Retibution Paladin (Wrath)

[Ozmademos]

***Pre-Scriptum: The information in this is found generally in the game mechanics, as well as information available to the public from forums pertaining to said game mechanics and computing programs related to the World of Warcraft*** This is my attempt to help prevent alot of repetative posts, and generally lend a hand to informing visitors to Ret Paladin mechanics. Thank you in advance!

This post is intended to help those not familiar with alot of the Retribution Paladin mechanics to get a fairly simple overview

Spec
5/5/53 is the spec

Here's the link: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sVZVZVfbt0IuhdIfsu:0GZm
Just cut and paste it. It leaves a few points open for you to choose something extra...
***Note: The Link has Glyphs Already in there for You***

Pursuit of Justice
You arent facing alot of disarms on a boss fight, but movement speed increase to the boss is important, because it's more time to dps. This also has utility in pvp (as does Eye for an Eye, Divine Purpose, and Unyielding Faith).

Vindication
This talent will affect bosses. It's a nice raid utility talent because it'll save your other tanks the other tanks and dps a cooldown to use the same ability that you get passively.

Divinity
You shouldnt be taking all that much damage, and the damage you do take wont need the extra 5% (which is relatively tiny and probably means more overhealing)

Divine Intellect
Generally, you'll be picking up this talent on the way to Aura Mastery. And, more intellect means more mana and more crit which means more pew pew!

Healing Light
Art of War will give you that free Flash Heal, but you're better off using the free exorcism for damage and getting the heals from Divine Storm.

Glyphs

Glyph of Seal of Command
This isnt recommended, because you'll get alot of mana back from Divine Plea, Judgement of Wisdom, and Judgements of the Wise.

Glyph of Exorcism
Replace the suggested Glyph of Seal of Vengeance, once you reach the Expertise cap without it. The extra Expertise beyond the cap will just be a waste.

Stats

Hit: you'll need 8%, or 263 hit rating, 7% if you're a Draenei. This is the melee cap for you. To reach the spell hit cap, you'd need 17% hit rating (16% if you're a Draenei). The spell hit cap is super incredibly unrealistic to try and achieve. You'd be sacrificing far too many stats to try and reach it. Good news though! Having that Boomkin or Shadow Priest or Unholy DK in your raid will benefit your spell hit as well as theirs!

Expertise: you'll need 6.5% to cap it, or 214 expertise rating (note, though, that being a human or dwarf and using certain weapons can help you get capped faster). On your character screen, this will also appear as 26 (for your Mainhand)

Strength: give you all your Attack Power. it's the next most important stat after you're hit capped.

Crit: this is typcially the next most important stat after Hit and Strength because it triggers your free Exorcism

Armor Pen: You dont want this. This stat makes your physical damage better against heavily armored targets. Magical damage always ignores 100% armor. Two-Thirds of a Ret Paladin's damage output is magical, so the vast majority of your damage does not benefit from ArPen. You're significantly better off with Strength, Crit, and Attack Power based gems/enchants/trinkets. You do not want Armor Penetration.

Haste: wont kill your dps to have it, but dont go out of your way to get this over other stats like Strength

Attack Power: you'll get it from Strength.

Agility: much better than ArPen but (with only a couple exceptions) less useful as Strength, Expertise, and Crit.

Armor: like 99% of the time you'll wear plate. You want plate for its Strength, but since Paladins don't get nifty talents to up their Attack Power as a function of their Armor Value (i.e. DK and Warriors), it so happens that there are a handful of leather AP items that out-perform their strength-based slot item of the same value. =)

Gems

Meta: Relentless (+21 Agil and +3% crit dmg), hands down; the Chaotic (+21 Crit and +3% Crit Dmg) would be much better except that you would be wasting gem slots trying to get two blue gems to activate it.
Red: Bold (+20 Str)
Yellow: Inscribed (+10 Str and +10 Crit), use this only in yellow spaces if the socket bonus nets more Str or Attack Power, otherwise use all Red
Blue: Nightmare Tear (obviously you can only get just one, so put it in a good slot!)

Priority (not a rotation)

Here's the good(?) news... Ret doesnt really have a rotation or a priority. Because of how the Ret mechanics function, every ability goes on cooldown for a certain amount of time making each subsequent ability comes off cooldown alone. (otherwise stated, whatever the next ability is that comes up... you use). This makes Ret surprisingly easy. Given this... a very weak sense of priority means:

1 ) Judge Wisdom (if you have a holy paladin they will Judge Light. If you have another ret paladin, then coordinate who will do Light and who will do Wis)
2 ) Hammer of Wrath (if under 20%)
3 ) Exorcism (only if it's instant cast from Art of War)
4 ) Divine Storm
5 ) Crusader Strike
6 ) Consecrate
At this point, you will only be able to cast abilities as they come off cooldown (or proc, in the case of Exorcism)
***As a Post-Scriptum, here, there are some tier set bonuses which will skew this priority slightly, but that's for a (co)responding post***

[Bladewind]

Holy Wrath if under 20% ? =O is this a troll post ?

