Help with Retribution Paladin

Community General Discussion
1

Ok, so I really didn’t want to do this, but I am at a complete loss as to what I may possibly be doing wrong. Alas, I come to the Forums.

So, my issue is my DPS - I’ve SIM’d my Paladin many times, and her numbers look good, sadly it can only be SIM’d via a Boss and not Trash Mobs. That’s truly where my problems seem to lie since when I am on Bosses my DPS is just fine if not always top, but I fall way back when it’s on Trash Mobs in Mythic+'s (M+ 9’s or higher).

My Talents:

  • (15) Righteous Verdict
  • (30) Hammer of Wrath
  • (45) Fists of Justice
  • (60) Wake of Ashes
  • (75) Unbreakable Spirit
  • (90) Word of Glory
  • (100) Divine Purpose

Now I know that I can make my DPS higher by choosing:

  • (15) Execution Sentence (but mainly ST)
    and
  • (100) Inquisition (But I struggle with upkeep during combat, given it’s only good with 3 Holy Power spent, and coincidentally Execution Sentence takes 3 Holy Power)

My Azerite Traits:

Helm; ‘Soulspun Casque’ iLvL 435:

  • Light’s Decree
  • Rezan’s Fury
  • Overwhelming Power
  • Impassive Visage

Shoulders; ‘Pauldrons of the Horned Horror’ iLvL 435:

  • Light’s Decree
  • Relentless Inquisitor
  • Unstable Flames
  • Bulwark of the Masses

Chest; ‘Breastplate of the Vengeful’ iLvL 435:

  • Empyrean Power
  • Relentless Inquisitor
  • Gutripper
  • Vampiric Speed

I do know that my Helm offers another Empyrean Power Trait at the cost of a Light’s Decree and I do wish either my Chest or Shoulders were also a BiS, I have been working on trying to get my BiS Chest piece. (But I have the worst RNG, and well that’s a whole different story lol - I’ll be looking at buying a 445 Azerite piece soon, I’m 3K short on Titan Residuum ugh!)

Trinkets:

  • Vial of Animated Blood; iLvL 425
  • Briny Barnacle + 120 Strength Socket; iLvL 425

Enchants & Other Gems:

  • Weapon: Force Multiplier
  • Rings: +60 Haste x2
  • Socket: +80 Strength

Ok, I know people could probably easily look up my character information and find out all of this on their own, but I am trying to provide as much information as I can, as I really would like help on this issue.

As far as my rotation goes, I follow it as best as I can - Can’t say I’m perfect at it, I do tend to sometimes hit Templar’s Verdict when I should be hitting Divine Storm in a mob, and vice versa on Bosses. Especially if Empyrean Power procs, as its a free Divine Storm usage.

I’ve been told to stack Crit and I do understand that, however usually (as I’ve read) that’s done when you have multiple Expurgation Azerite Traits chosen, and I do not, as only one piece of my gear offers it. So I stack Crit when I can, but I also pay a lot of attention to my Haste as well given getting Holy Locked is sometimes an issue for me. I also use Haste Food Buffs, because the last time I tried using Crit Food Buffs, it didn’t work out so well for some reason.

Stats:

Strength: 8,401
Crit Strike: 16.71%
Haste: +19.25%
Versatility: 8.95% / 4.48%
Mastery: 36.00%

To me, my stats seem fine - Mastery is a little high, would like to lose some and put it more towards my Crit, but BFA hasn’t exactly been friendly when it comes to secondary stats - Kinda take what you can get sorta thing and if you get your needed stats, all the better, but that’s asking too much lol.

Hopefully someone, somewhere who knows Retribution Paladins like no ones business can help me, or shed some light onto what I might be doing wrong - My Paladin has been my Main since day 1 of World of Warcraft (B.C), I don’t want to retire her as she does offer lots of other useful utilities aside from DPS alone. I have 8 other Alts, but I just can’t seem to let go of playing a Ret Pally. (Hint: So if you plan on commenting on such, don’t bother lol)

Thanks for your time in reading all this (I know “TL:DR”) and any and all future advice anyone may have.

