Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Guide

A renowned fighter and keeper of justice, Retribution Paladin has always been among the favorite characters in WoW. In this Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Guide, we are going to have a closer look at its talents and glyphs, find out the BiS gear options, and learn how to play efficiently. If you need a piece of advice on which addons to use in Cataclysm, read our Top Addons Guide.

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Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Overview

Retribution Paladins in Cataclysm Classic are the dominant DPS spec for paladins. With the power of Templar’s Verdict, Avenging Wrath, and Divine Storm, they can swiftly eliminate enemies both in single-target and AoE scenarios.

It would be fair to say that the popularity of this spec stems from their robust self-healing, strong defensive cooldowns, and valuable group utility. It’s no secret that Paladins, and Retribution especially, are always welcomed in Raids and Dungeons.

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Class Mechanics

Aside from the common for most classes resource, Mana, Retribution Paladins also have a unique source of their templar strength — Holy Power. This resource is accumulated via the usage of several special abilities or “builders”, and is spent to cast other robust spells called “spenders”.

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Changes

Retribution Paladin Cataclysm Classic changes are massive. A lot of talents and abilities were reworked. We gained damage increase from various sources like melee range attacks thanks to Blessing of Might and spell attacks from Crusader Strike, enhanced AoE damage from Seal of Righteousness paired with Seals of Command, and reduction of incoming damage with a reworked Resistance Aura, which now combines all of the auras we previously had.

Stat and Attribute Changes

Though our common stats and attributes remain equally important to us, there were some changes applied, here is the overview.

Changes to Existing Abilities

As we have already mentioned, the changes covered a huge amount of our existing spells abilities, and talents. Some of them were minor enhancements, others slightly nerfed the spell/talent effect.

Changes to Existing Talents

New Abilities & Talents

Not only do our pre-existing spells see the changes, but also the new abilities and talents were presented to the Cata Retribution Paladin’s spellbook. And the number of these is also impressive.

Retribution Paladin Best Gear in Cataclysm Classic

For Retribution Paladins in Cataclysm, there are two primary PvE gear alternatives to consider: Pre-Raid and Overall BiS.

Pre-raid BiS gear typically involves acquiring items from dungeons, reputation vendors, and crafted items, providing you with a solid foundation before stepping into raids. Raid BiS gear is obtained from various raid encounters, with items from Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, and Throne of the Four Winds delivering powerful upgrades to your character.

Here in our Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin guide, we gathered both Pre-Raid BiS gear and Overall BiS items to ensure that you find a reliable source of gearing options. And to make your gearing experience even more abounding, we offer you to reach out to our pro players and obtain the All Raids Bundle, granting you a full run of all raids and a chance to obtain BiS.

Pre-Raid BiS Gear

Overall BiS Gear

What to Buy With Valor Points?

The BiS Gear option is the ultimate best variant to aim at when entering the Cataclysm end-game. The majority of these items are acquired in Raids or vendors. As you never know for sure wether you’ll complete the raid with a reward or not, make sure to still queue for raids to earn Valor points to buy what you need.

Valor points are capped, you can only earn 1600 per week, but there’s no cap on how many points you can carry, so you can save up till you have just enough. The amount of points gained is about 100 per boss in Raid, so farming them can become tiring at some point. If this is your case, our team is ready to assist you in acquiring a weekly limit of Valor Points.

Retribution Paladin Phase 3 Gear Set

In Classic Cataclysm Retribution Paladin has the Tier 12 Raid Set, the Battlearmor of Immolation, as a part of the BiS gear. This superb set supplies us with worthy buffs for extra functionality for 2 and 4 pieces equipped. Though the set consists of 5 items, you only need 4 to claim the set bonus.

• 2 pieces: Your Shield of the Righteous deals 20% additional damage as Fire damage.
• 4 pieces: When your Divine Protection expires, you gain an additional 12% parry chance for 10 sec.

You can still try different gear combinations after obtaining 4 Set pieces, as the 5th item is not necessary to equip.

Retribution Paladin Weapons

The ideal weapons for a Retribution Paladin are those with high damage and strength but low weapon speed. Two-handed swords, axes, or maces are preferred.

Retribution Paladin Jewelry

While gearing Retribution Paladins, focus on jewelry that boosts their Strength, Expertise Rating, and Mastery. Look for pieces with secondary stats, even if these are not our top priority, it’s simply better to have improved features.

