Forever Retribution Paladin Stat Priority

On this page you will find information about how stats interact with Retribution Paladin, and what stats you want to look for in gear. Most of this page is written with Level 60 and end-game dungeons and raids in mind, but a lot of it will be relevant during your leveling journey as well. Everything on this page is based on the information we have available from the WoW Forever Beta, and as such it is possible that new Level 60 gear and any potential Gear or Tier sets might skew the stat recommendations once we learn of them.

Going into WoW Forever there are two different Retribution Paladin builds which will have slightly different stat priorities. Builds focusing on the Twist of Light talent mainly lean into stats that empower your Physical damage, while still valuing Spell Power. Meanwhile, builds that instead go for Holy Shock in the Holy talent tree to complement your Retribution talents will instead primarily focus on Spell Power while still valuing physical stats like Strength and Agility.

Do note that the following stat priorities are based on the general value of each stat, given the stat budgets of gear we have already seen, and a larger quantity of a stat lower on the list can outweigh less of a better stat.

Builds centering around Twist of Light focus primarily on stats that improve the damage of your auto-attacks and Seal of Command, while also looking for a good amount of Spell Power, since it also scales the damage of most of your abilities. Besides the stats above you still also value Critical Strike, Agility, and Intellect for their respective effects.

While the build was named after Holy Shock, it is by no means the only important source of damage. Your overall damage output is still based on all the skills in your kit, with Seal of Righteousness being particularly powerful in this build. This means you are still prioritizing stats that allow your auto-attacks to hit your target, but you also want to focus on Spell Power which empowers all your ability damage. Stats that increase your Physical damage like Strength and Agility are still good for damage, as is Intellect which indirectly grants Spell Power through the Champion of the Light talent.

Each stat works slightly differently and has different effects on your abilities. In the table below there will be general information regarding each stat and how they function, followed by more detailed information on the key stats.

Stat	Effect
Weapon Damage/DPS	A significant amount of your damage is tied to auto-attacks, which scale with your equipped weapons DPS. Some effects like Seal of Command also scale with your weapon's damage, which depends just as much on the swing speed of the weapon.
Hit Chance	Increases the chance for your attacks and abilities to hit the target.
Expertise	Reduces the chance for enemies to Dodge and Parry your attacks.
Spell Power	Increases the damage dealt by most of your spells and abilities.
Critical Strike	Increases the chance for your attacks and abilities to deal bonus damage, up to double the original amount depending on the spell.
Strength	Grants Attack Power that increases your auto-attack and physical ability damage.
Intellect	Increases your Mana, your chance to Critically Strike with abilities that are considered spells, and converts to Spell Power through Champion of the Light.
Agility	Grants Critical Strike Chance on abilities that are considered melee abilities.
Haste	Increases your cast speed and makes your auto-attacks faster.

There are some factors that you want to take into account when choosing your weapon. Depending on the talent build you are playing and gearing for, the swing speed of the weapon is very important, with weapon DPS also having a meaningful impact on your weapon choice. The weapon's stats and effects are also important, but usually less so than the swing speed and weapon DPS.

Seal Twisting builds that build into Seal of Command and Twist of Light gain value from weapons with slower swing speeds, since the proc chance for Seal of Command changes so you can expect about 7 activations per minute. Slower weapons gain more damage per swing from Attack Power, which leads to more damage from Seal of Command procs.

The alternative Shockadin build that focuses on Holy talents instead gains more damage from using faster weapons with Seal of Righteousness. This is because Seal of Righteousness has a flat Spell Power Coefficient regardless of your weapon's swing speed, so you want to hit your target as often as possible. A slightly slower weapon with some combination of better weapon DPS, better stats, or chance-on-hit effects, can definitely end up performing better, but you will need to use a theoretical simulation to be able to accurately determine this.

In WoW Forever, all your offensive attacks, abilities, and spells have a baseline chance to miss your enemies based on the level difference between you and the enemy you are trying to hit. The amount of Hit Chance needed to guarantee that all your abilities can hit is usually referred to as Hit Cap, with separate Hit Caps for melee abilities and magical spells. The most relevant Hit Cap for Retribution Paladins is for melee abilities, which is 8% against Raid Bosses. You can click below for a more detailed explanation of Hit Chance.

Hit Chance And Hit Caps

All your attacks and abilities have a baseline chance to miss the target which depends on the difference of your level and that of the target you are trying to hit. As a baseline all Bosses in Raids are effectively Level 63, or 3 levels over a Level 60 player. The table below shows the miss chance against targets up to 3 levels above you for melee abilities and spells.

Target Level Difference	Melee Miss Chance	Spell Miss Chance
Same Level	5%	4%
+1 Level	5.5%	5%
+2 Levels	6%	6%
+3 Levels	8%	17%

Reaching Hit Cap means that your attacks against a target can't miss. To do this you need to increase your Hit Chance, which you can get from gear, talents such as Precision, and some consumables. For s the most important Hit Cap is that for Melee abilities, since it applies to our auto-attacks, Seals which trigger from successful auto-attacks, and some of our other most important abilities.

For Retribution the following abilities are considered melee abilities:

• Holy Strike
• Judgement
• Hammer of Wrath

Meanwhile these abilities instead use the spell miss chance:

• Holy Shock
• Consecration
• Exorcism
• Holy Wrath

Because of this makeup, Hit Chance beyond 8% is still useful for your damage, but unlikely to be worth prioritizing over other stats that are still providing their full value to all of your abilities.

All enemies also have a baseline chance to Dodge and Parry your melee attacks. Enemies can only Parry when you are in front of them, and in most end-game situations a Tank will face the enemy away from you, removing the risk of getting Parried. For Retribution Paladin the only damage that can be dodged is your auto-attacks and Holy Strike, and you need 6.5% Expertise to remove the chance for a Raid Boss to dodge your attacks.

Critical Strike chance increases the chance for your attacks and abilities to deal bonus damage or healing, with separate Critical Strike chances for melee abilities and spells. For all melee abilities the bonus damage equals 100% of the base damage, while spells and heals only get bonus damage equal to 50% of the base damage. Besides flat Critical Strike chance on gear that affects all your damage, there are also some stats that only give Critical Strike chance to some damage. Agility gives Melee Critical Strike chance, while Intellect gives Spell Critical Strike chance.

The following list of damage sources all count as melee damage, use Melee Critical Strike chance, and get 100% bonus damage when they critically strike:

• Auto-attacks
• Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Command, and Seal of Fury
• Holy Strike
• Judgement
• Hammer of Wrath – Technically uses Ranged Critical Strike, which is functionally identical to melee crit. The only difference is that it does not benefit from Conviction

Meanwhile, the following spells use Spell Critical Strike Chance and get 50% bonus damage when they critically strike:

• Holy Shock
• Consecration
• Exorcism
• Holy Wrath

Spell Power appears as a fairly straightforward stat, increasing the damage of your spells up to a certain amount. However, the amount of damage it actually provides to your abilities varies a lot between skills. The simple explanation is that it buffs all your damage except your auto-attacks, but if you are interested in a more detailed explanation of exactly how it affects all your abilities you can click below for a more detailed explanation.

Spell Power Explained

In this section, we will get into how the formula for spell damage benefits from Spell Power. The following explanations will exclude talents that modify the impact of Spell Power, since they affect the full damage of the affected abilities. The formula below will describe how to determine how much damage is gained from Spell Power for each ability, after which we will break down each term to understand how they work.

Spell Power x Weapon Modifier x Spell Power Coefficient = Damage Gained

The first modifier in the list is the Weapon Modifier, this only affects two damage sources, Seal of Command and Holy Strike, and is based on the Weapon Damage Modifier in the base spell. For Seal of Command the base modifier is 0.7, and for the highest rank of Holy Strike it is 0.5, or 0.6 if Sacred Arbiter is talented. For all other damage the Weapon Modifier is equal to 1.

The second modifier is the Spell Power Coefficient of each ability. These are usually based on the cast time of the ability, with instant abilities counting as spells with a base cast time of 1.5 seconds. There are some exceptions and some that are affected by reductions due to being AoE abilities. The list below lists the final Spell Power Coefficient for all affected abilities.

• Seal of Righteousness – 0.1 for one-handed weapons, 0.12 for two-handed weapons
• Seal of Fury – 0.1
• Seal of Command – 0.29, 0.203 after Weapon Modifier
• Holy Strike – 0.429, 0.257 after Weapon Modifier with Sacred Arbiter
• Judgement – 0.429
• Hammer of Wrath – 0.429
• Holy Shock – 0.429
• Consecration – 0.042 per tick, 0.336 for the full cast
• Exorcism – 0.429
• Holy Wrath – 0.19

Some talents such as Improved Seals and Two-Handed Weapon Specialization increase the base damage and the damage gained from Spell Power. The debuff from using Judgement with Seal of the Crusader applies to all damage without Weapon Modifiers as well.

Strength and Attack Power are straight-forward stats that increases your physical damage. Each point of Strength is converted to two points of Attack Power, and each 14 Attack Power increases your Weapon DPS by one, increasing the damage of your auto-attacks, Holy Strike, and Seal of Command.

Intellect increases your Mana pool, increases your Spell Critical Strike chance, and if Champion of the Light is talented it increases your Spell Power. Because of all of these things Intellect ends up a good stat despite Retribution Paladin being a Melee DPS spec.

Intellect Scaling

For each point of Intellect your character has you will gain the following effects.

• Mana
  • Each point of Intellect increases your Maximum Mana by 15.
• Critical Strike
  • For each 54 points of Intellect, your Spell Critical Strike chance is increased by 1%.
• Spell Power
  • While Champion of the Light is talented you gain Spell Power equal to 60% of your Intellect.

The following Spells are affected by your Spell Critical Strike chance:

• Holy Shock
• Consecration
• Exorcism
• Holy Wrath

Agility increases the chance for your Melee abilities to Critically Strike, as well as granting Dodge chance and a small amount of armor.

Agility Scaling

For each point of Agility on your gear you gain the following effects.

• Critical Strike Chance
  • For each 20 Agility, you gain 1% chance to Critically Strike with Melee and Range attacks and abilities.
• Dodge Chance
  • For each 20 Agility, you gain 1% chance to Dodge enemy attacks.
• Armor
  • For each point of Agility, you gain 2 Armor, reducing damage taken by a very small amount.

The following list of attacks and abilities benefit from your Melee or Range Critical Strike chance:

• Auto-attacks
• Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Command, and Seal of Fury
• Holy Strike
• Judgement
• Hammer of Wrath

Spirit increases your Health regeneration outside of combat, and your Mana regeneration outside of the 5 second rule while using abilities. The 5 second rule will be explained in more detail in the section below. Reverence will allow for a portion of your Mana regeneration outside of the rule, just as Mana per 5 seconds, or MP5, which can be found on gear or gained through buffs like Blessing of Wisdom.

5-Second Rule And MP5

Using any spell or ability that costs Mana will activate a 5 second period where your normal Mana regeneration stops working, this period is called the 5 second rule. Effects that allow part of your Mana regeneration to continue like casting such as Reverence will cause part of your regular Mana regeneration to ignore the 5 second rule. Mana per 5 seconds, or MP5, does the same thing and ignore your casting. Since all Retribution abilities cost Mana, and most offensive abilities have short cooldowns, you will basically constantly be in the 5 second rule when you are in combat as Retribution.

More WoW Forever Paladin Guides

Retribution Paladin Melee DPS Leveling Protection Paladin Tank Leveling Protection Paladin Tank Guide Holy Paladin Healer Guide Holy Paladin Healer Stats Retribution Paladin Melee DPS Guide

More WoW Forever Guides from Other Classes

Restoration Shaman Healer Leveling Assassination Rogue Melee DPS Leveling Fury Warrior Melee DPS Guide Frost Mage Ranged DPS Stats Restoration Druid Healer Guide Beast Mastery Hunter Ranged DPS Leveling