Hi all. My experience this season is I finished all my 12s a couple weeks back, much of it pugged, and then quit the grind because the hardest boss now is group finder. I may pick it up again with a friend, but even if I do, there will always be Rets several key levels above me. Why then do I think I’m qualified to write a guide? First, there are all sorts of players out there, some still working on their 12s, some working on portals, and so on. Second, the guides out there lack depth, no m+ tips for example, and so it’s a good thing if anyone tries to correct that. Third, I just like sharing, talking, and organizing my thoughts, so here goes.
Table of contents
- Hero and spec talent trees
- Class tree
- Stat priority
- The rotation, really
- Ara-Kara
- City of Threads
- Dawnbreaker
- Grim Batol
- Mists
- Necrotic Wake
- Siege of Boralus
- Stonevault
- Add-ons, macros, etc
Hero and spec talent trees
Let’s start with hero trees. Templar currently deals significantly more DPS than Herald, and has better survivability as well: Sacrosanct Crusade and Wrathful Descent are free and mitigate damage before it reaches your health bar, while Eternal Flame costs resources and restores health after damage has already gone out. That’s a big difference in higher keys. But mainly the problem with Herald is that it deals less damage.
The Wowhead m+ talent builds for Templar and the Ret tree are correct: wowhead .com/guide/classes/paladin/retribution/talent-builds-pve-dps
But some quick notes.
If you’re considering defying the guide by picking Templar Strikes over Crusading Strikes, I’d advise against it. Not only is TS a DPS loss, you simply don’t have space to press it in AoE (i.e. the majority of m+) because your gcds are filled with Blade of Justice and Divine Storm spam.
Next, Ret has access to several combinations of Avenging Wrath, but the one pretty much all Rets run is Crusade with Radiant Glory. I suspect, based both on personal sims and intuition, that the only truly non-viable option is Crusade without Radiant Glory (not a great damage profile for m+). If you want to be safe, do what everyone else does. If you’re feeling adventurous, have it at.
Execution Sentence vs. Final Reckoning: I’ve tried to make FR work, but not taking ES is too large a ST loss, and even in AoE FR doesn’t really pull ahead. FR is just undertuned and I don’t suggest ever taking it.
Class tree
I dislike the build suggested in the previously linked Wowhead guide. It’s not wrong, but it leaves out a lot of talents I personally like without providing context. This is my favorite build: wowhead .com/talent-calc/paladin/retribution/templar/DARQRQUARVYFRUUEQJBVDVBAAAAA
First let’s talk off-healing. Ret can do around 150-200k HPS (healing per sec), which is a quarter or even a third of a not-so-great healer’s HPS. A lot of healers you play with will be in this category, but even if you luck out and nab a solid one, the healing you provide will remain useful. This is the relative power level of our healing talents: Seal of the Crusader > Lightforged Blessing > Lightbearer > Judgment of Light > Golden Path. You can check my conclusions with Details following a few of your own m+ runs.
The reason you may want to skip Seal of the Crusader, as the Wowhead build does and around half of top Rets do (murlok .io/paladin/retribution/mm+#talents-class) is that it essentially costs two points since you need to take Holy Ritual to get it, and Holy Ritual sucks. But taking Holy Ritual lets you to skip Lead the Charge, which personally I don’t think is a great talent. So, decide whether or not you want SotC.
The next choice is whether or not to take Vengeful Wrath. Almost every Ret does, but the reasons you can skip it if you want to are 1) Hammer of Wrath doesn’t enter the AoE rotation at all, and 2) it’s something like <1% DPS increase in ST. The reasons you might want to take it are 1) damage is damage, and 2) if you plan to pick up Light’s Revocation, there aren’t any good paths to it since Eye for an Eye is useless and Golden Path is weak. But, Golden Path only costs 1 point. So, decide whether or not you want to be a beautiful snowflake like yours truly by skipping Vengeful Wrath.
I find Sacrifice of the Just (1-min Sac) kind of mandatory. If you’re not very good at using Sac you should try to improve on that rather than skip this. I don’t find Punishment that useful, but I also haven’t played it that much; this might depend on if you’re the guy going for the first cast every time, or the sort of player who holds their interrupt for priority casts. Consecrated Ground can be useful, but more often than not someone already provides this utility. Righteous Protection is situationally good, but you need a precise reason for taking it. Cleanse Toxins is either mandatory or useless depending on the dungeon.
