Leveling a Retribution Paladin

Updated for 3.1!

That's what I'm doing. When I'm taking a break from being the Unholy Champion of the Scourge, I enjoy a good romp as playing a Blessed Champion of the Light. And interestingly enough, my last alt (now discontinued at 69) was a Plate Wearing Berserker. I guess after being a Stealthy Strike-From-the-Shadows Cutthroat for nearly four years, I'm enjoying the big guys in Plate and coming in and smashing face.

That said, I'm here to share my leveling experience with you, the reader, to hopefully gain a better understanding of the class, and what your in for, should you decide to roll one. Before we go to far in, I would like to point out that I am NOT leveling this character to PvP, despite Ret - and Paladins on a whole - being the FotM.

A few notes before we start. This is important, so read up.

• Use a 2 hander. Just shut up and do it. Don't ask questions.

• Until level 50, where you get Crusader Strike, leveling retribution is possibly the most boring thing in all of WoW. You have one damage dealing ability until the aforementioned Crusader Strike (CS). I would go as far as to say that you have to get to 60 before it becomes fun.

• Grab all the Binds to Account gear you can! DO IT. YOU WILL THANK ME. Notes: enchant your weapon with crusader. Enchant your shoulders (as of 3.0.9, you CAN enchant your shoulders with the PvP enchant...none others work. You must be on your level 80 to do so). Grab the Mana restoring trinkets over the other ones. The reason is, until level 42, you will be EXTREMELY wanting for mana. After 3/3 JotW, you could go grab the other trinkets, but I didn't want to spend the badges on those, as it was unlikely that I would be leveling up another melee character.

• While leveling 1-58, your primary choices of gear will be "of (an animal)". A quick rundown of what you should be looking for varies due to level. From 1-42, you want "Of the Gorilla" for the Str (more damage) and Int (more mana). After you get Judgments of the Wise, go for "of the Tiger" gear, for Str (more damage) and Agi (more crit [as well as armor and dodge]). When you begin to get Outlands gear, where you can find some more interesting suffixes, go for: Hit, Strength, Crit, Expertise and Agility (not as good as the other stats)

• As much as you can, wear mail (and later plate). You are going to be in melee range 95% of the time, so reducing melee damage taken is a huge plus. Also, in an awkward way, mail (and then plate) gives you free mana, as you have to spend less time (and mana) healing yourself.

• After 60, when you have all three of your on-demand damage dealing moves, your "rotation" is actually FCFS, or First Come, First Serve. Read the links. EJ will do a much better then I will.
  

That said, lets get started, shall we?

Talents

I'm going to start off by listing the ABSOLUTELY KEY TALENTS THAT YOU CANNOT BE WITH OUT. I'm going to say that again. If your build does NOT include these talents, your leveling experience will be less then peachy. I know that Ret has many other very important talents, but these are at-a-glance, bare-bones ones.

I am not claiming that you can throw points at the rest of the tree all willy-nilly. Obviously 6% damage is better then 3% parry. My point is: these points will have the most significant change on how you play. Losing 6% damage is one thing. Losing a crap ton of mana is quite another.

I listed the talents in the order in which you should grab them.


Seal of Command - Your highest damage seal before SoB/SotM by far. You do yourself a great diservace by NOT grabbing this.

Pursuit of Justice - An absolutely essential talent. Getting from place to place 15% faster should reduce your overall leveling time by about 7-10%. That is, simply put, astounding. No other talent can match that claim.

Conviction -> Vengeance - 5% crit and 9% damage is just too good to pass up for a total of 8 talent points.

Judgements of the Wise - If you do not grab this, all three ranks of it, you fail. Simple. In the three levels that it takes to max this out, you go from being mana hurt at the end of every fight to mana being a back-burner issue.

Repentance - This spell has gotten a lot of love in WotlK. This fantastic ability allows you to take a target out of combat for a whole minute, which in WoW's battle system, is an eternity. Its uses are limited only by your imagination.

Art of War - When you first invest your points in this talent, you wont really see it proc, or notice its damage increase. That's because it only affects Judgement at that point. However, as you pick up Crusader Strike and Divine Storm, you will see it proc more and more. Those instant FoL's can really save your life.

Crusader Strike - It increases your damage and shaves off boredom! All for one talent! Grab it. (Note: when leveling 50-60, use CS before Judgment, or they will both come off cooldown at the same time, hurting your damage)

Sheath of Light - Significantly increases the damage of your Spells (Judge, HoW, Exor and Consa) as well as the effectiveness of all your healing spells. Get it.

Divine Storm - Another direct damage, on demand attack. Deals damage, heals you AND relieves boredom? For one talent point? Do I have to say it?

Onto the guide...

Levels 1-22

These first few levels are a good chance to aquaint yourself with the paladin class. See how much mana things cost, what its like to cast while enemies are beating on you, and the mindnumbing bordom of only having one attack.

