Leveling build for a Retribution Paladin
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 14th 2007 at 3:30PM
NOTE: Current Paladin leveling guide can be found on our Leveling Guide Page.
As with the Enhancement Shaman build I previously wrote, this guide is meant to be a resource to new paladins who'd like some advice on a single build to go from 1 to 70, focusing on leveling quickly. To level quickly, I'm a big fan of doing the most damage possible in the least amount of time.
Retribution Paladins (aka Retnoobs) are not the most mana efficient of paladins, nor are they excellent healers or tanks. They do great damage, actually staying a bit ahead of the curve until level 40. Paladins are HIGHLY gear dependent. Keep this in mind.
Eventually, you'll want to focus on Int and Stamina, as paladins make perfect tin-can healbots. For leveling, I focus on Str/Sta/Agi/Int, in that order. Strength gives extra attack power, stamina is your hit points, agility is for crits, and int is for your mana pool and spell crits.
Your typical combat is a bit dull, and will go like this:
Seal of the Crusader, Judge, Seal of Command, Hammer of Justice, Judge, Seal of Command, Judge, Seal of Command, Hammer of Justice, Judge.. *yawn*
Toss in some self-heals and you'll be fine. Paladins are incredibly resilient in combat. If you're low on health, judge Seal of Light; if you're low on mana, judge Seal of Wisdom.
When running zones, I almost always have Blessing of Might on myself, for extra attack power.
Full list of talents is after the break!
So here's the run-down of talents:
Tier 1 - Levels 10 - 14
Benediction - 5 points - as you're focusing on str instead of int, you want to be efficient in your core combat skills
Tier 2 - Levels 15 - 19
Improved Seal of the Crusader - 3 points - max this out early, as you'll use it a lot to increase damage done by Seal of Command
Improved Judgement - 2 points - an 8-second judgement time instead of 10. It makes a difference in longer fights.
Tier 3 - Levels 20 - 25
Seal of Command - 1 point - What a wonderful ability. It'll proc 7 times a minute, and is best used with a big 2-hander. Do the paladin quest series at level 20, find someone to help you if you can, and get a weapon that will last you for 10 levels - Verigan's Fist (http://www.thottbot.com/?i=4190). For best results, stun your opponent with Hammer of Justice, and then Judge SoCom for maximum damage.
Conviction - 5 points - Crits = damage, that is all.
It gets a little messy here, with some room for personal preference. Here's mine:
Tier 3 and 4 - Levels 26 - 30
Pursuit of Justice - 2 points - Yes, there are trinkets and enchants that out-do this for riding. But at level 25, I'm tired of watching my little dwarven legs run so slowly. 8% speed lets me run down mobs faster, and get from A to B that much quicker. This means faster leveling, so I take it.
Crusade - 3 points - If I could put in 50 points to increase all my damage 50% I probably would. 3% against your main foes is pretty good at this stage of the game.
Tier 5 - Levels 31 - 34
Sanctity Aura - 1 point - I love Sanctity Aura. Seal of Command is Holy Damage, so this adds 10% to it. 10% more damage for 1 point!! Take it and turn it on.
Two-handed Weapon Specialization - 3 points - 6% more damage from a 2-hander, which you should always be using.
Tier 6 - Levels 35 - 39
Vengeance - 5 points - 10% extra physical *AND* holy damage after a crit. Again, buffs your normal hits and your Seal of Command (SoCom) hits.
Tier 7 - Level 40
Repentance - It's an extra stun! Great for crowd control (against humanoids) or for getting another SoCom Judgement off. SoCom does more damage when judged against stunned targets. It's also ranged, to stop runners from getting friends.
Your tree should now look like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZZVf0tbcuV0o
Tier 6 - Levels 41 to 43
Sanctified Judgement - 3 points - ooh, getting mana back for doing damage? Yuh-huh!
Tier 7 - Level 44
Sanctified Crusader - 1 point - I hate having single stray points in a talent. This one is 1% extra crit for now, but you need a point to open up...
Tier 8 - Levels 45 - 49
Fanaticism - 5 points - 15% extra crit chance on my judgements? SoCom damage booster, yet again.
Tier 9 - Level 50
Crusader Strike - 1 point - Weapon damage + 40% of your holy spell damage *AND* it refreshes existing judgements. You'll add this ability in a LOT, probably modifying your combat chain to look like:
Seal of the Crusader, Judge, Crusader Strike, Seal of Command, Hammer of Justice, Judge, Seal of Command, Crusader Strike, Judge, etc etc..
So, level 50 and 20 points to go. I like to flesh out Retribution a bit and add a little Holy.
Retribution - Levels 51 - 57
Sanctified Crusader - 2 points - get that crit chance for you and friends up by another 2%
Deflection - 5 points - 5% parry is great at higher levels.