Stat priority
Those in the know will tell you to just sim it, but really there is a general priority: crit > mastery > haste > vers for AoE, and mast > crit > haste > vers for ST. Yes, it can fluctuate and simming is a good idea, but rotely telling people looking for a simple answer to sim it is snobbery. Right now you can’t really go wrong prioritizing either crit or mastery, even though crit is probably better overall for m+, and don’t let your haste fall to absurdly low levels.
The rotation, really
I’m not going to cover precise openers or anything like that, just general rules. The rotation throughout most of the dungeon is Blade of Justice and Divine Storm spam. When you’re hitting 4+ targets, BoJ resets relentlessly. As the number of targets drops, Judgment more frequently enters the rotation, and even Hammer of Wrath joins it eventually.
You want the Judgment debuff up on the target(s), but you’ll find that it often is already without your having to cast Judgment due to Divine Toll, Divine Resonance, and Hammer of Light (Undisputed Ruling). But do make sure the Judgment debuff is applied early in the pull.
Burst goes something like this: have the Judgment debuff up on the target > Execution Sentence > Wake of Ashes > finishers. Against bosses you can use Divine Toll as your first gcd, but that may pull aggro against trash. You really just want to use it early enough that Divine Resonance can help trigger a Radiant Glory proc in time to extend a fully stacked Crusade. Therefore you can often squeeze Toll in after Wake > Hammer of Light.
The way Radiant Glory procs work, under the hood: after a proc, it takes something like 21 holy power before it can happen again. Then if it doesn’t happen within a few finishers, it reaches a point where it’s guaranteed to happen. In other words there’s a window in which RG occurs, which sort of lets you time these procs. An easy example is if you just used a bunch of finishers without a proc, you probably don’t want to cast WoG between pulls.
ST priority: I honestly don’t think it matters that much so long as you keep generators on cooldown and avoid overcapping holy power, but the ideal priority is supposed to be HoW against targets with less than 35% health (assuming you have Vengeful Wrath) > Judgment > BoJ > HoW (above 35% or without Vengeful Wrath).
Don’t be scared to overcap holy power in certain situations. You’ll get a feel for this the more you play, but basically when you’re flooded with holy power at the start of a pull you’ll find that it’s unrealistic to never overcap holy power. Another situation where you should be willing to overcap is when a dangerous mechanic forces you out of melee range of several mobs. It can be better to use BoJ or Judgment in these situations than Final Verdict since they’ll deal more damage and, once you get back into melee range, you’ll have a full holy power bar to work through while BoJ resets itself repeatedly.
But there is such a thing as wasting holy power. You’ll be punished for it in ST where even when you do everything right you can run into the occasional dead gcd. Therefore I suggest running a modified swing-timer to track Crusading Strikes, and even a Divine Resonance timer. The best way to do this is via a WeakAura. I use a couple simple ones I tailored to my liking, but here’s a popular one: wago .io/HolyPower
Ara-Kara
As the tank gathers up the first pull, especially if they’re bringing it to the mini-boss, your role is to dispel poisons (dispelling generates zero aggro). If you have a WeakAura that does this, or use an add-on called Cell, you can see on your party frames who the poison will be applied to before the cast finishes. More on this later.
You can use hard CC to fully interrupt (as in the spell won’t immediately be cast again like it usually does nowadays) Trilling Attendants’ Resonant Barrage.
BoP works against the second miniboss and the first actual boss when they cast Horrifying Shrill / Alterting Shrill (same ability, just different names). Use it on a squishy ally, or one who you don’t think will use their defensives. You can see what defensives your party have used with a WeakAura, Cell, or a cooldown tracker like OmniCD. Don’t be afraid to proactively Bubble this mechanic as well if the fight is getting tight, which also lets you Sac someone at no cost.
