Welcome to Skill Capped’s Guide on the Best PvP Talents & Hero Talents for Retribution Paladins in The War Within 11.0

All sections for Retribution Paladin PvP have been divided into corresponding sections for the most optimal hero talents, class talents, spec talents, race, stats, gear, enchants, gems, and macros. This will help you have a good understanding of Retribution Paladins in PvP for The War Within, the strengths and weaknesses associated with this specialization, and help you conquer the arena. This section will guide you on the best Retribution Paladin PvP Talents in The War Within.

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Hero Talents: Herald of the Sun
Hero Talents: Templar
Class Talents
Spec Talents
PvP Talents

The War Within expands our arsenal of talent options, which include our new talent hero talent trees, Templar and Herald of the Sun. Both of these Hero talents are viable in the current meta, although Herald of the Sun is slightly favored due to its consistent benefits. Let’s look at how to best allocate our new Hero talent points.

Hero Talents: Herald of the Sun

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For your preferred Retribution loadout, we have Herald of the Sun. This focuses more on consistent damage, as we now receive Dawnlight to incorporate a solid amount of cleave damage to nearby targets during our rotation.

Now, let’s go over some talents listed here to fully understand their effects in the arena.

Dawnlight is applied after using Wake of Ashes, radiating 8% of its direct damage to nearby targets.
Gleaming Rays increases the damage dealt by your spenders if Dawnlight is active on a target.
Blessing of An’she has a chance to proc a massive damage buff on Hammer of Wrath from periodic damaging effects, mainly with Expurgation and Dawnlight.
Sun’s Avatar enhances the effectiveness of Dawnlight by applying it to multiple targets after using Wake of Ashes. Additionally, you become linked to any active Dawnlights, dealing extra damage to any target passing through them.

Hero Talents: Templar

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Next up is Templar, which is considered more burst oriented as opposed to our Herald of the Sun counterpart. This is mostly due to our hallmark node, Light’s Guidance, granting us Hammer of Light after using Wake of Ashes while temporarily replacing our Wake of Ashes bind. Hammer of Light is quite deadly when used at the right times, especially with our endcap node Light’s Deliverance allowing us to periodically use another Hammer of Light without having to spend Holy Power.

Now, let’s cover some talents that require a bit more explanation in terms of how they work.

Hammerfall makes it important to throw out as many Final Verdicts as you can after your Hammer of Light burst windows. This is because it temporarily grants you more Empyrean Hammers on nearby targets when Shake the Heavens is active.
Light’s Deliverance synergizes nicely with Hammerfall and Shake the Heavens, as you want to call down as many Empyrean Hammers as possible. Each hammer you call provides you with a stack of Light’s Deliverance, and upon reaching 60 you can use Hammer of Light again for free.

Paladin Class Talents

In the Paladin Class talent tree, most of your talent choices will be mandatory when advancing onto each tier. Some of most noteworthy mandatory talents are:

Healing Hands for the cooldown reduction on Lay of Hands and increased healing on Word of Glory.
Unbound Freedom increases our movement speed while Blessing of Freedom is active, and will give you Blessing of Freedom when used on an ally.
Divine Toll and Divine Resonance provide us with some solid burst damage, and is even stronger when Crusade is active. Not to mention, these talents increase our Holy Power generation and Judgment damage thanks to Boundless Judgment in our spec tree.

There’s also a selection between Repentance and Blinding Light.

Blinding Light is most typically used as a Retribution Paladin, as this provides an instant cast AoE Crowd control. This will allow you to immediately initiate or follow up control on enemy players when necessary.
Repentance is more promising if Light’s Countenance is selected, negating its original cooldown. You can use this ability to land follow up control off of a Hammer of Justice, Fear, or even a Cyclone if properly timed.

Another selection you may end up making is between Sacred Strength and Divine Purpose.

Sacred Strength adds a 2% increase to any of our Holy Power spenders. We’ll commonly use Final Verdict and Eternal Flame to benefit from this talent.
Divine Purpose is more RNG dependent, but can be more rewarding during your burst windows. After you spend Holy Power, you now have a chance to make your next Holy Power spending ability free, greatly boosting your damage profile during Crusade with Final Verdict, or more healing with Eternal Flame.

There will then be a few points which can be moved around depending on the composition that you are facing.

For your flexible class talents, Eye for an Eye or Seal of the Crusader can be more swapped around with other talents offered to us. This is dependent on your matchup and current composition played.

Light’s Countenance becomes a mandatory pickup if you plan to select Repentance instead of Blinding Light.
Cleanse Toxins when playing against Shadow Priest, Rogue, Feral Druid or Death Knight, but is typically not recommended due to other flexible talent benefits.
Turn Evil can be selected when facing a Death Knight or Demonology Warlock where pets are a nuisance.

Additionally, you can opt for Lead the Charge and Stoicism instead of Holy Ritual and Seal of the Crusader against setup compositions, or compositions that have a lot of stuns tied to their class, especially Rogues. This change is primarily for Stoicism to passively reduce the duration of all stun effects. However, keep in mind that this talent has been nerfed by half in PvP from its original 20% stun reduction effect.

Retribution Spec Talents

For our spec talents, most of these will be mandatory as you advance onto each tier. Some of the most noteworthy talents are:

Crusade increases the duration on Avenging Wrath, which requires a bit of ramp in order to reap its benefits. This applies a stackable 3% Haste and Damage buff on your character when you use one Holy Power, and stops at a max of 10 stacks.
Radiant Glory, as it gives us a new way of activating Avenging Wrath more consistently than before. This makes Wake of Ashes provide a short duration wings, and with Wake of Ashes being a 30 second cooldown, your burst windows will occur more consistently.
Final Reckoning provides massive on demand burst damage, and is a big boost to our finisher spells.
Jurisdiction allows Retribution Paladins to almost roleplay as a ranged spec, allowing you to use your primary damaging spells 20 yards away from your target.

Retribution Paladin PvP Talents

Regardless of what Hero build you choose, your default PvP talents are Aura of Reckoning, Blessing of Sanctuary, and Luminescence.

Aura of Reckoning which provides additional uptime with Avenging Wrath procs, allowing you to burst on your targets more often. This will apply Dawnlight to nearby targets on activation.
Blessing of Sanctuary allows you to remove any Silence, Stun, or Fear effects on a selected target. This will be one of your strongest utility spells to break a Crowd Control chain, and will be most likely used on Healers to allow them to sustain their team easier.
Luminescence provides a damage and healing buff for all allies within your aura after healing a target. This minor increase will assist your team in having some extra throughput in order to score kills and survive enemy kill windows.

Finally, you can swap to/from Luminescence depending on the matchup, including some of these optional talents:

Hallowed Ground grants extra movement for allies when Consecration is used, allowing your allies to maintain uptime on a target that is attempting to kite away. This can be a viable option if you are playing a melee cleave.
Searing Glare can provide solid outplay potential, causing your enemies to miss their attacks for 4 seconds. The only downside of this talent is its cast time, making it more unlikely to land.
Blessing of Spellwarding, which is best against caster based compositions, allowing you to immune any magical spells applied to the target while active.