Retribution Paladin DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within (11.1.5)

This build is best for pure single-target situations. Vanguard's Momentum can be swapped for Empyrean Legacy if your Divine Hammer uptime is low due to boss mechanics or other factors outside of your control, but it will do less single-target damage overall when played optimally.

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Still relatively strong for single-target, this build will also do decent cleave damage to extra targets while you focus on a primary one. Ret has the ability to still do a significant amount of passive cleave when running a predominantly single-target build due to Wrathful Descent and abilities like Wake of Ashes and Hammer of Light being AoE, so this build only takes the most important AoE talent, Tempest of the Lightbringer. If multiple enemies are active very often, Blessed Champion and Empyrean Power can also be taken instead of talents like Jurisdiction, Divine Arbiter, and Executioner's Will.

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This build is focused on AoE damage, with a few concessions to keep single target output at a reasonable level. Final Reckoning can be taken instead of Execution Sentence, but it is not recommended as the increase it provides on AoE is not large and the loss on single-target from not using Execution Sentence is severe. For more single-target and easier maintenance of Divine Hammer, Searing Light can be dropped for Rush of Light.

Use the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game.

This build is best for pure single-target situations. Vanguard's Momentum can be swapped for Empyrean Legacy if your Divine Hammer uptime is low due to boss mechanics or other factors outside of your control, but it will do less single-target damage overall when played optimally.

Use the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game.

Still relatively strong for single-target, this build will also do decent cleave damage to extra targets while you focus on a primary one. Ret has the ability to still do a significant amount of passive cleave when running a predominantly single-target build due to abilities like Wake of Ashes and Dawnlight being AoE, so this build only takes the most important AoE talent, Tempest of the Lightbringer. If multiple enemies are active very often, Blessed Champion and Empyrean Power can also be taken instead of talents like Jurisdiction, Divine Arbiter, and Executioner's Will.

Use the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game.

This build is focused on AoE damage, with a few concessions to keep single target output at a reasonable level. Final Reckoning can be taken instead of Execution Sentence, but it is not recommended as the increase it provides on AoE is not large and the loss on single-target from not using Execution Sentence is severe. For more single-target and easier maintenance of Divine Hammer, Searing Light can be dropped for Rush of Light.

Use the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game.

This build works best for short-duration multi-target combat and frequent movement from enemy to enemy. For longer sustained combat where enemies live for more than a few seconds like higher level Delves, the regular Mythic+ builds should be used instead.

Use the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game.

Talent	Explanation
Blade of Justice	One of your primary Holy Power generators and a core rotational button.
Divine Storm	Your main Holy Power spender in AoE situations.
Swift Justice / Light of Justice	A small reduction to the cooldown of the generator of your choice.
Expurgation	Increases the damage output of Blade of Justice significantly and makes it a strong AoE ability with Blade of Vengeance or Holy Flames.
Improved Blade of Justice / Holy Blade	Improved Blade of Justice is commonly used with Crusading Strikes to reduce rotational downtime. Holy Blade is taken with most other talent builds to increase overall Holy Power generation.
Final Verdict	A strong replacement for Templar's Verdict, which increases its damage and range significantly.
Guided Prayer	A passive heal that procs when you drop below 25% health.
Art of War	Increases Holy Power generation by regularly resetting Blade of Justice’s cooldown.

You have at least 8 points to spend in this section, with only 9 total nodes available, meaning that the only real decision to make is between choice nodes. Most choice nodes have a clear winner in all situations, e.g. Final Verdict and Art of War, but there are a couple of others that can change depending on the build.

Improved Blade of Justice and Holy Blade: In general, Holy Blade is more valuable as it makes it easier to maintain longer Divine Hammer durations. Improved Blade of Justice has historically been a good choice when you need more abilities to press during periods of downtime, but the current iteration of the spec does not need to fill gaps to the same extent and really values the extra instant Holy Power generation from Holy Blade. Improved Blade of Justice is also a good option on AoE when paired with Blade of Vengeance.

