Paladins as DPS

Due to outdated information, this page does not give any information about holy paladins as dps.

This article has information on how to play paladins as DPS.

DPS Basics
Retribution paladins are by far the best talent specialization for single-target soloing and are equally viable in raids as well. With the right build, Retribution paladins can kill mobs quicker than mages, warlocks, or rogues, though downtime is increased. A good Retribution paladin should put 2 points into Protection for Seals of the Pure, as you'll want the 12% damage from your Seal of Truth. Blessing of Might is preferred over Blessing of Kings. In addition, capping your hit rating and expertise is needed.

OUTDATED... As of patch 2.3 there are a lot more desirable talents in Retribution - most notably the buff to Fanaticism that will reduce threat generated by your attacks by 10/15/20/25/30%. If you plan on raiding, this is absolutely critically important to have. No more holding back your DPS to prevent drawing aggro, you can finally go all-out and even use Avenging Wrath without immediately aggroing everything.

The kind of stats you'll be wanting to obtain are, in order, Strength for Attack Power, Hit Rating, and Expertise. Critical Strike Rating, Haste, and Mastery are secondary stats to go for once your primary stats have been capped. The key to Retribution Paladins is to bring down enemies quickly, not long, sustained, fights that require lots of mana.

If you are unsure which weapon to look for, just imagine that you are an Arms warrior. A very good starting point for any Retribution paladin is to take up Blacksmithing and make either [Lionheart Blade], [Thunder], or [Lunar Crescent]. After this, there are two paths you can take - you can either level up for blacksmithing to 375 (requiring huge amounts of grinding or money) and make the second tier and eventually third tier weapons, or you can raid and get your epic weapons that way. [Despair], [Gorehowl] are both great weapons to obtain through Karazhan. once you progress into Gruul's Lair, [Hammer of the Naaru] is a very nice weapon to have, as that extra intellect goes a long way to keeping up sustained DPS.

Aside from this, you should just experiment and do what works, it takes a lot of practice, a unique gear, stat, and spec combination, and a little luck to get Retribution nailed down.

Paladin DPS Rotation {PvE / RAID}
The following information may change. Divine Storm is being reworked to work off of mana and not Holy Power which will change our rotation.

Single Target
The Ret paladin "rotation" shares something with Wrath - it is priority based. The priority for single-target is as follows: Inq > TV > CS > HoW > Exo > J > HW > Cons

Note: It is possible that HoW > TV > CS may be superior. This is extremely hard to gauge and compare without fully fleshed modeling tools - any comparison tests on a dummy or real boss have too much RNG fluctuation in DivPurp and HoL procs.

Inquisition is not learned until L81, do not worry about it until Cataclysm releases in December. Inq increases Holy Damage when it is up. Initial modeling shows refresh up to 6 seconds before it ends. Averaging a gain of 3 HP within 8 seconds should be fairly typical. Thus if you use a TV right at 6 seconds, you typically can refresh no later than 2 seconds after Inq expires.

As long as Inq is up and running, any time you have 3 HP you should hit TV. If you have a HoL proc, hit TV. Two TV in a row is great - let them push back that next CS.

If you do not have 3 HP, then hit CS to generate more.

If you do not have 3 HP and CS is on CD, move to the filler abilities. HoW now hits like a truck, use it if you can. Exo hits next hardest, if AoW has procced, hit Exo. If Exo is unavailable, use Judgement. Next up to bat is HW. Finally, use Consecration.

If everything is on cooldown and you have an entirely empty filler and somehow need mana, use Divine Plea.

You are unlikely to use many Consecration or Divine Plea during a fight.

Even in L80 gear at L85, CS CD is short enough that trying to use 2 fillers between CS is a DPS loss. Base sequence is CS, filler, wait, CS.

In melee range: Never, ever cast Exo - only use Exo when it is instant from an AoW proc. If AoW has no procced, then Exo has a cast time and mana cost. Remember during cast you stop all autoattacks.

If out of melee range (phase transition/funny-business): Judge if you can. Without AoW Exo drops below Judge. If Judge is on CD, spam cast Exo.

Multiple Target
The AoE rotation is rather similar to single-target: Inq > DS > CS > HoW > Exo > J > HW > Cons

We replace TV with DS. CS is still important to generate HP. The rest of the priority stays the same. HW continues to do greater total damage than Consecration up to 18(!!!) targets. If your Cons can hit 19 or more targets, then it moves ahead of HW.

FCFS Rotation
The reasoning behind FCFS courtesy Avitus:

There are two elements to our "rotation": FCFS and clash resolution

First Come First Serve: This was chosen due to the fact that the cool-downs of our abilities have, no discernible pattern (for example: "1" "1" "1" "3", repeat) that would maximize DPS. The only patterns that repeat are several minutes long (containing several dozens of casts) and therefore are not realistic to offer as a "rotation". FCFS is the only way to go.

Clash resolution: It was argued back and forth what the optimum way to resolve a clash of two abilities coming out of cooldown at the same time, the result was "highest DPS first": Judgement > Exorcism > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm > Consecration > Holy Wrath

DPS Buffs Guidance

 * Retribution Aura  on by default 
 * Blessing of Might  on by default 
 * Blessing of Kings  when grouping/raiding with more than one Paladin 
 * Seal of Truth '' on by default

Weapon Selection via Racial Bonuses

 * Humans get 3% Expertise for 2-handed swords and maces.
 * Dwarves get 3% Expertise for 2 handed maces.

Melee Stats

 * Attack Power from Strength is your primary DPS stat. Strength is preferred since it gets an increase from BoK.
 * Your melee hit rating base should ideally be 247. Hit Rating gear should remain a very high priority. For equal leveled players in PvP only 154 total hit rating (5%) is required to be hit capped.
 * Your melee critical strike chance needs to be at least 25% to maintain Vengeance stacks nearly all the time. After that point critical strike rating is not as much of an increase to personal DPS as straight Attack Power.
 * Expertise 214 to help decreases the chance that melee attacks made by the player will be dodged or parried.
 * Haste increases your attack speed.

Base Stats

 * Melee Crit: Critical strike rating increases the chances of applying and keeping Vengeance stacks (increasing all damage by 3%). Pure critical rating will be easier with itemization, since 45.91 critical strike rating provides 1% critical chance in comparison to 52 agility. Melee critical strike chance is not as much of a pure damage increase as Strength. Many high end raiding Retribution Paladins will will only have enough critical strike chance to become "capped" (enough to maintain 3 stacks of Vengeance through an entire boss fight) and then simply stack additional Strength.

Meta
Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond

Bold Stormjewel +20 Strength

Bold Cardinal Ruby +20 Strength

Bold Dragon's Eye +34 Strength  if you are a jewelcrafter. 2 slots only

Glyphs
Selection of Glyphs suitable for retribution paladins.