There has been changes to Seals in 3.2, Seal of Blood/Martyr has been removed and Seal of Corruption/Vengeance has been replaced to be the primary DPS Seal.

The functionality of Seal of Blood/Martyr has been built into Seal of Corruption/Vengeance in patch 3.2, once the debuff from your seal attacks has built up to 5 stacks, your attacks will deal ADDITIONAL 33% damage on top of Seal of Corruption/Vengeance’s DoT debuff.
Simply put, once you built up 5 stacks of debuff you got Seal of Blood/Martyr AND Seal of Corruption/Vengeance working together.

Sounds OP, I know, but it requires some time for you to built the debuff to 5 stacks and there are some conflict when there are multiple Seal of Corruption/Vengeance applied on the same target. For example, if you got 5 stacks up while another paladin only just start up his seal stack, your Seal procs will only work as according to his stack.

Also another problem is on trash mobs, before you seal can built up to 5 stacks and release its full potential, the target will probably be dead before 5 stacks can be applied.

The workaround for this problem is to use Seal of Righteousness on trash mobs and Seal of Corruption/Vengeance on raid bosses.

In the coming patch 3.2.2, Seal of Command has been reworked to hit an extra target when active. But it only procs when you are using single target attacks, meaning Divine Storm will not proc Seal of Command. But whether will Seal of Command be effective it is still to be seen. If you want to do AoE damage, Divine Storm is going to be an important spell in your DPS rotation and having it not to proc Seals attack is ridiculous.

Seal-twisting again? On trash mobs you will use Seal of Command then switch to Seal of Righteousness when you Divine Storm? Not very friendly. But thats a problem Blizzard should be working on.

Our Seal spells are starting to look like a mess.

Gearing up for Retribution has become quite the hassle these days, on top of Warriors fighting loot with us, we have those damn Death Knights rolling on them as well.

Besides that, various plate gear have different stats such as Haste, Armor Penetration and of course, Critical Rating. Unfortunately some of these stats don’t benefit us that much and most Retribution paladins I encountered have no idea about it. Among the many plate gear in the game it is best to select those that benefit you the most and maximize your DPS. Thus you need to know which stat is more valuable and which gear provides better DPS. Oh and it saves ur DKP or EPGP.

Let’s start with the basics.
On top of dealing great damage, a melee DPS firstly MUST NOT MISS and reduce the chance the raid boss dodges his attacks. Therefore you need 8% HIT (263 Hit Rating) and 26 EXPERTISE (214 Expertise Rating).

DO NOT MISS = 263 HIT RATING
REDUCE DODGES = 214 EXPERTISE RATING

Remember that! This is the foremost gear requirement you should reach. Well actually just make sure you get 8% HIT (263 HIT RATING), Expertise can be slowly accumulated as you gear up.

Now that I made myself clear about Hit Rating and Expertise. Let’s look at other Retribution stats:

STRENGTH (STR)
Once you reach the HITCAP (8% Hit), the next stat to stock up on is Strength. Strength is the primary stat that increases our damage. 1 Strength (STR) = 2 Attack Power (AP) baseline. Talented with Divine Strength, 1 STR converts into 2.3 AP. The conversion further increases with Blessing of Kings. So 1 STR can actually give you about 2.6 AP.

Attack Power (AP)
After reading the above about Strength, some might think since STR converts into AP? Might as well stock up on AP straightaway, right?
Wrong. Firstly you will hardly find any plate gear with AP on them, AP is mostly found in leather or mail. But they are also included in cloaks and rings. The point is this, AP does not scale as well as STR for paladins, let’s do a little math.

Compare Cloak of Bloodied Waters to Ice Striker’s Cloak. Most would just conclude Ice Striker’s Cloak would be the better choice since it’s epic, but take a closer look.

Cloak of Bloodied Waters gives 60STR. Converting to AP where 1 STR equals to 2.3AP, 60STR gives 138AP, 38 more AP compared to Ice Striker’s Cloak. With talent Strength can grant way more AP from gear, so next time do a little math when comparing items.

CRITICAL RATING (CRIT) VS AGILITY (AGI)
I combine these two stats because both Agility and Critical Rating increases Critical Chance. But Critical Rating is more valuable as it increases Critical Chance more than Agility for us.

45.9 CRITICAL RATING = 1% MELEE CRITICAL CHANCE
52 AGILITY = 1% MELEE CRITICAL CHANCE

As you can see Critical Rating is a better stat for obtaining higher critical chance.