2

Ret pally is such an easy spec to play like you have to try to mess up the rotation.

1 Like
3

I dont play ret paladin so I cant help you.

But you should definetly check out the class discords or even the paladin forums.

I know for the warrior forums here there are some pretty good players that dont usually check general but do help others with questions if they post in the class discussion.

The class discord (at least for warriors. It is called skyhold) is amazing. I know I have access to so many top tier mythic raiders or 3k io players. Even rank 1 players. Its very active and you gain a lot of insight.

The server for paladins would be hammerofwrath

1 Like
4

Its a dps gain ay anything more than 1 mob. You litteraly spam divine storm. Thats all ret paladins do lol.

1 Like
5

Without knowing how you do your rotation I can only gives some tips.

For the 100 Talents with a Lights Decree I always find Crusade works out better then Divine Purpose as it lets you get off more Holy Spenders in the AW window meaning the Lights is doing more for you.

For the 15 Talent I believe Zeal is the better one for AoE as it just improves your auto attacks.

Using the DS Procs, as long as its not interfering with TV or building Holy Power, is never a bad thing.

Vial of Animated Blood has a very similar Cooldown to Vision of Perfection reduced Avenging Wrath and I find its generally best to use them together. If you really want to min-max then use it when you reach max stacks of Crusade as you start out with a bunch of strength that gets reduced so you want to make sure that you make the most of it when you have the highest amount of haste. But if your going with VoP major then Inquisition will be better (tho you have already said that, so stick with DP if your using VoP major as Crusade don’t gel well)

Mastery isn’t a bad stat as it increases TV, DS, WotA and Judgement Damage. Generally speaking your most damaging abilities.

If anything I’d say your Vert is a little on the high side if you’re looking to replace stats with Crit more then Mastery. I personally sit around 4/2% vert on my Ret Pally.

I wouldn’t say that I know Ret Pallies inside and out, but I feel like I at least know my way around. That said, take my advice with a little pinch of salt.

1 Like
6

Again you really want to be focusing on spamming divine storm. Cleave off thr highest health mob and switch for interupts whrnever you need. Thats really the basics of it.

I would run inquisition for m+ but thats just me. And even on tyrannical aeeks id still use zeal because you’ll hardly ever be using templars verdict and even when you to its hard to utilize the 15 talent for it. The majority of damage still comes from trash.

1 Like
7

A righteous verdict empowered TV actually hits slightly harder than a 2 target DS.

8

False.

Divine Storm over Templar’s Verdict only if:

3 or more targets if you had taken Righteous Verdict from Talent Row 1.
2 or more targets if you don’t have Righteous Verdict.

And obviously use Divine Storm if you get it for free from Empyrean Power.

Sooooo many things wrong with this.

2 Likes
9

For M+, i’d recommend swapping out Righteous Verdict for Zeal, and Hammer of Wrath for Blade of Wrath. Don’t take Righteous Verdict and Hammer of Wrath unless it’s Tyrannical AND your group doesn’t have any good ST DPS (Which shouldn’t be the case anyway, as that’s not the strength of Ret paladins for M+).

I’d also swap out Word of Glory for Selfless Healer. While WoG is certainly a really strong healing CD, it still takes away Holy Power that could and should have gone into DPS, not to mention the GCD it takes up. There’s also the concern that WoG’s huge healing would just go into/or cause your healer to overheal. Only go WoG on Grevious/Bursting weeks, and you’re uncertain if your healer can keep up. Otherwise, Selfless Healer is more than sufficient to keep yourself and the group healthy, especially with Divine Purpose procs.

Divine Purpose is great for M+, don’t take Inquisition. There’s too much downtime in between pulls that’ll just waste your Inquisition. Burst from DP on the otherhand can delete groups if you get a string of lucky procs.

Fist of Justice is good as your default pick, but remember to swap it out if needed depending on your comp or the dungeon.

