PvP talent spec: Retribution
• Benediction: Put 5 talent points here. This will reduce the mana cost of nearly every offensive ability you have. This is critical for PvP as Ret.
• Improved Judgements: Place 2 talent points here. This will not only increase your damage output but your mana return as well. The more often you judge, the more often you see a mana return from Judgements of the Wise.
• Heart of the Crusader: Place 3 points here. This places a debuff on the target which increases your crit chance on that target by 3%, as well as everyone else's crit chance who is attacking your target.
• Improved Blessing of Might: Put 2 points here. This improves your Might by 25%.
• Vindication: Leave this talent empty. While this can be helpful for Ret in pvp, our points would be better spent maximizing our damage.
• Conviction: Place 5 points here for an extra 5% crit.
• Seal of Command: An extra seal used for aoe dps. While this could be useful in PvP, it is very situational and will almost always break crowd control. Leave this out unless you're running a cleave pvp team.
• Pursuit of Justice: Put 2 points here. Ret's biggest downfall in PvP is that we can be kited very easily. You will badly need the extra movement speed. The disarm duration reduction is a nice bonus as well.
• Eye for an Eye: This can be a very powerful talent in Ret PvP. However, on rare occasions it can break repentance. Skip this for now, we will come back to it.
• Sanctity of Battle: Place 3 points here for an extra 3% crit and added damage to your Crusader Strike and Exorcism.
• Crusade: Drop 3 points here for an added 3% total damage done to all humanoids (players included).
• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization: Place 3 points here. Don't even think about using sword and board as your primary weapon setup (although it can be useful when being focused on).
• Sanctified Retribution: Pick this talent up for 1 point. Increases your Ret aura's effectiveness by 50%. This is detrimental to Rogues and Feral Druids.
• Vengeance: Place 3 points here. Increases your damage by 3% after a crit strike, stacking up to 9%.
• Divine Purpose: Put 2 points here. This talent is a substantial part of a Ret Paladin's utility in PvP. This will give your Hand of Freedom spell the ability to break Stuns.
• The Art of War: Put 2 talent points here. This gives you a chance for an instant Flash of Light or Exorcism (both of which are very important in different situations). Also increases the damage output of your primary offensive abilities by 10%
• Repentance: Pick this talent up for 1 point. This is your crowd control in PvP. Although the duration is quite weak, and it is not spammable, it has its uses in arena and battlegrounds. It can also be used for a (much needed) spell interrupt.
• Judgements of the Wise: Place 3 points in this talent to see mana return every time you cast a Judgement spell. This is another critical talent for managing your mana in PvP.
• Judgements of the Wise: Place 3 points in this talent to see mana return every time you cast a Judgement spell. This is another critical talent for managing your mana in PvP.
• Fanaticism: Use 3 talent points here for an extra 18% crit chance on your Judgements. The threat portion of this talent does not apply in PvP.
• Sanctified Wrath: Grab this talent for 2 points. This will help you when you need to put pressure on healers.
• Swift Retribution: Increases your attack speed by 1/2/3%. Don't spend any points on this. You won't see enough of a damage increase to make this worth spending 3 talent points on.
• Crusader Strike: Pick up Crusader Strike for 1 point. This will be one of your primary damaging attacks.
• Sheath of Light: Put 3 points here. This talent is very important. Your spellpower will be increased greatly, as will your utility and survivability. This also causes your critical heals to place a heal over time effect on your target.
At this point, you should have spent 49 points in the Retribution tree. In order to pick up your 51 point talent ability, you will need to scroll up and choose somewhere to spend your 50th point. I personally chose to spend mine on Eye for an Eye because of how powerful that talent is in PvP gameplay, but you may choose to pick up Seal of Command.
• Righteous Vengeance: Do not spend any points here. This is a talent to increase dps in PvE gameplay.
• Divine Storm: Pick up this ability for 1 point. This will be another large part of your damage output. It is an aoe attack which heals you and 3 party members for 1/4 of it's damage.
So now that we have spent our first 51 talent points, we have 20 points remaining to spend in other trees. The way that these remaining points are spent is up to you. You know your play style better than anyone else and it is up to you to spend the rest of your points to best suit your needs. You may do a lot of Battlegrounds and want some extra survivability for solo play, or you may play a lot of Arena and want more utility and survivability for your team. Read below for the two most common PvP specs.
