WoD Guide in the works now!
Ability Consolidation/Trimming
- Boundless Conviction: is a new passive ability granted to all Paladins. It increases Holy Power capacity to 5 (from 3). Abilities that cost Holy Power can still only consume a maximum of 3 Holy Power. This will allow us to pool Holy Power and will alter gameplay.
- Judgments of the Bold Your Judgment hits grant one charge of Holy Power and cause the Physical Vulnerability effect.
- Physical Vulnerability Weakens the constitution of an enemy target, increasing their physical damage taken by 4% for 30 sec.
- Emancipate Unshackles your spirit, freeing you from one movement impairing effect. Instant Cast.
- Heart of the Crusader: Since Crusader Aura was removed we received a 20% passive mounted speed bonus. RIP the days of "Turn off Crusader you dumb $*#@!"
- Hammer of the Righteous: is an AoE attack that generates a charge of Holy Power.
- Sword of Light Increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 30%. Your spell power is now equal to 50% of your attack power, and you no longer benefit from other sources of spell power. Grants 6% of your maximum mana every 2 sec. Increases the healing done by Word of Glory and Flash of Light by 100%.
- Devotion Aura: is a defensive raid cooldown. It is a combination of the old Divine Guardian (which was previously only available to Protection Paladins and has been removed from the game) and (which was previously only available to Holy Paladins and has been removed from the game) abilities. The 20% magic damage reduction will probably be its most useful feature.
- Supplication For 8 sec after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor, your next Flash of Light will be a critical.
CHANGES TO EXISTING MECHANICS
- Templar's Verdict Now requires 3 HP to be used, as opposed to damage modifiers at 1hp, 2hp and 3hp.
- Divine Storm Now requires 3 HP to be used, instead of granting a charge of HP if hitting 2+ targets.
- Blessing of Kings Blessing of Kings lost it's 5% stamina component and 5% resistance component
- Blessing of Might Blessing of Might no longer grants Mana Regen and 20% Melee AP and 10% Ranged AP. It instead now grants 3,000 Mastery.
- Exorcism is now instant cast, but has a 15 second cooldown.
- Hammer of Wrath Now generates Holy Power when used.
- The Art of War now grants your autoattacks a chance to reset the cooldown on your Exorcism (it used to have a chance of making it instant cast).
- Sanctity of Battle now causes haste to reduce the global cooldown and the cooldown of Judgment, Crusader Strike, Exorcism, Hammer of Wrath, and Hammer of the Righteous as well as Templar's Verdict and Divine Storm.
- Judgment and Exorcism now generate 1 charge of Holy Power when used.
- Divine Storm no longer generates Holy Power, and instead costs 3 Holy Power to use. More powerful than Templar's Verdict when used on 2 or more targets.
- Inquisition now lasts 20 seconds per charge of Holy Power consumed (up to 3), as well as increases Critical Strike by 10% per Holy Power consumed (up to 3). In addition increases damage by 30%.
- Seal of Justice is 16% weapon damage with 8 seconds of 50% a slow (magic).
- Hammer of the Righteousprocs Seal of Justice and Seal of Insight on all targets hit. Best on 3+ targets.
- GoAK now scales with stats! This means that our great friend is doing more damage! Guardian of the Ancient Kings (Retribution version) now has a reduced cooldown of 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes, and the maximum number of stacks has been reduced to 12. This is a BUFF!
Seals
With Auras done away with, you'll notice that the aura bar has been replaced with a Seal bar. At 85 you'll find on it;
- Seal of Truth- After Level 24, this will be your main DPS seal. It will produce the most damage out of any seal. Censure's damage will be extremely hard to beat!
- Seal of Righteousness- Seal of Righteousness is supposed to be our AoE seal. However, due to how good Censure's damage is you'll only want to use this in situations where there are 4+ targets.
- Seal of Justice- Our PvP seal. Helps close the gap between you and your target. If you GLYPH into Glyph of Burden of Guilt you DO NOT need this seal. You'll be able to use Seal of Truth instead.
- Seal of Insight- Caster seal of choice. Though, at times, it can help you survive in PvP if you're really grinding it. Be smart though and use your head.
Below level 24- Seal of Command- The under 24 DPS seal of choice.
Seal of Truth will replace Seal of Command at Level 24
ROTATION AND SPELL USAGE
Unlike Cataclysm, we have much better Holy Power generation in MoP.
Our abilities which generate Holy powers are as follows.
