General Information
On this page, we present the viable talent and glyph choices forRetribution Paladins in World of Warcraft MoP 5.4. We detail what each of the talents andglyphs do and in which situations they should be taken.
The other pages of our Retribution Paladin guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.
1. Talent Choices↑top
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- Performance-enhancing
- Survival
- Crowd Control
- Movement
- Utility
- Situational
There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents arenow viable. They can easily be changed, thanks to 
Dust of Disappearance(and 
Tomes of the Clear Mind from level 86 to 90).You will frequently find yourself changing talents and glyphs betweenencounters, in order to adapt your play style to different mechanics.Therefore, it is important to understand what each of your talents does andhow they affect your play style.
2. Tier 1 Talents↑top
Tier 1 talents offer you a choice between 3 means of improving yourmovement speed.
Speed of Light is an active ability, with a 45-second cooldown,which increases your movement speed by 70% for 8 seconds.
Long Arm of the Law causes your successful 
Judgments toincrease your movement speed by 45% for 3 seconds.
Pursuit of Justice passively grants you 15% increased movementspeed, and an additional 5% increased movement speed for each charge of HolyPower that you have, up to a maximum of 3 (so, up to a grand total of 30%increased movement speed).
Your choice here will depend entirely on your playstyle and the requirementsof the encounter.
Speed of Light is excellent because it offers you a reliable movementspeed burst.
Pursuit of Justice offers you a constant, passive movement speedboost, which is excellent for moving out of harmful effects. You need to bepooling Holy Power to get the full benefit of this talent (which you oftenwill not be).
Long Arm of the Law will prove to have a high uptime. In mostencounters, it should satisfy your need for moving quickly. It is especiallygood when you need to move often from one target to another, since you willprobably judge when you are not in melee range.
3. Tier 2 Talents↑top
Tier 2 talents offer you a choice between 3 means of crowd-control.
Fist of Justice is an improved version of 
Hammer of Justice,which it replaces. Fist of Justice stuns the target for 6 seconds, with a30-second cooldown, from a 20-yard range.
Repentance puts the (Demon, Dragonkin, Giant, Humanoid, orUndead) target to sleep for 1 minute. Damage done to the target will break theeffect, and only one target can be under this effect at one time (from thesame Paladin).
Evil is a Point of View allows you to use Turn Evil on Humanoids andBeasts.
The talent choice here is largely irrelevant, and it will not affect yourperformance in any way. You should choose based on your own preference, or onthe requirements of the encounter, in terms of add crowd-control.
That said, during Tier 15 raiding you will probably want to choose Fist of Justice for most encounters, since the stun is very useful againstadds.
4. Tier 3 Talents↑top
Tier 3 talents offer you a choice between 3 healing abilities.
Selfless Healer causes your Judgments to reduce the cast timeand mana cost of your next 
Flash of Light by 35% per stack. Additionally, ifused on players other than yourself, it also increases their healing by 20%per stack. If you have 
Bastion of Glory stacks, this healing bonus alsoapplies when Flash of Light is self-cast, consuming Bastion of Glory. Theeffect can stack up to 3 times.
Eternal Flame replaces 
Word of Glory. It costs Holy Power(up to 3), heals the target for an amount roughly equal to Word of Glory'shealing, and places a HoT on the target, lasting 30 seconds. The power of theHoT is dependant on the amount of Holy Power with which the spell is used. WhenEternal Flame is used on yourself, the HoT's power is increased by 100%.
Sacred Shield places a 30-second buff on the target, which thengoes on to create a damage absorption shield every 6 seconds. The individualshields being broken by damage or expiring has no effect on the main buff.Sacred Shield can be active on more than one target at once. It uses a chargesystem, having 3 charges and a 10-second recharge time.
Your choice here is between either Selfless Healer or Sacred Shield, since Eternal Flame costs Holy Power, and thusnegatively affects your DPS.
Sacred Shield can easily be incorporated into your rotation (which hassome down-time), and doing so will reduce a sizeable amount of damage over thecourse of the fight. We believe that this is the superior choice in mostcases, so we advise it.
Selfless Healer will provide you with the greatest utility for your raid.You will nearly always have 3 stacks of the buff, due to the frequent usage of Judgment in your rotation. This way, you can always pitch in and helpout a low health raid member with a strong, instant-cast Flash of Light. Even used on yourself, the heal is quite effective.
5. Tier 4 Talents↑top
Tier 4 talents offer you a choice between 3 ways of situationally improvingyour utility.
Hand of Purity places a 6-second buff on a target, reducing thedamage they take from harmful periodic effects by 80%, and from harmfulperiodic effects that cannot be prevented by immunities by 40%. It also reducesall damage taken by 10%.
Unbreakable Spirit reduces the cooldown of 
Divine Shield,
Divine Protection, and 
Lay on Hands by 50%.
Clemency gives each of your Hand spells 2 charges. This means thatyou can use them twice before triggering the cooldown (but the cooldown willbegin ticking as soon as it is used for the first time).
We believe Unbreakable Spirit should be the default choice in mostencounters. It greatly improves survivability (by allowing more frequent useof Divine Protection) and utility (allowing you to bypass mechanics orreset debuffs more often with Divine Shield).
Clemency will literally double your already powerful utility. Incase your Hand spells turn out to be useful in an encounter, this talent willundoubtedly be a strong choice.
Hand of Purity's usefulness depends greatly on the number of effectsthat are affected by it. If it works against relevant boss mechanics, it can bean excellent cooldown to use on the tank. As a rule, debuffs that cannot beremoved through immunities (such as Divine Shield) are not affected byHand of Purity either.