Swift Justice and Light of Justice: For Templar, Swift Justice is marginally better in most situations to maximize your Greater Judgment debuffs. With Blade of Vengeance on AoE, or with Herald of the Sun, Light of Justice can be used instead for more frequent Expurgation reapplications.

Talent	Explanation
Jurisdiction	Increases the range and damage of Final Verdict and Blade of Justice even further.
Tempest of the Lightbringer	Effectively buffs Divine Storm damage by 20%. A substantial increase in AoE damage.
Avenging Wrath: Might	Avenging Wrath now also increases your critical strike chance.
Crusade	Turns Avenging Wrath into a stacking buff that also provides Haste but now has a 2-minute cooldown.
Vanguard's Momentum	Provides an extra charge of Hammer of Wrath and increases its Holy Power generation in execute.
Zealot's Fervor	A decent small buff to Holy Power generation when using Crusading Strikes, and also incidentally works well with Art of War.
Rush of Light	A small haste proc that will naturally have a high uptime on single-target.
Boundless Judgment	Increases the Holy Power that Judgment provides. This is especially strong with Divine Toll and Divine Resonance.
Crusading Strikes	Removes Crusader Strike from your rotation and provides a more consistent, passive-generation playstyle.
Templar Strikes	Turns Crusader Strike into a 2-part combo, where the second part of it does a large amount of damage and applies a DoT.
Divine Wrath	Increases Avenging Wrath duration.
Divine Hammer	A short cooldown that does consistent AoE damage.
Blade of Vengeance	A strong AoE increase, allowing Blade of Justice to hit all enemies near your target, applying Expurgation to them.
Holy Flames	Another way to spread Expurgation debuffs on AoE, Holy Flames will be more valuable on single-target than Blade of Vengeance but generally less valuable on AoE.
Empyrean Legacy	Procs free Divine Storms during your regular single-target rotation. A solid increase on either single-target or low-target count cleave situations.
Heart of the Crusader	A small buff to auto-attack and Crusader Strike damage. It’s less beneficial with Crusading Strikes as these abilities are combined, meaning they make up a smaller percentage of your total damage.
Highlord's Wrath	Each Judgment now applies multiple Greater Judgment debuffs and increases Mastery: Highlord's Judgment value.
Wake of Ashes	Deals large frontal damage and generates 3 Holy Power. One of the hardest-hitting abilities you have.
Blessed Champion	Judgment and Crusader Strike now hit 4 extra targets at 50% damage. Solid increase on AoE.
Empyrean Power	Crusader Strike and its derivatives have a chance to let you cast a free buffed Divine Storm.

This section has a wide range of talents to pick from: some that are stronger in single-target or AoE, some that are good in a variety of situations, and others that are just outclassed completely.

Most importantly, this is where the Crusading Strikes / Templar Strikes talent node lives, which dictates a lot of your subsequent playstyle. Crusading Strikes replaces your regular Crusader Strike ability, passively providing 1 Holy Power every second auto-attack while removing a button from your rotation. It will generally be a marginally stronger choice for most builds. If you choose not to use Crusading Strikes, using Templar Strikes is generally much stronger than just using the regular base Crusader Strike. Templar Strikes has some unusual behaviour where its global cooldown is not reduced by Haste as most abilities are, which means that as you gain more Haste with more gear or other effects like Crusade it tends to perform worse than Crusading Strikes. However, its native damage type is Radiant, which means that it synergizes much better with AoE-centric talents like Burning Crusade and Searing Light.

For single target, the important talents are Rush of Light, Jurisdiction, and Highlord's Wrath. Rush of Light provides a consistent Haste buff as long as you are using single-target spenders, Jurisdiction buffs Blade of Justice and Final Verdict damage, and Highlord's Wrath provides a strong buff to the value of Mastery: Highlord's Judgment. Vanguard's Momentum is also a decent single-target talent that is mostly useful as a form of extra Holy Power generation for Divine Hammer.

