Welcome to the guide on how to maximize your DPS as a Retribution Paladin in Wrath Of

The Lich King. It is safe to say that the paladin has finally entered his golden age. With 3
viable raiding specs and almost all possible roles covered, the paladin has become a very
powerful ally.

Gear:
In this section, we will take a look at what type of gear you will using. By now it should be
common knowledge that spell power isn’t used by Retribution Paladins any longer and with
all the changes in Wrath Of The Lich King, the desired stats of a retribution paladin has
changed as well.

Here is a short list of how you should be stacking your stats when picking your gear.

1. Strength - Always stack as much STR as possible. With the Divine Strength talent, every
1 point in strength will be giving you 2.3 AP. And since Strength scales with Blessing of
Kings it should always be taken over AP when possible.
2. Hit Rating - Stack until you reach the cap, which is 262 rating or 8% for PvE (5% for
PvP).
3. Expertise - Stack until you reach the cap, which is 214 expertise rating, or 26 expertise.
4. Crit Rating - Your chance to score a critical hit can never be too big. Getting as much
critical hit rating on your gear as possible will help boosting your DPS a lot. Keeping
Vengeance up shouldn’t be a problem.
5. Agility - You need 52 AGI to gain 1% crit, but this only counts towards melee crit.
Judgements are part of the ranged attack table, so pure critical strike rating is far superior.
6. Attack Power - A good substitute for Strength. Sometimes you have to settle with AP
over STR because there are no alternatives. This will mostly appear on your enchants.
7. Haste - Used to be good, but is rather pointless now. Do not bother stacking haste on
your gear, and never gem / enchant for it.
8. Armor Penetration - This stat is almost useless for a retribution paladin, simply because
~60% of our damage is unmitigated holy damage. This stat should be avoided if possible.
9. Intellect - Works great with replenishment for mana, but you will only find it on mail
items. Only pick these items if they are superior to your plate items. Never gem / enchant
for it.

Although this isn’t a guide telling you how and where to find your gear, having a decent
libram is essential. Picking a libram can be tricky since they don’t have stats on them, but
often enhances some of your abilities instead. I recommend getting the Venture Co. Libram
of Retribution, for pre raiding and then get Libram of Radiance whenever you can.
Venture Co. Libram of Retribution can easily be obtained by completing a few daily quests
at Venture Bay in the Grizzly Hills.
Libram of Radiance however requires a bit more effort, since it drops from Noth the
Plaguebringer, in Naxxramas (Heroic) and has a fairly low drop chance.

Spec:
I believe that the (0/10/61) build is the strongest PvE Retribution build there is at the
moment. It greatly benefits both you and your group/raid. If you are playing with fellow
paladins (often holy) and they have Improved Blessing of Might, you can put those points
in Guardians Favor instead.

Since Wrath Of The Lich King, the Retribution Paladin tree is close to self-explanatory.
Some might still question the point spent on Seal of Command. The answer is simple. Even
though Seal of Blood/Martyr is far superior, you will run into encounters where the damage
dealt to yourself is too much for the average healer to handle. Since Seal of Command is
the second best seal DPS-wise, having it ready for these encounters can be a good idea.

Glyphs:
A lot of these glyphs can be replaced for specific encounters. But this is what I believe to
be the best overall setup.

Major Glyphs:
Glyph of Crusader strike - Reduces the mana cost of your Crusader Strike ability by 20%.
Glyph of Seal of Blood - Your Seal of Blood or Seal of the Martyr increases the mana
received from Spiritual Attunement by 10% while active.
Glyph of Judgement - Your Judgements deal 10% more damage.

Some Retribution Paladins replaces the Glyph of Crusader Strike with Glyph of Avenging
Wrath, to increase their DPS output in the final part of a boss encounter.

Minor Glyphs:
Glyph of Sense Undead - Damage against Undead increased by 1% while your Sense
Undead ability is active.
Glyph of Lay on Hands - Increases the mana restored by your Lay on Hands spell by 20%.
Glyph of Blessing of Might - Increases the duration of your Blessing of Might spell by 20
min when cast on yourself.

If you didn’t spec for Improved Blessing of Might. Get the Glyph of Blessing of Kings
instead

Buff up:

As a paladin, buffing is a big part of your everyday routine. Getting used to that and
knowing exactly which buffs to bring will help you a lot.
With your points correctly placed in your talent tree, you will already be bringing huge
buffs for your group or raid such as Improved Blessing of Kings (10% to all stats),
Improved Blessing of Might, +3% critical hit chance from your Heart of the Crusader
talent, +3% damage dealt and +3% melee attack speed from your Sanctified/Swift
Retribution talents and finally massive mana regeneration from your Judgements of the
Wise talent. But you can go beyond that and buff yourself further with the proper
consumables to enhance your performance. You can either be using one battle and one
guardian elixir or one flask. On top of that, you can bring a food buff.
Here is a short list of some of the consumables you might want to bring for your raids.

