Mists of Pandaria Classic Retribution Paladin Talent Builds

Retribution Paladin has considerably less talents than past expansions though the simplification of the talent tree still leaves us with several choices to make. As a Retribution Paladin your primary goal is to deal as much damage as possible but understanding how each of your talents function can both help you deal maximum DPS but also possibly help yourself or an ally survive something otherwise deadly by utilizing your utility.

Below is a rough breakdown of each choice available for each tier of Talents. In Mists of Pandaria you will unlock a new row of talent selections every 15 levels, starting at level 15.

This tier of talents is dedicated exclusively to mobility and increasing your characters movement speed.

• Speed of Light should be your default choice as a 70% movement speed increase on a 45 second cooldown will almost always be available when needed and will provide you enough mobility to get to where you need the increased movement speed for. The other two choices in this row can also be situationally quite useful.
• Long Arm of the Law will increase your movement speed each time your cast Judgment so if you are constantly needing to move and swap between targets out of melee range from each other it can be considered.
• Pursuit of Justice provides movement speed based on your current Holy Power but as a Retribution Paladin we will want to spend our Holy Power as often as possible limiting the effectiveness of this bonus.

This tier of talents focuses on our crowd controlling abilities. The choices in this tier can be dependent on exactly what content you are doing so you may find yourself swapping between these depending on the encounter.

• Fist of Justice is our default choice as it replaces your Hammer of Justice ability with a shorter cooldown version of itself and with 10 additional yards of range. Stuns can often times be used throughout encounters to entirely stop outgoing damage so if a mob is stunnable and you are struggling to survive consider casting this.
• Repentance incapacitates your target for 1 minute, any source of damage will immediately cancel this effect though so this should really only be used in situations where you are trying to completely ignore a target.
• Evil is a Point of View now allows us to cast Turn Evil on Humanoids and Beasts. This can be useful especially in a situation where another incapacitating effect is already present and you need a reactionary crowd controlling effect but it is incredibly rare that either Fist of Justice or Repentance will not accomplish the same thing but better.

This tier of talents focuses on self sustain and mitigating incoming damage.

• Sacred Shield is our go to option in this tier. As a Retribution Paladin our focus needs to be on dealing damage, and while it is important to utilize our utility the other two talents found in this section of the talent tree will consume too many of your global cooldowns to be used in a way that would be more effective than just sticking with Sacred Shield. Sacred Shield is a buff that grants an absorb to the target every 6 seconds for 30 seconds so it is incredibly easy to just set and forget either on yourself or a target you know will be taking damage.
• Eternal Flame consumes 3 Holy Power and applies a heal-over-time effect to your target. This can provide a considerable amount of healing throughout an encounter but will also consume a lot of our Holy Power that is better spent on doing damage.
• Selfless Healer causes each of your Judgments to grant you a buff reducing the Mana cost and Cast time of your next Flash of Light while also increasing its effectiveness. This is a choice worth considering in a situation where another member of your group is taking a considerable amount of damage in a short period of time but again your focus should be on maximizing your personal survivability and your damage output.

This tier of talents is centered around our utility and defensive cooldowns, either bolstering our current abilities or allowing us access to additional powerful defensive in the form of Hand of Purity.

• Clemency grants a second charge to your all of your Hand of Sacrifice, Hand of Freedom, Hand of Protection, and Hand of Salvation abilities before incurring their cooldowns. This will often times be our best choice as it allow us to utilize abilities that can often heavily mitigate or entirely change the impacts of various mechanics throughout an encounter.
• Unbreakable Spirit reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield, Divine Protection and Lay on Hands abilities by 50%. This is another strong option to consider especially in a situation where having multiple uses of Divine Shield can mitigate a mechanic in an encounter or just if you are otherwise struggling to survive.
• Hand of Purity reduces the targets damage taken by 10% and and periodic damage taken by 80% for 6 seconds. This ability can entirely remove mechanics from the boss fight due to the strength of having an 80% damage reduction on periodic effects but it is important to coordinate this with your group and understand specific boss mechanics will entirely ignore this effect.

This tier of talents will focus on bolstering our ability to do damage by increasing the potency of our cooldowns or allowing us more access to Holy Power spending and generating abilities.