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Leveling

Leveling a Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin is a piece of cake. From the very start we are going to have the abilities that impact PvE damage, like our primary Crusader Strike and Templar’s Verdict, and spells that reduce our chance of death from the mobs’ weapons like Word of Glory.

You also gain extra movement speed from Pursuit of Justice when stunned, so it’s and additional save for the Paladin, allowing you to overcome the effect faster.

Retribution Paladin Best Leveling Build

Retribution Paladin Leveling Build 7/2/32: the optimal WoW Classic Cataclysm Retribution Paladin build, allowing you to increase your survivability and efficiency in combat, and increase your leveling speed.

Do not forget to generate Holy Power with your builders in order to take the maximum from your best abilities. For instance, Zealotry requires 3 Holy Power but generates 3 charges per strike when active.

Retribution Paladin Leveling Glyphs

Tips for Leveling Up

To level up faster and easier, you can optimize your strategy by including a few utility spells into the pull of your most-used abilities. Also, you can choose between questing and dungeons to farm XP in the most suitable way. What else can be of use during the leveling:

• Always keep Blessing of Might or Blessing of Kings active to boost your stats.
• Use your self-healing abilities like Word of Glory and Lay on Hands to minimize downtime between fights and ensure constant DPS flow.
• For AoE situations, use Seal of Command to increase your damage output on multiple targets.
• Collect and sell loot, especially green items, and materials, to maintain a good supply of gold for mounts and training.
• Ask for the Power Leveling service to minimize the time spent on babysitting your character, our pro players will do it for you.

Retribution Paladin Best Leveling Rotation

Rotation for the leveling phase is fairly simple, and there are two options to stick to when in Single Target or AoE situations. Below you can find the optimal sequence of spells, it’s more of a priority list than a ready-to-go rotation, but this helps understand the key abilities and the variations of their usage.

General Tips

• Seal of Righteousness: Keep active to sustain holy spirit buff.
• Blessing of Kings / Blessing of Might: Keep active for attack power and stats buff.
• Devotion Aura: Maintain for armor buff.
• Word of Glory: Use with three Holy Power if at risk of dying.
• Lay on Hands: Use in emergencies to heal yourself.
• Divine Plea: Use often to manage mana.

Retribution Paladin Best Leveling Gear

During leveling, Cataclysm Retric will have plenty of opportunities to improve your gear and weapons. Plate items with the highest Strength are all it takes to gear up, and slow Two-handed weapons are the best possible additional damage source. Better items are often found in rewards for quests or in dungeon drops, so make sure to be engaged in every possible activity.

Retribution Paladin Best Leveling Professions

In the early stage, WoW Classic Cataclysm Retribution Paladin shouldn’t worry about crafting items and earning all the server money. You can focus on training some gathering prof to steadily progress and sell the resources in the Auction House.

For this purpose, Skinning, Mining, or Herbalism are the obvious choices. Fully trained, they allow you to obtain the resources for the craft profession of your choice faster.

But, if you want your profession to stand out and contribute to the guild, choose Fishing training. Why Fishing? Catching 10,000 while being a guild member opens Fish Feast which is available for the whole raid group and grants 80 Attack Power, 46 Spell Power, and 40 Stamina. Isn’t it worth it?

Retribution Paladin Best Leveling Consumables

Consumables are a good source of extra bonuses during the leveling phase. You may think that the starting content is not that difficult and challenging, but one encounter with the mobs slightly above your level and you are seeking a place to hide and regen. That’s when you can pull your Major Healing Potion and prepare yourself to continue farming.

Healing Potions

• Major Healing Potion — An important 1-minute potion to restore health after a difficult battle.
• Super Healing Potion — Also a good option to keep at hand for healing.
• Potion of Speed — Haste rating buff with a 1-minute cooldown.
• Haste Potion — Another Haste rating booster.

Flasks

• Elixir of Giants — Used to increase your Strength.
• Flask of Relentless Assault — Attack power booster with 3 sec cooldown.

Food

• Mega Mammoth Meal — A good option to have a food buff and extra Attack power while leveling.

