Retribution Paladin DPS Talent Builds and Glyphs - Wrath of the Lich King Classic

By terryn Updated: 2023/08/06

Talent Builds for Retribution Paladin DPS in Wrath of the Lich KingDivine GuardianAura MasteryDivine GuardianHeart of the CrusaderAura MasteryCrusader AuraSwift RetributionHeart of the CrusaderHeart of the Crusader

Improved Lay on Hands giving you an extra tank CD for your team.

Vindication lets your warriors not have to worry about demo shout (which is a pretty big dps hit for them to get improved demo shout). As a note: you shouldn't be getting this if you already have a prot paladin in the raid and instead they should get it. It should be noted that a prot paladin averages about 80% uptime with this, so if you want to make sure its a full 100%, its probably a good idea to grab 2/2 here.

Divine Purpose theres a number of stuns in both group content and in raids, so its nice to be able to break these or at least get your tank out of them.

Seals of the PureDivine GuardianDivine SacrificeSacred ShieldHeart of the CrusaderDivine StormTalents for Retribution Paladin DPS in Wrath of the Lich KingHolyTree Talents

Seals of the Pure

Improves the damage of Seal of Corruption and Seal of Vengeance (but not Seal of Command) by 15% as well as the associated Judgements. This is one of your highest damaging abilities so its pretty strong. You should aim to get this in either of the primary builds.

Divine Intellect

This ability doesn't actually do as much, so its not recommended to grab. See information on Judgements of the Wise for more info.

Unyielding Faith

Reduces the effects of Fear and Disorient effects. This has much more utility for the points needed to keep going down the tree.

Healing Light

Increasing your healing output is very nice for utility, and is your other go to points to continue down the tree.

Aura Mastery

Improves the effects of any aura you have active (including Crusader Aura) providing an extra layer of either your resistance aura to avoid more magic damage, or Devo aura to add some extra physical damage reduction for against whirlwinds or for some added mitigation on your tank.

Protection Tree Talents

Divine Strength

This is a flat 15% strength bonus, making our already strong stat even stronger, giving your strength a 26.5% increase after Blessing of Kings (these are multiplicative bonuses). You should always run 5/5 of this.

Divinity

This is a 5% (4 if you are going for the raidwall build) increase in healing done and received. This is a handy talent to get in substitute for Toughness since you will give you more survivability in some cases depending on your encounter / raid comp.

Anticipation

A 5% dodge bonus that really doesn't do much of anything, theres much better talents to get in this row to continue down the tree.

Stoicism

This is a 30% reduction in stun duration, which is handy for some encounters / farming and PVP as well. This is one of the preferred talents to grab on the way down the tree.

Guardian's Favor

This talent used to reduce the cooldown of Hand of Freedom, but now increases the duration, which is less useful. However it still reduces the cooldown of Hand of Protection to 3 minutes which is very nice for saving warlocks who pull aoe threat. Very good talent to grab on your way down the tree.

Toughness

The main reason to grab this is to make your way to the raid shield wall. This improves your armor by 8% (10 with max rank, but we won't get that many points). The reason you get this over any other talents is because this gives you 24% reduction in duration of movement impairing effects. The options are either 4 points in this or 4 points in Divinity and will depend on your preference / encounter. This talent is vital in PVP as the armor bonus helps against all physicals, and the DR on movement impairing effects helps out when you're able to freedom yourself.

Divine Sacrifice

The "Party Wall" redirecting damage from the party to the paladin. This can be used with Divine Shield to prevent all damage taken on the paladin, letting the wall last the entire duration. This can be improved with 2 points in Divine Guardian to improve this to the entire raid.

Divine Guardian

Changes the "party wall" to a "raid wall" reducing damage taken by 20% across the whole raid for 6 seconds. This is in addition to the 30% party for a whole of 50% on the party. The extra bonus is your Sacred Shield being buffed adds even more survivability.

Improved Hammer of Justice

This is primarily a pvp talent, but gets your Hammer of Justice cd down to 40 seconds.

Retribution Tree Talents

Benediction

Mana efficiency talent. Its better to grab this than parry chance for a DPS.

Improved Judgements

Brings your hardest hitting ability down to an 8 second CD, so its quite important. Must get in all builds.

Heart of the Crusader

Adds a 3% crit chance taken increase debuff to the target, sharing a slot with rogue Master Poisoner and Totem of Wrath. This is normally a required talent, however it can be skipped if you have someone else providing this debuff and points can be used potentially elsewhere. IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE: This ability is currently BUGGED and a 1/3 or a 2/3 will override a full 3/3, so make sure that you are either 0/3 or full 3/3 into this.

Improved Blessing of Might

Improves the AP buff of blessing of Might by 25%. This shares a buff slot with Battle Shout and 5/5 improved Commanding Presence.

Vindication

Reduces the physical damage the target deals, sharing a debuff slot with Demoralizing Shout, but should be overridden if that person has 5/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout (617 AP reduction vs 574).

Conviction

5% crit bonus and required for Vengeance so this is a very important talent.

Seal of Command

This talent is one of your strongest abilities and should never be skipped (contrary to some content creators suggestions). There is never a time when you don't want to have the ability to cleave.

Pursuit of Justice

The disarm is something to note, but the primary use of this is the 15% movement speed racecar addition. Never skip.

Eye for an Eye

PVP talent that turns you into a porcupine, helping get a bit of extra damage onto anyone who is on you.

Crusade

3% bonus on everything and 3% more on "most" mobs in the game. Very good talent.

Sanctity of Battle

3% crit and a lot of bonus damage on your Crusader Strike and Exorcism. Another must grab.

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization

6% damage increase when you have a 2h equipped (which you always should).

