Retribution Talent Guide

This retribution talent guide goes over each of the talents in the Paladins retribution talent tree. The retribution talent tree is for Paladins that wish to do damage in combat. While it is considered by many the weakest of the three possible trees in terms of end game viability, it is the most common leveling build. The extra damage it provides allows paladins to level quicker than the other two builds, and is strongly recommended to be used while leveling up. However, post patch 2.3 it has seen an increase in it's ability and can now prove viable in end game raids, although still slightly low DPS compared to a true DPS class.

Return to the Paladin Talent Guide. The Paladin Talent guide contains the links to the Holy and Retribution Talent guides along with resources to better help you understand Talents and the best ways to go about spending your Talent Points.

• Improved Blessing of Might - Max 5 points, increases the attack power of your blessing by up to 20%
  • Most Paladins use Blessing of Kings over Blessing of Might, so this will not get used much.
  • Better to get 10% to all stats than just additional damage.
    
    
• Benediction - Max 5 points, reduces the cost of all seals and Judgements by up to 15%
  • Greatly improves your mana pool
  • Useful for all paladin builds
  • Recommended

• Improved Judgement - Max 2 points, decreases the cooldown of your Judgement by up to 2 seconds.
  • By reducing the time between Judgements by 20% it allows you to do 20% more judging which in turn provides that much more damage.
  • For 2 points its a big return on investment.
  • Recommended
    
    
• Improved Seal of the Crusader- Max 3 points, in addition to the normal judged efffect, SotC also increases the critical strike chance of all attacks against the opponent by up to 3%.
  • A great ability that ups everyones critical hit chance against the target. A great buff and a reason to have a Retribution paladin in a raid.
  • Must have for Retribution Paladins, recommended for all others.
    
    
• Deflection - Max 5 points, increases your chance to parry by up to 5%
  • While potentially in the wrong tree as it is defensive, it is a good talent. 5% parry is hard to turn down as it reduces the damage you take.
  • Most protection Paladins come to Retribution to get this talent.
  • Must have for Paladin Tanks

• Vindication - Max 3 points, provides up to a chance on all attacks to reduce all the the targers attributes by up to 15% for 10 seconds.
  • A semi-useful ability as it will decrease the targets effectiveness in combat and allow you to drop them faster.
  • Nice, but not needed.
    
    
• Conviction - Max 5 points, increases your critical strike chance by up to 5%
  • Critical strike gear takes a while to add up. 5% is a big bonus for 5 points and since you will be attacking non stop well worth the points.
  • Recommended
    
    
• Seal of Command - 1 point skill, a seal that provides a chance to inflict 70% of your weapons damage in holy damage and can be judged to inflict holy damage.
  • This is the retribution paladins bread and butter seal.
  • Best used with a big two-handed weapon since it's damage is based off the weapons base damage.
  • Must have for Retribution Paladins
    
    
• Pursuit of Justice - Max 3 points, increases all movement speed by up to 15%, but does not stack with other increases. In addition it increases the chance you will be hit by spells by up to 3%.
  • This is handy in the PvP environment since you have no stares, and few stun abilities. It allows you some hope of catching players as they flee.
  • While it effects mount speed, it doesn't stack with your mount speed aura and therefore has little benefit.
  • If your into PvP and have a few spare points grab it.
  • Very useful as a paladin tank for the spell miss effect.

• Eye for an Eye - Max 2 points, will cause all spell critical hits against you to do up to 30% of the damage back to the caster, to a max of 50% of your health.
  • This is really focused at PvP players where you tend to take huge spell critical's. While it does not stop you from taking the damage, at least you can take the other person with you.
  • It is very satisfying to be hit for 6,000 damage, still be alive and have 2,000 reflected back at the caster and they die. It doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it can make you smile!
  • Must Have for PvP
    
    
• Improved Retribution Aura - Max 2 points, increases the damage your aura causes by up to 50%.
  • While this talent ups the damage significantly percentage wise, it doesn't add up to allot for retribution paladins, as you will mainly have Sanctity Aura active.
  • Skip it.
    
