Paladin Itemization: Retribution

/edit: More recent post.

Interestingly enough, itemization for a retribution paladin can go down at least two different paths, possbily three. I’m not sure of the third one because I honestly don’t much know how viable Seal of Vengeance is.

Anyway…retribution. “Requital according to merits or deserts, esp. for evil.” Inflicting harm based on some previous harm to you or those in your charge. Sounds like paladin tanking doesn’t it? A little bit? Nay, this is taking the fight to your enemy. You are going to land that giant hammer on your enemies’ faces so they cannot do it to you.

Before the gear discussion, as mentioned above, there are two things we need to consider. First is your faction. As a paladin, you get a unique seal based on your chosen faction (horde or alliance). If you are a Draenei, Dwarf, or Human, your unique seal is Seal of Vengeance. If you are a Blood Elf, it is Seal of Blood. They operate on different mechanics and are amplified by different stats.

But, I don’t know very much about Vengeance. Suffice it to say I perceive up to three different “paths” for Ret paladins:

1) The “Middle Road”: A mix of attack power and magic damage
2) Seal of Blood optimization: Strong focus on attack power over magic damage
3) Seal of Vengeance optimization: Strong focus on magic damage over attack power

There is also PvP play to consider. A shift in emphasis is necessary when you jump into a BG or arena. I will add these considerations to each listing.

Again, aside from what Coriel has written about it, I know not of its viability, or even much of its basics. It procs a stacking DoT debuff on your target while active, and when judged deals damage based on the number of stacks. I think emphasis on this ability would lend itself to more spell damage-based gear. Think of yourself as a caster…focus on intelligence, spell damage, spell hit/crit…heck now that I think about it, this may not be a good retribution spell. Might supplement a holy build…but I don’t have a good way to experiment.

On to what I know, then.

Ret (general): Attack Power, Crit Rating, Intellect, Spell Damage, Stamina
Ret (general, PvP): Crit Rating, Stamina (and/or resilience), Attack Power, Spell Damage, Intellect
Ret (Seal of Blood): Attack Power, Crit Rating, Intellect, Stamina, Spell Damage

Since the stats are the same just in different orders, I won’t get into too much detail on emphasis for different seals. Generally, for Ret in general you use Seal of Righteousness or Command. Almost always Command in pvp for burst potential. If you’re gearing for Seal of Blood, well, you’re probably using it too. :)

• Attack Power: Of great use to any Ret paladin is attack power. You can increase this through Strength as well as any item that has a increases your attack power by X listing. This increases your damage per hit, and since you’re about damage, you’re about hitting hard.
• Crit Rating: Especially in PvP, your ability to crit is your sustenance. Without getting any critical hits, our damage is typically very poor. As well in pvp, burst damage is where it’s at, you’ve got to smash those face before they melt yours. Of note is the talent Vengeance, which increases your damage dealt by a percentage when you crit, and stacks. It makes that nifty “sound of righteousness” when it happens and makes your hands glow too.
• Spell Damage: This is variably useful. Given that most of your damage is still almost all white, unless you’re using Seal of Righteousness pretty heavily you will want attack power and crit chance for more reliable damage increases. This will increase the damage dealt by your seal procs and judgements, as well as your Crusader Strike ability if you have it. However, the coefficients on many of these are quite low (except for righteousness).
• Intellect: As with any other mana-using class, your damage potential is greatly reduced when you have no mana. Increasing your intellect will increase your damage-dealing endurance, allowing you to put more out for greater periods of time. This will also increase your spell crit chance, enhancing the damage output of your judgements.
• Stamina: Hit points never hurt anyone, especially considering the situations in which you’ll be employing this spec. A raiding ret paladin is still a rarity, and so this build is typically for soloing and pvp. These scenarios place a greater emphasis on stamina, especially for a melee class like yourself. In pvp especially, you will want hit points, and you will come to love the pvp-unique stat known as resilience for reducing the burst potential of your opponents.

More on Seal of Righteousness: This is the paladin’s first seal, and deals holy damage based on weapon speed. The seal’s damage is increased greatly by spell damage and talents.

More on Seal of Blood: The idea behind this seal is that you gear yourself like a warrior. It is a Seal that deals a % of weapon damage on each hit, and the judgement has a poor spell damage coefficient. You get less out of spell damage and more out of attack power, and thus you pump up that and pretty much ignore spell damage. This, to me, seems kind of off given the mana-using, magical nature of the blood elves, but that’s what Blizzard gave us.