The retribution paladin is a strange spec, its shunned by a lot of the WoW player base and is the subject of jokes and scorn like no other class or spec has been in my time playing. In PVP it’s a spec of two extremes. In arenas it’s massively underrepresented by skilled and knowledgeable players, not just in one bracket but completely across the board. In battlegrounds however its massively over represented by very poorly geared players who don’t understand the mechanics behind the spec .
The spec itself is horribly torn between two extremes as well, the spell based mechanics and the melee based mechanics. Though this is hopefully something that’ll soon be resolved.

Yet despite the jokes, the subpar performance and the glaring contradictions in its mechanics, Retribution is loved dearly by many players.

This thread will hopefully grow from humble beginnings into a source of knowledge for ret players in PVP, both the confused oathkeeper wielders and the full season 3 gladiators alike.

please contribute, and I’ll amend the first few posts to offer information on specs, gearing, team set up, and tactics for Ret in the arena.

Useful Threads on US and EU forums:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3414662573&sid=1&pageNo=1
-A 2k+ team in S2 and 1800 in week 2 of season 3 taking questions.

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=2111301358&sid=1
-Balls of Steel, 2k+ Season 3 team commenting on ret in the arena.



Specs-


Durability Build.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZVGkhMhZVfcth0uiIoz
+with gear you get a 35 second stun
+- 6% damage taken

- less raw DPS output
Variations:
2/2 improved sanc aura can be switched for 2/2 eye for an eye.
3/3 imp. Seal of the crusader can be moved to 3/5 parry.

Burst build
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sLZVGzZVfcth0uiIot
+higher DPS output
+easier to get and keep vengeance

-Stun is on a longer cool down
-You go down quicker
-More chance of losing BoF/bubble/wings

Variations:
3/3 imp. Seal of the crusader can be moved to 3/5 parry.

Just-about-heal build
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sxxhMZZVfcth0uiIot
+push back resistance on heals.
+12% more healing.
+10% fear resistance

-Stats for improving your healing will do nothing for your DPS
-Season 3 gear is very poorly suited to the build.
-Heals will be poor and expend lots of mana.


Gear Pointers.

Blacksmith crafted weapons - Ideally thunder/deepthunder/stormherald. (slowest speed)
Arena Weapons, swords/maces for humans.

Your armor will be almost entirely the PVP armor. Sadly its the only armor in the entire game thats currently itemized for ret properly, the rest have redundant spell damage.

Gems
Meta : 12agi+3% crit damage (you should have pursuit of justice, speed boost is useless)
18stam +5% stun resist ( I rarely get focused, so I find this less useful)

General gear gems :

Go for DPS. With plate and bubble you'll be tough to kill, you need the DPS boost.

Personally I'd aim for 28% crit, and then gem for strength.

Build up 3 stacks of vengeance, then blow cooldowns, and the strength is where the DPS will come from.

2 vs 2 team makeups


Ret paladin and Frost Mage.
+Durable partner (iceblock)
+Good Burst dmg
+Slowing affect
+silence
+crowd control



Ret Paladin and SL/SL lock
+Health stones
+durable opponent (self healing and your heals hit for more)
+Crowd control
+spell lock

Ret Paladin and Rogue
+Healing reduction
+Durable teammate
+Stuns add to JoC damage
+Snare
+Lots of CC



Ret Paladin and Warrior
+ Healing reduction from MS
+Both quite durable
+BoF complements warrior nicely

-No CC
-Depends on almost all physical DPS

3 vs 3 team makeups


Warrior / Resto Shaman / Ret paladin
+Good burst with windfury procs.
+healing reduction from MS

-Very little CC
-Quite easy to kite


Hunter / priest / ret paladin
+ minus Healing debuff
+ Instant heals
+mass dispel

Reserved

Highly rated Retribution teams.

(2000+)
2 vs 2

Caydiem is the Walrus (S.Priest) (US)
http://www.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?r=Darrowmere&ts=2&t=Caydiem+is+the+Walrus&select=Caydiem+is+the+Walrus

Balls of Steel (Rogue EU)
http://eu.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?r=Twisting+Nether&ts=2&t=BALLS+OF+STEEL&select=BALLS+OF+STEEL


3 vs 3


5 vs 5
Shatter Ret Paladin / Elem Shaman / Warrior / Felguard Lock / Disc Priest
http://eu.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?r=Magtheridon&ts=5&t=Shatter&select=Shatter

Embrace your destiny Ret paladin / resto shaman / Felguard lock / Disc priest / hunter
http://eu.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?r=Neptulon&ts=5&t=Embrace+your+destiny&select=Embrace+your+destiny

Allthough the thread is still small, I feel like supportting this kind of threads.

Retribution is viable to the 1950's or untill the imbalanced combo's start reigning supreme in the top 100's of the 2vs2 bracket.