    
• Crusade - A passive ability that increases all damage you cause against demons, humanoids, undead and elementals by up to 3%.
• This talent ups the damage significantly percentage wise, since it will effect most of your damage.
• Strongly recommended

• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - Max 3 points, increases the damage you cause with two-handed weapons by up to 6%.
  • As a Retribution paladin you will mainly be using two-handed weapons for their base damage to get higher holy damage from your ability procs.
  • Allows you to produce even more damage
  • Strongly Recommended
    
    
• Sanctity Aura - 1 point skill, an aura that increases all holy damage dealt by party members by 10%
  • This immediately increases your damage output by almost 10% since much of your damage is holy based.
  • Assists other Paladins in your group or even Priests using Smite.
  • Strongly Recommended
    
    
• Improved Sanctity Aura - Max 2 points, increases the amount of damage done by all players effected by the Sanctity aura by up to 2%.
  • This ability gives additional utility to an already good aura. It makes the aura useful to other players as well as yourself by providing a second useful ability.
  • Put with a DPS group in a raid, between this and improved SotC you provide almost a 5% boost in DPS.
  • If you take sanctity aura (which you should at this depth into the tree) then you should take this ability as well.
  • Strongly Recommended

• Vengeance - Max 5 points, this ability puts a debuff on your target after landing a critical strike that can stack up to 3 times and lasts 30 seconds. Each charge provides up to an additional 5% bonus to your physical and holy damage.
  • Since you will be critical hitting alot anyway, you should have no issue keeping a full stack on your opponent, gaining 15% additional damage.
  • Must have Talent
    
    
• Sanctified Judgement - Max 3 points, provides up to a 100% chance to get 50% of you mana back when you judge a seal.
  • As a retribution paladin you will be using a lot of seals and Judgements, so getting half of the mana back from each Judgement allows you to keep dishing out damage for a lot longer period of time.
  • Three talent points this late in the tree though is sometimes hard to find and can be skipped, especially for PvP players where most fights are over long before you are out of mana.

• Repentance - 1 point skill, puts the target into a state of meditation for 6 seconds. Any damage ends this effect.
  • This ability basically gives you another short term stun.
  • Great for PvP as you can stun an opponent that is running away to give yourself and others a chance to get to them, or to interrupt a big spell cast.
  • Recommended for PvP
    
    
• Divine Purpose - Max 3 points, all melee and ranged critical hits against you cause up to 12% less damage.
  • Since you will not be using a shield as a Retribution Paladin, damage against you can be an issue, this helps slightly.
  • Only 10% though doesn't add up to a whole bunch and is only really useful in PvP combat where critical's are more common.
    
    
• Sanctified Seals - Max 3 points, adds up to a 3% critical strike bonus to your spells and melee attacks and reduces the chance your seals can be dispelled by up to 100%..
  • If your this deep in the Retribution tree you need to find the points for it, another 3% crit is nothing to sneeze at.
  • Nice in PvP as well, since it makes your seals much harder to remove.
  • Recommended

• Fanaticism - Max 5 points, increases the critical strike chance on all of your Judgements by up to 15%, and reduces your threat by up to 30% (except while effected by righteous fury).
  • Adds to the burst damage ability that you require in PvP. Useful for an increase in damage for PvE as well.
  • The 30% reduction in threat is the huge part of this talent for most players as it will keep you alive and not drawing threat away from the tank in groups.
  • Must have Talent

• Crusader Strike - 1 point skill, an instance strike attack that does 140% of weapon damage in holy damage and refreshes all Judgements on the target.
  • Provides for some solid controllable burst DPS on a target. Enables you to hit that big damage burst when you need it.
  • Especially useful for PvP and Recommended for PvE

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