Leading up to the second boss, priority interrupt is the Webmages’ Revolting Volleys. HoJ / Blind the Sentries. Against the second boss, use your minor defensives against Infestation (the DoT he applies to random players). It ticks fast and deals a ton of damage so you gotta be quick. Sac is great when Infest is applied to someone else.
Against the last boss, position yourself so that your poison isn’t in line with anyone, and then to dispel yourself. You’re decent at hitting the mobs that drop the puddles if your ranged allies won’t do it. Use Divine Shield if you mess up and can’t find a puddle. Remind yourself not to use Freedom for a speed boost on this fight because you’re liable to get yourself and someone else (via Unbound Freedom) killed when you can no longer stand in the puddles. This is a good example of where you might want to use a WeakAura such as wago .io/LyVvlKxvs to track the cooldowns of enemy abilities. I would disable most of the abilities it tracks to avoid information overload, but this boss for example is so much more relaxing when you know exactly when Cosmic Singularity is going to happen. She can be 2-manned by you and the tank if you just do the mechanics right. But if you’re skilled, you’ll do the mechanics right while doing good DPS. But do the mechanics right first.
City of Threads
In the early pulls, you may want to dispel a poison off the tank called Venom Strike cast by Venomblades, especially when there are multiple applications. The other time you want poison dispel here is against the big bug before the final two bosses that AoE poisons your party. Dispel yourself so your healer hates their life a bit less.
Ret is useful on the third boss, Coag, because you can soak one set of absorbs with Bubble and another with Lay on Hands. I believe it’s every other set of these absorbs that are really scary because these line up with an AoE mechanic, but I have Ret brain and so I usually just soak the first two sets.
Against the last boss, use all your defensives and health pot against any of the several mechanics that make your healer’s life hell. You may even want to cast an occasional well-timed WoG (like if someone is low right before Tremor Slam). If someone forgets to stack during Umbral Weave, Freedom them.
Dawnbreaker
Freedom prevents or removes Ensaring Shadows cast by Shadowmages. Not that scary an ability though and the cast can be interrupted as well.
Not Ret-specific, but Commanders early in the instance have an ability called Abyssal Howl that applies an absorb to their friends. I think a lot of people don’t know what this does so I thought I’d point out that it’s a priority to interrupt it.
If the first boss casts Burning Shadows on you right before the phase where you fly away, and your healer does in fact fly away before dispelling you, Bubble it off or you’ll die.
When any of the minibosses before the second boss apply the DoT Abyssal Blast, use a defensive or even a healing pot if your healer is struggling. When it’s applied to a party member, use Sac.
I believe the second boss, Anub, is similar to Coag from CoT where dangerous mechanics, in this case Dark Orb and Shadowy Decay, line up every other time. This would be a solid time to Bubble and Sac someone, to use LoH or pot or whatever. Just be aware of when major damage events like these occur so that you can be proactive in protecting your group. And even when these mechanics don’t line up together and the healing is a little easier, you should still pop minor defensives.
Against the last boss, don’t be a Retnoonb, help with the barrels. Doesn’t matter too much which mechanics you use your defensives against so long as you use them. In the second phase you can use Freedom to help against Spinneret’s Strands, but I don’t find this super important.
Grim Batol
The priority kick in the early pulls is the Earthcallers’ Mass Tremor, but Earth Bolts hit really hard as well. Therefore more disruptive classes / specs are more useful than you in these pulls. Don’t be afraid to proactively Bubble to avoid the dragon’s knockback or dispel the DoT that drops pools because sometimes you can’t make it to LoS without losing a lot of damage, you need to interrupt something, etc (the life of a melee).
Against the first boss, use SoV before your tank even pulls to save a gcd / for free DPS because the boss uses Commanding Roar very early. Then use Divine Prot on the next one, the third one will hit you, fourth one SoV, fifth one DP, and so on. If you happen to be on Discord with your tank you can BoP Skullsplitter while they taunt and cancel BoP. Neat but not really necessary.
Against the trash before Throngus, target the Giants and focus one of the Beguilers, preferably the one in the middle or back that your allies may be less likely to interrupt. If your group doesn’t have many AoE stuns, it’s worth using HoJ and even Blind because there are three Beguilers and you really don’t want any of their casts going out at the same time as the Giant’s unavoidable damage.
