Farming Flasks, Mana Oils, Health Potions, and Damage Potions are almost required for higher level Mythic+ dungeons. To do this, go to profession trainer(s) in the main city and train the preferred professions.
Advanced Guide for Retribution Paladins - from Ahnfelten
In order for the game to not be as redundant, the spells, abilities, and health pools of enemies are slightly varied. This keeps the players from performing the same action over and over and increases permutations. The Blizzard company may also get sued for redundancy from high level corporations. So it’s no longer simple addition and subtraction but randomness and entropy. The chaotic spells and actions portray a higher level understanding of the game than just addition & subtraction, keeping the game at the highest level possible. This also attracts contracts from big corporations or the military by creating and inventing new quantum data, awarding Blizzard the more we play the game.
In variations of just two permutations such as to use a higher cooldown spell or to not use this higher cooldown spell and save it for the next enemy pack, the chaos equilibrium rests on the inflection point of the correlation of the efficiency of defeating the mob pack & going to the next ones. One of the main factors of efficiency is cooldown management (to save to the cooldown or to not save the cooldown). The chaos equilibrium inflection point (the point at which the player decides whether or not to save cooldown) can vary for different mob packs and is never absolute - if you run the same dungeon again the same pack can have a different inflection point. The Paladin must either save the cooldown Wake of Ashes when the mob pack is at 40% left or use it to defeat the mob pack and move onto the next pack. Constantly saving the cooldown means it will be available at the start of every pack, and constantly using the cooldown at 40% left means it won’t be up for the next mob pack (but the current pack will fall faster). Players must know the dungeon and know which mob pack is next in order to decide whether to use the cooldown at that point or not. The addon Mythic Dungeon Tools can greatly help with this. The inflection point usually rests at 40% with a margin of error of 20% (even more sometimes when there is more chaos than usual with unpredictable actions).
The Paladin will have a set strategy to tackle the dungeon but something always goes wrong. Otherwise, everyone would already defeat level 100 Mythic+. In order for the Blizzard company to maximize variation and reduce redundancy, the conclusion is always the opposite of the hypothesis. Consider the initial instinct of the gamer to have a hypothesis which is a defined path or movement set or ability set with a pre-calculated initial and final position and where the first derivative is intended to be regular or normal. The value of this pre-calculated path of least chaos or least resistance is where its integral from initial to final position is stationary relative to neighboring paths infinitesimally differing from the hypothesis. The correct path’s variation is zero relative to the neighboring paths. The Paladin must find this correct path through imagination or knowledge or trial and error - one of the very fundamentals of being a gamer. In order to complete the dungeon as fast as possible with little to zero issues, the Paladin must aim to maximize the constancy of the variations of the derivatives of the functions of using damaging spells efficiently and reducing enemy health bars. Improving constancy reduces chaos. Players must anticipate the opposite of their own hypothesis in real time, or in other words, players should always have a plan B incase plan A goes wrong.
These Mythic+ dungeons have a time limit. This requires the players to minimize deaths and maximize relevant damage per second. Players may choose to go a few survival talents if they feel that their damage per second is sufficient in order to not die and waste time off the clock. If the player does choose to go a few survival talents, each death has more magnitude and at this point it may be better to just go full damage per second talents. Health potions and damage potions play a vital role in surviving and hitting the deadline.
The Paladin must do their best to avoid the chaos and perform their actions in the highest efficiency possible. The general rotation for Retribution Paladins has the objective of generating Holy Power and then quickly spending it: apply Expurgation with Blade of Justice, then apply Greater Judgment stacks with Divine Toll & Judgment - this will be a total of three Holy Power generating abilities and Blessing of Dawn is unleashed, and later, Blessing of Dusk (which empower Holy Power spending abilities Final Reckoning and Divine Storm). Now, cast Execution Sentence for single target effectiveness or Final Reckoning for area of effect and then activate any trinket and cast Wake of Ashes. Depending on talent picks, you will have between 8 - 16 seconds of amplified Final Verdicts or Divine Storms. The general objective is to use Holy Power spending abilities as much as possible and in order to do this the Retribution Paladin should not waste any Holy Power. Generating three or four Holy Power is usually the most effective process as generating five may hit the cap and waste a Holy Power when Crusader Strike hits. For patch 11.0.2: a combination of Hammers of Wrath, Blades of Justice, and Judgments are used to generate Holy Power of either one or two depending on talents chosen - and then immediately spending the recently gained Holy Power on single target abilities (Final Verdict) or area of effect abilities (Divine Storm). Five Holy Power is the max and generally should not be reached with the exception of Hammer of Light. There may be exceptions to the maximum five rule in situations where the Paladin feels that the potential energy of five Holy Power outweighs the loss of one global cooldown.
The main job of the Retribution Paladin is to output as much damage as possible during Mythic+ dungeons and Raids. But unlike other damage dealing classes, Paladins have a plethora of tools to support the team in a unique way that other classes can’t match. Paladin is the only class with 8 seconds of self-immunity: Divine Shield. Blessing of Protection, Lay on Hands, Blessing of Sacrifice, Golden Path & Seal of Mercy are all tools to help your teammates. Lay on Hands during a crucial moment where your healer can’t heal in time. Blessing of Protection on a ranged damage dealer when there’s a lot of chaos. Do not Blessing of Protection the tank because of total threat loss. Golden Path & Seal of Mercy provide a healing boost to the melee. Blessing of Sacrifice can save a healer during the toughest moments. These talents do require the Paladin to target specific teammates. Default hotkeys for targeting are F1, F2, F3, and F4. If you don’t like these hotkeys an alternative is ALT+Z, ALT+X, ALT+C, or ALT+V. And if you don’t like pressing hotkeys you can always click.
The Paladin, when starting from scratch, has the choice to save some crests or spend them all on upgrading gear. Keep in mind, although, that spending crests means you will lose them forever when that piece of gear is replaced. The Paladin will have to make the choice of upgrading gear or saving the crests for later. There’s a weekly cap on the amount of crests that can be earned. Use them wisely. Depending on what build the Paladin chooses to go, whether it may be Haste Mastery, Crit Versatility, or any of the combinations of Mastery, Critical Strike, Versatility, and Haste: the Adventure Guide will serve as a purpose for finding the preferred set of gear. Make notes of which items are preferred and run those specific dungeons for that gear. Do not upgrade gear using valuable crests that may be quickly replaced. Optionally, crests can be used to purchase Nascent Crests, which can be used to craft gear.
Practice makes perfect. There are a plethora of builds that the Retribution Paladin can go for. There are the main builds but then there are slight variations to them. Talent choice is adaptable depending on the unique situation. Different dungeons may require different talent choices to optimize clear. Improve on a micro level; improve on a macro level; improve mentally; improve physically; improve calmly; improve ferociously.
If you would like visual learning, I do stream Retribution Paladin on Twitch. My Twitch username is AhnfeltenHeroes. Tossing a tip into the tip jar will help me stream full time. Thank you, and I hope your journey as a Retribution Paladin is as enlightening as it was for me.