Retribution Paladin PvP Talents and Builds (The War Within Pre-Patch)

Below is the standard talent build you will be using in arena.

While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.

Some important spells to note in the Paladin talent tree:

• Vengeful Wrath has changed. It no longer makes Hammer of Wrath a guaranteed critical strike and only increases its damage during an execute phase.
• Blessing of Protection can be taken against physical damage dealers such as Arms Warrior however, you can opt out of this talent against Spell Casters and use it as a flex point into a talent of your choice as it is not required to pick up when selecting the PvP talent Blessing of Spellwarding
• Divine Purpose is in the middle of the talent tree and is now an easier talent to pick up with the reworked Paladin class tree.
• With the loss of Crusader's Reprieve Crusading Strikes and Templar Strikes have lost some ranged. That compounded with the buffs to Templar Strikes make Seal of the Crusader less necessary in PvP.
• Extra talent points from the restructuring of the class trees can be thrown into talents like Punishment, Seasoned Warhorse, Cavalier and Judgment of Light. Alternatively, if you want slightly more auto-attack damage you can throw the free points in Seal of the Crusader.

Some important spells to note in the Retribution Paladin Talent tree:

• Final Verdict vs. Justicar's Vengeance is a common question some newer Ret Paladins may ask. Final Verdict does significantly more damage and the healing from Justicar's Vengeance has been nerfed. You should take Final Verdict in all PvP situations
• Templar Strikes has been massively buffed in The War Within and is now equal if not superior to Crusading Strikes. If playing Templar Paladin it is advised to play Templar Strikes in order to further extend Shake the Heavens.
• Boundless Judgment vs. Improved Judgment is another choice node that has slightly changed in The War Within. Boundless Judgment has received an additional effect making it proc Retribution's new Mastery even more. That combined with Highlord's Wrath and Divine Resonance make it so you almost never run out of Greater Judgment stacks on your target.
• Wake of Ashes has received new capstone talents in addition to hero effects. Radiant Glory makes your Wake of Ashes proc Crusade or Avenging Wrath: Might whichever is selected.
• Avenging Wrath: Might vs. Crusade is another preference choice. Avenging Wrath: Might has had its effectiveness reduced in half. Crusade is only nerfed by one-third, so although it has a longer cooldown, it is more potent. Currently in PvP it is recommended to take Crusade if you are not running Radiant Glory.
• Final Reckoning and Execution Sentence have been further nerfed in PvP in The War Within. Both of the secondary talent's Executioner's Will and Divine Auxiliary are not mandatory. Divine Auxiliary has a small synergy with Seal of Order that ever so slightly decreases its cooldown. However, you are generally lining up Avenging Wrath and Final Reckoning so that interaction is not as important.
• New Talents Holy Flames and Judge, Jury and Executioner have further increased Retribution Paladin's cleave damage and are recommended in PvP.
• Divine Hammer has received a large rework. It is now an offensive AoE cooldown which is fairly strong in cleave fights in Battlegrounds.
• Consecrated Blade is now a passive learned at level 12. This opens up the freedom to choose talents like Consecrated Ground and Hallowed Ground more easily.

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful but can be replaced with other PvP talents, depending on your team's goal.

Blessing of Sanctuary removes all stun, silence, fear, and horror effects from your target. It also reduces the duration of these effects for 5 seconds. This gives you extra utility when playing against teams with several of these effects. This should be used versus teams that rely on stun setups on your healer to get crowd control.

Aura of Reckoning is another option if you want to increase your damage. You will gain 1 stack after you or an ally is hit with a critical strike. At 100 stacks, your next weapon swing will deal more damage and proc your Avenging Wrath.

Blessing of Spellwarding is a strong talent versus comps with multiple spellcasters. This talent shares a cooldown with Blessing of Protection, which means you can opt out of choosing it in the Paladin talent tree when taking this spell. Spellwarding functions much like Blessing of Protection except for spell damage. However, it does not remove magical crowd control abilities when used on yourself, unlike Blessing of Protection's ability to remove stuns like Cheap Shot

Luminescence is a situational small 2% damage increase for Retribution Paladins and their teammates. It can be triggered from self healing.

Lawbringer makes Judgment also apply the Lawbringer debuff to its initial target. Enemies hit by Lawbringer will lose up to 2% of their health. This talent is significantly nerfed from where it was in the past and is only semi-useful in Rated Battlegrounds where there is a large number of enemies to spread the debuff to.

Judgments of the Pure has been removed.

Hallowed Ground can now more easily be taken with the baseline of Consecrated Blade.

Wrench Evil was added back to the game. It remains to be seen if there are any singular pets this is worth taking. Currently both Demonology Warlocks and Unholy Deathknights have too many pets for this to see practical use.