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Paladins as DPS

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

Contents

Paladin DPS Abilities

  • Retribution Aura: An Aura that deals 62 Holy Damage to anyone that attacks you.
  • Sanctified Retribution: Increases Retribution Aura's damage by 50% and increases damage to any player affected by any of your auras by 3%.
  • Swift Retribution: Increases attack and casting speed by 3% of any player affected by any of your auras.
  • Heart of the Crusader: A talent that causes all three judgement spells to apply a debuff that increases critical strike chance by 3% against the judged enemy.
  • Seal of Command: Gives your melee attacks a chance to deal holy damage. This skill used to be the main damage seal for most PvP Retribution paladins before it was found that Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption had better overall DPS.
  • Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption: A DPS seal that causes your attacks to extra 33% holy damage after 5 stacks of the debuff are applied. In a raid PvE situation Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption is extremly more effective than Seal of Command.
  • Crusader Strike: An instant melee attack that deals 137 to 138% Weapon Damage.
  • Consecration: Consecrates the ground for 8 seconds, dealing Holy damage to anyone who walks into it. As of Patch 3.0, Mana is no longer an issue for Retribution Paladins, as well as largely increased spell damage, so Consecration is a very large DPS addition.
  • Exorcism: A large damaging nuke that is on a 15 second cool down, and can be used on any PVE target. This spell will crit 100% of the time against demon and undead targets.
  • Holy Wrath
  • Hammer of Wrath: An instant-cast ranged finishing move. Resets your swing timer.
  • Divine Storm: An instant weapon attack that causes 110% of weapon damage to up to 4 enemies within 10 yards. The Divine storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totaling 25% of the damage dealt.

Paladin DPS Rotation {PvE / RAID} **as of patch 3.09**

Quote from Elitist Jerks.comedited for clarity

During the beta it was agreed upon that because of vastly changed mechanics, our rotations should be thrown out and thus came to be known as FCFS (First Come First Serve). Not much to explain about it, just use whatever is off cooldown, whenever you can (watch your mana bar). Your only priority (should multiple skills come off cooldown at the same time) is Judgement, as it provides both our best DPS and our main source of mana. On a target under 20%, Hammer of Wrath also comes into play, right behind Judgement in priority due to its' very high crit rate. Be sure to use Avenging Wrath and Divine Plea as much as you can, as both provide a nice boost in damage/mana. In a situation with AoE, say trash for example, Consecration and Divine Storm should be prioritized.

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 > Crusader Strike > Consecration > Divine Storm > Exorcism > Holy Wrath

DPS Buff Guidance

Notes

  • With undead targets/bosses adding Holy Wrath and Exorcism to the rotation will give a significant boost to DPS but will further strain mana regen. Additional attention to Judgement of Wisdom and Divine Plea will be necessary.
  • Adding Hammer of Wrath in when mob health is <20% substantially increases DPS. This should be leaned on as much or more than Crusader Strike when the 20% threshold has been breached.
  • The numbered order is the preferred buff order based on the number of paladins in the group.

Alternate Paladin DPS Rotation

Alternate (possibly) DPS Rotation

I slightly disagree with the above rotation, though it may just be I'm reading it wrong.

Let it be noted that the above rotation is meant for single-target DPS fights only(especially bosses). If you are not having mana issues while DPSing, Consecration is an easy way to add quite a large chunk of DPS even versus single targets (currently with ~3k attack power, it adds approximately 240 DPS for me)and should be used when other abilities are cooling down. For trash pulls with multiple mobs, it will most likely help to switch up Divine Storm and Crusader Strike and replace Exorcism with Holy Wrath if applicable. Consecration is especially desirable in large pulls unless your group is relying heavily on CC and does not pull the mobs away from CC targets.

Weapon Selection

Racial Bonuses

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

For Seal of the Vengeance/Seal of Corruption Paladins

  • Preferred Seal to use over Command.
  • Almost identical to Seal of Command Paladins. Faster weapons are acceptable, however, if they have somewhat better buffs than your current weapon.

For Seal of Command Paladins

  • A slow 2-handed weapon is usually a Paladin's primary weapon. This will increase the chance for Seal of Command to proc on each swing and cause the procs to deal more damage.
  • Due to the nature of Seal of Command and Crusader Strike, a slower weapon with a high top end damage will nearly always be superior to a faster weapon with a lower damage range.
  • A 1-handed weapon can be used to push back an opponent's cast in PvP situations but will lower your DPS significantly.

Melee Stats

  • Attack Power from Strength is your primary DPS stat. Strength is preferred since it gets an increase from BoK.
  • With the removal of precision your melee hit rating base should ideally be 263. Hit Rating gear should remain a very high priority. For equal leveled players in PvP only 164 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

  • Strength: 5 points in Divine Strength in protection increases strength by 15%, making this your most important DPS stat.
  • 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.
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