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Talent Builds

WoW Classic Cataclysm Retribution Paladin talents allow us to make a perfect layout for our build. With a few exceptions, we are going to take all the Retribution tree talents, and invest the rest into the Holy tree to empower our Judgement ability and a few others, and into Protection to gain Seals buff.

Judgement is also useful owing to its ability to trigger Replenishment, thus with this Cata Retribution build you will be always welcomed in raids.

Retribution Paladin DPS Build 7/2/32: focuses on increasing steady damage output, perfect for the end-game activities.

Retribution Paladin Glyphs

The Glyphs that we are going to utilize in our primary build are in majority damage glyphs paired with mana-management glyphs. This is convenient enough, with two primary resources being present. While you can focus your attention on Holy Power building-spending moves, your mana will be taken care of.

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Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Stats

1. Hit Rating
2. Expertise Rating
3. Strength
4. Mastery
5. Critical Strike Rating
6. Haste Rating

Hit Rating is our top priority stat, it makes the attacks land on the target, reducing miss chance. For a melee relying on its base attacks, we really need our damage to reach the target.

The goes Expertise Rating. Expertise reduces the chance your attacks will be dodged or parried.

Strength increases the overall attack power. Though it is only a top 3 stat, we are still going to prioritize it when gearing in plate.

Newly added Mastery enhances our holy damage. Mastery damage is really appreciated due to our most used spells are Mastery-dependent.

Attributes for Retribution Paladin

• Strength — Increases attack power, boosting melee damage and weapon damage, further enhanced by Blessing of Kings and Plate Specialization for a total 10.25% bonus Strength.
  1 Strength = 2 Attack Power;
  1 Strength = 2.1 Attack Power with Plate Specialization;
  1 Strength = 2.205 Attack Power with Plate Specialization + Blessing of Kings;
• Agility — Provides some critical strike chance but no attack power, and is not a priority as it typically comes on non-plate gear.
  203.08 Agility = 1% Critical Strike Chance;
  ~194.09 Agility = 1% Critical Strike Chance with Blessing of Kings;
• Stamina — Increases maximum health, aiding survivability, but is not a priority stat and comes naturally on plate gear.
  1 Stamina = 10 Maximum Health;
  1 Stamina = 10.5 Maximum Health with Blessing of Kings;
• Intellect — Increases mana pool size and provides a small amount of spell power and critical strike chance, but is not prioritized for Ret Paladins.
  1 Intellect = 15 Maximum Mana;
  1 Intellect = 15.75 Maximum Mana with Blessing of Kings;
  1 Intellect = 1 Spell Power;
  1 Intellect = 1.05 Spell Power with Blessing of Kings;
  648.91 Intellect = 1% Spell Critical Strike Chance;
  ~618 Intellect = 1% Spell Critical Strike Chance with Blessing of Kings;
• Spirit — Provides minor mana regeneration during combat, but is not necessary for Ret Paladins and should not be prioritized.

Secondary Stats for Retribution Paladin

• Hit Rating — Essential for ensuring your attacks land, which is crucial for generating holy power and dealing seal and mastery damage; capped at 8% hit chance for melee against level 88 bosses.
  1% Hit Chance = ~120.1 Hit Rating;
  8% Hit Chance Cap = ~960.87 Hit Rating;
  8% Hit Chance Cap = ~840.76 Hit Rating with Heroic Presence;
  5% Hit Chance Cap = ~600.5 Hit Rating (PvP);
• Expertise Rating — Reduces the chance your attacks are dodged, ensuring consistent holy power generation and dealing seal and mastery damage.

• Mastery — Increases additional Holy damage from major abilities like Templar’s Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm, making it crucial for boosting overall damage output.
  ~179.28 Mastery Stat = 1 Mastery Point = 2.1% Additional Holy Damage;
• Critical Strike Rating — Increases the chance to critically strike with both spells and melee attacks, boosting overall damage, though it’s less valuable than Hit, Expertise, and Mastery.
  ~179.28 Critical Strike Rating = 1% Critical Strike Chance;
• Haste Rating — Increases the frequency of melee attacks and reduces spell global cooldowns, also affects cooldowns of Crusader Strike and Divine Storm, but is generally less valuable than other stats.
  ~128.06 Haste Rating = 1% Haste.