Food buff: Dragonfin Filet. This is by far the best food buff out there so you should always
be aiming for it. It gives a total of 40 Strength and 40 Stamina for 1 hour when consumed
Flask: Flask of Endless Rage. This flask will increase your attack power by 180 for 2 hours.
It persists through death, so its very useful when progressing through a new dungeon.

Guardian Elixir: Since there aren’t many great Guardian Elixirs out there, you can use just
about anyone as long as they seem to benefit one of your main stats. My personal favorite is
Elixir of Mighty Thoughts. When consumed it increases your intellect by 45 for 1 hour. It
helps your mana regeneration a bit. But like stated earlier, guardian elixirs aren’t that good
in general for Retribution Paladins.

Battle Elixir: There are several useful Battle Elixirs. The two I find most appealing is the
Elixir of Mighty Strength (+ 50 strength for 1 hour) and the Guru’s Elixir (+20 all stats for
1 hour). Once you start getting geared up, you will see that the effects of Guru’s Elixir gets
less appealing.

Battle/Guardian Elixirs and Food Buffs do not persist through death and will need to be
replenished if you die.

Make sure to have your buffs up at all times to maximize your performance. To help with
this, getting the right add-on will make everything easier for both you and your fellow
paladins. More on that later.

Dealing Damage:
Now that we are through the basics, its time to explain how the damage is being dealt. You
have several powerful spells and abilities at your disposal, using them correct is the big
challenge.

The abilities you should be using for DPS is:

Seal of Blood/Martyr, Judgement of Wisdom, Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, Consecration,
Avenging Wrath and Hammer of Wrath (when your enemies have 20% or less health).

When fighting undead and demons, you should add Exorcism and occasionally Holy
Wrath, depending on the amount of monsters and your mana regenerating abilities.

Seal of Blood/Martyr is important. Not only does the seal deal more damage than the
others, but it also damages you 10% of the total damage inflicted on its auto hit proc and
33% on judgements, which helps on your mana regeneration as well.

Judgement of Wisdom vs. Judgement of Light. Both of them are very nice abilities. While
Judgement of Light helps out healing the group a little, including the damage you take from
Seal of Blood/Martyr. Judgement of Wisdom helps keeping you and your group/raid
members supply of mana going.

The rest of the spells and abilities are self-explanatory.

The final thing you will need is a spell rotation. It can vary a lot from encounter to
encounter. Here are two examples of how it could look like. These examples are the ones I
have found most useful in my time as a Retribution Paladin.

Single target DPS:

Seal of Blood/Martyr > Judgement of Wisdom > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm >
Consecration

If fighting undead creatures, add Exorcism.

Once your target reaches 20% health, add Hammer of Wrath to the equation between
Crusader strike and Divine storm.

Aoe group DPS:

Seal of Blood/Martyr > Judgement of Wisdom > Divine Storm > Consecration* > Crusader
strike.

*Even though Consecration has a good DPS and is effective against a larger number of
mobs than Divine Storm, Divine Storm has a bigger burst and using it early may allow it to
be recast on the same wave of mobs.

If fighting undead creatures, add Holy Wrath

Once a target reaches 20% health, add Hammer of Wrath to the equation.

You should always have the Retribution Aura activated, unless a resistance aura is required
for the encounter.

Add-ons:
The use of different add-ons has helped out classes during the history of wow. The Paladin
is no exception. You can find a lot of different add-ons all over the internet. Some more
useful than others.
The only paladin specific add-on I see as a must is PallyPower. It helps you and your
paladin raid members keep track of buffs. Who has which buff, who is missing a buff and
how long the duration of an existing buff is.

Macros:
Remove All Debuffs:
Used normally this macro will activate Divine Shield, when used with the Alt key held it
will used Divine Shield then instantly cancel it.
#showtooltip Divine Shield
/cast Divine Shield
/cancelAura [modifier:alt] Divine Shield

Activate Avenging Wrath and Trinkets:

If you’re using trinkets that needs to be activated, this macro can help you squeeze out a bit
more DPS.
#showtooltip Avenging Wrath
/use Trinket Name
/cast Avenging Wrath

Hints:
Stack Avenging Wrath and DPS trinkets for big DPS boosts. But watch your threat.
Save Hand of Salvation until as late as possible without dying, it's aggro reduction scales
with how much aggro you have generated.
Use Divine Protection instead of Divine Shield when entering a dangerous trash mob pack
with AOE abilities. Divine shield will grant you immunity to damage but also reduce your
own by 50%, while Divine Protection gives you 50% damage reduction and still lets you
deal your usual amount of damage.

That concludes this guide for maximizing the damage done by your Retribution Paladin in
Wrath Of The Lich King.

More World of Warcraft Strategies can be found across the net. I recommend mmOverload