Your goal as far as talent points go is to work your way up to your first two essencial talents, SoC and PoJ. I would recomend going Bendictioin (did I mention mana is an issue) -> Improved Judgements (you get to press your only attack more often! YAY!) -> Heart of the Crusader (crit = good).

Levels 23-39

This is where it start to hurt while leveling a paladin. A combanation of things happen here that make leveling such a pain. You start to become SERIOUSLY mana hurt. The quests get harder. Your damage is noticably low. If you are one of the feint of heart, stop here. Now that 3.1 is here, and you can use Exorcisim on any type of mob, these levels are not quite as bad, as you get an extra attack, which doubles as a pulling tool. Still, these levels are by far the least fun that you'll ever have.

As far as talents go, I would go 2/5 Conviction (crit = good, remember?) -> 3/3 Sancity of Battle (VERY powerfull in 3.1) -> 4/5 Conviction -> Scantified Retribution (3% damge for 1 point...duuur) -> 5/5 Conviction (finaly) -> 3/3 Crusade (1-2% damage per point is good) -> 3/3 Vengence (this is why crit is so important) -> 2/3 Two-Handed Weapon Spec. You're almost there. The next three levels make life much easier.

Levels 40-49

Things start to get easier here. You start to forget about your mana problems, and you are wearing plate, which means things start hitting you for a LOT less. After the pain-inducing leveling from 22 to 39, this should be a lot less painfull. You wont have to drink realy at all, and you can easily spare the mana to toss yourself a FoL every fight or so, should you be taking an unessary beating. You also start to get some of Ret's goodies, such as the biggest "SIT DOWN, SHUT UP" move evah.
The first few talent choices here should be fairly obvious -- I covered every talent on the new tier wearier on! You should go: Judgements of the Wise -> Repentance -> Art of War. After that, go 3/3 Fanaticism for the huge boost to Judgment damage and AoW uptime. Then grab that last point in 2-h spec.

Levels 50-59

W00t, motha-f***ing w00t. This is where it starts to get good. You have another attack, Attack Power -> Spell Power conversion, and the world is your oyster. Keep on trucking, your almost at the peak of being a Ret Paladin.

Sink that point in Crusader Strike. You earned it. I said this is where it gets good, right? Well, go grab Sheath of Light and enjoy your big heals and spells. After that, go sink a point in Sanctified Wrath, then 3/3 Rightous Vengence which is very nice that it procs off of CS and Judge (and DS). Then go max out Sanctified Wrath. After that, you have a free point. I opted to go 1/2 Divine Purpose, as its quite powerfull at 2/2.

NOTE: From now on (untill 60), your attack order is Crusader Strike -> Judgement, and then use each of them as soon as they come off cooldown. This is NOT beacuse Crusader Strike is more powerfull then Judgement. Its not. It sucks compared to it. The reason you use CS -> Judge is how the cooldowns work, and if you go Judge -> CS, then they will both come off cooldown at the same time, costing you DPS.

Level 60 and beyond

Ahhh...feel that? Feel that power? This is the great part about being a Ret paladin. You are at the top of your game at level 66...a good 14 levels before any other class. If you have been listening to me, then you have got absolutely every essential damage dealing talent at level 66. What this means is that when you sink your last essencial point in Divine Strength (more on that in a minute) your good. There are some NICE talents at this point, but none that are truely essencial.
So, here goes. Grab Divine Storm, your final on-demand attack. After that, go mosie over into Prot for Divine Strength, then finaly grab 2/2 Divine Purpose. Afer that, your done. You now have 12 talent points to play around with, doing what you like. I would STRONGLY suggest grabbing Blessing of Kings for group viability. Swift Retrabution, Eye for an Eye, Improved Retrabution Aura and Vindication (doesnt work on bosses) are all good choices.



You also get some VERY nice abilities from 60-80. At 64 (66 for Alliance) you get your highest damage seal, Seal of Blood/Seal of the Marytr. I would recomend against using it while leveling, as it significantly increses the damage you take. However, its damage beats SoC by a texas mile, so be sure to use it in instances, where you have a healer keeping you up.

At 70, you get the famous "wings" which do two very important thigns: Increses your damage and healing by 20% for 20 sec and makes you look totaly badass. (Please for the love of all thats holy, don't get so blown away by its coolness that you download this monstrosity).

Shortly after your wings, you grab the ever handy Divine Plea, which restores a fourth of your mana, which is hugely handy. Its also on a one minute cooldown, so you can use it fairly often. It reduces your healing done though, so that sucks ='(

And finaly, you get a somewhat usefull spell, Sacred Shield. This interesting spell is a very effecent "heal" that will scale with your spell power from Sheath come 3.1. If you get about 2-3 bubbles worth of damage prevention with this, then its more cost effective then FoL.

Thats it!

Get out there and get leveling! May the light be with you and all that jazz. Go smash somebodys face in with your shiny two hander.