- Crusader Strike One of our single Target DPS HP generating attacks. This is our main Melee attack.
- Judgment Another one of our single target DPS HP generating attack. While it can be used at range, it counts as a Melee attack.
- Exorcism Our single target ranged DPS HP generating attack. When glyphed however it can become a melee ranged AoE attack dealing 25% of it's damage to nearby targets.
- Hammer of Wrath Our single Target ranged execute which generates HP. Only useable below 20%, or during Avenging Wrath.
- Hammer of the Righteous Our melee range AoE DPS HP generator. This is a DPS boost over CS when hitting 3+ targets.
Now We also have a change to spells which consume Holy Power as well.
- Templar's Verdict- Our single target DPS HP finisher attack.
- Divine Storm Our AoE DPS HP finisher. This is a DPS upgrade over TV at 2+ targets.
- Word of Glory Our healing HP finisher.
- Word of Glory (Glyph of Harsh Words) When glyphed this is our ranged single target DPS TV alternative HP Finisher.
This is the basic rundown of what spells will be creating Holy Power, and which ones will be consuming.
Now that you have the idea of what spells there are, now we go onto how to use them. The Retribution Paladin rotation in quick overview will be Inq > ES > 5HP TV > HoW > CS > Judge > Exo > 3-4HP TV >SS . See below for a breakdown.
- Keep up Inquisition ideally with 3 Holy Power, keep buff rolling as close to 100% uptime as possible, as close to the buff wearing out as possible. Side note; If you refresh Inquisition below 2 seconds, it rolls. i.e.: Casting a 3HP Inquisition with 1.5 seconds left would make it last 31.5 seconds long.
- Cast Execution Sentence. This is our T6 talent of choice in most scenarios. Keep this aligned with your AW CD and Pop it after you have stacks from GoAK.
- Cast Templar's Verdict at fully charged Holy Power and while capped at 5 Holy Power. This stands while under the influence of Holy Avenger, or Divine Purpose (if NOT tracking the buff). Interchange with Divine Storm with two or more targets. You'll want to cap out your HP and not use TV with JUST 3 Holy Power when avoidable. *******
- Cast Execution Sentence on Cool down! Match with CD's and trinkets when you can!
- Cast Hammer of Wrath on cooldown (generates holy power, only available on targets below 20% health).
- Cast Crusader Strike on cooldown (generates Holy Power). Interchange with Hammer of the Righteous (generates Holy Power) for AoE situations.
- Cast Judgment (generates Holy Power).
- Cast Exorcism on cooldown (generates Holy Power).
- Templar's Verdict Fully charged, but below 5 HP, or Divine Storm fully charged but below 5 HP, this applies for Divine Purpose (if tracking the buff) *******
******* For Clarification you want to delay the use of Templar's Verdict when you have HP generators available for use AND/OR have room to accept Holy Power charges (>5HP).
What this means is that if you're below 5 Holy Power, and your HP generators are off CD, you want to use them to cap off your Holy Power. Once you have 5 Holy Power or, if you have a free GCD where all your Holy Power Generators are on cool down, you can use TV then.
IF you have T16 Your rotation will look something like this
Inq > ES > [5HP T16 Free DS] > 5HP TV > HoW > [T16 Free DS] > CS > Judge > Exo > 3-4HP TV > SS
What this does NOT mean is that you stand around waiting for your HP Generators to come off CD if you have 3/4 HP. See FAQ for why.
In multiple target situations, the chief (and possibly only) differences are
Inq > 5HP DS > LH > HoW (> T16 Free DS) > HotR > Judge > Exo > 3-4HP DS (> SS)
- replacing Crusader Strike with Hammer of the Righteous at 3+ targets;
- replacing Templar's Verdict with Divine Storm (remember that Divine Storm now costs Holy Power) at 2+ targets.
- You'll want to keep Seal of Truth until 6 targets+, where you'll use Seal of Righteousness.
You'll have to pick and choose which spells are appropriate for interchanging, however you can switch to DS at as early as 2 targets. Seal of Righteousness however will not be prioritized for AoE except in larger packs of 6+ mobs.
For PVP
Apply essentially all of the same above. However, when doing so, (as always) be sure to use discretion and make sure to do so with situational awareness.
TALENTS
Tier 1 talents offer a choice between 3 means of increasing your movement speed:
- Speed of Light, an activated movement speed boost that lasts for 8 seconds, 70% speed increase;
- Long Arm of the Law, a movement speed buff which is activated every time you use Judgment on your target, 45% speed increase for 3 sec.