Against Throngus, alternate between SoV and DP whenever he forges a weapon. Use health pot on yourself or LoH on anyone if you see your healer struggling.
Leading up to the third boss, the Enforcers can be a good HoJ target if your party can’t dispel enrage, but there are lots of good things to interrupt or stun here. Be willing to ST down Lavabenders in certain situations, particularly in the pull right before the third boss (although some groups skip this).
Nothing insightful to say about the third boss. Sac is very good at helping an ally live against the Corruptors leading up to the final boss, especially when that ally gets targeted multiple times in a row.
Against the final boss you could Bubble to clear out tentacles, but mostly I suggest using it when you’re in the tiny circle, he puts the debuff on you, and your healer is struggling a bit. Then you can also run around clearing tentacles if you want, but it’s incidental really.
Mists
BoP your healer right as you dismount on the first big pull. This protects him from VERY HARMFUL bleeds. I’ve heard that if your ranged run into melee then the mobs that apply the bleeds won’t jump over to them and do so, but since I never see people do this, just BoP.
The most important interrupt here is when the Harvesters cast Harvest Essence, but Spirit Bolts hit hard as well.
Against the first boss, put Ingra Maloch on focus so you can help with interrupts while you DPS the tree. I find I can use Divine Toll at the start of the fight and have it up again by the time the tree gets low and debuffs Maloch to take 200% increased damage, but this probably depends on the key level.
In the maze, you want to kick either the Tender’s Nourish the Forest or the Shaper’s Bramblethorn Coat. I believe these are the only casts, so stop them unless you want the pulls to last forever. You can BoP some things here but it’s sort of finnicky / unnecessary.
Against the trash before the last boss, your group needs to interrupt both casts by the Staghorn. Just pick one, and on every pull interrupt it like you’re a 14-yo Valorant star who just downed a Monster. That’s how you assert dominance and let your pug know you will always be getting that cast. Or you can type it out I guess.
The flying bugs, Reavers, apply a poison. It’s kind of random how they apply it, but it deals quite a bit of damage. If you see an ally with 2+ stacks you should definitely dispel it.
My advice against the last boss isn’t Ret-specific: move as little as possible when he puts the green swirls under your feet because each subsequent time you have to deal with this mechanic it copies the movement everyone did the previous times. Eventually these swirls will zigzag all over the place at the speed of horse, and we’ll all know who to blame.
Necrotic Wake
Getting tired now but I’ll try to finish this. In the first big pull you need to interrupt Harvesters’ Drain Fluids (channeled CC). Against the first boss, you get 1-shot in higher keys if you don’t use a defensive against Heaving Retch. You can immune a party member against both its initial damage and the follow-up DoT with Sac when talented into Righteous Protection, and I think this lines up so that you can prevent every other one.
ST down Necromancers and don’t allow Frostbolt Volleys to go off. Don’t stand in front of the big skeletons or you’ll get cleaved and 1-shot on higher keys. You can pick up multiple Necrotic Wake items such as the Javelin and the Shield; whichever one you picked up last will be used first.
Against the second boss, use some of your kicks against Necrotic Bolts. These are dangerous and you don’t need to save Rebuke 24/7 for Frostbolt Volleys. Whether you blow your cooldowns immediately on the boss to burn him quicker, or save them for add phases, is up to you. I go back and forth on which I find more useful.
On the trash before Stitchflesh, interrupt Collectors’ Goresplatters (massive AoE damage to your party) at all costs. You can save BoP for the boss, but really I think the best use for it is against the Separation Assistant miniboss when he uses Morbid Fixation. This keeps these two mobs grouped and saves time (while against Stitchflesh you don’t need to BoP the fixate if your group does the mechanics right).
Against the final boss you can preemptively Freedom his target while he’s casting Frozen Binds. This entirely counters the mechanic. You can be quick with mouseovers, use a targettarget macro (/cast [@targettarget] Blessing of Freedom), etc. Whatever you do, don’t do it too late or you could root your entire party and cause a wipe.