[jangkun]

1) It's not Holy Wrath but Hammer of Wrath when target under 20%
2) Why are you making this thread while there is a FAQ since WotLK release and that all you listed will change in a month with 4.0
3) Why are you only talking about glyph of SoC and Exo?

[BDF]

Divine storm above crusader strike without the t10 2 piece? Exorcism above DS and CS and Cons? What?
The stat value explanations are confusing and you don't even say how glyph of consecration is mandatory.

Simple overview doesn't have to mean incorrect. Players are better off reading the full FAQ

[ammor]

This thread seems 2 years late, as well as the Ret Rotation is extremely off.

[Rhonen]

I just popped two crazy pills a little while ago, so this thread actually seems sane to me.

Oh wait, no, it doesn't.

[Deleted]

Alot of incorrect information right there not even sure where to start. Would highly reccomend anyone starting out in ret to pay attention to a guide with correct information and souces.

[marzipan]

There are a number of things right about this, but also very many wrong things.

The Op is right, Hammer of wrath not holy wrath first of all.

Ret does use FCFS (first come first serve) but with T10 2piece (in my expirience) it will clash with the system.
Our priority is : Judge, HoW, CS, dstorm, consecrate, exorcism. Your rotation is wrong. Exorcism is on the spell hit table, so we have a high chance to miss. Consecrate will do more dmg even if the first tick misses. In some fights with constant movement however it might be better to use exo over cons such as PP or blood council. With the frost badge libram we want to stack that up asap. If you have 2pc t10 swap CS and dstorm in your priority.

On gearing, until 4.0 comes out agi is very good for rets with high end gear or even early icc gear. You will have to find out yourself if agi is any good for your ret or not. Check our a program called Rawr, its very useful. With high end gear the crit we gain from agi out weighs strength in some cases if not all.

Your glyph and spec set up is messy as well. If you have 2pc T10 you run the risk of ooming late in a fight. The OPs spec 11/5/55 is the reccomended spec b/c you pick up the int talent in holy to prevent ooming. And for glyphs rets use judgement, consecrate, and seal of vengence if not exp capped. If you are without the glyph then pick up exorcism.

Just a brief over view with what i saw wrong. If you want more specific info about ret then head to elitistjerks.com.

[Bladewind]

This is a horrible guide to follow anyone looking for a real guide just go to elitestjerks.com

[Ozmademos]

1) It's not Holy Wrath but Hammer of Wrath when target under 20%
2) Why are you making this thread while there is a FAQ since WotLK release and that all you listed will change in a month with 4.0
3) Why are you only talking about glyph of SoC and Exo?

My apologies on the word error, I fixed it in the original post.

Second, I'm posting this partly in response the lack of a guide for people to follow and possibly free-up some space on the forums from people asking the same questions about stats and abilities. It was a fairly common complaint in a couple other threads. And, as for the changes occurring in Cataclysm, that is still at least a month away. There are some who are just curious about Paladin mechanics, and others who are leveling Paladins now. In theory though, another guide should pop up in that time reflecting those changes.

Thirdly, I had only discussed a couple glyphs and talents that could be chosen by people who may see benefit in them over the ones given.

---------- Post added 2010-09-15 at 10:55 PM ----------

Holy Wrath if under 20% ? =O is this a troll post ?

Sorry, but this post is not useful.

[blackvivi265]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...art-Here-First!
There's already a sticky for this, people just choose not to use it :/

[Ozmademos]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...art-Here-First!
There's already a sticky for this, people just choose not to use it :/

Indeed

[BDF]

Indeed

So a maybe we should advocate that the guides should be on the front page rather than as links within a sicky (even if it is clearly marked) instead of trying to write additional ones.

[Ronark]

I suggest reviewing your current knowledge about the class/spec prior to posting information. As a few people have pointed out, some of the information in the thread is old or incorrect.

[Nikoll]

I suggest reviewing your current knowledge about the class/spec prior to posting information. As a few people have pointed out, some of the information in the thread is old or incorrect.

pretty much that. ron has one posted already, whithout the wrong information posted and much more idepth.

[Ronark]

pretty much that. ron has one posted already, whithout the wrong information posted and much more idepth.

Which reminds me, I need to update the 4.0 FAQ :-P

[Nikoll]

Which reminds me, I need to update the 4.0 FAQ :-P

almost seems like a waste until shit goes live. unless you really want to make one for the 2 weeks between 4.0 and cata.

[Ronark]

almost seems like a waste until shit goes live. unless you really want to make one for the 2 weeks between 4.0 and cata.

I was missing base L80 values from off the PTR, and some things were out of date.

[Bladewind]

Which reminds me, I need to update the 4.0 FAQ :-P

Snap snap or no candy apples for you sir.