Righteous Vengeance
    1/1 Divine Storm

This spec focuses less on utility(else there would be more points in prot) and more on the buffs you need and ways to deal out as much damage as possible.

PVE Ret Utility Spec

Holy (0 points)

None

Protection (16 points)

1/1 Blessing of Kings
4/4 Improved Blessing of Kings
5/5 Divine Strength
3/3 Stoicism
2/2 Guardian's Favor
1/2 Divine Guardian

Retribution (55 points)

5/5 Benediction
1/2 Improved Judgements
3/3 Heart of the Crusader
2/2 Improved Blessing of Might
5/5 Conviction
1/1 Seal of Command
2/2 Pursuit of Justice
3/3 Sanctified Seals
2/3 Crusade
2/3 Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
1/1 Sanctified Retribution
3/3 Vengeance
2/2 The Art of War
1/1 Repentance
2/3 Judgements of the Wise
5/5 Fanaticism
2/2 Sanctified Wrath
3/3 Swift Retribution
1/1 Crusader Strike
3/3 Sheath of Light
5/5 Righteous Vengeance
1/1 Divine Storm
This spec focuses more on buffing your group, divine guardian a way to save your party, while still able to dish out enough damage. It also offers all the possible party buffs.

PVP Retribution

Holy (0 points)

None

Protection (20 points)

1/1 Blessing of Kings
4/4 Improved Blessing of Kings
4/5 Divine Strength
3/3 Stoicism
2/2 Guardian's Favor
3/3 Improved Righteous Fury
3/3 Improved Hammer of Justice

Retribution (51 points)

5/5 Benediction
2/2 Improved Judgments
3/3 Heart of the Crusader
5/5 Conviction
1/1 Seal of Command
2/2 Pursuit of Justice
3/3 Sanctified Seals
3/3 Crusade
3/3 Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
2/2 Divine Purpose
3/3 Vengeance
2/2 The Art of War
1/1 Repentance
3/3 Judgments of the Wise
2/2 Sanctified Wrath
1/3 Swift Retribution
1/1 Crusader Strike
3/3 Sheath of Light
5/5 Righteous Vengeance
1/1 Divine Storm

This, offers all of the survivability that it can without being a tanking spec. The reason for lack of fantacisim is due to you'll be using seal of command for PVP, you're only going to judge it when your target is stunned, and if they are stunned, its a 100% crit chance, and you will not be pulling aggro in PVP anyways, so its a moot point.

VI: DPS cycle

GCD : 1 second
Consecrate: 8 seconds
Crusader Strike: 6 seconds
Divine Storm: 10 seconds
Judgement : 8 seconds

Pre battle:
Cast:
Seal of Vengance.

In battle boss:
Cast:
0.0 Crusader Strike//Auto Attack // Seal of Vengeance stack 2
0.5 GCD
1.0 Divine Storm //Seal of Vengeance stack 3
1.5 GCD
2.0 Consecrate //Seal of Vengeance stack 3
2.5 GCD
3.0 Downtime
3.5 Auto Attack //Seal of Vengeance stack 4
4.0 Downtime
4.5 Downtime
5.0 Downtime
5.5 Downtime
6.0 Crusader Strike //Seal of Vengeance 5
6.5 GCD
7.0 Auto Attack//Judgment //Seal of Vengeance 5
7.5 GCD
8.0 Seal of Blood
8.5 GCD
9.0 Downtime
9.5 Downtime
10 Consecrate
10.5 Auto Attack // Seal of Blood
11.0 Divine Storm //Seal of Blood
11.5 Downtime
12.0 Crusader Strike //Seal of Blood
12.5 GCD
13.0 Downtime
13.5 Downtime
14.0 Auto Attack // Seal of Blood
14.5 Downtime
15.0 Judgment
15.5 GCD
16.0 Downtime
16.5 Downtime
17.0 Downtime
17.5 Auto Attack //Seal of Blood
18.0 Crusader Strike
18.5 GCD
19.0 Consecrate

Repeat 11-19

This keeps up your judgement of wisdom (judge that over anything else), seal of vengeance for its DOT, and keeps your mana and DPS at a maximum. If the mob is undead or a demon, and single target, use excorisim at 3.0, repeating every 10 seconds. Use holy wrath at 9.5 and repeat every 10 seconds. This will again, max out your damage output.

VI: Inscription

What is it: This is the new profession for Wrath of the Lich King, it allows you to augment abilities, as well as create specific shoulder enchants, offhands, and cloaks. The cloaks are at the moment quite top-end, though with more content being released, it will be interesting seeing how they compare.

The list
Glyph of Seal of Command
Increases the chance of dealing Seal of Command damage by 20%.
Take or Pass: Take this, it increases the proc rate by 20%, which with a 3.5 weapon speed is 64%.

Glyph of Hammer of Justice
Increases your Hammer of Justice duration by 1 sec.
Take or Pass : Take it, a longer stun is always more useful

Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom
Your Blessing of Wisdom causes your target to also regenerate health at the same rate as mana.
Take or Pass : Pass, you're going to use Blessing of Might

Glyph of Hammer of Wrath
Increases the range on Hammer of Wrath by 5 yards.
Take or Pass : Pass, useless for PVE, you'll be meleeing them anyway.

Glyph of Crusader Strike
Your Crusader strike deals 20% more damage when your targe is incapacitated or stunned.
Take or Pass: Take, more Crusader Strike damage no matter what is awesome, to nice to let go.

Glyph of Judgment
Your Judgments deal 10% more damage.
Take or Pass: Take, judgments make up a large part of your DPS, and this builds on that.

Glyph of Consecration
Increases the radius of Consecration by 1 yards.
Take or Pass : Pass, its not really needed unless you're tanking, even then, its still not necessary.

Glyph of Righteous Defense
Increases the chance for your Righteous Defense ability to work successfully by 8% on each target.
Take or Pass : Pass, taunting is bad

Glyph of Avenger's Shield
Your Avenger's Shield hits -2 fewer targets but for 100% more damage.
Take or Pass : Pass, you don't even have the spell

Glyph of Blessing of Kings
Your Blessing of Kings also increases attack power on affected targets by 3%.
Take or Pass: Eh, if you have Blessing of Kings, its your call, and if you have enough slots, I would take it.

Glyph of Seal of Light
While Seal of Light is active the effect of your healing spells is increased by 5%.
Take or Skip : Skip, you're not healing enough to make it useful.

Glyph of Seal of Wisdom
While Seal of Wisdom is active the cost of your healing spells is reduced by -5%.
Take or Skip : Skip, also not healing enough to make it useful.

Glyph of Lay on Hands
Your Lay on Hands also grants you as much mana as it grants your target.
Take or Skip : Skip, nice, but not worth the slot as ret.

Glyph of Blessing of Might
Your Blessing of Might also grants offensive spell power equal to 10% of the attack power it grants.
Take or Skip: Take, this makes sheathe of light even better, 40% of our AP into spell damage, much more dps all around.
Glyph of Holy Light
Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 5 (yards) of the initial target.
Take or Skip: Skip, you're not healing enough with holy light to make it useful

Glyph of Flash of Light
Your Flash of Light heals for 50% less initially but also heals for 200% of its initial effect over 0 sec
Take or Skip : Skip, even the holy paladins don't want this.