Retribution Paladin PvP Rotation and Playstyle — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

Retribution Paladins have two main roles in PvP: use your strong single-target damage to force cooldowns and use your utility to help you or your teammates survive until you can use your burst cooldowns again. With tools such as Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Sanctuary, it makes your team very hard for the enemy team to kill. It is important to rotate cooldowns properly and know when it is a good idea to use Blessing of Sanctuary to break crowd control or when to use Blessing of Protection on you or a teammate that is being focused. You also have Flash of Light that comes in handy when the enemy has no kicks or is not focusing on you.

Retribution Paladins have the choice between using different Auras that will affect not only them but also their teammates. In PvP, we default into Devotion Aura. Devotion Aura reduces the damage your teammates take by 3%. All auras in PvP are relatively weak, but in 3v3 Arena Devotion, aura provides a total of 9% damage reduction, which is better than what the other auras can offer.

Before talking about the damage rotations, it is important to know what will be used to generate and spend Holy Power. This is extremely important because Retribution Paladins have limited mobility, so when you reach your target, you want to deal as much damage as you can. Here are the abilities that will generate Holy Power:

• Crusading Strikes turns your auto attacks into Crusader Strike that generate Holy Power every attack.
• Templar Strikes is a two part combo generating one Holy Power per press.
• Judgment is another ability that will be your primary source of Holy Power. This will also increase the damage to your next Holy Power ability and generate 1 Holy Power.
• Blade of Justice has a short cooldown and generates 1 - 2 Holy Power depending on your talent preference.
• Wake of Ashes deals AoE damage in front of you slows everyone hit by the damage and will generate 3 Holy Power.
• Hammer of Wrath generates 1 Holy Power and replaces Judgment when Avenging Wrath is active.

Now that you know how to generate Holy Power, here are the abilities that you will be spending it on:

• Final Verdict is your primary Holy Power spending. This costs 3 Holy Power, and you will use this to deal single-target damage.
• Divine Storm costs 3 Holy Power and should be used when your team's goal is to cleave the enemy team while they are stacked. This also gets cast from the talent Empyrean Legacy.
• Word of Glory costs 3 Holy Power and heals either yourself or your teammates, depending on your target.

Know exactly who you will use Hammer of Justice on. Most of the time, you will be using it on the enemy healer and trying to kill a DPS.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control, and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.

1. Press Judgment applying Greater Judgment.
2. Press Blade of Justice applying Holy Flames.
3. Press Avenging Wrath and Execution Sentence together
4. Press Wake of Ashes
5. Press Hammer of Light refunding 5 Holy Power from Judge, Jury and Executioner
6. Press Final Verdict
7. Press Divine Toll
8. Press Final Verdict
9. Press Hammer of Wrath
10. Continue with Sustained Damage priority.

1. Cast Judgment applying Greater Judgment
2. Cast Avenging Wrath generating 2 Holy Power from Walk Into Light
3. Cast Final Verdict generating a stack of Crusade.
5. Cast Wake of Ashes applying Burn to Ash
6. Cast Final Verdict applying Dawnlight
7. Cast Divine Toll which will also cast Blade of Justice from Walk Into Light
8. Cast Final Verdict applying Dawnlight again.
9. Cast Hammer of Wrath which will generate 4 Holy Power from Divine Resonance and Walk Into Light's Blade of Justice
10. Continue with Sustained Damage priority.

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are unavailable.

The damage rotation of a Retribution Paladin is more of a priority system. It consists of trying to keep your Templar Strikes, Hammer of Wrath, Judgment, and Blade of Justice on cooldown as frequently as possible while avoiding going over 5 Holy Power, while also landing as many Final Verdicts into Greater Judgment windows as possible.

An example of a non-burst damage rotation would look like this:

1. Cast Judgment to apply Greater Judgment
2. cast Blade of Justice to apply Expurgation and Holy Flames if talented
3. If in melee range cast Templar Strikes to 5 Holy Power
4. cast Final Verdict
5. cast Wake of Ashes
6. cast Hammer of Light if Templar
7. Continue to keep generators on cooldown while not overcapping on Holy Power.

Divine Shield is your main defensive ability. This makes you immune to everything for 8 seconds. This should be used as a last resort when your healer cannot keep you alive.

Shield of Vengeance is a strong shielding effect modified by how much maximum HP you have. Its absorb can be increased by Verdant Gladiator's Emblem or Rallying Cry it is now activated upon casting Divine Protection

Blessing of Protection is your secondary defensive ability. This is a powerful ability that can be used on either you or your teammates. This makes the player immune to all physical damage. It is powerful against melee teams and can also remove physical crowd control effects such as Blind and Cheap Shot

Blessing of Freedom can also be used defensively. It can be used on you or a teammates. If your teammates are being focused and they need a way to get away from the enemies, use this on them.

Blessing of Sanctuary should be used on a teammate that is in crowd control and does not have or wants to use trinket.

Blessing of Sacrifice can only be used on a teammate. This reduces the damage they take in PvP by 20% and redirects the post-mitigated damage to yourself. This damage can break crowd control effects such as Polymorph.

Word of Glory is an instant heal that costs 3 Holy Power. This should be used whenever one of your teammates is struggling to stay alive, and your healer needs help.

Flash of Light is an instant heal when taking the talent Light's Celerity. This should be used whenever you or your teammates are in trouble or as a filler ability if all your holy power generators are on cooldown and you are waiting for a Crusading Strikes swing.

Sacrosanct Crusade is a defensive talent gained by selecting the Templar Hero Talents. It gives a strong shield and heal to your Wake of Ashes and Hammer of Light. In emergency situations try and cleave Hammer of Light into as many targets as possible in order to increase its healing.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.