Siege of Boralus
Make sure you target the Enforcer on the first pull because most of the mobs in this pull are non-elite and you don’t want to waste the additional damage you do to your primary target. This goes for a lot of pulls, even when all the mobs are elite: focus your interrupt target and target the highest health mob. Also, watch out for the Enforcer’s frontal cone.
The caster in the early parts of the instance is the Waveshaper. You don’t want Watertight Shell to go off (although it can be dispelled), while Brackish Bolts can be dangerous if they hit at the same time as sorta unavoidable AoE from other mobs. HoJ is decent against Waveshapers, but maybe even better against other mobs like Shredders. The more I play, the more I find I wasn’t using HoJ enough or against the right mobs. It makes pulls cleaner when your group doesn’t have a lot of stuns.
Against the first boss I don’t save cooldowns for when he gets kited into the bombs. It takes too long for the first one to go off, and the increased damage taken debuff is kind of short and only 50%. You want to kill the ranged guys as much as possible since they do a lot of damage, and generally only AoE the melee when they’re stacked on the boss. When the boss runs into a bomb you can ST him or continue to AoE (you can make a case for either). If an ally gets cornered while fixated by the boss, BoP them. If a bomb is about to go off without a mob nearby to trigger it, I’m pretty sure you can soak it with Bubble and it won’t trigger the party-wide damage, but I’ve never actually had to do this before.
Kick the big dudes riding the horses or they’ll apply a huge defensive buff to their friends (but it is dispellable if it goes through). While your group is busy fighting a pack, you can BoP yourself and ride your horse through the gauntlet where you normally take cover to pull this pack as well. Might save time depending on how your tank would deal with it if you don’t do this.
Against the second boss, most melee mess up the mechanic where she puts circles under your feet and you gotta slowly walk around the boss so that the tank can remain in melee range. When this is screwed up she casts a nasty ability called Gut Shot which deals a lot of upfront damage and applies a big DoT. BoP can counter Gut Shot.
I believe BoP also works against both abilities used by the Bilge Rat Demolishers (the ettins that patrol around the monkeys). I’d say the kick priority here is Choking Waters (Tempest) > Stinky Vomit (Pillager) > Water Bolt (Tempest). The Cutthroats cast Rotting Wounds but this can’t be interrupted by Rebuke. Rotting Wounds is a dangerous debuff because not only does it reduce healing received by 25%, multiple applications can be applied. When you see it on your tank, dispel it immediately. These are great pulls for Sac with Righteous Protection if you choose to talent the latter.
The pulls before the third boss have mobs called Invaders. They apply a poison that can stack five times, but when the poison gets applied is a bit random. This is another good time to use Righteous Protection. Against the third boss, alternate SoV and DP whenever he uses Break Water (even when you avoid the swirls on the ground you still take unavoidable damage).
Against the last boss, wait for your healer to dispel someone. If the second DoT is still on you (the healer can only dispel one at a time) pop a defensive. If it’s on someone else and they haven’t used a defensive, Sac them. You can also see who this debuff is going to land on based on the projectile and preemptively use a defensive against it, but this can be tricky to pull off. But whatever you do, rotate through all your defensives including health pot and LoH to protect yourself and your allies. There’s other unavoidable AoE damage in this fight that you can use defensives on if you think it’s necessary or want to trigger SoV for damage, but really the fight revolves around the DoTs.
Stonevault
Put the Voidsoul on your focus at the start of the instance if you think no one else will kick the fear. If no one interrupts this very long cast your group will probably wipe. If you’re pretty sure someone else will get it, interrupt one of the Invaders when they cast Arcing Void; not only does this prevent the immediate damage, I’m fairy certain it locks these mobs out for a bit from applying (instantly) their very powerful curse. Even in relatively high keys, many DPS are bad at dispelling this curse. If you’re willing to track it on yourself with a WeakAura and no one’s dispelling, consider using Bubble to remove it, or god forbid two applications of it. If you’re an OP dwarf you can remove it with your racial.
Against the first boss, as a melee, I often find it best to ignore the primary mechanic of the fight and just shoot my laser off into space, but if your entire party decides to do the same then you’re in trouble. This is another one of those fights where every other time EDNA kills the spikes, she does a follow-up AoE. This is where, if your DK doesn’t AMZ or your sham doesn’t Link or whatever, you should consider popping major defensives, using LoH on someone, etc. Once you know this is the way the fight works you can react to it better.
