Retribution Paladin Gearing Guide

The general rule with gearing: Item Level is the King, however, you should always sim your character.

Trinkets

We can’t be sure yet which trinket combination will provide the best result. However, here is the list of the most noticeable trinkets throughout Dragonflight:

1. Elementium Pocket Anvil (all encounters. Avoid in M+ if you're struggling to maintain it through the dungeon between the fights)
2. Cataclysmic Signet Brand (ST encounters)
3. Manic Grieftorch (ST encounters)
4. Ashes of the Embersoul (AoE encounters)
5. Augury of the Primal Flame (versatile choice)
6. Blazebinder's Hoof (versatile trinket)
7. Neltharion's Call to Chaos (mostly for AoE)

Season 4 Tier Set

• 2 Set Bonus: Expurgation lasts an additional 3 sec and deals 30% increased damage. Casting Judgment or Divine Toll on a target with Expurgation causes Wrathful Sanction, damaging the target for Holy damage and resonating Holy damage to up to 4 nearby enemies.
• 4 Set Bonus: Wrathful Sanction grants you Echoes of Wrath, causing your next Templar's Verdict or Divine Storm to deal damage a second time at 25% effectiveness. This effect does not consume Judgment.

Season 3 and Season 4 Tier Sets are the same by effect, but the game considers them as different sets. Make sure to swap your old full-set only for the new 4 piece set of Season 4 items; stacking 2 pieces from each set doesn’t provide any benefit.

If you are aiming for BiS gear then try to avoid chest tier piece.

Retribution Paladin Best in Slot Gear

You should still prioritize the gear you use by running a sim for your character, but the lists below will give you a good idea of what items are considered good for Retribution Paladin, and help you target the right content for each piece of loot.

Overall Best Gear

Alternative trinkets are:

• Manic Grieftorch - Pure ST
• Ashes of the Embersoul - AoE focused trinket
• Augury of the Primal Flame - good for both ST and AoE

Best Gear from the Raid

Alternative trinkets are:

• Manic Grieftorch - Pure ST
• Ashes of the Embersoul AoE focused trinket
• Augury of the Primal Flame both good for ST and AoE

Best Gear from Mythic+

All trinkets from M+ are way less powerful than the ones from the raid.

Embellishments and Crafted Gear

With new Sparks you are able to create gear up to 525 ilvl. Before we jump into ratings and suggested order of crafting, I would like to go through all interesting crafted gear.

Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch - this thing can be applied to any plate armor crafted piece and also to the cloak. This is a very powerful embellishment for a single target, but it isn’t that good for AoE. This embellishment still remains our BiS option for raiding.

Unstable Frostfire Belt - This is a mediocre embellishment that you can still use but there are some better options.

Frostfire Legguards of Preparation - The best thing you can craft for Mythic plus content. It provides a lot of haste in every beginning of combat which is very cool, because usually you have Avenging Wrath in the beginning of each pull in M+.

Elemental Lariat - The best days of this embellishment have passed. Since the buff from it was nerfed from 12 to 5 seconds baseline (can still be 12 if you have all sockets on your gear) but anyway it isn’t worth it to use this embellishment anymore. Try to replace it ASAP with any necklace.

Allied Wristguard of Companionship - This embellishment looks better in 10.2 due to the same reasons, nerfs to Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch and Unstable Frostfire Belt. So keep an eye on it. It might sim a bit worse for your character because of a lot of versatility on your gear.

Blue Silken Lining - Can become a powerful addition to your gear. Due to high values of lots of secondary stats your character struggles with gaining power from your favorite Crit, Haste and Versatility. This embellishment compensates well for your lack of mastery. Currently the best choice for any type of content.

Crafted Weapons - This is always a very powerful craft for Ret, but it costs 2 Sparks. Additionally, the fact that you can get a relatively close in item level weapon from the end of M+ reward, or a Myth track weapon (upgradable to higher than the crafted weapon) from your Great Vault I wouldn't recommend using your sparks on a crafted weapon; especially when you include the fact that you can have a Legendary Axe from Fyrakk.

Raid

1. Blue Silken Lining
2. Allied Wristguard of Companionship
3. Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch on Belt, Feet or bracers

Due to item level scaling, the best combo for raids will be x2 Blue Silken Lining.

Mythic Plus

1. Blue Silken Lining
2. Frostfire Legguards of Preparation

Best combo is Frostfire Legguards of Preparation and Blue Silken Lining or 2x Blue Silken Lining.

Fyr'alath the Dreamrender, Legendary Axe

You probably already know that Fyrakk can drop a Legendary Axe. Acquisition of it works pretty much the same way it was with the Evoker Legendary in Aberrus. You have a chance to get it from Fyrakk in any difficulty; with higher difficulty, your chances become better. After that you have to complete quests to upgrade your weapon so it will be able to unleash its power every 2 minutes.

For Retribution Paladin, this Legendary provides around 15k extra dps in single target. With the active use ability becoming more efficient with more targets.

How to use it?

The best way is to use Fyr'alath outside your wings and when you’ve applied a passive DoT from your axe. It all comes to use it in the very beginning of the fight and delay wings by ~3 sec or to use it after Avenging Wrath.