Retribution Paladin Playstyle and Rotation Guide

The base of Retribution gameplay is Holy Power management. You can have from 0 to 5 Holy Power. There are 2 types of abilities on the table: generators of Holy Power and spenders of it. Main goal is to cast as many spenders during the fight as you can and don't waste your Holy Power.

Generators are: Crusader Strike and all its variations, Blade of Justice, Judgment, Hammer of Wrath, Wake of Ashes and Divine Toll.

Before moving to spenders I’d like to focus on Judgment a little more. Judgment isn’t a simple HP generator - it also applies a debuff on target that empowers next HP spender by 20%. In The War Within this debuff can overlap, which means there is no way of wasting this debuff anymore.

Spenders are: Templar’s Verdict, Divine Storm, Justicar's Vengeance, Hammer of Light, Divine Hammer and Word of Glory.

General idea is to cast Spenders only if you have no Generators to use or you’ve already reached 5 Holy Power.

Spenders usage:

• You have from 3 to 5 Holy Power and all your Generators are on CD;
• You have 3+ Holy Power and some of your generators are ready to be used, however you are at the last second of strong bursts such as Avenging Wrath, Crusade, Final Reckoning or Execution Sentence.

General Rotation

Single Target

1. Avenging Wrath / Crusade (without Radiant Glory)
2. Execution Sentence or Final Reckoning
3. Divine Toll 3 Holy power or less on Single Target, 1 HP at 2 targets, 0 HP at 3+ targets
4. Templar’s Verdict / Final Verdict at 5 Holy Power
5. Wake of Ashes at 2 or less Holy Power
6. Judgment if you are at 3 or less Holy Power
7. Blade of Justice if your Expurgation is about to fall of or it expired and you are at 4 Holy Power
8. Templar Slash if it is going to expire and you are not at 5 Holy Power
9. Hammer of Wrath if both charges are not on CD (with Vanguard's Momentum)
10. Blade of Justice if both charges are not on CD
11. Crusader Strike / Templar Strike / Templar Slash if both charges are not on CD
12. Templar’s Verdict / Final Verdict at 3-4 Holy Power if all generators are on CD or you are the last second of any of your burst ability

It may look complicated, however it is a very simple class. I am describing it in full detail to provide you with the most accurate information. I suggest practicing on a dummy to get the feeling and after some time you will be able to follow it without second thought.

Multi Target

There are a few things that change on multi-target for Retribution:

• First of all, our multi-target priority starts working at 2+ targets. If you have Final Verdict, Jurisdiction and Tempest of the Lightbringer, Divine Storm can still be used from 2 targets if the targets are equal. If there is prio target, it’s better to still use Final Verdict. If there are 3+ targets it is only Divine Storm.
• Blade of Justice is the highest dps generator on big pulls due to Expurgation and Blade of Vengeance.
• Judgment is still high prio due to debuff, Holy Power generation and Sanctification ramp up.
• Hammer of Wrath is the lowest prio cause it hits only one target. Should be used only if you don't have enough holy power for Divine Storm and all other Holy Power generators are on CD.

Opener

An opener is usually a sequence of actions you do at the very beginning of the fight. They reflect the General Rotation rules but here they are more structured and showing you a good example. Learning this order will help you a lot with learning the spec.

Single Target Opener

There are 2 types of opener, dependance of what you are going to use is dictated by some talent choice.

Opener with Radiant Glory

1. Blade of Justice
2. Divine Toll
3. Execution Sentence or Final Reckoning
4. Wake of Ashes
5. Hammer of Light
6. Judgment
7. Follow General rotation

Avenging Wrath Opener without Radiant Glory

1. Judgment
2. Blade of Justice
3. Execution Sentence
4. Avenging Wrath + Hammer of Wrath
5. Final Verdict
6. Divine Toll
7. Final Verdict
8. Wake of Ashes
9. Hammer of Light (if somehow you are missing 5 Holy Power at this point just use Hammer of Wrath/Blade of Justice)
10. Follow General rotation

Multi Target Opener:

Opener with Radiant Glory

1. Judgment
2. Blade of Justice
3. Final Reckoning
4. Divine Storm
5. Divine Toll
6. Divine Storm
7. Wake of Ashes
8. Hammer of Light (if somehow you are missing 5 Holy Power at this point just use Hammer of Wrath/Blade of Justice)
9. Follow General rotation

Avenging Wrath Opener without Radiant Glory

1. Judgment
2. Blade of Justice
3. Avenging Wrath + Final Reckoning
4. Divine Storm
5. Divine Toll
6. Divine Storm
7. Wake of Ashes
8. Hammer of Light (if somehow you are missing 5 Holy Power at this point just use Hammer of Wrath/Blade of Justice)
9. Follow General rotation

Cooldown Usage

Your major cooldowns are Avenging Wrath / Crusade or Wake of Ashes with Radiant Glory.

Avenging Wrath is a 1 min cooldown and Crusade is a 2 min. Basically you want to use them from the start and almost never hold it. Holding any of your bursts may cause you to lose one during the fight, however there are some cases where you want to hold and it will be worth it:

• Encounters with waves of adds
• Encounters with damage amplifiers

Abilities like Final Reckoning, Execution Sentence and Divine Toll should always be used together. If your Avenging Wrath / Crusade is ready - they all should be lined up.

Delaying Avenging Wrath / Crusade also means that you are going to delay the rest of your CDs.

You always want to have at least 3 Holy Power before going into Final Reckoning to maximize the number of spenders during the Final Reckoning.

Defensives

Retribution paladin has a lot of defensive abilities that can be applied to friendly targets. But let's start with personals:

• Divine Shield: This is a total immunity for 8 seconds. It is on GCD, so be careful. This spell causes a Forbearance debuff that won’t allow you to get Blessing of Protection, Spellwarding (from Protection Paladins) or Lay on Hands.
• Shield of Vengeance: This is a talent from your spec tree that you won’t be able to skip due to its positioning. This defensive CD can also bring you some dps increase. This is basically an absorb that explodes on the exact amount of damage you’ve absorbed. This ability is also on a GCD.
• Divine Protection: A simple damage reduction cooldown for 8 sec. It allows you to decrease incoming damage by 30% for 8 seconds. Now it is a baseline spell. This one is not affected by a GCD so it will become your main emergency button.

Defensive CD’s can be applied to you allies:

• Lay on Hands is a talent from the general tree. Simply heal the target for an amount equal to your maximum health. Causes Forbearance. Can be casted on yourself;
• Blessing of Protection is a talent from the general tree. Makes your target invulnerable to all physical damage for 10 seconds and also removes all physical debuffs from the target. You also should know that while your target is under Blessing of Protection it is also removed from the agro table. Still can use taunt under this effect, however when the effect of it fades the enemy is going to ignore this target. Causes Forbearance. Can be casted on yourself;
• Blessing of Sacrifice is a talent from the general tree. This is a damage reduction ability that can be used only on your allies but not on yourself. You are reducing the damage taken by chosen ally by 30%, however you are going to get all this prevented damage. It is a good idea to pair Blessing of Sacrifice with Shield of Vengeance to not die of Blessing of Sacrifice damage or just to proc faster the explosion of it. If you are going to save an ally from a very powerful ability it can be worth to pair it up even with Divine Shield.
• Blessing of Freedom isn’t a pure defensive cooldown. However it removes slows and roots effects. Some of them can be combined with damage effects. Your Unbound Freedom talent from a Class Tree also adds a 30% movement speed increase. And if you are applying Blessing of Freedom to your ally you are also going to get a Blessing of Freedom on yourself.