Retribution Paladin Talents Guide

Utility talents can be swapped to whatever you want for a specific encounter. You can read about them in the Class Talent Discussion section.

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• Talents highlighted with green are pure DPS or essential talents;
• Yellow talents are utility or talents by choice;
• Red are the talents you should avoid.

In this section I want to go through talents that actually need some clarification or about some specific choices.

• Lay on Hands. This is an ancient paladin ability that allows you to save your teammate or yourself from close death if you can react properly. Lay on Hands allows you to instantly heal up friendly target for the amount of your own maximum health. Make sure to bind it on an accessible key. I also recommend using it with the mouseover macro which you can find in a Macro section at the end of the guide.
• Cleanse Toxins. This ability will allow you to dispel poisons and diseases on yourself or on your teammates. Also recommending using it with a mouseover macro. This talent shines in a lot of Mythic+ content and rarely in raids.
• Healing Hands. Even if this talent is colored yellow, I strongly suggest you use it as the default choice. This talent is a very powerful supportive tool and provides a lot of target healing if you can react properly. You can save yourself or your teammate with the empowered Word of Glory.
• Blinding Light. A choice node with Repentance. AoE CC talent which is super useful in M+ to stop some non-interruptible casts. You can lower its CD by 15 sec with Light’s Countenance.
• Repentance. Single target CC with a lot of restrictions by type of the enemy. Because it competes with Blinding Light you almost never take it. You can lower its CD by 15 sec with Light’s Countenance.
• Turn Evil. Pure CC talent that can be useful in very specific situations. As example - you can use it on the second boss in Necrotic wake on Mage or Crossbowman. You can also improve this ability with Wrench Evil or Stand Against Evil
• Fist of Justice. Simply allows you to use Hammer of Justice more often. Useful in dungeons, rarely in raids.
• Holy Reprieve is very situational talent. Not many encounters force you to cast spells affected by Forbearance one by one.
• Choice between Sacred Strength and Divine Purpose is pretty obvious right now. We want more uses of Holy Power finishers than a 2% flat damage increase of them.
• Golden Path. This talent is only worth taking if you have free talent points for specific encounters. Healing from this talent isn’t impressive, but it is still an extra healing.
• Unbound Freedom. If you don’t have any specific talent requirements on the encounter this talent by default is a good choice. Extra 30% movement speed for you and your teammate can be very useful across the board. And we are not even talking about situations where freedom is actually useful and helps solve encounter’s mechanics. As for previous utility abilities I highly recommend using a mouseover macro for this ability that you can find in the macro section.
• Lightforged Blessing. Passive healing via doing AoE rotation. Mediocre talent healing wise, so can be taken if you don't need the rest utility talents, which is a rare case.
• Judgment of Light. Passive healing for your healing via doing damage to your target. Take it if you don't need any other utility talent at the moment.

• Green are versatile talents that can be used or have to be used in any type of combat;
• Blue are pure Single Target;
• Purple are AoE or cleave focused talents;
• Yellow are utility or survivability talents.

As it was in general tree, I’m going to clarify some specific talents:

• Guided Prayer. Best pick in this node. Assume this talent is like a low cost cheatdeath talent. Guided Prayer also affected by Healing Hands from General tree;
• Blade of Vengeance is going to hit only the targets that are in a cone in front of you;
• Blade of Vengeance will apply the Expurgation on each target it hits. The Expurgation doesn’t scale with Blade of Justice damage itself, so it doesn’t get affected by the soft target cap of Blade of Vengeance;
• Templar Strikes replace your Crusader Strike. The most important thing here is that the ability is a two-part combo in one button. Once you use Templar Strike for the next 5 seconds this ability will turn into Templar Slash which leaves a DoT on you target;
• Crusading Strikes replace your Crusader Strike and turn into a passive effect. Now all your auto-attacks are Crusader Strike. However, it provides Holy Power only by each second hit. This effect also doesn’t benefit from Skyfury;
• Blessed Champion allows your Judgment and Crusader Strike to hit additional 2 or 4 targets. For Crusader Strike it is a wide cone in front of your character. Judgment can also hit targets behind your character;
• Penitence effects Expurgation, Truth’s Wake and Templar Slash DoT;
• If you are using Radiant Glory then Divine Wrath won’t affect the Avenging Wrath or Crusade duration.

Hero Talents is a new feature of The War Within which brings your class and spec progression on your way from level 70 to 80. Retribution has access to 2 Hero Talent trees: Herald of the Sun and Templar.

Herald of the Sun

This talent tree focused on aesthetics of paladins' ability to dawn energy from solar power. Mechanically it is implemented in game as dealing extra periodic Light damage or cauterizing allies wounds.

If we go through all talents you will notice:

• All major effects are working around Wake of Ashes, Divine Storm and Hammer of Wrath;
• All additional effects are mostly DoTs and HoTs which also empower your Holy Power spenders;
• Mostly this Talent Tree won’t affect your rotation because all of the effects are passive.

Currently, Herald of the Sun is slightly worse compared with Templar in every type of combat.

Templar

The theme of this Hero Talent Tree is about delivering justice at any cost. Ability wise your Wake of Ashes after use transforms into a very hard hitting ability - Hammer of Light.

• Hammer of Light is a 5 holy power finisher which also triggers more effects such as Empyrean Hammer that hits multiple targets;
• Empyrean Hammer damage ramps up by each Judgment per 10 seconds;
• Hammer of Light also provides extra absorb on yourself with the Sacrosanct Crusade which increases your survivability;
• Undisputed Ruling provides you extra 15% of haste for 8 seconds after using the Hammer of Light;
• Each Empyrean Hammer provides you a Light's Deliverance stack. At 50 stacks you can use a free Hammer of Light if Wake of Ashes is on CD.

At current state Templar is a way to go at any type of the encounter. All current builds are relying on this talent tree.