• Sanctified Wrath extends the duration of our Avenging Wrath by 50% (10 seconds, totaling in 30 seconds of up time.) and reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Wrath by 50% while Avenging Wrath is active. The extended time spent under Avenging Wrath's effect causes this to pull away from the other two options found in this tier. It also causes our Avenging Wrath to be active for the full duration of our Guardian of Ancient Kings allowing that bonus Strength to be amplified even further.
• Divine Purpose gives you Holy Power spending abilities a 25% chance to make your next Holy Power spending ability to be free and behave as if it was cast with 3 Holy Power. This talent is a great choice but due to the randomness of its effect it struggles to compete with Sanctified Wrath but as gear levels improve and your ability to generate Holy Power increases this can become quite competitive near the end of the Expansion.
• Holy Avenger increases the damage of your Holy Power generating abilities by 30% and causes them to generate 3 Holy Power. This talent can be situationally useful in extremely short burst windows where you may only get through a few abilities before the target is dead but generally speaking it will often perform the worst of the three options.

The final tier of talents offers new abilities added in Mists of Pandaria that will allow you to both deal damage and and heal yourself and members of your party.

• Execution Sentence applies a damage-over-time effect on enemy targets and a heal-over-time effect on friendly targets that increases throughout the duration of the effect. This ability is our default choice for single target as it will result in the most damage done to a single target compared to the other two options. The largest negative found with this ability is the lack of healing provided to but as a Retribution Paladin your focus should be primarily on dealing damage. If possibly try to pair this with any sources of increased damage as this will snapshot your buffs when this ability is cast.
• Light's Hammer summons a hammer to a targeted location dealing damage to any enemies within a 10 yard radius and healing any allies within the radius. This is our go to when fighting large groups of enemies for an extended period of time. This can also be used as a raid cooldown to help your group manage large sources of incoming damage but ideally it will be used when it deals the most damage.
• Holy Prism is an incredibly niche option that we will not often be taking. Holy Prism if cast on an enemy deals damage to the target and heals 5 nearby allies of the target, if cast on a friendly target it heals the target and deals damage to 5 nearby enemies. This ability will struggle to deal the same damage as either of the other two highlighted options and can only really be used in a situation where you suddenly need a burst of healing your groups healer cannot provide.

Glyphs in Mists of Pandaria have had their power scaled down considerably, Prime Glyphs have been removed and we will now only have to focus on Major and Minor Glyphs. Major Glyphs will have considerable impact on your Damage and ability to survive an encounter while Minor Glyphs will mostly be for cosmetic and quality of life purposes.

As a Retribution Paladin your Glyph choices can be incredibly situational, Glyph of Templar's Verdict and Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice are your two default choices as they are almost always very effective but the third glyph spot can change fight to fight, listed below are most of our Major Glyphs to help you decide what will best benefit you encounter to encounter.

• Glyph of Templar's Verdict causes you to take 10% less damage for 6 seconds after dealing damage with Templar's Verdict or Exorcism. This is a default choice as due to the nature of our rotation you will almost always have this buff active as long as you are actively fighting an enemy.
• Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice causes your Hand of Sacrifice to no longer redirect the damage to the Paladin. This is an incredible way to mitigate damage on a member of your group without having to worry about the possibility of you dying as a result of reducing their incoming damage. This should be a default choice for any group content.
• Glyph of Mass Exorcism reduces the range of your Exorcism spell to now be melee only but deals 25% of its damage to any target within 8 yards of your primary target. This is a great option for cleaving large groups of enemies.
• Glyph of Divine Storm causes your Divine Storm ability to heal you for 5% of your max health each time you cast it. This increases your survivability in a situation where you are consistently using your AoE rotation.
• Glyph of Double Jeopardy causes your Judgment ability to deal 20% more damage if cast on a different target than your previous Judgement. This will be a default choice in any encounter that involves more than one target, especially when you will be spending most of the encounter fighting multiple enemies.
• Glyph of Harsh Words allows us to cast Word of Glory as a damaging spell. This is considerably less damage than our Templar's Verdict but should only be used in a situation where you will be out of melee range for an extened period of time.
• Glyph of Divine Protection reduces Physical and Magic damage by 20%. This changes your Divine Protection ability from a purely Magic damage defensive ability to now split the damage reduction half Physical and half Magic, this is a great option on any encounter you are taking considerable amounts of Physical damage.
• Glyph of Inquisition each time you land a killing blow the duration of your Inquisition is increased by 30 seconds. This is a great choice on any encounter that has multiple adds you will be killing throughout an encounter.

Minor Glyphs as mentioned above will only offer you quality of life or cosmetic benefits in Mists of Pandaria so listed below are the only two options that may actually impact your game play.

• Glyph of Righteous Retreat causes your Hearthstone to be 50% faster while Divine Shield is active.
• Glyph of the Falling Avenger adds a slow fall effect to your Avenging Wrath