RETLOL: The Guide

Welcome to RETLOL: The Guide. The aim of this guide is to be a bible to anyone wishing to learn how to level, spec and play a Retribution Paladin in World of Warcraft.

It’s been over four years since I started this guide, and it’s seen the ups and downs of Retribution paladins in The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. I have been playing a paladin since 2005, I was Retribution DPS in Molten Core when it was hardcore. In my time as a Retribution paladin I have excelled in both PvE and PvP, being part of some of the servers best guilds, and gaining Grand Marshal (the old school way).

Now we are all heading into the strange new world bought about by Deathwing’s rebirth into Azeroth!

However, we all have to start somewhere, and once upon a time I needed help with my game too. Even today, as the author of this guide, I learn new things about my class. And my aim here is to provide the same opportunity to learn to other paladins, old and new.

Before I begin I would like to say a big thank you to Josh Little from SaneMedia (http://www.sanemedia.net) for hosting this guide for me, to WoWHead (http://www.wowhead.com) for their Powered By technology for item and spell links and all the people who have provided me with the positive feedback that made the time spent on this guide all worth while.

Viewing Experience

This desktop site is designed to be viewed at a resolution of 1024×768 or higher, smaller screens my affect your reading quality. If you are viewing from a netbook, you may find that making your browser full screen increases readabilty.

The websites layout has been tested to work with the latest version of the following browsers:

• Internet Explorer (Windows 32 & 64 bit)
• Mozilla Firefox (Windows 32 & 64 bit)
• Google Chrome (Windows 32 bit)

If you are having trouble with the website and are using one of the listed browsers, please be sure to update to the latest version before reporting any issues.

As anyone who’s been on the site will have noticed, I’ve not been around much recently. Firstly my lack of money to pay, then when I got the money, a lack of time to play!

All in all this has left some parts of the website a bit neglected, and for that I apologise.

What I need is a group, other like minded paladins with experience to share that would like to take on some of the responsibility of keeping the site updated for the latest class changes, moderating posts, and bringing a good community feel back to the site.

If you feel like you have something you can bring to The Guide, please contact me via one of the methods listed in the Contact the Author page. I will review each application on it’s own merits, and maybe you too could be contributing directly to RETLOL: The Guide!

Hottage at Executus EU just became Hottagë at Sylvanas EU, someone already took my name.

The website has gotten a bit neglected post 4.3, what with working I’ve not really had much chance to update it.

With Mist’s of Pandaria beta coming in the next few month I’ll be focusing on getting it updated for Patch 5.0 (already got my BETA sorted), while the majority of this will be behind the scenes, some previews will come now-and-then.

The new official talent calculator for Mists of Pandaria has been released by Blizzard, you can jump straight to the Retribution paladin page here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#bb!

• Inquisition may get a glyph which would significantly increase its duration, at a cost of slightly reducing its effect.
• In 5.0 Judgment will have a 6 sec cooldown, 30yd range, and generate one Holy Power [for Retribution and Protection]. In 4.3, the set bonus should be fairly accessible, to get the Holy Power generation.
• Word of Glory does not need a cooldown in 5.0. Prot can choose whether to use it for healing, Holy Shield for absorption, or Shield of the Righteous for block. In 5.0
• Divine Purpose was moved to a talent to reduce RNG, so if you skip that one then the main source of RNG will just be Art of War procs.

Just a quick plug for Carnage Inc of Saurfang EU who are doing a 24 hour Raid-a-Thon, trying to defeat every raid boss in game back to back. It’s for a great cause, Cancer Research UK, which helps the victims of cancer and their families, if you are interested in donating, you can find more details here:

http://www.justgiving.com/carnageincraid-a-thon

If you are interested in some nostalgic PvE you can view the live stream right now here:

http://carnage-inc.com/raidathon

The raid goes on until midday Sunday 30/10/2011 (Central European Time).

From the Q&A came this interesting nugget:

Q:Is there any chance of a new spell for paladins to fill the role of Holy Wrath for single target fights? 
A: Holy Wrath becomes a nuke for Holy. Ret and Prot will generate Holy Power from Judgment, Exorcism procs, Hammer of Wrath and other abilities that make sense. We still want there to be some small gaps in rhe rotation, but smooth over some of the frustration of today.

It seems that next patch we will get a lot of new ways to generate Holy Power, including at range! Sounds good to me!

In the latest PTR build there was another buff to Seal of Truth. This time increasing Censure damage by aprroximately 40%. While I’m all for being competitive, I rather hate them buffing a passive skill which already accounts for the single largest portion of our DPS.
Buff our active abilities so the gap remains for skilled players to really show though!

Update: It appears that this change was, in fact, a tooltip fix for a previously implemented hotfix.

Here is a preview of the talent tiers, obviously early stages (note some typos).

In the new system you will unlock a tier every 15 levels, starting at level 15 and you can only pick one talent from each tier.

I noticed something interesting when going though the Mists of Pandara preview on MMO-C today, it seems they used a few slides with Paladins as the subject!

While these could just be Cataclysm talents dropped into the new system for display purposes it gives a good idea what to expect in 5.0.

Note now that there are no “talent trees”, you chose a role at level 10 and after that you pick from the same talents regardless what spec you are.

It’s trick-or-treat time again in Azeroth and on Earth, and there’s a nice treat in store for any Retribution paladins still struggling to gear up in heroics. From the new Headless Horseman encounter there is some brand new iLevel 365 loot to get your grubby mits on.

While there is no sword for you this year, the two items you do get are quite nice if your still struggling to build up your valor points.

• The Horseman’s Horrific Helmet - Be sure to reforge some of that Critical Strike Rating into Expertise or Mastery Rating as required.
• Seal of the Petrified Pumpkin - Get rid of that Haste and get some Hit, Expertise or Mastery Rating.