Retribution Paladin PvP Guide for Mists of Pandaria Classic

Retribution Paladin retains its title as the king of burst damage in PvP thanks to its incredibly powerful cooldowns like Avenging Wrath and the new talent Holy Avenger. While being known for their insane burst damage Retribution Paladin also offers a ton of utility in the form of buffs like Hand of Freedom and Hand of Protection.

Strengths

• Massive burst damage when Avenging Wrath and Holy Avenger are active.
• Tons of self and off-healing potential with Word of Glory and Selfless Healer.
• Incredibly strong personal defensive cooldowns like Divine Shield and Divine Protection.
• 

Weaknesses

• Minimal ways to reduce incoming crowd control.
• Forced to chose between dealing damage and self-healing when being targeted.
• Mobility can be limited when Hand of Freedom is on cooldown.

• Glyph of Templar's Verdict — Reduces your damage taken by 10% for 6 seconds after casting a Templar's Verdict or Exorcism.
• Glyph of Word of Glory — Increases your damage done by 3% per Holy Power spent after casting Word of Glory on a friendly target.
• Glyph of Divine Protection — reduces the Magic damage reduction of your Divine Protection ability by 20% but causes it to also reduce Physical damage taken by 20%.

Make sure to check out our Spells Summary Page. Properly understanding how each of your abilities work is crucial as a Retribution Paladin due to the massive amount of utility abilities like Hand of Protection provides. Knowing when and how to use these spells can be the difference in your teams survival regardless of the PvP format.

1. Crusader Strike — Deals damage and generates Holy Power allowing us to use Templar's Verdict and Word of Glory.
2. Execution Sentence — Applies a damage-over-time effect to the target, increasing as it gets closer to the end of the duration of the debuff. This ability scales directly with buffs at the time of application so try to make sure Inquisition is active before casting it.
3. Templar's Verdict — Acts as our primary spender of Holy Power to deal damage. Use this ability as soon as you reach 3 Holy Power.
4. Word of Glory — Can be used to heal yourself or allies when taking heavy damage.
5. Hammer of Justice — Instantly stuns your target, can also be used as a psuedo interrupt in a situation where your Rebuke is on cooldown.
6. Inquisition — Greatly increases your Holy Damage dealt, this is ideally used to prepare for using your DPS cooldowns like Avenging Wrath and Holy Avenger.
7. Exorcism — Deals a considerable amount of Holy Damage and can be used at range. This ability deals the least of your Holy Power generating abilities so generally speaking will be your lowest priority button to press assuming you are able to stay in melee range of your target.
8. Judgment — Deals a considerable amount of Holy Damage and also procs Long Arm of the Law which greatly helps with out mobility and sticking to targets in PvP.
9. Rebuke — Interrupts your targets spell casting, use this early and often to mitigate incoming damage or stop your target from healing.
10. Hammer of Wrath — Deals a ton of Holy Damage but is only usable on targets below 20% or when Avenging Wrath is active.

Retribution Paladin deals a ton of damage but deals even more when cooldowns like Avenging Wrath and Holy Avenger are active. Properly understanding how these cooldowns work can help turn the tide of a battle and allow your team to come out with the win.

• Holy Avenger — is a two-minute cooldown that causes all of your Holy Power generating abilities to deal 30% more damage and generate 3 Holy Power instead of 1. This can be used in a few different ways, ideally this will be used paired with Avenging Wrath to deal massive amounts of damage but if you find yourself struggling to survive this can be used to generate extra Holy Power to cast more Word of Glorys on either yourself or your teammates.
• Avenging Wrath. — is a three-minute cooldown that increases your damage and healing done by 20% for 20 seconds. This is ideally used paired with another cooldown like Holy Avenger to apply maximum pressure. Keep in mind this also allows you to cast Hammer of Wrath regardless of the targets current health.
• 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%. It is important to keep in mind that this ability can be dispelled by other players in PvP thanks to abilities like Mass Dispel and Shattering Throw.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings — summons a guardian of the light that attacks your target dealing a small amount of Holy Damage but giving you a stacking Strength buff up to 20% increased Strength. While it can take a considerable amount of time to fully stack in PvP it is a great way to not only increase your own damage but deal after the guardian expires it will explode dealing a considerable amount of Holy damage to all nearby enemies.
• 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 Hand of Sacrifice. In PvP this can be used to both reduce an allies damage taken but also to avoid crowd control that breaks on damage taken allowing you more uptime.
• Hand of Protection — is a five-minute cooldown that instantly makes the target immune to incoming Physical damage for ten seconds. This ability is able to be dispelled by anyone able to purge Magic effects so keep this in mind especially when against a Mage that may be able to Spellsteal it off of your ally.
• Hand of Freedom — is a twenty five-second cooldown that removes and makes the target immune to movement impairing abilities for six seconds. This can be used on either yourself or allies to maximize your uptime on your target.

While trying to get the most out of your Retribution Paladin in Mists of Pandaria PvP, these are the professions we recommend:

1. Blacksmithing — Gives you access to two additional gem sockets, one in your Gloves and one in your Writs. This allows us to gem for more Strength which is our single most highly soughtafter stat as Retribution in PvP.
2. Engineering — will allow you to equip Synapse Springs to your gloves. Even though we already have tons of on demand burst with abilities like Avenging Wrath and Holy Avenger using this on top of those cool downs will make our damage done almost feel unhealable.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for an Paladin in PvP.

Retribution Paladin is an incredibly versatile class that can synergize well with many other classes. Highlighted below are some of the strongest arena comps in the game to help you decide what best to pair with your Paladin.