Paladin • Retribution • PVE
Retribution Paladin (PVE)
A two-handed melee DPS that uses seal twisting and powerful buffs to deliver competitive damage when supported by the right group composition.
Talents
Retribution talents in The Burning Crusade are a massive step up from Classic, turning Ret into a true raid staple. The tree brings two of the most valuable raid buffs in the game through Improved Seal of the Crusader and Improved Sanctity Aura, while also fixing the old “mana battery” problem via Sanctified Judgement combined with Spiritual Attunement and Seal of Blood. Key core talents include Vengeance (now 15 seconds, easy to maintain once stacked), Fanaticism (stronger Judgement crit and built-in threat reduction), and Crusader Strike — your signature ability that also refreshes all Judgements on the target. This is a huge quality-of-life and raid value gain since it allows your Holy Paladin to judge Wisdom/Light while you keep it rolling for the entire fight. Retribution builds are generally very locked-in because most of the tree is simply too powerful to skip. The only common flex point is Blessing of Kings if you are 100% certain another Paladin will cover it.
Build Notes
This is the standard raid build for Retribution Paladin and your default choice for PvE. In a typical “one of each Paladin” setup (Holy + Prot + Ret), your Holy Paladin usually provides Improved Blessing of Might while you provide Blessing of Kings. This setup lets you take strong throughput talents like Crusade while still grabbing key utility such as Pursuit of Justice. Optional note: If your raid already guarantees Kings from another Paladin, you can move that point elsewhere — otherwise, treat the build as fully locked-in.
Standard PvE Raid Build (Kings / Crusade / PoJ)
This is your general go-to Retribution PvE build. It prioritizes the full raid package: • Improved Seal of the Crusader (raid crit) • Improved Sanctity Aura (party damage) • Sanctified Judgement (mana sustain) • Fanaticism (Judgement crit + threat reduction) • Crusader Strike (main rotational ability + Judgement refresh) Flex option: • Blessing of Kings can be dropped only if you are certain another Paladin will provide it for every raid.