This spec is your cookie cutter 20/51 spec. Using this spec will give you plenty of utility and survivability for organized PvP and solo PvP alike. With the addition of a 10 second Hand of Freedom, Divine Sacrifice, and Improved Hammer of Justice, this spec is THE spec for 3v3 and 5v5 arena brackets. It is great for 2v2 as well if you are playing with a healer as a partner.
Divine Sacrifice: Pick this talent up for 1 point. Reduces damage on a partner by 30%. This is a very powerful talent as it can make difference in a living healer and a corpse.
Divine Guardian: Put 2 talent points here. This increases the effectiveness of your Divine Sacrifice by an additional 10%. It also gives your Sacred Shield a 1 minute duration (as opposed to 30 seconds) and increases the damage reduction of Sacred Shield by an additional 20%.
Improved Hammer of Justice: Put your last 2 talent points here. This reduces your Hammer of Justice cooldown to 40 seconds (as opposed to 1 minute).
This spec is an 8/12/51 hybrid spec. It gives you added self-healing and relies heavily on AoW procs and Flash of Light spam.
This spec is your cookie cutter 20/51 spec. Using this spec will give you plenty of utility and survivability for organized PvP and solo PvP alike. With the addition of a 10 second Hand of Freedom, Divine Sacrifice, and Improved Hammer of Justice, this spec is THE spec for 3v3 and 5v5 arena brackets. It is great for 2v2 as well if you are playing with a healer as a partner.
20 points in Protection:
Divinity: Put 5 points here. Increases healing received by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Divine Strength: 5 points here as well. This talent is self explanatory, Divine Strength increases your strength by 15%.
Stoicism: 3 points in Stoicism. I swear by this talent. It makes your Hand spells, Divine Shield, and Bubbles harder to dispel. Also reduces your stun duration by 30% which is a nice bonus.
Guardian's Favor: 2 points here. This talent reduces the cooldown of your Hand of Protection spell to 4 minutes (as opposed to 5 minutes). While this can be helpful, the main reason for picking this talent up is that it increases the duration of your Hand of Freedom to 10 seconds (up from 6 seconds).
Divine Sacrifice: Pick this talent up for 1 point. Reduces damage on a partner by 30%. This is a very powerful talent as it can make difference in a living healer and a corpse.
Divine Guardian: Put 2 talent points here. This increases the effectiveness of your Divine Sacrifice by an additional 10%. It also gives your Sacred Shield a 1 minute duration (as opposed to 30 seconds) and increases the damage reduction of Sacred Shield by an additional 20%.
Improved Hammer of Justice: Put your last 2 talent points here. This reduces your Hammer of Justice cooldown to 40 seconds (as opposed to 1 minute).
This spec is an 8/12/51 hybrid spec. It gives you added self-healing and relies heavily on AoW procs and Flash of Light spam.
8 points in Holy:
Seals of the Pure: Placing 5 points in this talent will increase the damage done the seals and judgements listed by 15%. This is important if you are having difficulties with killing healers (which as Ret paladins, most of us are).
Healing Light: I chose to put 3 points in this talent because of how much added healing you get from the Flash of Light hot (when cast while Sacred Shield is active) and the hot from Flash of Light crit heals (due to Sheath of Light).
12 points in Protection:
Divinity: This talent is pretty self explanatory. Increases healing received by 1/2/3/4/5%. I only spent 4 points here so that I have 3 points left in the next Protection talent tier.
Divine Strength: 5 points here. Also pretty self explanatory, Divine Strength increases your strength by 15%.
Stoicism: 3 points in Stoicism. This talent makes your Hand spells, Divine Shield, and Bubbles harder to dispel. Also reduces your stun duration by 30% which is a nice bonus.
As for Glyphs, I chose to go with Glyph of Righteousness, Glyph of Judgement, and Glyph of Salvation. If you want to use a different glyph, I would keep the Glyph of Judgement and swap out Glyph of Salvation for whatever you want to replace it with.
If you enjoyed this talent spec guide or if you have any criticism or feedback, please let me know in the comments section, or feel free to send me an email. I will be posting a PvE spec guide next week for all of you instance heads out there.
I love how you set up the guide, but I can't agree with not getting Guardian's Favor/Divine Sac. 6-sec Freedom is far too short, and Divine Sac is as powerful a tool as Hand of Protection.
ReplyDeleteHey Hoff. Yeah, I know its a controversial spec, largely due to the absence of Divine Sac. I got frustrated never having a healer around in battlegrounds, so I decided to give the spec a try, and I found that it fit my play style surprisingly well.
ReplyDeleteI will be updating this guide this week to reflect the 20/51 spec as well.