3vs3 I never tried, but it seems quite viable when I fought against a team with one when I was holy. The burst was big enough, allthough I didn't see him back up healing, I don't think a enh shaman / feral / moonkin druid would make much diference (the spec's on par with retribution atm, and I see more of these specs then retribution nowadays)

Personally I am not currently retribution but I help whoever is represting the so-called "laughable" specialization. I wish I could go retribution on the arena I pay most attention to (5vs5) :/

With some slight tweaks (itemization, or the popular Attack Power --> Spell damage talent) retribution can become an excelent spec and not overpowered in anyway.

Also, if this is much of a rant, i'm sorry , not a good day :P

Edit: Warrior and retribution paladin is well worth a try, I reached close to 1900 on a paladin with despair and ~100 resilience, with a warrior with 260 resilience. Its possible to get higher with better gear in my opinion...

Nice Thread bro, just what i needed :)
Sticky!

Retribution For ever!!!

I'm in a 2v2 arena team with an enhancement shaman. Brilliant burst damage but not a lot of survivability. I think we just got to get the gear (and resilience first) and we'll be flying. Great thread, way to spread the retribution love.

Hi peeps nice thread have a bump ,

oo and one question me and my 2v2 partner (disc/ holy preist) find it so hard to beat war/holy pala combo any advice would be most welcome . Generally i stick to the pala and bop partner , stun the war as much as possible. but these super geared warriors own my partner is it just down to our gear? thx

My talent spec is 20/41 for pvp btw

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Q u o t e:
Hi peeps nice thread have a bump ,

oo and one question me and my 2v2 partner (disc/ holy preist) find it so hard to beat war/holy pala combo any advice would be most welcome . Generally i stick to the pala and bop partner , stun the war as much as possible. but war own my partner is it just down to our gear? thx

My talent spec is 20/41 for pvp btw

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What sort of play style do you use?

I always thought a ret paladin and a healer would be quite ineffective since you lack CC and you lack a healing reduction like MS, so your relying on one ret paladins pure burst to take someone down?


Or do you play the mana game burning healers?

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Q u o t e:
Hi peeps nice thread have a bump ,

oo and one question me and my 2v2 partner (disc/ holy preist) find it so hard to beat war/holy pala combo any advice would be most welcome . Generally i stick to the pala and bop partner , stun the war as much as possible. but war own my partner is it just down to our gear? thx

My talent spec is 20/41 for pvp btw

---

No it's not down to your gear, it's down to the fact that warrior/Holy Paladin is just a better combo. I don't think there's anything you can do there except hope that they're either screw up or one of them disconnects. You could try to manaburn of cause, but I doubt it will work.

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Q u o t e:


What sort of play style do you use?

I always thought a ret paladin and a healer would be quite ineffective since you lack CC and you lack a healing reduction like MS, so your relying on one ret paladins pure burst to take someone down?


Or do you play the mana game burning healers?

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Vs that combo definatly the mana burning game , my burst is fine v most other teams but dam that combo really keeps our rating low,,, gits!! lol

None of your builds have Crusade, a flat 3% DPS increase in areas (only fight Humanoids, Demons and Elementals, unless killing hunter pets is your thing).

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Q u o t e:
None of your builds have Crusade, a flat 3% DPS increase in areas (only fight Humanoids, Demons and Elementals, unless killing hunter pets is your thing).

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well, which points would you switch to it then?

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I use the first build, but with divine purpose instead of sanc. judge. I'm thinking of switching it around if I'm not going to use rank 1 soc, and//or when I get more resil.

I play with a frostmage and healing priest in 3v3, it works pretty well.

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Q u o t e:
None of your builds have Crusade, a flat 3% DPS increase in areas (only fight Humanoids, Demons and Elementals, unless killing hunter pets is your thing).

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Crusade is very nice, but unfortunately you just cant take it and still get the other things you really need to be able to do the damage in the first place (durability talents/mobility talents etc).

Ideally you'd have divine purpose and eye for an eye as well, but again.. both are situational talents and there are more useful places to spend the points that work in every fight.

Great thread :)

I would like to know what gems to choose first, or more like some guidelines so I have something to base my choice on.

And what would be a good amount of hp/mana/ap/crit/res?

For those who don't look my armory I have ~9.2k hp/~5.5k mana/~1300ap/~27% crit/~150 res.
and for those who do look my armory: Yes I'm working on replacing my green gear :p

and Darkmoon card: Crusade or wrath (for 51stamina) I have booth decks and waiting for darkmoon faire

Nice thread, I was just looking for a different spec for arena since I take way to much damage atm. I was going to go something like this http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZxGkhMhZVbgtu0uVcsz but none of the builds you suggested had Divine Purpose, is it really that bad? I get crit for over 3k by casters sometimes, I think it would make a big difference until you get some decent resilience anyway.

I haven't started in the Arena yet, I'm getting used to ret again in battlegrounds and gearing up. But when I do it will be 2v2 with a holy priest and maybe 3v3 with a Priest and a Rogue. If that makes any difference ^^