Retribution Paladin PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.0.5)

Retribution Paladins have two main roles in PvP: use your strong single-target damage to force cooldowns and use your utility to help you or your teammates survive until you can use your burst cooldowns again. With tools such as Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Sanctuary, it makes your team very hard for the enemy team to kill. It is important to rotate cooldowns properly and know when it is a good idea to use Blessing of Sanctuary to break crowd control or when to use Blessing of Protection on you or a teammate that is being focused. You also have Flash of Light that comes in handy when the enemy has no kicks or is not focusing on you.

Retribution Paladins have the choice between using different Auras that will affect not only them but also their teammates. In PvP, we default into Devotion Aura. Devotion Aura reduces the damage your teammates take by 3%. All auras in PvP are relatively weak, but in 3v3 Arena Devotion, aura provides a total of 9% damage reduction, which is better than what the other auras can offer.

Before talking about the damage rotations, it is important to know what will be used to generate and spend Holy Power. This is extremely important because Retribution Paladins have limited mobility, so when you reach your target, you want to deal as much damage as you can. Here are the abilities that will generate Holy Power:

• Crusading Strikes turns your auto attacks into Crusader Strike that generate Holy Power every other attack.
• Templar Strikes has become a viable alternative to Crusading Strikes in The War Within and is a two part combo generating one Holy Power per press.
• Judgment is another ability that will be your primary source of Holy Power. This will also increase the damage to your next Holy Power ability and generate 1-2 Holy Power depending on talent selection
• Blade of Justice has a short cooldown and generates 1 - 2 Holy Power depending on your talent preference
• Wake of Ashes deals AoE damage in front of you slows everyone hit by the damage and will generate 3 Holy Power.
• Hammer of Wrath generates 1 Holy Power. This can be used on enemies with less than 20% health or while Avenging Wrath is active.

Now that you know how to generate Holy Power, here are the abilities that you will be spending it on:

• Final Verdict is your primary Holy Power spending. This costs 3 Holy Power, and you will use this to deal single-target damage.
• Divine Storm costs 3 Holy Power and should be used when your team's goal is to cleave the enemy team while they are stacked. This also gets cast from the talent Empyrean Legacy.
• Word of Glory costs 3 Holy Power and heals either yourself or your teammates, depending on your target.

Know exactly who you will use Hammer of Justice on. Most of the time, you will be using it on the enemy healer and trying to kill a DPS.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control, and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.

1. Cast Judgment talented with Boundless Judgment for 2 Holy Power.
2. Cast Avenging Wrath: Might
3. Cast Wake of Ashes for 5 Holy Power
4. Cast Final Reckoning and then cast Hammer of Light with 5 Holy Power.
5. Cast Divine Toll and depending on how many targets hit either cast Final Verdict if 4 Holy Power or above or cast Templar Strikes twice to get to 4 Holy Power then cast Final Verdict.
6. Maintain Shake the Heavens buff with Templar Strikes, Hammer of Wrath, and Blade of Justice as long as possible in order to trigger as many Empyrean Hammer as you can while casting Final Verdict to avoid going over the 5 Holy Power Cap.
7. It is worth mentioning if you are at 3 Holy Power and debating whether to cast a Final Verdict or generate more Holy Power during your burst to look at the remaining duration of Shake the Heavens. If Shake the Heavens has fallen off and you are still in your Avenging Wrath feel free to press Final Verdict at 3 Holy Power rather than pressing generators unless you are in melee range and have Templar Strikes off cooldown, then press Templar Strike/Slash to 5 Holy Power instead.

1. Cast Judgment to generate two Holy Power.
2. Cast Final Reckoning
3. Cast Wake of Ashes to apply your Burn to Ash. You will now be at 5 Holy Power and have a Divine Purpose proc from Herald talent Aurora.
4. Cast Final Verdict x 2 for 7 stacks of Crusade. This will also apply Dawnlight if it is not already on your target from Sun's Avatar.
5. Cast Templar Strikes into a Templar Slash. You will now have a Burn to Ash empowered Templar Slash damage over time effect on your target.
6. Cast Final Verdict for 10 stacks of Crusade.
7. Cast Blessing of An'she if available.
8. Cast Divine Toll
9. Continue with Sustained Damage priority.

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are unavailable.

The damage rotation of a Retribution Paladin is more of a priority system. It consists of trying to keep your Templar Strikes, Hammer of Wrath, Judgment, and Blade of Justice on cooldown as frequently as possible while avoiding going over 5 Holy Power, while also landing as many Final Verdicts into Greater Judgment windows as possible.

An example of a nonburst damage rotation would look like this:

1. Cast Judgment to apply Greater Judgment
2. cast Blade of Justice to apply Expurgation and Holy Flames if talented
3. If in melee range cast Templar Strikes to 5 Holy Power
4. cast Final Verdict
5. cast Wake of Ashes
6. cast Hammer of Light
7. Continue to keep generators on cooldown while not overcapping on Holy Power. It is worth noting if you are in melee range and Greater Judgment is already applied to the target you should prioritize pressing Templar Strikes over Blade of Justice and Hammer of Wrath due to its high damage in The War Within.

Playing these two talents slightly alters the burst rotation. In all likelihood, your first Empyrean Legacy is not going to be fully empowered unless it is off-sync with Crusade's cooldown.

1. cast Judgment to generate 2 Holy Power
2. cast Final Reckoning to generate 3 Holy Power
3. cast Final Verdict to generate Stacks of Crusade
4. cast Divine Toll to apply Divine Resonance and generate Holy Power.
5. Cast Final Verdict to generate stacks of Crusade.
6. Cast Wake of Ashes to get 5 Holy Power (note you may sometimes be at 4 Holy Power and need to cast 1 Blade of Justice to reach 5 Holy Power and apply Holy Flames).
7. Cast Hammer of Light and go into the same burst rotation priority mentioned in the above damage sections.

Divine Shield is your main defensive ability. This makes you immune to everything for 8 seconds. This should be used as a last resort when your healer cannot keep you alive.

Shield of Vengeance is a strong shielding effect modified by how much maximum HP you have. Its absorb can be increased by Verdant Gladiator's Emblem or Rallying Cry

Blessing of Protection is your secondary defensive ability. This is a powerful ability that can be used on either you or your teammates. This makes the player immune to all physical damage. It is powerful against melee teams and can also remove physical crowd control effects such as Blind and Cheap Shot

Blessing of Freedom can also be used defensively. It can be used on you or a teammates. If your teammates are being focused and they need a way to get away from the enemies, use this on them.

Blessing of Sanctuary should be used on a teammate that is in crowd control and does not have or wants to use trinket.

Blessing of Sacrifice can only be used on a teammate. This reduces the damage they take in PvP by 20% and redirects the post-mitigated damage to yourself. This damage can break crowd control effects such as Polymorph.

Word of Glory is an instant heal that costs 3 Holy Power. This should be used whenever one of your teammates is struggling to stay alive, and your healer needs help.

Flash of Light is an instant heal when taking the talent Light's Celerity. This should be used whenever you or your teammates are in trouble or as a filler ability if all your holy power generators are on cooldown and you are waiting for a Crusading Strikes swing.

Sacrosanct Crusade is a defensive talent gained by selecting the Templar Hero Talents. It gives a strong shield and heal to your Wake of Ashes and Hammer of Light. In emergency situations try and cleave Hammer of Light into as many targets as possible in order to increase its healing.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.