HASTE & ARMOR PENETRATION (ArP)
These two are combined because, well, they are the least benefit to Retribution paladins. Haste gives you more melee damage and Seal damage as you make more swings at the boss, but that’s about it. Armor Penetration (ArP) on the other only increases melee damage, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm damage, but NOT damage done by Seals and Judgements. Thus the benefit from Haste and Armor Penetration loses out to pure Strength.

I think I wrote a rather long post and you might not digest it well, So I’ll summarise it.

Gearing Up the RET Way
1. Get Hit-Capped which is 8% HIT (263 Hit Rating)
2. Stock up on STRENGTH (STR) and CRIT RATING
3. Slowly obtain 26 EXPERTISE (214 Expertise Rating) as you upgrade gear
4. Haste & Armor Penetration are lowest priorities.
5. Gemming go for STRENGTH primarily and followed by CRIT RATING.

Hope this article help you guys make better gear selection.

Last time we looked into Holy changes in the upcoming 3.2 patch. Now let’s take a look at the Retribution tree in 3.2. Although Paladin class changes focused mostly on Holy, Retribution received a few changes as well.

Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.

Judgements: Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can’t be dodged, parried or blocked.

Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.

Seal of Blood/ Martyr: This ability has been removed.

Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of a spell attack.

Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant. In addition, this talent now provides notification in the floating combat text when it activates.

Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4-second cooldown. Mana cost reduced to 5% of base mana.

Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.

Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.

Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when the target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.

The biggest change is obviously the removal of Seal of Blood/ Martyr, and Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption the new standard Seal for DPS. The top priority when using Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption is obviously getting its attack to reach 5 stacks as soon as possible. Only when you have applied 5 stacks of debuff then can your Seal attacks yield its full damage potential. With Crusader Strike cooldown lowered to 4 seconds, it should not take long to apply a full 5 stack on the target. Also when at 5 stacks, Judgements proc Seal attacks as well, so you want Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption to stack fully ASAP.

The downside to Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption is that Seal attacks can be resisted, DoT application can be dodged and resisted.

However note that all this information i obtained are from players on the PTR, so there will be changes and adjustments. At the moment the Seal changes seem to be working out pretty well. Talent wise, you will now want to have Seals of the Pure, which increases Seal/Judgement of Vengeance/ Corruption damage by 15%.

Another great change is Art of War, which now allows you to cast Exorcism instantly whenever you crit. At least you now have the option to either heal or DPS when Art of War procs. Currently Art of War is a useful talent, but doesn’t lives up to its name. (Art of War procs, heal yourself? WTH?)

Lastly another change is Crusader Strike, lowered to 4 seconds and 75% damage. Opinion is divided on this one, some thinks a lower CD will yield higher DPS while others disagreed. But one thing is certain, this bloody 41-point needs a debuff effect. It’s been a simple melee strike attack for a few years now, and a debuff effect is due.

Finally Patch 3.1 has finally been released. Changes have been made to the talent trees. Holy got a little nerfed, Protection got some new talents and Retribution gets somewhat balanced. Unforunately still no improvement on Seals.

With my exams coming within a month and busy preparing for it, I am sorry to say I can’t post a detailed informative document on the new talent specs. I will post core talent builds for each spec, so there will be leftover/spare talent points. These talent points are for you to decide on the kind of build you want.

The good thing (or bad depending the way you see it) about Patch 3.1 is that talent points are freed up, so you can have more variation with your build. Holy Paladins used to spec probably 51/0/20 to amp their critical chance, now with 3.1 you can spec into Protection for Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian. Retribution paladins can also opt to have that talent now that less talent points are needed for a proper Retribution build. This makes the paladin a more “hybrid” class.

HOLY (51/5/5)

In the Holy tree it is still the same old 51 points allocation, feel free to switch between Improved Lay on Hands and Blessed Hands.

Divinity is a exciting new talent, improving heals given and received by 5%.

Benediction is specifically for Holy Shock, so if you find the 5 points here not worthwhile simply pump them into Protection for Divine Sacrifce and Divine Guardian. Divine Guardian increases the duration of Sacred Shield by 100% and amount absorbed by 20%, which is a solid talent. Alternatively invest remaining points in Retribution tree for more critical chance.

