Retribution Paladin DPS Guide — Dragonflight 10.0.7

Retribution's greatest strength is its versatile talent kit which can adapt to all kinds of throughput requirements. The utility is also excellent, as it offers a damage reduction aura, a strong single-target damage reduction cooldown for others, massive off-heals, and the best immunity in the game. They also bring an offensive aura, increasing the entire raid's throughput. Their defensives are very good as well.

We are maintaining a list of changes for Paladins, so you can see what changes with every patch of Dragonflight.

Retribution Paladins got a large rework with many changes, removals, additions, and improvements of their base Paladin class spells and talents, as well as of the spec-specific Retribution base spells and talents. The core gameplay of building and spending Holy Power is still the same.

All kinds of new information and recommendations can be found on the various pages of this guide in regards to the rework, however a few fundamental changes shall be mentioned right away in no particular order:

• Divine Steed is no longer on the global cooldown.
• Unbound Freedom is now a Paladin PvE talent, and just like its previous PvP version allows us to use Blessing of Freedom on others while getting the buff ourselves. We also obtained the 30% movement speed increase part of it, granting us a 30% sprint on demand while being able to duplicate it on allies.
• Retribution Aura has been redesigned and now grants a damage buff to the entire raid. It triggered once someone takes 30% of their maximum Health worth in damage in a single hit. This damage buff starts at 5% and slowly degrades over 30 seconds. It can proc anew starting at 5% once the old buff runs out.
• Divine Protection is now baseline and has a separate cooldown from our Shield of Vengeance talent. These two personal defensives can be defensively improved via Aegis of Protection, and their cooldown can be shortened via Unbreakable Spirit. This allows us to have 2 separate, strong personal defensives with short cooldowns, which is a huge step up from our previous lacking personal defensive capabilities.
• Sanctified Plates is a new Paladin talent, which grants us passive damage reduction and a larger Health pool.
• Guided Prayer is a new defensive talent that grants us a large Word of Glory selfheal once we drop below 25% Health, it is on a 1-minute cooldown. Its effect can be improved via Healing Hands.
• Avenging Wrath is now a 1-minute cooldown. Crusade remains as a 2-minute alternative.
• Final Verdict extends the range on our single-target spender to 12 yards. We can improve it via Jurisdiction, which extends its range to 20 yards while also buffing its damage. We now have this incredible quality of life improvement for all single-target talent builds and for some of the hybrid ones.
• Wake of Ashes no longer deals reduced damage to secondary enemies.
• Vanguard of Justice turns our 3 Holy Power spenders into 4 Holy Power spenders while also buffing their damage by 20%. This new talent helps us a lot, mainly because it allows us to use less of our global cooldowns on spending Holy Power.
• Crusading Strikes is a new optional talent that can replace our automatic melee swings with Crusader Strike. Every second swing generates 1 Holy Power.
• Templar Strikes is a new optional talent that turns the manual Crusader Strike into a much stronger 2 part combo. After casting Templar Strikes, you have 4 seconds before the time window ends to use Templar Slash. Templar Strikes and Crusading Strikes are 2 new exclusive talents that define how we progress in the talent tree.
• Divine Toll and Divine Resonance are now class talents.

Retribution Paladin is currently a good DPS in Dragonflight in terms of viability. Retribution's greatest strength is its versatile talent kit which can adapt to all throughput requirements.

If you want to play a Retribution Paladin but currently do not have one at max level, you can check out our leveling guide.

Once you reach the max level, it can be overwhelming to completely change how you play by suddenly implementing many add-ons quickly, especially if they have a heavy visual impact on your UI. We recommend using some of the more basic add-ons recommended on our Add-ons page below while leveling so that you have more time to get used to them during the easier phases of playing your class.

Retribution Paladin is a spec about buffing yourself, managing cooldowns, and handling resource management simultaneously. The fundamental idea of the rotation is simple; you are building and spending Holy Power while mixing in cooldowns to maximize the effectiveness of your Holy Power abilities.

You will always figure out which Holy Power generator you should prioritize over your others while not over-capping Holy Power. Then, figure out the best Holy Power spender to use in your current situation. You will also regularly be using your main cooldown, Avenging Wrath.

If you are an absolute beginner to the spec but would like to learn the fundamentals of the class, we recommend looking through the Spell Summary first and the Easy Mode page linked below.

If you are already somewhat familiar with Retribution Paladin, you can head straight to the Talents and Rotation pages to jump right into the more complex, detailed information.

Although gearing has become more challenging due to the many variables that depend on your character, you can find information on how best to gear as Retribution on our dedicated gearing page.

Once you have started to gear up, you must ensure you have the appropriate consumables, gems, enchants, and more. We have a dedicated page for exactly this, as shown below, and the stats page, where you can find more information on the possibility of a changing stat priority and the necessary changes you may need to make for consumables.

Starting as Retribution Paladin can look very different from the absolute end-game raiding and progression as one. Our Mythic+, Raiding, and PvP guides can guide you to perform as well as possible, regardless of your focus on end-game content.

If you are finding your performance lackluster but unsure where you are going wrong, you can check out the pages below for tips or answers to questions you may have.