Holy - Levels 58 - 70
Divine Strength - 5 points - Should add about 30 str, depending on your gear, which means 60 AP or ~4 DPS. Small but noticeable gain.
Spiritual Focus - 5 points - reduce your interruption chance without giving up Sanctity Aura - Important because high-level mobs can kill you.
Healing Light - 2 or 3 points - Increases your main heals by 8-12%, depending on the points placed
Aura Mastery - 0 or 1 point - If you find yourself grouping with lots of people who don't like to stand near you, sacrifice a point from Healing Light to get this talent. Alternately, get a full Judgement set.
So there you have it, Paulie's Pally Retnoob Leveling Build. It's just 1 of many paths to get you to 70, but it's the one that works for me. Your tree should look like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sxxhZZVfxtbcuVIot
Criticisms and comments below, keeping in mind that this build is made for 1 trip to 70, no respeccing along the way, and maximizing solo damage-giving ability. I managed to get a paladin from 1-60 in short time with this build, and he's doing quite well in Outland, thank-you.
Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, How-tos, Leveling, Guides, Talents
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Zaiden Mar 28th 2008 6:11AM
YEah...im a 32 Paladin...I need allot of help with my Talents all i really want to know is what is the best talent trees for lvling for me to lvl, I havent played WoW for nearly a yr, just got my account reactivated I need help!!!!
John Laur Feb 14th 2007 4:43PM
Pursuit of justice? Maybe useful for leveling; however after 62 and crusader aura it's worth the respec to spend the two points elsewhere -- anywhere!
Try this build out: http://talentcalculator.merciless-gilde.com/?lang=en&v=2.0.3&dl=Mi83MC8zODI6MTQ0OS01OzE0MzItNTsxNDQzLTI7MTQ0NC0zOzE0NjEtNXx8MzgxOjE0MDEtMjsxNDA3LTU7MTYzMS0yOzE0MDMtNTsxNDgxLTE7MTQxMS01OzE2MzMtMzsxNDEwLTM7MTQwOS0xOzE3NTYtMjsxNzU4LTM7MTQwMi01OzE3NjEtMzsxODIzLTF8
Alarius Feb 14th 2007 4:31PM
As a Retribution Paladin at level 70, I find that gear-wise you want to have STR, STA, INT on all of your main armor pieces (head, shoulder, chest, etc.) and let the rest (neck, back, rings, and trinkets) make up for the rest of the stats like +hit and +crit.
Try to go for ~20% chance to crit unbuffed and 1000 AP unbuffed.
Alarius Feb 14th 2007 4:35PM
PS. My talent build currently look like so: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qyxhZZVfzt0cuiIot
Pritchard Feb 14th 2007 5:00PM
Alarius...how difficult is it to get that much AP and crit chance at level 70?
Guernia Feb 14th 2007 5:19PM
I started out my belf pally with the intention of going mostly ret with a few talents in holy thrown in to make it easy on myself (principally Spiritual Focus for the uninterruptable heal in concert with Concentration Aura).
I followed the same spec plan as the article for the most part, except I put 5 in Divine Intellect, and 5 in Spiritual Focus at the outset, then went into Ret full time. Even with the boosted int, I was going slow due to the downtime necessary to heal and regain mana.
After poking around on the forums for a bit and reading some of the leveling guides (something everyone should do for all new characters they start regardless of the class) and at the advice of a guildie (who I initially ignored) I switched instead to a Prot build.
BIG difference. Fights ended up taking a little longer (but were by no means inordinately long) but the almost total lack of downtime made up for it. Also, instead of having to be picky about adds, I now welcome them, as Reckoning increases my DPS per mob that hits me.
If anything, I've seen my leveling speed up a little.
I intend to put some points back into Ret once I've fleshed out my prot tree somewhat. Currently level 46, my goal spec will be 5-41-15 (Benediction, Imp.. Judgement, Imp. Seal of the Crusader, Conviction in Ret, Divine Intellect in Holy, the rest into Prot - but not the 41 point talent...)
Coming from a priest background, I was intending switching my main to the pally as a full-time healer, but I may have to rethink that: Prot is way too much fun. And, with decent off-spec +heal gear, I can still be a passable healer.
The one big drawback to a Ret build (up to and at 70) that I can forsee (but am not expert on) is that pallies, even with a ret build, aren't going to be able to put out sustained DPS, or DPS at the same level as similarly geared DPS-spec DPS classes like hunters or rogues. Given the choice of who to bring to a raid, and especially with the new raid size limits, I can't see too many guilds wanting to bring Ret pallies with them. Not that Ret is bad for an off-tree build, or for a PvP build mind you. But it would seem a port or holy build with an eye turned towards damage (holy DPS is viable with enough +spelldam gear for example) would be more useful. Opinion only, and subject to change as I experiment with more different builds I'm sure.