- Pursuit of Justice, 15% passive movement speed at all times, with additional 5% movement speeds for each charge of Holy Power you have (with a max of 3), capping out at 30% movement speed.
Your choice will boil down to each encounters mechanics and requirements, and how they will fit in with your play style. Clearly each one of these has their ups and downs, however Pursuit of Justice on a Boss per Boss basis should offer the most consistent movement speed bonus.
Tier 2 talents offer a choice between 3 utility spells:
- Fist of Justice, a 6 second stun on a 30 second cooldown. This improves upon and replaces Hammer of Justice an ability granted to you by default. The new spell has a shorter cooldown and longer range at which it can be used.
- Repentance, a 1 minute duration crowd-control, that is broken by damage. Unlike the Cataclysm and WotLK version of this spell, it no longer has a 60 second CD, but a 15 second CD, but as a trade off has a 1.5 second cast time.
- Evil is a Point of View Your Turn Evil now also affects Humanoids and Beasts. This means we now, if talented, effectively have a fear that can work on players and pets! This is situation but useful! Don't quite write it off entirely! Burden of Guilt as a talent has been removed but HAS been replaced with a glyph too! Glyph of Burden of Guilt
Which of these spells you take will be largely dependent on fight mechanics, group comp/size and your point in content. While most people will probably end up with Fist of Justice, Repentancecan end up being appealing for PvE as well, while [B]Evil is a Point of View/B] is aimed at PvP, there is no reason to write it off!
Tier 3 talents offer a choice between 3 healing spells:
- Selfless Healer Each time you use Judgment you reduce the cast time and mana cost of there flash of light by 35% per stack. This stacks up to 3 times for a total effectiveness of 100%. In addition to the reducing the cast time and mana cost, when it is used to heal others it's effectiveness is increased by 35% per Judgment (stacks up to 3 times).
- Eternal Flame This spell replaces Word of Glory as a HP consuming heal but adds in a HoT mechanic. It consumes up to 3 HP healing the target directly and then for an additional amount over 30 seconds. You can manage to keep this up 100%, however maintaining this would be a DPS loss over the other two Spells.
- Sacred Shield A single target shield which absorbs a certain amount of damage every 6 seconds for 30 seconds. The absorbed amount can and will be substantial over the period of a fight, and can be used on yourself or anyone in the raid! With a 6 second CD it's easy to toss around, and has a no mana cost.
You will want to try and stay away from Eternal Flame, as it's a DPS loss compared to the other two options. Once again basing your choices off the demands and needs of the fight and it's mechanics, you're most likely to find yourself using Sacred Shield rather as your talent of choice unless you have good reason to otherwise.
Tier 4 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that grant you some utility:
- Hand of Purity is an actived ability with a 30 second cooldown that reduces the damage the target takes from DoTs by 70% for 6 seconds. This can cast on not only yourself, but any friendly target which can make it appealing to help with boss mechanics, and increase survivability.
- Unbreakable Spirit is a passive talent that reduces the remaining cooldown of Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Lay on Hands by 1% for each charge of Holy Power you use, up to a maximum of 50% of the cooldown's duration. The ability seems most useful in reducing the cooldown of Lay on Hands, reducing the cooldown drastically allowing you to help help save lives more often.
- Clemency is a passive talent that will give your Hand of Freedom, Hand of Protection, Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Salvation two charges before their CDs are set off. Seemingly the hand which would receive the most benefit out of this would be Hand of Sacrifice.
This tier will depend more strongly than before on the demands of your raid and the fight(s) at hand. If the fight has no DoT's than Hand of Purity is hardly useful, and if there is great need for to mitigate damage from the tank to yourself having Hand of Sacrifice useable more often can be a godsend. Let the point float and choose which you feel is best and most fitting and beneficial to your play style and to the fight mechanics.
Tier 5 talents offer a choice between 3 spells that improve your DPS:
- Holy Avenger- While under the effect of HA your HP generators now generate 3HP instead of 1 for 15 seconds. This is a two minute CD and it's similar to the old Zealotry. This will alter your rotation for the time being as seen above.
- Sanctified Wrath Increases the duration of your Avenging Wrath by 50%, and while active it reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Wrath by 50%.
- Divine Purpose Every time you use an ability that consumes Holy Power (finishers), you have a 25% chance to gain the Divine Purpose buff. The Divine Purpose buff makes your next ability which costs Holy Power to cost no Holy Power and act as if 3 were consumed.
