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Retribution (WoW Talent Tree)  

Paladin
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Primary Uses

The Retribution tree is the damage dealing tree for Paladins. It's talents mainly focus on dealing 2-handed weapon damage, spell damage, reduce threat, some nifty PvP tools, and creating support for their raid. Protection spec Paladins will often go down Retribution to improve their avoidance and mana consumption, and Shockadin Paladins will spec down retribution 21 points to get their Sanctity Aura. Holy paladins don't have much use for the Retribution Tree, except for in cases where they want to grab Imp. Blessing of Might for the slightest dps boost.

Tier 1

  • Improved Blessing of Might - Increases the attack power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 4%.
    • This is the first talent trap that Retribution Paladins generally fall for. On paper it seems like this would be the optimal choice, increasing your damage output. However the increase in AP bonus is so small, it is not worth investing 5 points into. The only instance where this might be taken is for Holy Paladins who want to throw out 5 points to grab it to improve their raid damage.
  • Benediction - Reduces the Mana cost of your Judgement and Seal spells by 15%.
    • This is the best choice for the first tier of retribution of any spec. Retribution paladins should be expecting to judge and reseal spells a LOT. This talent helps take some of the mana hit off. The same philosophy applies to Protection Paladins. While maybe not as often as Retribution, Protection gets pretty close in judging and sealing spells.

Tier 2

  • Improved Judgement - Decreases the cooldown of your Judgement spell by 2 sec.
    • Very good choice for Retribution and Protection Paladins, as they will be judging often. Due to the bloating of protection talents, most will skip this and just get 5/5 Deflection. However, it is still a viable option depending on the build.
  • Improved Seal of the Crusader - In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement of the Crusader spell will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 3%.
    • This is one of the major reasons why raids bring Retribution Paladins along. An extra 3% crit is a nice boost to raid damage. Alternatively, a Protection Paladin or even a Holy Paladin can pick this up in the tree, however it usually takes away from other useful talents in their respective builds.
  • Deflection - Increases your Parry chance by 5%.
    • This is a must-have for any serious end-game Protection Paladin. The entire reason for investing points into Retribution is to grab this talent if you are Protection. For Retribution this is alright, the only benefit is in PvP and soloing, where Parry can help your avoidance, and reduce your swing timer when you do Parry. Read the mechanics for Parry for more explanation on that.

Tier 3

  • Vindication - Gives the Paladin's damaging melee attacks a chance to reduce the target's attributes by 15% for 10 sec.
    • This talent is only primarily useful in PvP. In PvE, most bosses are immune to Vindication, and most non-bosses who are not immune will die too quickly for this to matter much anyway. Even in PvP there are other talents that are better than this, so for the most part this talent should not be touched.
  • Conviction - Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 5%.
    • This talent is a must-have for any Retribution Paladin. Retribution damage is heavily dependent on crits, and a free 5% increase to crit is too good to pass up. Also, it is a prerequisite for a later talent (Vengeance) which is also paramount to successful Paladin damage.
  • Seal of Command - A Paladin seal spell that gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to 70% of normal weapon damage. Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing 68-73 Holy damage, 137 to 146 if the target is stunned or incapacitated.
    • Again, this is a must have for any Retribution Paladin. For Alliance Paladins, this will be the primary spell used for damage in a PvE environment. Horde Paladins will use Seal of Blood once they get it, but until then they will use this spell. For PvP this is the best spell to use for dealing damage for either faction, as it's bursty nature is preferred. Note that this seal averages 7 procs per minute when active.
  • Pursuit of Justice - Reduces the chance you'll be hit by spells by 3% and increases movement and mounted movement speed by 15%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.
    • This is a great PvP spell for Retribution and Shockadin Paladins. This allows them to bridge the gap between kiting classes faster, which has always been a concern. This is also an option for Protection Paladins for the 3% spell avoidance and the increased speed in some encounters is nice to have. This has no major use in PvE for Retribution Paladins and should probably be skipped.

Tier 4

  • Eye for an Eye - All spell critical's against you cause 15% of the damage taken to the caster as well. The damage cause by Eye for an Eye will not exceed 50% of the Paladin's total health.
    • This is a so-so spell for PvP. With the addition of resilience, the overall effect of this talent is reduced. Generally this talent is skipped for better talents. However it is a good "Ha ha" move to throw some damage back to casters who crit you.
  • Improved Retribution Aura - Increases the damage done by your Retribution Aura by 25%.
    • This is another spell that's kinda worthless in this tree. Any Paladin who goes this deep in the tree will get Sanctity Aura with 5 more ranks and won't ever touch Retribution Aura again, unless they want to give some extra threat boost to a non-Paladin tank. It's too deep for Protection Paladins to viably grab, so really don't waste your time with this talent and move on.
  • Crusade - Increases all damage caused against Humanoids, Demons, Undead and Elementals by 3%.
    • 3% more damage against the major things you'll be fighting is always nice. It's a good grab for Retribution and Shockadin paladins that are navigating their way down the tree.