The priority kick on the trash leading up to Master Machinists is the Menders’ Restoring Metals. Forge Loaders’ Molten Mortar debuff used to be countered by BoP, but I’m not sure that’s still the case. I believe your tank can get snared here when he needs to kite, but tbh it’s not something I’ve paid much attention to.
Not too much to say about Master Machinists. Use defensives when the big guy jumps out and drags the cart to the middle. That’s the only unavoidable group-wide damage that you can help with.
There are a few things to kick on the way to Skarmorak. The priority is probably Howlers’ Piercing Wail > Speakers’ Censoring Gear > Invaders’ Arcing Void. If you have two paladins in your group, switch from Crusader Aura to Conc Aura in case a Censoring Gear gets through.
Against Skarmorak, the enhanced damage you do to his shield can be carried over to his actual health bar via Execution Sentence (thanks, Benmarch!). This is a good time to use SoV as well, or if you were greedy with orbs, you may want to Bubble instead. Bubbling protects you from the DoT without removing the debuff, which means you’re still empowered to blast through the boss’s shield.
Against the last boss, be a chad and let your friends drop their debuffs with the first set of portals. Use minor defensives in the meantime and then run over to one of the second set, which don’t take long at all to spawn.
Add-ons, macros, etc
Mother of god, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into with this post. I’m going to end it after this, and if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
So the basic focus macro looks like this:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift,@focus] [.] Rebuke
Remove the period from inside the second bracket (I put it there because the Blizzard forums want to turn left bracket followed by right bracket into a square). So if you set the hotkey as R, then R would cast Rebuke on your main target, and shift + R on your focus.
For support spells, Rets should at least have these set to function via mouseover. You can do this for all your spells in Interface Options > Combat > check Mousover Cast. However, this will also set harmful abilities to work with mouseover. If you don’t want this, you need to create a macro for every beneficial spell like so:
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists] [help] [@player] Word of Glory
The priority is your mouseover > your target if it’s friendly > yourself if your target is not friendly or you have no target.
If you want to get a little more complex, you need an add-on called FrameSort. Arena Rets may already know where I’m going with this, but it can be useful in m+ as well as arena. Take this macro, for example:
#showtooltip
#fs tank healer
/cast [mod:shift,@none,exists] [mod:ctrl,@none] [@mouseover,exists] [help] [@player] Lay on Hands
When I click whatever hotkey this macro is bound to, it works like the last macro, except also if I hold shift it casts it on the tank, and when I hold ctrl, on the healer. I’ve recently taken this to extremes where I have a modifier for every party member in a m+, but that might be overkill. FrameSort also lets you visually order the party however you want, which I find helpful for quickly identifying the tank, healer, or whoever in hectic situations. The in-game options for this add-on explain how to set it up, and there’s a small but helpful Discord server as well.
Next I’d like to discuss Cell, another party-frame add-on. I don’t think it can do the macro stuff that FrameSort does, but it, too, can visually sort your frames. More importantly, it lets you 1) track what abilities party members currently have active, and 2) see when a mob is casting an ability at which party member. Both types of information are invaluable as they let you accurately read and react to a situation. Personally I use WeakAuras for these two applications, but if I were starting fresh I’d use Cell.
OmniCD can also track party member cooldowns, but unless you’re a healer with a full group on Discord, I think tracking party cooldowns is excessive, that what’s actually needed is to be able to see when abilities are active. But the upsides to OmniCD are that along with cooldowns you can in fact also see when abilities are active, and that it’s really easy to set up. It’s a decent option for those that can’t be bothered with Cell or WeakAuras.
For nameplates I use a mishmash of Plater and Nameplate Auras, although honestly Plater can probably cover all bases. Setting up Plater is a pita, but a lot of the skill in WoW is really just designing your interface so that you can parse info properly because it’s hard to get accurate info with the default interface.
And that’s that. Thanks for reading. If this helps anyone then it was worth it, and if it doesn’t then at least I learned how to make a table of contents.
Thanks, I’m really glad you liked it.