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.