Retribution Paladin PvP Talents and Builds (Dragonflight / 10.0.5)
Choosing the right PvP and PvE talents is a prerequisite to proper performance in PvP. This guide goes through the various talent choices available to you as a Retribution Paladin and gives you the best combinations you can take.
This page is part of our Retribution Paladin PvP Guide.
Talent Choices for Retribution Paladins
Below is the standard talent build you will be using in arena.
Talents Summary
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.
Paladin Talent Tree Highlights
Some important spells to note in the Paladin talent tree:
Zealot's Paragon is one of the final talents you can take. This makes it so
Hammer of Wrath and
Judgment have increased damage and increase the duration of
Avenging Wrath. This is a great talent for increasing your kill windows.
Cavalier gives your
Divine Steed an additional charge. This is important to help with chasing down enemies that are kiting or for you to get to a pillar to avoid damage.
Divine Purpose is in the middle of the talent tree and makes your Holy Power spells have a chance to make your next Holy Power spell free and deal increased damage/healing.
Retribution Paladin Talent Tree Highlights
Some important spells to note in the Retribution Paladin Talent tree:
Empyrean Legacy is towards the bottom of the talents and this makes it so
Judgment causes your next
Final Verdict to activate
Divine Storm and
Word of Glory to activate
Light of Dawn. This is a very important talent for both damage and healing output.
Divine Storm is an iconic spell from Shadowlands and it will instantly cast
Judgment on up to 5 targets. A great spell for single target damage.
Blade of Wrath is the best choice in this tier. This proc is great for increasing your sustained damage and will help you generate more Holy Power.
Final Reckoning. The one use part of this talent deals damage and also makes enemies hit by the damage take additional damage from your Holy Power spells. The passive of this talent gives you a chance to deal additional damage to enemies and they will take 10% increased damage from your Holy Power spells. This is overall a large increase to your burst and sustained damage.
PvP Talents for Retribution Paladins
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.
Mandatory PvP Talents
Blessing of Sanctuary removes all stun, silence, fear, and horror
effects from you 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 50 stacks, your next weapon swing will deal more damage and proc your
Avenging Wrath.
Situational PvP Talents
Unbound Freedom is a mandatory talent versus teams with multiple
roots, slows or snare effects. This will make it so your
Blessing of Freedom increases your movement speed and you will gain
Blessing of Freedom if you use it on a teammate. It also makes it
undispellable.
Law and Order is a great talent versus teams with ranged on it. More
often than not, the enemy healer or DPS will have the ability to dispell your
Hand of Hindrance slow. This talent makes it so you can use it more often
when this happens.
Blade of Justice will also apply this slow.
Lawbringer makes
Judgment also apply the
Lawbringer
debuff to its initial target. Enemies hit by Lawbringer will lose up to 10% of
their health. This talent is great versus teams that will be stacked often. Your
cleave damage increases drastically versus these teams.
Vengeance Aura makes it so that whenever you or your partners get
put into crowd control, your Holy Damage and critical strike increases. This is
great versus druids with
Cyclone or Mages with
Polymorph. You
can replace
Blessing of Sanctuary with this PvP talent, as long as the
enemy team does not have much crowd control.
Judgments of the Pure is an interesting PvP talent that dispels
a Poison, Disease, and Magic effect on your teammate when you use
Judgment on an enemy that applied it. This gives you a way
to dispel debuffs. Use this against Affliction Warlocks, Shadow Priests, and
Elemental Shamans to remove their debuffs.
Changelog
- 30 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Pre-patch.
- 01 Aug. 2022: Reviewed for Shadowlands Season 4.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 28 Feb. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2.
- Updated Talent Table.
- Updated Tier 7 Regular Talent.
- 10 Nov. 2021: Updated PvP Talents.
- 02 Jul. 2021: Updated PvP Talents.
- 08 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 17 Feb. 2021: Updated Tier 1 Regular Talents.
- Updated PvP Talents.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved 3000 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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