These are all DPS increases. I won't say which one is better than the other just yet. Once you have the T16 4 Piece Bonus You'll definitely want to keep your eye towards Divine Purpose! For now, take the time to play around with them and find their sweet spots and how you feel with them, and how they fit into each boss fight.
SW and HA will be more bursty, while DP will offer more steady and sustained DPS. Keep that in mind for your choice.
Keep in mind that as you choose your talents your rotation may vary! See Post 2 for more info!
Tier 6 talents offer a choice between 3 hybrid DPS-healing spells:
- Holy Prism when cast on an ally, heals them and deals damage to all nearby enemies. When placed on an enemy, it deals damage to that enemy and heals all nearby allies. As a Retribution Paladin, you will most likely use this on yourself or another ally, so that the spell damages nearby adds.
- Light's Hammer places a hammer at a targeted ground location. The hammer deals damage to nearby enemies and heals nearby allies.
- Execution Sentence is a single target DPS spell that deals damage to the target in an escalating manner (slowly then ramping up to a burst).
Your choice of which will be based on whether you wish to damage a single target (Execution Sentence) or multiple enemies (Light's Hammer or Holy Prism), and if you're doing PvE or PvP. In the case of multiple enemies, it will also depend on how these adds are placed, your placement in comparison to the adds, how they are tanked and your movement around them as well as their time spent in the damage.
Blessings
- Blessing of Kings Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing Strength, Agility, and Intellect by 5%.
- Blessing of Might Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing mastery by 3,000.
GLYPHS
There are several Major Glyphs that can, in certain situations, be useful (Minor Glyphs are purely cosmetic):
Glyph of Inquisition
Reduces the damage bonus of Inquisition by 15%, but increases the duration by 100%. This is obviously a DPS loss, but it will make the rotation easier to maintain for those who are less experienced with the spec.
Glyph of Harsh Words
Allows your Word of Glory to be used as a damaging spell against enemies. Currently, this seems to do a decent amount of damage, making it a viable alternative to Templar's Verdict when you are out of melee range.
Glyph of Mass Exorcism
Causes your Exorcism to deal 25% of its damage to nearby enemies. As a drawback, Exorcism is reduced to melee range. This glyph could prove to be a DPS increase in very specific situations (where you are in melee range for the whole fight and there are adds next to the boss).
Glyph of Templar's Verdict
Has a small damage reduction effect. For 6 seconds after using Templar's Verdict, you take 10% reduced damage. This will probably be mandatory for raiders.
Glyph of Double Jeopardy Judging a target increases the damage of your next Judgment by 20%, but only if used on a different second target. This can potentially be a good glyph on fights where you'll have a second mob(s) present at all times to hit.
So, what does it look like we'll end up running with?
But we have only three slots! Well, yeah, but we'll want to switch out Glyph of Mass Exorcism on fights where we can't AoE all over the place, and Harsh words in when the added ranged ability will help!
Stat Priority
THESE ARE TENTATIVE AND TO THE BEST KNOWLEDGE CHECK BACK FOR LATEST
- 5.1 - Hit = Expertise > Haste> Crit=Mastery
- Hit Rating90- 2,550 Hit Rating to get cap and 2,210 to get cap with racials when applicable!
- Expertise Rating 90- 2,550 Expertise Rating to get to cap. 2,210 Expertise Rating to get to cap with racials once again when applicable.
Professions
Right now the best combo you can go with is;
Blacksmithing and Engineering
Blacksmithing is always a great and safe bet! And lining up Synapse springs with Execution Sentence is just awesome!
Gems!
Understand that the usage of gems will be dependent.
- Meta Reverberating Primal Diamond
- Red- Fierce Vermilion Onyx
- Orange-Fierce Vermilion Onyx
- Blue- Lightning Wild Jade
- Yellow- Quick Sun's Radiance
- JC ONLY RED Bold Serpent's Eye
- JC ONLY YELLOW (Haste) Quick Serpent's Eye
- JC ONLY YELLOW (Mastery) Fractured Serpent's Eye
Profession Guide- Work in Progress!
- Blacksmithing: 2 Extra Gem Sockets. 1 in Bracers, one in Hand slot. Totaling 320 Str, or 640 secondary stats and/or 160 Primary 320 Secondary stat depending on your gem choice.
- Herbalism: Lifeblood will give you 2880 Haste rating for 2 seconds every 2 minutes. This will average out to about 320 haste rating, losing value over shorter fights.