1 Like
10

The thing is, it’s not that easy to really spam Divine Storm, as it costs 3 Holy Power (I know how to build HP lol, should prob mention that) and let’s just say, I did take Inquis for a Talent, now I’d feel I’ll be fighting over what to throw HP at, Inquis or DS.

If there weren’t two other DPS in a group with me, I’d have all the time in the world to build up the HP, but, sometimes, I just don’t get that chance before something dies :frowning:

I do like the idea of giving Zeal a shot though, I’ve read that Zeal is good for AoE.

11

A friend made me a weakaura to help me with Inquisition, as the duration is easy to lose track of amid the sea of buffs.

Pick up this trait for certain!

12

Also, just as an overall note for the role of Ret Paladins in M+:

Your role is essentially to be the bulk of your group’s AoE dps, as well as a utility bot like Balance druids, with occasional off healing with Selfless Healing procs, disease/poison dispels, Blessing of Protection on the dps that pulls aggro/Blessing of Freedom on the tank or CC’d group members, and HoJ’ing key targets (snake debuff in Sethralis second boss, worms in UR when they use that green frontal cone aoe, etc). Divine Shield can also be used to absorb mechanics such as the Lightning towers on Sethralis 3rd boss, or clear mushrooms with Divine Steed on UR third boss. DP procs also have the possibility of pulling aggro from the tank with how much burst AoE you do, so be ready to Divine Shield if you find yourself getting multiple procs in a row.

While you do a decent enough amount of ST dps, that’s not your strength and it’s very likely you’ll fall behind on bosses. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it’s a consideration to keep in mind when forming your group. Time your Avenging Wrath well too; use it often on CD as it’s relatively short at 2 mins, but make sure it’s up for any Bloodlust usage. A lot of Retribution’s ST DPS comes from Avenging Wrath and it’s associated Azerite traits.

1 Like
13

Ahhh thank you :slight_smile:

I will def give that a shot!

I should mention - I so didn’t mean to put Word of Glory I actually always use Selfless Healer. I accidently clicked it when writting this post (two monitors lol) … Didn’t realize it until I ran my KR +10 and couldn’t figure out why my damn Flash of Light wasn’t proc’ing … Dumb moment >.>

But thank you for all your information! I tend to swap Talents & Traits around when SIM’ing, and I know that’s probably my 1st mistake - Knowing the Affixes and how to deal with them with the correct spells/moves is just as important if not more so than DPS chart numbers. I just sometimes feel people aren’t happy unless my numbers are through the roof - but, I can’t keep fluctuating my DPS like I have been (high on bosses/low on trash).

14

Inquisition doesn’t have to be used with 3 HP, it can be used with 1-2 depending on open gcd’s. Get a weak aura or addon that shows you time remaining, and go beat on a dummy untill its natural to refresh it when its low.

Going crit/expurgation is mainly a ST build, not something you really wanna play in M+ except for tyrannical weeks I guess, and even then trash tends to be what takes the most time.

I always take WoG, mainly to save the group from big mistakes that threaten the everyone, a single person taking damage isn’t much of a threat to a healer, and IMO better to have large bursts of healing to get through those dangerous zones than a bit of extra healing coming in slowly. The single gcd and HP it costs are far outweighed by being able to save the group from a wipe.

If you’re using VoP and empyrean, you’ll have to get a WA or be careful noticing when what procs, since both light up your DS button in the same way, can possibly waste a auto-crit on a DS thinking it was an empyrean if VoP procs during wings in a ST situation as well.

Finally, a big part of playing ret paladin is knowing how to use your defensives offensively for more damage. You can use your bubble to stand your ground and dps through attacks that’d normally force you to run and lose uptime, but be sure to plan out when you’re likely to need it again so you don’t run into a situation empty handed.

1 Like
15

No problem! :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t focus too much SIM’ing outside of raids; as you’ve already noted, SIM’ing is mostly for ST boss fights. It’s much more accurate to learn what works for you by actually doing those dungeons (which I’m sure you should have by now!). Going through some guides might be useful too, but focus more on the rationale they give for choosing what they did, as opposed to blindly following a cookie cutter build. I’ve personally found Icy-veins to be a good one to work as a base to build on.