Gearing Advice for Retribution Paladin

There’s not much that can be said about proper gearing a Cataclysm Retribution Paladin, but one thing is for sure: prioritize Hit and Expertise caps. Once you’ve reached them, you become fully set to take down enemies without misses, thus providing sustained DPS.

Then, you can switch to reforging of stats. This Cataclysm Classic mechanic allows for more efficient gearing without the need to skip a BiS or two and recraft one stat into another, which you lack.

And finally, always make sure to check Strength and weapon speed. The best options have lower speed, e.g. an item with weapon speed 3,8 is better (and slower with better damage range) than the other with 3,6 speed.

If you do not feel like participating in gear cherry-picking, get Specific BiS Gear from our pro players. They will eagerly help you to obtain the needed item in the blink of an eye.

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Best Race

The choice of races for Retribution Paladin in Cataclysm Classic is a bit limited, but you still have options. Here we offer top 3 races that grant you the best bonuses and expertise from racials, but surely you have the final word.

Alliance

• Human — The Human Spirit provides increased expertise with swords and maces. Will to Survive removes all stun effects, and it helps Retribution Paladin to withstand even the toughest encounters.
• Dwarf — Stoneform grants a temporary 10% damage reduction and removes poison, disease, and bleed effects.
• Draenei — Heroic Presence grants a 1% hit chance increase to the player and party members, reducing the amount of Hit Rating needed from gear. Gift of the Naaru provides a small healing-over-time ability.

Horde

• Blood Elf — Arcane Torrent silences all enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds and restores 15% of your mana, useful for interrupting and mana management.
• Tauren — War Stomp stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds, providing additional crowd control. Endurance increases base health.
• Troll — Berserking increases attack speed by 20% for 10 seconds, enhancing burst damage potential. Regeneration allows faster health recovery in and out of combat.

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Gems & Enchants

In this section of our WoW Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin guide, we are outlining the best enchants and gems that are available in this expansion.

Best Gems for Retribution Paladin

Though there are the blue and yellow socket gloves that we consider BiS we are going to use Bold Inferno Ruby, as the socket bonus is nothing in comparison with the buff that we gain from the gem itself. What concerns the yellow socket bracer, here the Skillful Ember Topaz will match the color of the socket.

• Meta Gem: Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond;
• Red: Bold Inferno Ruby;
• Yellow: Skillful Ember Topaz;
• Blue: Accurate Demonseye or Etched Demonseye.

Best Enchants for Retribution Paladin

For enchants, we are looking for options to boost the primary stats and damage. We have a lot of options, from the easily obtainable enchanting assortment to better profession-crafted. Anyway, it shouldn’t be a problem to enchant the majority of the gear.

For instance, key boot enchants include Enchant Boots – Mastery for Mastery boosts and Enchant Boots – Precision for increased hit rating. Weapon enchants like Enchant Weapon – Landslide is available to anyone, but hard to get Pre-Raid, while Enchant Weapon – Berserking is essential for increased attack power, easier to get, but falls behind the initial option.

For cloaks, if you master Tailoring, you will be able to get the best possible option — Swordguard Embroidery. And a possibility to craft a flying mount.

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Consumables & Buffs

Whether you are going to become a famous raider or renowned Retribution dungeon hero, or if you are simply eager to participate in combats and boss fights, you are going to need consumables and buffs at hand. Thus, we gathered here reliable advice on which consumables to obtain and which raid buffs/debuffs to look for.

Best Consumables for Retribution Paladin

The most useful consumables are those that enhance our primary stats. In our case, we are looking for a Strength increase.

Flasks and Elixirs

• Flask of Titanic Strength — +300 Strength;
• Flask of Battle — Flask effect based on class and talents;

Food

• Beer-Basted Crocolisk — +90 Strength and +90 Stamina;
• Seafood Magnifique Feast — +90 Strength and +90 Stamina;
• Fortune Cookie — +90 Strength and +90 Stamina;

Potions

• Golemblood Potion — +1200 Strength for 25 sec.

Raid Buffs

Of the following buffs, you only need one source for each buff, as different buffs that share the same benefit do not stack together. For example, you only need Blessing of Kings from a Paladin or Mark of the Wild from a Druid, but not both.