- Enchanting: Offers two enchanter only ring enchants which increase your strength by 160 each. Totaling 320 total strength.
- Engineering: You get Synapse Springs for your gloves which grant you 2940 of your highest primary stat (Which will be str) for 10 seconds. This can average out to 490 str depending on the length of the encounter
- Inscription: Inscriptionist only shoulder enchant gets you 520 str and 100 on them! You'll have to get your shoulder enchants from Scribes now, so this will be a definite upgrade over the normal enchants we get!
- Leatherworking: The Leatherworking bracer enchant gives you 500 str to any Bracer item! Not the only bracer enchant but a great one at that!
- Jewlcrafting: Jewlcrafers get their own gems (2), giving you 640 Strength (320 str per gem) or 960 Haste or Mastery (480 per gem) This profession has seriously depreciated in value since Cata and earlier expansions.
Enchants
- Head-Gone baby gone! There are no longer any head enchants in game.
- Cloak- Enchant Cloak - Superior Critical Strike (180 Crit), Enchant Cloak - Accuracy (180 Hit)
- Shoulder- Greater Tiger Fang Inscription (200 Str, 100 Crit)
Inscriptionist only - Secret Tiger Claw Inscription (520 Str, 100 Crit)- Chest- Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats(80 Primary Stats)
- Bracers- Enchant Bracer - Exceptional Strength (170 Str)
Leatherworker only - Fur Lining - Strength - (Strength)-(500 Str)- Gloves - Enchant Bracer - Superior Strength (170 Str) if not Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery (170 Mastery) or Enchant Gloves - Greater Haste (170 Haste)or Enchant Gloves - Superior Expertise (170 Expertise)
- Belt- Living Steel Belt Buckle (1 gem slot)
- Legs -Angerhide Leg Armor (285 Str 165 Crit)
- Feet- Enchant Boots - Greater Precision(175 Hit) or Enchant Boots - Greater Haste (175 Haste) or Enchant Boots - Pandaren\'s Step (move speed, 140 Mastery)
- Weapon- Enchant Weapon - Enchant Weapon - Dancing Steel (Str by 1650 for 12 sec), or Windsong (On chance for Crit or Haste or Mastery by 1500 for 12 sec ), or if you can't get either of those Enchant Weapon - Elemental Force (3000 damage proc)
Consumables; More coming soon
- Flask -Flask of Winter's Bite
- Potion - Potion of Mogu Power
Abbreviations and Acronyms
- Ret -Short for Retribution the best Paladin Class spec of all time and the ONLY acceptable abbreviation for the spec.
- CS- Crusader Strike
- DS- Divine Storm
- TV- Templar's Verdict
- HP- Holy Power
- INQ- Inquisition
- GoAK- Guardian of Ancient Kings
- Exo- Exorcism
- DP- Divine Purpose
- WoG- Word of Glory
Feeling like you're not performing up to par? Check out [Ret] Fix my DPS! to help and see what steps you can take to better perform!
Macros
- T6 Macro
Thank you Thudin!Code:/use Holy Prism /use Execution Sentence /run local G=GetSpellInfo SetMacroSpell("90 Talents", G"Execution Sentence" or G"Holy Prism")- Shift mouseover Judgment/Focus Target Judgment
Code:Shift Modified Hammer of the Righteous/Crusader Strike Macro #showtooltip /cast [modifier: shift] Hammer of the Righteous;Crusader Strike- Shift Modified Divine Storm/Templar's Verdict Macro
Code:#showtooltip /cast [modifier: shift] Divine Storm; Templar's Verdict- Word of Glory Heal Only Macro
Code:/cast [@self, harm, exists, nodead][@target, help, exists, nodead] Word of Glory
Addons
- TimeToDie A great Addon to help tell you based on current DPS of the raid, how long until the boss will die. This can and will help you judge your CD usages better and allow you to better decide your spell usage.
- http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/clcret"]CLCRet
- http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/clctracker"]CLCInfo and to accompany this addon, Requital's Amazing guide!
Misc
- Judgement in game in the instances of spells is now spelt as Judgment. It will be referred to in this guide as such and will require macros to be updated and use this spelling and this spelling only.
This thread is meant to be a Retribution Compendium throughout Mists of Pandaira. It will be constantly updated and is a place for discussion, questions, suggestion, answers and everything in between. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to ask! If you'd like to see something in this post, please just ask! This is a product of many people's contributions, and help.
Thank you Azshira for letting me use his awesome table!