Sanctified Retribution

Increases ret aura damage (mostly irrelevant) and then provides 3% damage bonus, which shares bonuses with Ferocious Inspiration and Arcane Empowerment.

Vengeance

Bonus 9% physical or holy damage after fully stacked so its pretty good.

Divine Purpose

Freedom will now dispell stuns, and can be used on yourself to freedom out of spells. This talent is absolutely bonkers in pvp and a must grab there, while being almost completely useless in PVE.

Repentance

While traditionally this was only taken as a passthrough talent to get to better things, this talent now is a 1 minute CC in PVE (~10 seconds in PVP) and does not reset your swing timer any more. An added bonus is it dispels the paladin deepwounds on the target cast so that won't break the CC instantly.

Judgements of the Wise

The bread and butter for how a paladin is able to sustain damage now, every cast of judgement restores 1098 mana at 80 and 789 at 70. As a note this value is based off of your BASE mana pool and not your ACTIVE (IE, intel modified mana pool) so any buffs to your int does not actually improve the effectiveness of this spell. This talent ALSO provides replenishment, which is a huge raid utility trait brought by Shadow priests, Survival Hunters, Frost Mages and Destruction Warlocks. This buff only effects 10 party members, so you typically want 2-3 minimum people who can provide this to make sure there's good up time across a 25 man raid.

Sanctified Wrath

Makes Hammer of Wrath nearly always a critical strike, really upping your execute range damage. The bonus part of this talent doesn't actually reduce bonuses like armor, only damage reductions such as Shield Wall (So this would be only a 30% reduction instead of 60%)

Fanaticism

The biggest thing with this is it gives you a threat reduction which is absolutely necessary in dungeons and raids, and then gives you some more judgement damage.

Swift Retribution

This is a raid buff that shares with Improved Moonkin Form from Boomkin Druid.

Sheath of Light

Gives various spells like Consecration a bonus source of scaling, as well as giving you spell power to make your healing super strong. The hot rolls similar to ignite so feel free to spam if you're in a situation like that.

Crusader Strike

Your basic attack that is your highest priority button when you're in a single target situation. Does less damage than the TBC version, procs seals, and does NOT refresh judgements like it does in current TBC.

Righteous Vengeance

A paladin version of Ignite that only works off of Judgement of Wisdom, Divine Storm, and Crusader Strike. This effect does roll and can partial resist based on spell hit. It also deals physical damage which is kinda weird but its a thing.

Divine Storm

This is a paladin version of Whirlwind. This effect will proc seals (Cleave seal doesn't actually cleave, just procs on each target once) and the heal for this can be upwards of 25% of your HP if you hit all 4 targets.

Glyphs for Retribution Paladin DPS in Wrath of the Lich KingMajor Glyphs

Glyph of Reckoning

New glyph that was added after the beginning of ulduar. This glyph results in ~ 8-10% damage increase as long as you're using Hand of Reckoning regularly.

Glyph of Judgement

Causes your biggest damage button to deal 10% more damage. You should always run this.

Glyph of Avenging Wrath

This is an interesting glyph, letting you hit Hammer of Wrath twice as often while AW is up, really letting you pop off in execute range. This is taken quite a lot to gamble for the execute damage on bosses, where hammers are almost guarenteed crit and proc seals.

Glyph of Seal of Vengeance

This glyph is the best glyph early on where you would otherwise have to gem for expertise cap. This glyph loses effectiveness over time as you can naturally hit expertise cap.

Glyph of Consecration

This glyph does two good things. 1) Increases the overall uptime of consecration and 2) reduces your overall mana spent on consecration.

Glyph of Exorcism

Glyph of Exorcism increases exo damage by way more than judgement, but Exorcism is less of your overall damage by a lot due to its slow CD and overall less damage.
This is your 3rd glyph to grab if you aren't running the expertise glyph

Glyph of Holy Wrath

Not a direct damage increase, but I'm giving a special shout out to this utility glyph, letting you use Holy Wrath every 25 seconds instead of 40.

Minor Glyphs

Glyph of Sense Undead

Only damage bonus glyph, giving you 1% damage bonus against undead. Never unequip.

Glyph of Lay on Hands

Definitely your 2nd best glyph, giving you a 15 minute CD on LOH instead of 20 minutes.

Glyph of Blessing of Might

Makes your single target BOM last the same as the Greater blessing.

Glyph of Blessing of Kings

Makes kings & GBOK cost less.

Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom

Makes regular BOW on yourself last as long as the Greater blessing.

Glyph of the Wise

Makes SOW cost less mana, not really that useful, its probably the least important thing.

Comments

Comment by jterhune

Your math on Vindication vs 5/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout isn't correct. 5/5 Improved Demoralizing shout is only a 40% increase, not a 50% increase (8%/16%/24%/32%/40%) making the difference between Vindication and 5/5 DS 574 vs 575, not 574 vs 617. They are nearly identical and Vindication is a lot easier to apply.

Comment by RawrMeowBoom

Please update this terribly advised build. Ret has the best AP reduction with Vindication and it only costs 2 points compared to Warrior/Feral. Please fix the misinformation it's been 2 phases

Comment by SethOfThe99

Might want to mention that most competent groups will tell you to take raid wall (Divine sacrifice + Divine guardian 2/2), or just get rid of you, because your damage will be dog anyway.

Comment by Puldan

I'd like to ask about expertise cap on p3. Right now i have 26 expertise with the glyph, is it worth losing this glyph for glyph of exorcism? Right now, with my gear i can't get the extra expertise through gear so i stick with the glyph?

Comment by Frost1992

Are the glyphs just not loading, or are they just irrelevant?

Retribution Paladin DPS Talent Builds and Glyphs - Wrath of the Lich King Classic

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