Paul Feb 14th 2007 5:41PM
I agree with Guernia. The Prot-spec AoE build really shines when you get to level 34-35. Reckoning is single-handedly the best leveling talent, and with Redoubt, Toughness, Shield Spec, Imp Righteous Fury and Blessing of Sanctuary, you can take an incredible beating and take on multiple adds with no sweat, using Seal of Light judgements and seals to take on large groups of mobs. In my experience, killing speed vastly increased when I switched at 34 from Ret to Prot, AND you get the added bonus of being a vastly more effective tank for midlevel instances. It is by far the best build to solo quest with since handling multiple mobs is the norm (even multiple elites) rather than the exception.
It also feels much more like a Paladin should. Taking on 7-8 green runners, swinging like a madman with Reckoning (a.k.a. Fanaticism) and gaining back the health I lose while they beat themselves to death? Diablo II all over again.
Connrad Feb 14th 2007 6:39PM
I have switched back and forth between all three builds several times (I think respecs cost me 40g now, heh). I am currently 62 and playing a Prot speced paly. I would have to say that while at lower levels it might not be as effective, I do pretty decent DPS now. One thing I found is that when I'm fighting things where I don't really need my shield, two hand can do quite a bit of damage once you get reckoning. If you judge SoCR, throw up SoR and drop consecrate + Ret aura, the damage can add up quick when Reckoning procs (which is fairly often). If you can find areas where you kill undead, its even more impressive.
Even going sword and board, I normally out DPS prot speced warriors (or whatever their line is called) in groups.
Also, on the PVP side, Avenger's Shield is awesome. It's great when you get rooted, and it's even better when someone tries to run and you use AS + HoR to finish them off =)
Conn
Ulfdan Jan 10th 2008 1:38PM
Sword and Board, You must be an SCA Stick Jock in real-life...
Connrad Feb 14th 2007 6:42PM
errr...make that HoW (Wrath, not Rath, lol). Sorry, I had to work all night last night.
Conn
Alarius Feb 14th 2007 6:49PM
@Pritchard: Not that hard at all. Take a look at my CTProfiles:
http://ctprofiles.net/6425
I'm not there yet since I'm still trying to gather a couple of pieces I've had my eyes on but so far it's be real easy. Also keep in mind that CTProfiles lately has been a bit off from the actual stats seen in-game.
Joe Feb 14th 2007 10:43PM
I've been every spec expect Prot until now. I'm level 64, I've leveled until 40 with holy, retnoobed it up threw the 40s (btw by leveling I mean turning in WSG MoH for 10 levels!), then 50-59 I was Ret/Holy, 60 I was raid spec'd (40/11/0) then after the new talents came I went full Holy (51/0/0) (a bit crazy, but Holy Shock was awesome with it). I've been through the grind, the PvP (13k+ HKs), the raid healbotting (all through BWL). Never thought to try Prot build though, but for leveling I just had to try it out and I love it. Actually I'm 21/34/0. I'm able to main heal and MT. My grinding is great! I pull about 10 melee mobs use my JoLight and SoR (lately the new seal isn't too bad) or any combo. Reckoning procs, redoubt procs (Holy Shield damage, shield spike damage, Ret aura, BoSanctuary Damage, and my Sporeggar shield applies a dot). It's very nice to combine some +defense and +spell power gear. I have 2 sets of plate, one for healing, one for tanking, then a mix for soloing. I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to raid spec again!
Mentock Feb 14th 2007 11:31PM
Retnoob is a MINDSET not a spec.
Argent Feb 15th 2007 3:46AM
i've leveled paladins up via all three trees. in terms of leveling, really, prot and holy still are pretty boring and leave much to be desired. ret would be in every regard superior except for the fact that blizzard chose to neglect paladins in early game itemization and thus by just using the same stuff they put in for warriros, prot kinda gets a bit of an boost (imo).
however, after you get to 60 and beyond, ret builds can really start to shine. itemization really picks up and you can start ramping up to doing some utterly devastating damage. the resident ret paladin in our guild routinely will output 2200 hp crits and 2500 CS hits. if you get all that on you in close succession, it'll hurt -- very, very badly (last week, he was 2nd or 3rd on every boss fight he actullay melee'd on in karazhan -- up to and including prince.)
as for dps sustainability -- i found that ret builds can keep their dps going pretty well for pretty long stretches of time by simply taking a few talents (benediction, sanctified judgement.) in groups, both ret paladins and prot tanks are just all sorts of awesome in this regard because if they ever get low, you can just spam heal a few heals onto them and they got mana to keep right on going.
