Mists of Pandaria Classic Retribution Paladin Spell Summary

Retribution only gains a few new abilities in Mists of Pandaria but many of the existing abilities have been slightly reworked. The guide below does a rough breakdown of each of your core abilities as a Retribution Paladin so you have a better idea how to properly utilize each of them.

Retribution consistently performs among the strongest melee DPS but having a good idea of how each of your abilities functions will allow you to not only deal the most damage possible but also assist your group with some of the powerful utility Paladin is known for having.

• Crusader Strike — is an instant cast melee attack that deals damage based off of your weapon damage and Attack Power. This also generates 1 Holy Power.
• Hammer of the Righteous — is an instant cast melee attack that deals damage based off your weapon damage and Attack Power. This attack deals slightly less single target damage than Crusader Strike which it shares a cooldown with but hits multiple targets and applies Weakened Blows to all of them.
• Judgment — is an instant cast, short cooldown ranged attack that deals damage based off of your Attack Power and generates a Holy Power.
• Hammer of Wrath — is an instant cast, short cooldown ranged attack that deals damage based off of your Attack Power and generates a Holy Power. This ability is only usable against targets that are below 20% health or when Avenging Wrath is active.
• Templar's Verdict — is an instant cast ability that consumes Holy Power dealing Physical damage based on your Attack Power and your Weapon damage. This ability costs 3 Holy Power to use.
• Exorcism — is an instant cast ranged attack that deals Holy damage to the target based on your Attack Power. This ability generates 1 Holy Power. Your auto attacks have a 20% chance to instantly refresh the cooldown of this ability thanks to The Art of War.
• Inquisition — is an instant cast ability that increases your Holy damage by 30% and your Critical Strike chance by 10% when active. This duration is increased by 20 seconds per Holy Power consumed, consuming up to 3 Holy Power per cast.
• Holy Wrath — is an instant cast burst of Holy Damage to all nearby enemies. This ability will also stun any Undead or Demon. This ability deals an additional 50% damage to targets under 20% health.
• Holy Prism — is an instant attack that can be used either on a friendly or hostile target. When cast on a friendly target it will heal the target based on your current Attack Power and deal Holy damage to 5 nearby enemies. If cast on an enemy it will deal Holy damage to the target based on your current Attack Power and heal 5 nearby allies.
• Light's Hammer — is an instant attack that places a radiating hammer on the ground at a targeted area, the effected area will deal Holy damage to any enemies within it and heal any allies within it.
• Execution Sentence — is an instant cast ability that will either apply an increasing damage-over-time effect to your target if cast on an enemy or an increasing healing-over-time effect if cast on an ally.

Retribution Paladin in Mists of Pandaria has many cooldowns both offensive and defensive that will greatly increase your damage output and also allow you and your party to survive otherwise deadly attacks throughout your adventures. Understanding how to utilize them is crucial so you can help reduce the most damage taken from your group while dealing the most damage to your enemies.

• Avenging Wrath — is a three-minute cooldown that increases your damage and healing by 20%. This ability is best paired with Guardian of Ancient Kings and Holy Avenger if you are running the talent. This also allows for Hammer of Wrath to be cast regardless of the targets current HP. This spell should be cast on cooldown as gaining an extra cast during an encounter will be a considerable damage increase compared to possibly losing a cast while waiting to sync it with your other cooldowns.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings — is a three-minute cooldown that should be cast on the pull, this ability summons a Holy Guardian that will attack your target and grant you a stacking buff, Ancient Power which increases your Strength by 1% per stack, capping at 20 stacks. The Guardian will deal Holy damage in a small area around itself upon expiring. If you are talented for Sanctified Wrath this should be used at the same time as Avenging Wrath to gain its full benefit. If you are not talented into Sanctified Wrath, wait 10 seconds after casting Guardian to pop your Avenging Wrath so you are able to spend the most time in Avenging Wrath with the fully stacked Guardian buff and to benefit from Avenging Wrath damage bonus when your Guardian expires.
• Hand of Purity — reduces damage taken by a friendly target by 10% and 80% from harmful damage-over-time effects. This is a great tool to deal with many boss abilities but note there are some effects that will ignore Purity's damage reduction.
• Lay on Hands — a ten-minute cooldown that instantly heals a friendly target for an amount equal to your total max health. This ability is best used only in emergencies where your target would otherwise die.
• Divine Protection — reduces incoming Magic damage taken by 40%. This is ideally used to mitigate a large amount of incoming Magic damage but if you find yourself in a situation where the encounter is dealing a large amount of physical damage and you are not getting much value from the Magic damage reduction consider using Glyph of Divine Protection which reduces the Magic damage reduction to 20% but will now also grant 20% Physical damage reduction as well.
• Divine Shield — is a five-minute cooldown that makes you immune to all incoming sources of damage for eight seconds while reducing the damage you deal by 50% for its duration.
• Hand of Sacrifice — is a two-minute cooldown that redirects 30% of the damage being dealt to the target to the Paladin who casted the Sacrifice. This lasts 12 seconds or until the target has transferred 100% of its maximum health in damage. You can only have one Hand active on the target at any time so if you need to cancel this effect consider applying Hand of Freedom to the target.
• Hand of Protection — is a five-minute cooldown that instantly makes the target immune to incoming Physical damage for ten seconds. While Hand of Protection is active the target cannot attack or use any Physical abilities. You can only have one Hand active on the target at any time so if you need to cancel this effect consider applying Hand of Freedom to the target.
• Devotion Aura — is a three-minute cooldown that grants your group immunity from silence and interrupting effects for 6 seconds and reduces all incoming Magic damage by 20%.
• Hand of Salvation — is a two-minute cooldown that greatly reduces the targets threat for 10 seconds.
• Hand of Freedom — is a twenty five-second cooldown that removes and makes the target immune to movement impairing abilities for 6 seconds.

In addition to the many rotational abilities and cooldowns you find yourself using Paladin has been given a number of incredible tools that you will find yourself using.

• Reckoning — taunts the target forcing it to attack you and increases the amount of threat you generate on the target by 200% for 3 seconds.
• Cleanse — removes all Disease and Poison effect from a friendly target.
• Blinding Light — is a instant cast that disorients all enemies within 10 yards for 6 seconds. This effect is broken by damage.
• Rebuke — is a fifteen-second cooldown melee ranged interrupt that allows you to disrupt spell casting.
• Hammer of Justice — is a one-minute cooldown instant cast stun that will stun your target for 6 seconds.
• Word of Glory — is an instant burst of healing on a friendly target. This ability scales directly with the amount of Holy Power consumed to use it and is best used with 3 Holy Power.

Seals and Blessings have all been greatly simplified for Mists of Pandaria but it is incredibly important to understand how each works and which you should be using at any given time.

• Seal of Truth — applies Censure to the target, stacking up to five times. Each attack with this seal active also deals up to an additional 12% of weapon damage to the target. This will be the default seal as Retribution against bosses or any single target encounter.
• Seal of Righteousness — causes each of your melee attacks to deal 9% weapon damage to all targets within 8 yards. This seal should only be used when fighting 3 or more enemies that will survive for 30 seconds or longer and are all within melee range of each other.
• Blessing of Kings — increases the targets Strength, Agility, Stamina and Intellect by 5%. You can only have one Blessing active per Paladin.
• Blessing of Might — increases the targets Mastery by 3000. You can only have one Blessing active per Paladin.