6. Tier 5 Talents↑top
Tier 5 talents offer you a choice between 3 powerful performance-enchancingtalents.
Holy Avenger is a 2-minute cooldown that, for 18 seconds, causesyour abilities that generate Holy Power to deal 30% additional damage andhealing, and to generate 3 charges of Holy Power, instead of 1.
Sanctified Wrath passively increases the duration of
Avenging Wrath by 50%. Additionally, while Avenging Wrath is active,it reduces the cooldown of your 
Hammer of Wrath by 50%.
Divine Purpose gives your abilities that cost Holy Power a 25%chance to cause your next Holy Power-costing ability cost no Holy Power and becast as if you had 3 charges of Holy Power.
Currently, Sanctified Wrath provides the highestDPS of the three talents, so we advise taking it. The difference between allthree talents is quite small though.
At lower (pre-raid) gear levels, Holy Avenger will perform better thanSanctified Wrath. It is also worth noting that since Avenging Wrath hasbeen changed to have a 2-minute cooldown, Holy Avenger lines up perfectlywith it and they can be used together. When doing this, the DPS will be onlyslightly lower than what you would get from Sanctified Wrath, but we stillfeel that Sanctified Wrath is the better choice.
7. Tier 6 Talents↑top
Tier 6 talents offer you a choice between 3 abilities that are centeredaround damaging multiple enemies and healing multiple allies.
Holy Prism can be cast on an ally or enemy target. If cast on anenemy, Holy Prism deals damage to them and heals 5 nearby allies. If cast on anally, it heals that ally and damages 5 nearby enemies.
Light's Hammer places a hammer at a target location on the groundfor 16 seconds. During this time, the hammer will heal the 6 most injured nearbyallies, as well as damaging all nearby enemies. Enemies' movement speed isalso reduced by 50% for 2 seconds each time they take damage.
Execution Sentence can be used on enemies or on allies. If usedon an enemy, they take a certain amount of damage over 10 seconds (the damagethey take is low at first, and it increases gradually). If used on an ally,they will be healed for a certain amount over 10 seconds (the effect is alsogradually increasing). If Execution Sentence is dispelled, it will instantlydeal damage or healing to the target (depending on who it is cast on) equal to5 times the value of the most recent tick.
For single-target DPS, Execution Sentence is the bestchoice, without any doubt. For AoE DPS, Light's Hammer may provide moreDPS than Execution Sentence, but the difference is small.
Holy Prism requires too many global cooldowns to use to its fullpotential, and, thus, it should never be taken.
8. Major Glyphs↑top
There are several Major Glyphs that are of interest to you, although noneoffer clear performance improvements.
Glyph of Double Jeopardy increases the damage of your next Judgment by 20% when used on a different second target. This will notbe of any use in single target fights, but when there are several targets, itcan be a slight DPS boost.- Glyph of Templar's Verdict reduces the damage you take, for 6 secondsafter using
Templar's Verdict or 
Exorcism, by 10%. This glyph is anice way to help out your healers in progression encounters. - Glyph of Mass Exorcism reduces your Exorcism to melee range,but causes it to deal a small amount of AoE damage, in addition to its singletarget damage. It is useful in fights where there are multiple targets. Notethat the damage that Exorcism does to each target is buffed by the2-Part Tier 15 Set Bonus,providing a considerable increase in AoE damage.
- Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice removes the damage transfer component of
Hand of Sacrifice, making it safer to use. - Glyph of Blinding Light causes your
Blinding Light to knock downenemies for 3 seconds instead of blinding them. This has some situationaluses in encounters with adds. - Glyph of Harsh Words allows your Word of Glory to be castagainst enemies, damaging them. While it is not a better use of Holy Power than Templar's Verdict, it does provide you with a way to deal damage ifthe target is out of your melee range.
- Glyph of Divine Storm heals you for 5% of your maximum health when youuse
Divine Storm. You are unlikely to ever find uses for this glyph, butif there is an encounter where you need to AoE a lot, and you also need extrahealing, then it is a good option. - Glyph of Word of Glory grants you 3% increased damage, for 6 seconds,for each charge of Holy Power that you use on Word of Glory. Thisglyph is useful both if you are using Word of Glory to heal injured raidmembers (making up somewhat for the lost DPS), or if you are using Word ofGlory to damage enemies at range (through Glyph of Harsh Words).
- Glyph of Inquisition extends the duration of
Inquisition by 30seconds, for a total of up to 120 seconds, each time you land a killing blowon targets that yield experience or honor. This glyph is highly situational,and its benefit is hardly reliable, but when you can actually land killingblows with it, it will prove very useful. - Glyph of Divine Protection adds 20% Physical damage reduction to your Divine Protection cooldown, at the expense of 20% magic damagereduction. This can be useful in certain situations.
- Glyph of Avenging Wrath will provide you with a small amount ofself-healing over the course of the fight.
9. Minor Glyphs↑top
Minor Glyphs are purely cosmetic, and have no effect on your gameplay.
One glyph is worth mentioning, though. 
Glyph of the Righteous Retreatincreases the cast speed of your Hearthstone by 50% while Divine Shieldis active, allowing you to successfully bubblehearth once again.
10. Changelog↑top
- 11 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
- 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing to change.
- 14 May 2013: Added Glyph of Divine Storm to the list of usefulmajor glyphs.
- 26 Apr. 2013: Made several updates.
- 23 Apr. 2013: Made several updates.
- 05 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