And yea, the affixes and the dungeon can make a significant difference on what you choose to bring, Tyrannical/Fort being the most obvious one.

I’ve done that before, wasn’t pretty :stuck_out_tongue:

That might be an issue sometimes, I agree. Perhaps finding a like-minded group of friends to do your runs with might help? That’s what I do, and we often give each other tips as well on what we noticed working or not with each other’s build or playstyle.

1 Like
16

Speaking as a healer main, that should not be a consideration outside of Grievous/Bursting weeks, unless your healer is just plain bad. At the OP’s current M+ levels, WoG is almost certainly going to go into overheal with any competent healer that’s paying attention.

Selfless Healer stacks should be stacking up ridiculously quickly if one goes for the Divine Purpose + Empyrean Power (which they should be anyway for the huge AoE potential it gives over the other options in a M+ environment). Don’t forget that your free Empyrean Power Divine Storm can itself proc even more Divine Purpose procs. It’s ridiculous.

1 Like
17

I could possibly look into a WeakAura for Inquis because that is my biggest fear, uselessly spending it. I do understand it don’t have to be used with 3 HP, I just feel that would give me the most benefit, and would definitely be a lot of work if I had Inquis and Execution Sentence selected, which is why I mentioned what I had about the whole situation, lol.

Also, that is a big problem for me - Things ‘lighting up’ and I click the wrong spell, another reason I mentioned accidentally hitting Divine Storm when I should have hit Templar’s Verdict and vice versa - I did put Blade of Justice in-between the two to try and counter my idiocy, not 100% fool proof, but it helps.

I do use defensive CDs when I can, Shield of Vengeance I try and use carefully and I try to space my CDs (should I use major ones on Trash) with enough time for them to be ready to use when we are coming up on a Boss.

The reasoning on choosing Selfless Healer over Word of Glory is rather stupid … I forget, even when I am on Discord with people, they never say anything about needing me to pop something to help them - It’s worse if I’m not on Discord, as I do pay attention to everyone’s health, just not nearly enough to know when it’s essential to pop Word of Glory.

Now, what I am about to say next is gonna probably be a “duh” moment for me, but I keep seeing people say “VoP” … For some reason this abbreviation is not ringing a bell for me, lol.

That all said, I will take what Miroslav offered a try, and I will look into also trying out Inquis (again, lol, which Vaerume and a couple others have mentioned) with a WeakAura in place - See how it all goes down for me, try the recommendations in a few lower end M+ after hitting some Dummies for a bit.

Thank you :slight_smile:

1 Like
18

I main heal too, there are plenty of times when a bunch of AOE damage goes out even when things go right, pulling packs onto void emissary’s when those packs have random targeting abilities comes to mind (especially if there’s quaking on a pack pull onto voids). Furthermore, if gcd’s are an issue selfless healer will eat up significantly more gcd’s than using WoG in terms of gcd’s to healing done.
Maybe at lower lvls WoG may overheal, but at lower lvls people are more likely to get hit by dodge able attacks, so I’d see that as a balancing force.
I groan every time I see a ret pally with selfless healer, because that’s a ret pally who can’t heal off a potential wipe by himself. Selfless healer might save a single person, WoG saves the entire group.

In terms of hitting the wrong TV/DS, if you see it light up and you have 3HP on a boss, TV first, than DS if its still lit. Technically that’s a dps loss, since a DS proc is priority, but its a simple way to mitigate it if you don’t wanna get a weak aura for that particular situation. It’s what I do because I don’t push higher enough content for that to be an issue.
VoP - Vision of perfection.

19

you can literally play ret on a garage door opener, actually not even that, you can play ret with a wii steering wheel.

all ret is just generate holy power and dump it, so turn the wheel left for crusader strike and then turn it right for templar’s verdict.

20

Sometimes less is more, like with Firemages doing literally nothing but spamming those Greater Pyros can actually output more DPS than doing the whole fancy rotation to pop off instant regular pyros, assuming you’re positioning yourself well that is.