On AoE, you will want to use Tempest of the Lightbringer, Blessed Champion, Empyrean Power, and potentially Blade of Vengeance. Tempest of the Lightbringer, Blessed Champion, and Empyrean Power are all straightforward damage increases in AoE situations, buffing your AoE spenders, allowing you to cast them more frequently, and allowing your regular generators to cleave. Blade of Vengeance can be useful in very AoE-heavy situations as it significantly increases the strength of Expurgation on AoE, but it requires Improved Blade of Justice to maximize it and is a lot worse than its choice node, Holy Flames, on single-target.

Past the more specialized talents, you have some talents that will be taken in most, if not all, builds, and others that can be swapped in and out depending on the situation. Wake of Ashes, Divine Hammer, and Boundless Judgment will always be used, as will either Avenging Wrath: Might or Crusade, as they are too fundamental to cooldowns or resource generation to pass up. Holy Flames has a 3% Holy Damage bonus that is strong enough to be worth taking even on single-target. Zealot's Fervor is used in all Crusading Strikes builds since it directly increases your resource generation, but is a low-priority talent for the Templar Strikes builds. Heart of the Crusader is also slightly better in the Templar Strikes builds since the two damage sources it buffs are combined in the Crusading Strikes builds, making it provide less of an overall increase. Divine Wrath can be used in builds that do not use Radiant Glory, but they cannot be combined. Empyrean Legacy is a small increase on single-target or low-target cleave that is an easy choice to drop when more AoE talents are required.

Crusade tends to perform better than Avenging Wrath: Might when using Radiant Glory due to the increased length of the procs when using Crusade, but Avenging Wrath: Might is the default choice over Crusade without Radiant Glory. Being able to use Avenging Wrath every minute instead of once every 2 minutes keeps its consistency high while also not punishing you as heavily if you need to move out of melee range for mechanics during your cooldown window.

Talent	Explanation
Adjudication	A solid passive bonus that increases your critical hit damage and increases the power of Mastery: Highlord's Judgment.
Blades of Light	Makes most of your single-target abilities deal Holystrike damage, and increases the damage of Holystrike abilities too. This also lets Crusading Strikes and Crusader Strike be buffed by Mastery.
Divine Arbiter	Proc talent that is predominantly used for single-target, but has some cleave value as well.
Shield of Vengeance	A large damage absorb that also does a significant amount of damage when the absorbed amount is fully depleted or the buff expires.
Execution Sentence	Debuffs a target, dealing extra damage when it expires based on the damage dealt to them during that debuff window. A strong single-target cooldown.
Final Reckoning	A large AoE burst cooldown. Excellent in AoE situations and usable but not impressive for single-target.
Executioner's Will	Increases the duration of Execution Sentence and Final Reckoning’s debuffs. It is very strong with Execution Sentence, but not great with Final Reckoning.
Seething Flames	Causes Wake of Ashes to hit multiple times. It reduces its damage to secondary targets, but the multiple hits mean it is still a strong talent in all situations.
Radiant Glory	Removes Avenging Wrath as an active ability and instead applies it when Wake of Ashes is cast. Useful for ensuring you have frequent cooldown windows.
Burn to Ash	Increases Truth's Wake duration and buffs other periodic damage.
Penitence	Increases periodic ability damage, namely Expurgation, Truth's Wake, and Templar Slash.
Burning Crusade	Makes some of your AoE abilities deal Radiant damage and increases their damage by 5%.
Searing Light	Has a chance to proc extra AoE damage when you deal Radiant damage.

The choices in the final section are largely based on whether the focus is on single-target or AoE damage. For all builds, Shield of Vengeance and Seething Flames are taken, and then for single-target builds Execution Sentence is picked, along with Executioner's Will and the rest of the Holystrike-themed left-side talents. For AoE, the Radiant-themed right-side talents are generally picked instead. Blades of Light is also taken in all situations with Crusading Strikes, since by making Crusading Strikes deal Holy Damage, it lets Mastery: Highlord's Judgment apply to it and removes the damage reduction from enemy Armor.

