How To Improve As Retribution Paladin — Dragonflight 10.2.5

Last updated on Jan 15, 2024 at 15:00 by Bolas 56 comments
General Information

On this page, you will find out how you can improve at playing Retribution Paladin in World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.2.5. We list the common mistakes that you should try to avoid and the small details that can greatly improve your performance.

1.

Managing your Resources

No matter which build you are using, knowing when and how to use your abilities to properly utilize your resources is key to improving your damage.

1.1.

Managing Holy Power

Holy Power is converted to damage through your spenders, Final Verdict Icon Final Verdict and Divine Storm Icon Divine Storm. These both do significantly more damage than your average abilities, so optimizing Holy Power generation in order to maximize the number of spenders you can cast is crucial. This means tracking your Holy Power, including any effects that grant it periodically, like Crusading Strikes Icon Crusading Strikes and Divine Resonance Icon Divine Resonance, as well as knowing how to prioritize your generators. Wasting Holy Power unnecessarily is effectively wasting high-value spenders.

1.2.

Managing your GCDs

Although your spenders are usually the best single GCDs to use, you will often want to delay using them in order to generate an extra Holy Power first. The upside here is that it puts your generators on cooldown earlier, which increases your future Holy Power generation, while you still are able to spend the Holy Power you had prior to the next GCD anyway. This results in less rotational downtime and more spender casts over the course of a fight.

2.

Cooldown Usage

In general, cooldown usage is straightforward - you should use your cooldowns on cooldown unless your target is just about to die or become immune to damage. Retribution's cooldowns are short enough that it is almost never worth holding them. The exception to this is Wake of Ashes Icon Wake of Ashes if there will be additional targets spawning shortly, since its damage is massively increased with extra targets.

Retribution's cooldowns are theoretically synced, with either 1-minute cooldowns like Avenging Wrath Icon Avenging Wrath and Divine Toll Icon Divine Toll or 30-second cooldowns like Wake of Ashes Icon Wake of Ashes and Execution Sentence Icon Execution Sentence that you can use every 2nd 1-minute set. However, Seal of Order Icon Seal of Order reduces the cooldowns of Divine Toll Icon Divine Toll, Wake of Ashes Icon Wake of Ashes, and even Execution Sentence Icon Execution Sentence and Final Reckoning Icon Final Reckoning due to the existence of Divine Auxiliary Icon Divine Auxiliary causing them to be counted as "Holy Power generating abilities". As a result, you will need to wait a few seconds for Avenging Wrath Icon Avenging Wrath to come off cooldown each minute in order to keep your other cooldowns properly synced.

3.

Not Knowing How to Sim Yourself

It is very difficult to properly optimize a Retribution Paladin without using Raidbots to sim your own character, as there are simply too many variables involved to intuitively figure out what gear to wear and so on without simming it first. Generally speaking, a simulation will be the strongest tool for helping you decide on the gear you end up wearing for any given situation.

On top of this, simming is now very easy, with no need to understand SimulationCraft APLs or installation yourself. All you will need is the in-game SimulationCraft AddOn and the Raidbots website. Below, you can find a guide on how to sim your own character using the website.

4.

Changelog

  • 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
  • 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.
  • 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for patch 10.1.7.
  • 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
  • 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
  • 21 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
  • 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
  • 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
  • 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
  • 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
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