Tier 5

  • Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - Increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 6%.
    • A retribution paladin will almost always (99.9% of the time) be wielding a two-handed weapon. An extra 6% damage for 3 talents ain't nothin to laugh at. Definitely a must-have.
  • Sanctity Aura - Increases Holy damage done by party members within 30 yards by 10%. Players may only have one Aura on them per Paladin at any one time.
    • This is the main reason why Shockadin Paladins go down the Retribution tree is to grab this talent. They will stop here and be done in this tree. Retribution Paladins grab this talent to improve their personal dps, and they grab it for the improved version as well.
  • Improved Sanctity Aura - The amount of damage caused by targets affected by Sanctity Aura is increased by 2%.
    • This increases group damage by 2% which is another nice reason to grab a Retribution Paladin in your raid and throw him in your dps group. Sure it's not a huge amount of damage, but it's a nice boost which might help you edge out that enrage timer that much sooner.

Tier 6

  • Vengeance - Gives you a 5% bonus to Physical and Holy damage you deal for 30 sec after dealing a critical strike from a weapon swing, spell or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
    • This spell is a great boost to Retribution damage, and it ties into the crit reliance mentioned earlier. With a 30 second window, it shouldn't be too hard to rack up 3 crits and be doing 15% more damage.
  • Sanctified Judgement - Gives your Judgement spell a 100% chance to return 80% of the mana cost of the judged seal.
    • This is a huge mana saver for Retribution Paladins who, as mentioned before, will be judging almost constantly to increase their damage output. This combined with benediction makes the Retribution Paladin's mana cost from seals and judgements almost zero.

Tier 7

  • Sanctified Seals - Increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and melee attacks by 3% and reduces the chance your Seals will be dispelled by 100%.
    • Another 3% crit chance to both melee and spells, this is another must-have. This also prevents your Seals from being dispelled which is a huge bonus to your damage.
  • Repentance - Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 6 sec. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Only works against Humanoids. (1 min cooldown, 20yd range)
    • This is an excellent PvP spell and a relatively decent PvE spell. For PvP this is one more spell interrupt which you can throw on casters before they get off that crucial spell. It's an incapacitate effect so it works well with Judgement of Command. A definite must-have if you've come this far, and it's a prerequisite for an excellent PvE talent and a decent PvP spell.
  • Divine Purpose - Melee and ranged critical strikes against you cause 10% less damage.
    • Get enough resilience and this won't matter really. If you find yourself just starting PvP and you have no resilliance, you might want to grab this to lessen the blow. It's usually skipped in both PvP and PvE builds however.

Tier 8

  • Fanaticism - Increases the critical strike chance of all Judgements capable of a critical hit by 15% and reduces threat caused by all actions by 30% except when under the effects of Righteous Fury.
    • This is a must have for any PvE build for the threat reduction alone. Also the constant Judging of Seals means the crit chance increase will be a nice boost to damage. However, in most PvP builds for Retribution this is not picked up, as it is not as good as the last 5 points in Protection in a (0/20/41) build: the threat reduction is worthless in PvP and the increased crit chance on judgements works off of your spell crit, not your melee crit, so you still wont be critting as much and overall it's just not worth it.

Tier 9

  • Crusader Strike - An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage and refreshes all Judgements on the target. (6 second cooldown, 5 yd range).
    • This is the bread and butter for both PvP and PvE retribution Paladins. It's the last reason why raids would bring a Retribution Paladin, as it allows all Paladins to quickly judge the boss and the Retribution Paladin to keep up the judgements for them. It's also a great boost to damage, and another possible source for a crit, triggering Vengeance. If you've come this far, you have to pick this up.

Typical Points Spent

All points on a ret pallie will be spent inside the ret tree with an exception of 5 to 13 depending on hit rating.

Raid Dps Spec 5/8/48

  • 5/5 Divine Strength
  • 5/5 Improved Devotion Aura (Redoubt is just as useful and it doesn't matter.)
  • 3/3 Precision (This is only reason to get Redoubt or Improved Devotion Aura, and if you have max hit for two-handers without it then skip all the prot tree and possibly pick up 5/5 Divine Inellect with 3 extra points for ret tree.)
  • 5/5 Improved Blessing of Might
  • 5/5 Benidiction
  • 2/2 Improved Judgment
  • 3/3 Improved Seal of the Crusader
  • 5/5 Conviction
  • 1/1 Seal of Command
  • 3/3 Crusade
  • 3/3 Two-handed Weapon Specialization
  • 1/1 Sanctity Aura
  • 2/2 Improved Sanctity Aura
  • 5/5 Vengeance
  • 3/3 Sanctified Judgment
  • 3/3 Sanctified Seals
  • 1/1 Repentance
  • 5/5 Fanaticism
  • 1/1 Crusader Strike

PvP DPS Spec 0/20/41

  • 5/5 Improved Devotion Aura
  • 3/3 Precision
  • 2/2 Guardian's Favor
  • 1/5 Toughness (Necessary for later to progress)
  • 1/1 Blessing of Kings
  • 3/3 Improved Righteous Fury
  • 2/2 Stoicism
  • 3/3 Improved Hammer of Justice
  • 5/5 Benediction
  • 2/2 Improved Judgement
  • 3/3 Improved Seal of the Crusader
  • 5/5 Conviction
  • 1/1 Seal of Command
  • 3/3 Pursuit of Justice
  • 3/3 Crusade
  • 3/3 Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
  • 1/1 Sanctity Aura
  • 2/2 Improved Sanctity Aura
  • 5/5 Vengeance
  • 3/3 Sanctified Judgement
  • 3/3 Sanctified Seals
  • 1/1 Repentance
  • 1/1 Crusader Strike

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This page last modified 2008-06-26 09:09:06.