Enemy Debuffs

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Best Professions

• Blacksmithing is the best prof for Retribution Paladin in this expansion, so as to many other classes. With its help we can craft weapons and armor, providing early access to high-quality gear. But also, there’s a cool feature — Blacksmiths can create additional sockets for both bracers and gloves.
• Jewelcrafting is the second-best Retribution Paladin’s craft profession because it allows the creation of superior-quality gems. You can also start early crafting trinkets and rings, which might be useful and energy and time-saving.
• Enchanting is an extremely practical craft profession. We gain an opportunity to enchant our own gear and save money. Enchanters also benefit from the unique ring enchants.

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Rotation

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin rotation is relatively simple and allows you to start DPSing from the push of a button. Our instant-cast spells come in handy here.

Remember to generally Holy Power and spend it on the powerful abilities and buffs like Inquisition. However, you shouldn’t let Holy Power points overstay and avoid downtime. Crusader Strike is your priority damage button and a filler between attacks to generate Holy Power.

Retribution Paladin Cooldowns

WoW Classic Cataclysm Retribution Paladin cooldowns are really strong ones and we ought to use them on CD. Have a look at which cooldowns you gotta deal with while playing Cata Retribution Paladin:

Abilities for Retribution Paladin in Cataclysm

Filler Spells

• Exorcism — deals significant damage and applies a DoT when glyphed, used when The Art of War is active or from range.
• Hammer of Wrath — is a powerful execute phase attack usable below 20% enemy health or during Avenging Wrath.
• Judgement — deals moderate damage while restoring mana through Communion and Judgements of the Bold.
• Holy Wrath — deals moderate Holy damage to all targets within 10 yards, stunning undead, as well as demons.
• Consecration — creates a circle that deals Holy damage to enemies within for 10 seconds, but costs significant mana.
• Divine Plea — restores mana over 9 seconds, reducing healing, used when no other damage spells are available or when low on mana.

Hand Spells and Utility Abilities

• Hand of Salvation — reduces a raid member’s threat by 20% over 10 seconds, managing aggro.
• Hand of Sacrifice — transfers some damage from the target to yourself, assisting healers during heavy tank damage.
• Hand of Protection — shields the target from physical damage for 10 seconds, useful for saving allies with aggro.
• Hand of Freedom — grants 6 seconds of immunity to movement-impairing effects, useful in PvE and PvP.
• Cleanse — dispels 1 poison and 1 disease effect, crucial for removing debuffs.
• Rebuke — interrupts enemy spellcasting and prevents spells from that school for 4 seconds.
• Divine Protection — reduces all damage taken by 20%, or 40% magical damage when glyphed.
• Divine Shield — grants immunity to all damage for 8 seconds, but reduces your damage output by 50%.
• Lay on Hands — instantly heals the target for an amount equal to your maximum health.
• Hammer of Justice — stuns an enemy for 6 seconds, effective against trash mobs, adds, and in PvP.

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin PvP

In Cataclysm, Retribution Paladins are moderately viable in PvP due to their burst damage potential and strong utility spells like Hand of Freedom and Lay on Hands.

The high survivability is provided with Divine Shield and powerful support abilities. But keep in mind that they suffer from limited mobility and hardly tolerate crowd control effects. You should pair your Paladin with classes that can complement their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses.

PvP Talent Build for Retribution Paladin

Here we listed the best WoW Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin talents layouts for PvP builds. The choice of the build is up to you, depending on your personal preferences. Also, use the offered Glyphs for maximizing PvP performance.

2v2 Arena Teams

• Paladin / Hunter
• Paladin / Rogue
• Paladin / Death Knight
• Paladin / Warrior
• Paladin / Shaman

3v3 Arena Teams

• Paladin / Hunter / Priest
• Paladin / Death Knight / Priest
• Paladin / Hunter / Shaman
• Paladin / Hunter / Death Knight
• Paladin / Hunter / Rogue
• Paladin / Death Knight / Rogue

Cataclysm Classic Retribution Paladin Macros

Macros are the commands that you can use to improve the spellcasting. Retribution Paladin can generally benefit from this tool. Below you will find a list of the macros, that tend to be most helpful for Ret Paladins in all kinds of early and late-game situations.

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All in all, Retribution Paladin should be estimated as a flexible spec and it generally suits everyone. With the help of this Retribution Paladin guide Cataclysm Classic gameplay should be straightforward. Use the tips from the pro players and do simulations for better performance.