Retribution Paladin

Overview

Talents and builds

Level 60 build

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Raid build

The raid build moves 2 points from Reverence (2) to Precision (1) and Unsealed Wrath (1).

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Key talents

• Champion of the Light5/5Increases your spell damage by up to 60% of your Intellect, and reduces the cast time of your Hammer of Wrath by 1.0 sec
• Vengeance3/3Increases your Physical and Holy damage dealt by 3% for 30 sec after landing a non-periodic critical strike. Stacks up to 3 times
• Repentance1/1Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 6 sec. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Only works against Humanoids
• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization3/3Increases the physical damage you deal by 6%, and reduces all threat you generate by 20% while a two-handed melee weapon is equipped
• Sacred Arbiter1/1Increases the damage of your Holy Strike ability by 20% and causes it to refresh all Judgement effects on the target
• Vindication3/3Gives your damaging melee attacks a chance to reduce the target's Attack Power by (3 /- 3 * 6) for 30 sec

The leveling build puts 30 points in Retribution and the raid build 31. Benediction, Improved Judgement, Conviction (now 2% critical strike a rank with every spell and attack), Sanctified Judgement, Sacred Arbiter, Two-Handed Weapon Specialization, Vengeance and Champion of the Light carry the damage. Seal of Command is the point Vengeance requires; the leveling rotation never casts it, and the raid build swaps into it for Unsealed Wrath (below). Champion of the Light grew to five ranks and also shortens Hammer of Wrath’s cast; Two-Handed Weapon Specialization now raises physical damage only, so your Seals, Judgements and Holy Strike no longer gain from it. Vindication no longer raises your own attack power; it stays as a gate point, along with one point of Repentance, because the tree needs 25 points before Champion of the Light and Retribution has no other damage talent to fill them.

The rest goes to Holy and Protection. Divine Strength and Improved Seals (five ranks now) add damage, Holy Conduit (now a Holy talent) makes Consecration, Exorcism and Hammer of Wrath cheaper, and Reverence keeps some mana regeneration running while you cast. Divine Intellect now sits on Protection’s first row, which makes it the gate to Precision: Intellect feeds Champion of the Light’s spell damage and your mana, and Precision is the hit the raid search has favoured since October. The leveling build spends 2 points in Precision and 2 in Reverence; the raid build takes Precision 3/3 and spends its last point on Unsealed Wrath instead of Reverence. The leveling build measures about +3% over a straight carry of its old talents in our level-60 search run, and the raid build was the best the raid search found.

Unsealed Wrath, the new capstone, stores your active Seal on each swing, up to three copies, and releases them when a swing lands under a different Seal: each stored copy gets that Seal’s normal chance to fire, and Seal of Righteousness fires on every swing. The raid build takes it for its one point of Reverence. Let three swings store Seal of Righteousness, switch to Seal of Command for one swing, which releases three extra Righteousness hits, then switch straight back. That measured about +1.3% in the raid-ready run. An even three-and-three swap gains half as much, and without raid mana every swap is a loss, so the leveling build skips the talent. Open the planner at /planner?class=paladin to build this out.

Rotation and priority

Apply Seal of Righteousness about a second and a half before the pull so it is active the moment combat starts. Once in combat, Judgement comes first whenever it is off cooldown: it is off the global cooldown, costs 6% of your base mana, unloads the active Seal’s Judgement effect and immediately starts its own cooldown again. Exorcism follows on its own 15-second cooldown against Undead and Demons only; it is free Holy damage on those encounters, simply unavailable against anything else. Below roughly 20% target health, Hammer of Wrath takes priority as the execute option, cast at its highest rank available at level 60. Next, reapply Seal of Righteousness just before it expires so uptime never lapses. Putting the seal refresh ahead of Holy Strike was worth about +3.5% in our level-60 search run. Holy Strike, a Forever baseline Paladin attack, comes last, on its own 10-second cooldown, cast whenever it is up: it is what spends the globals that Judgement and seal upkeep alone leave idle.

Without Unsealed Wrath this rotation does not seal-twist. Older community guides for 1.12 Retribution describe alternating Seal of Righteousness and Seal of Command swing-by-swing for a DPS gain. In Forever that twist loses damage on its own: casting a new Seal fully replaces the one that was up, so no swing benefits from both, and each recast costs a full global and over 200 mana at level 60. In our simulator, dropping the swing-by-swing twist and spending those globals on Holy Strike instead was worth about +23%. Keep Seal of Righteousness up and spend every other global on Judgement, Exorcism, Hammer of Wrath and Holy Strike in that priority order. With Unsealed Wrath, the swap described under Talents sits just ahead of the Seal refresh, and it waits whenever you are below 30% mana.

Consecration, part of Forever’s baseline kit, is absent from the leveling and bare rotation above and joins it last in the raid-ready one: against a single target it is a loss on a bare character, where its mana cost (scaling steeply with rank) crowds out Judgement, Exorcism and Holy Strike, but with the raid’s mana support the rotation search measured it as a clear gain, about +9% in the raid-ready run, and it holds the bare character level when it is only cast while mana is above 65%. While leveling, or fighting several enemies at once, it is still worth reaching for (see Leveling, below).

Stat priority

1. 1Hit
2. 2Critical strike
3. 3Strength
4. 4Agility
5. 5Attack power
6. 6Melee haste

Best in slot

Enchants and consumables

Races

• Human (Recommended)
• Dwarf
• Undead (Recommended)

Human is the Alliance pick: Sword Specialization. Undead is the Horde pick: Touch of the Grave.

Professions

Blacksmithing suits Retribution well since it can add sockets to weapons and armor, letting a melee Paladin fill in strength or crit the itemization doesn’t provide on its own. Enchanting offers weapon and ring enchants a Retribution Paladin can apply without paying another crafter.

Leveling

Outlined: points added in this level range.

Retribution is the strong leveling choice for Paladin — it kills things fastest solo of the three specs, which is why it is worth considering even for a character planning to heal or tank later.

Consecration (baseline from level 20, no talent needed) is worth reaching for while leveling even though this page’s single-target rotation leaves it out: questing and farming routinely put two or three mobs on you at once, and Consecration’s ground effect hits all of them for the one cast and mana cost, which is a better trade than it is against a single raid target.