Paul Sherrard Feb 15th 2007 9:20AM
I also played my pally as prot for the longest time, I was KNOWN as the tankadin. I LOVED tanking and taking on tons of mobs with my Force Reactive Disk.. and then the nerfs came. No more spell damage applied to feedback effects, reck-bombing changed for the worse, and it just wasn't the same. Yes, a prot-spec paladin will last forever in a battle, and they're definitely a viable tank now in the 60-70 range, but I stand by the build as posted as being a fantastic leveling build. If you can gather 8-10 mobs that are all 5 levels below you and feedback them to death, that's fine, but when I leveled, I was usually up against mobs 2 or 3 levels above me (for max xp) and there's no speed benefit to prot.
phk975 Feb 15th 2007 11:22AM
Paul S.,
If you read leveling/grinding guides across the forums, there is a general consensus that grinding on greens is far more efficient than yellows and oranges because experience over kill speed is actually lower for higher level mobs. But besides that, prot can take 4-5 equal level mobs and burn them down in the same time it takes for you to kill 3 with SoC.
The two more extensive leveling guides out there both recommend switching specs at 34/35 to Prot for Reckoning:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=71849064&sid=1
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=65016601&sid=1
Guernia Feb 15th 2007 11:52AM
From what I understand, the modern prot tree is significantly different from the historical prot tree - enough so that comparisons can't accurately be made by someone who is leveling with prot now versus someone who leveled with prot before the changes.
Argent: I'm mildly amused by your description of prot leveling as 'boring', when the Ret stereotype is SoCr, Judge, SoComm, surf the Net for 25 seconds, loot. Much fun to be had, I'm sure :D
You have some valid points, sure, but I think it's telling that you link itemization and pally DPS - the pre-BC videos of Ret-spec pallies "doing awesome DPS!" was criticized to highlight that pallies need the absolute top gear in order to produce those kinds of results, wheras other DPS classes were much less gear dependent (but when they got their gear, look out!)
Paul: I dispute that there's no speed benefit to prot. Take the scenario I'm currently in - questing rather than grinding with a Prot build. Level 46 in Searing Gorge, solo, with 2 level 48 and 2 level 49 mobs on me at the same time. The sheer number of mobs/blows keeps either Reckoning and Redoubt (or both!) up a majority of the time. With intelligent mob management (ie. don't kill them one by one; instead, drop them to 15% one at a time so their blows continue to activate Reckoning and Redoubt at the maximum rate) and Sol/Jol, with a bit of Consecrate and Holy Shield in the mix, it's fun, fast and profitable.
My current gear sucks, too. All I'm using is whatever I've been given as a quest reward or had drop for me, so think all greens. The exception to that is my 2H polearm, Bonechewer, which I bought cheap off the AH, and only really use to burn down a mob 1v1 if it's all alone (especially casters). I haven't set foot in an instance since I did the pally weapon quest (which was done solo at 26-ish with a Ret build, but wasn't a whole lot of easy even then, and at that level the reward was useless, given I already had a better weapon at that point) as I prefer to solo level, and most of my guildies are focusing on getting their 60's to 70, so no groups for me (just say No! to PuGs).
Coristad Feb 15th 2007 2:02PM
Until you get to level 40, your spec is pretty much irrelevant. Have fun, take whatever suits your playstyle. If you're just grinding a character up as quickly as possible, you might as well crawl the ret tree: it will get you there just as well as anything else. At tiers 1-3 in all of the trees there are talents that are much more appropriate for leveling than for a high level or end game build... for example, Improved Devotion Aura is pretty crappy the better your gear gets. While you're still a lowbie, though, it's not horrendous, merely bad. :D
The other significant reason why I advocate a hybrid spec is because it encourages you to play a hybrid role- try out different things on your way to the end. You might find that you like healing, tanking, or DPSing more than the others, and it's better to find this out in the early levels rather than the later ones.
Another newb suggestion: get an equipment mod or macro that will switch between 2H and 1H+shield and bind it to a hot-key. Then, if you get an add (or 3) you can switch over from DPS mode to "wear 'em out" mode that pallies are good at. I like Item Rack, but ymmv.
Paul Sherrard Feb 16th 2007 11:09AM
Has anyone tried a Retribution build that uses SoR with a 1h+shield? I specced Vlam to Prot last night, and saw my DPS drop from 350 to 180, but with a lot more survivability (thanks, shield!).
The toughest thing I've found as a Ret paladin is balancing off AP against spell damage. I can have 800 AP and 300 spell damage, or 1000 AP and 100 spell damage. It's a tough choice to make.
Tokine Apr 25th 2007 2:38PM
My question is a little off topic and hopefully an easy one. I am a lvl 19 be paly and wanted to go prot but dont know were to put talents into was hoping someone who has tried it could reply (Guernia, Paul) thank you in advance to anyone who can give me a tip or link.
-Tokine