PROTECTION (0/56/6)

While reading through sites for info on Protection build, the ironic thing is that the new talent Divine Sacrifice is deemed more a offtank/non-tank spell. This seems more usable in a situation when the whole raid is taking heavy damage, such as EoE Phase 2 ,instead of in a boss fight, so use it wisely. You are only bringing more hurt upon yourself if it is used in a boss fight, apart from boss damage you are taking damage from other party members. In my build you can see I left Divine Sacrifice out, but it is optional. Probably in 25 man raids where raid takes heavy damage it will be needed.

Remember to spend only 1 point in Improved Judgements, this is because of the 9 6 9 rotation. If you don’t already know, 9 6 9 rotation is a spell rotation for tankadins. You can read about it HERE and the SacredDuty blog has a post on it.

Divinity might seem to be a Holy talent, but it works for Protection as well. It increases healing received by 5%, that is enough reason to take it.

RETRIBUTION (0/5/52)

Retribution tree went through some tweaks, what used to require heavy points investment, now has talent points reduced considerably. Seal of Blood/Martyr had Judgement damage reduced but Seal damage increased, bringing a balance to it.

You can see I have no points in Improved Blessing of Might, this is due to Warrior’s Battle Shout. There are problems of Blessing of Might clashing with Battle Shout (Sorry but I will have to look into it in detail in later posts.) Seal of Command is optional.

From then on it’s pretty much the core talents for Retribution paladins. The remaining talent points can be invested in the Protection Tree for the new talents, it will help raid survivability. With instant Flash of Lights and Divine Sacrifice, you can provide additional support in situations where the raid is taking damage or you are unable to DPS the target.

Was browsing the WoW paladin class forums and saw this guide, very informative. Still relevant even if patch 3.1 hits although its written for 3.0.7 content.

Written by Absol of Skywall, this guide covers stuff like gylphs, blessings, stats and DPS rotation.

Click here to read the guide

Finally came up with gear guides to prepare yourselves for raids.

All three specs are here:

Holy Gear Guide

Protection Gear Guide

I excluded some items either they are deemed too low level or restricted to selected people. For example Sonic Booster is excluded due to the fact you have to be an Engineer to be able to use it. It does not cater to the majority so I will not put it in the list.

If you feel I have left out some items feel free to comment or email me.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

PvE guide for Retribution paladins added.

Click this link to read the guide.

I wrote a page on Paladin glyphs and my assessment of them. The glyph guide is listed in Guides

Click this link to read the Glyph Guide.

When 2.3 patch notes announced the absence of threat reduction, paladins all over Azeroth rioted on the forums. Blizzard responded by asking for Retribution data on the test realms to consider the issue. And Behold! Eyonix has announced Threat Reduction for Retribution paladins!

Click here for the Post by Eyonix

Embedded in Fanaticism, Retribution paladins will receive up to 30% threat reduction. Great news for all paladins out there as we move closer to raid viability.

After weeks of speculation and rumors, official patch 2.3 notes are out and IT HAS BEEN A DAMN DISAPPOINTMENT. Once again Blizzard has screwed us and the issue of threat reduction remains unsolved.

• Blessing of Light: Lower ranks of Flash of Light and Holy Light are now properly penalized when used with this Blessing.

• Cleanse and Purify range increased to 40 yards.

• Crusader Strike (Retribution) cooldown reduced from 10 to 6 seconds.

• Exorcism mana cost reduced.

• Hammer of Wrath mana cost reduced.

• Holy Wrath mana cost reduced.

• Improved Seal of the Crusader (Retribution) benefits folded into the base spell. This talent now gives the benefits of the Sanctified Crusader talent instead.

• Judgement of Light: The combat log will now show the mana gained from rank 5 of this ability as Judgement of Light instead of Seal of Light.

• Pursuit of Justice (Retribution) is now 3 ranks and increases movement speed by 5/10/15% and also reduces the chance you’ll be hit by spells by 1/2/3%.

• Sanctified Crusader (Retribution) renamed Sanctified Seals, which now increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and melee attacks by 1/2/3% and reduces the chance your Seals will be dispelled by 33/66/100%.

• Vengeance (Retribution) duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds.

• Vindication (Retribution) frequency and duration increased and now reduces all attributes by 5/10/15%, not just Strength and Agility.

• Weapon Expertise (Protection) renamed Combat Expertise, now increases expertise by 1/2/3/4/5 and total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%.