Radiant Glory is useful when using Execution Sentence in order to have cooldowns active for every window, although it does have a shorter duration than the length of Execution Sentence without additional procs.

• Lay on Hands is a strong single-target heal, useful in both Mythic+ and Raiding.
• Fist of Justice can be useful if you need more frequent single-target CC in Mythic+, but has limited usefulness in Raid.
• Blinding Light is useful as an AoE cast interruption in Mythic+.
• Repentance can CC individual enemies when necessary.
• Healing Hands is a large buff to Word of Glory. Even if you do not use Word of Glory actively, it synergizes extremely well with Guided Prayer since the free auto-cast will always be cast at low health.
• Divine Steed is your primary mobility ability and is a mandatory pick.
• Cavalier gives you an extra charge of Divine Steed and is also essentially mandatory.
• Blessing of Freedom lets you be immune to snares and roots, which helps you to deal with many mechanics in both Raid and Mythic+.
• Rebuke is your interrupt ability. This is mandatory in Mythic+, and although it can be dropped on some Raid encounters, many will require it.

• Obduracy provides passive Speed and Avoidance. A nice bonus rather than a must-pick.
• Divine Toll is a damage cooldown that is strong by itself in AoE and has most of its single-target strength come from its extra talent.
• Unbound Freedom is a nice small bonus to Blessing of Freedom. It is not a necessary talent, but it is a nice pickup if you have a spare talent point for utility.
• Sanctified Plates is your strongest defensive passive and is a mandatory pick.
• Punishment can be useful if you are interrupting frequently, but the damage it provides is extremely small, and it is not used frequently as a result.
• Blessing of Sacrifice is a strong external damage reduction ability. A mandatory pick for any group content.
• Divine Resonance increases the Holy Power generation during cooldown windows significantly and provides a consistent source of Greater Judgment debuffs.
• Blessing of Protection is useful in a lot of situations in both Mythic+ and Raid. While you can drop it if you need another specific piece of utility, make sure that you are not forgetting a situation in which it is vital.
• Holy Aegis is a solid flat bonus.
• Sacrifice of the Just can be useful if you need to use Blessing of Sacrifice very frequently, but is not required often.
• Recompense is technically a small damage increase but has little value, and the talent point will generally be more useful elsewhere.
• Divine Purpose gives your spenders a small chance to make the next spender free.
• Unbreakable Spirit reduces the cooldown of your major defensive abilities.

• Lightforged Blessing is a small healing bonus. It is more powerful in AoE but will proc in single-target, too, thanks to Empyrean Legacy.
• Lead the Charge is a small movement speed bonus that can be dropped if other utility is required.
• Blessed Calling is another small quality of life movement bonus that is nice to have but not mandatory.
• Inspired Guard is a small defensive bonus.
• Seal of Might is a flat stat increase.
• Vengeful Wrath causes Hammer of Wrath to deal extra damage to low-health enemies.
• Of Dusk and Dawn provides a frequent damage bonus to Holy Power spenders and also a small damage reduction buff.
• Lightbearer is a useful healing talent for group content.

While most of your damage talents are in the Spec tree, the Class tree has some too. You'll always take the following damage talents regardless of build:

• Divine Toll
• Divine Resonance
• Holy Aegis
• Divine Purpose
• Seal of Might
• Of Dusk and Dawn
• Vengeful Wrath

There are also some extremely powerful defensive and mobility talents that will be universally used as well:

• Divine Steed
• Cavalier
• Sanctified Plates
• Unbreakable Spirit

Past these choices, there are some utility nodes that are generally useful but not necessarily required, like Healing Hands or Blessing of Sacrifice, and the rest can be utility choices depending on the situation. The talent builds listed above have generalized utility talents, but you should feel free to diverge from these choices depending on your situation.

For a full breakdown of all Retribution Paladin talents, see the Spell Summary page below: