Retribution Paladin in 3.3.5 - long in depth PvP Guide
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After watching so many Retribution Paladins over here doing PvP (Duels, Battlegrounds, World PvP) I decided to help them out, since many of them did plenty of mistakes while thinking they were playing rather well.
Then I noticed that there's only one Retribution Paladin Guide over here that leaves out a few things you should actually know about the class.
So I decided to create a Guide for you guys, because let's honest: buying best-in-slot gear and Shadowmourne wont really help you at all.
Anyway, who am I?
I am an, at least on Warmane, pretty unknown person so name calling doesn't really matter. However, I did play Retribution Paladin for a really long time now (more than 7 years) and at some point I started to be really decent with them being on par with really known and good Retribution Paladins back then on different servers and ending up coaching a few of them to playing even better than before.
However, feel free to believe or not believe this story, it doesn't matter anyway and I am not able to link any 2,7k+ achievement (and never will) because I personally think that Retribution Paladins are quite limited in the current Meta (and Arena is a different bracket than Dueling/WorldPvP and this is what this Guide is about). Therefore having experience in a different bracket doesn't really matter that much. It's still a fact that a high arena rating usually equals a good amount of skill but that's a different subject.
What is this guide about?
Simple basics and explanations of the class in case you're new, up to some in depth stuff people don't talk about. Also the main aspect being Dueling since Retribution Paladin isnt really viable at the moment in the high arena bracket due to Holy Paladins being better.
I know that we do have a
Retribution Paladin Guide already on this Forum, however there are some things I'd like to adress about it.
An addition I'd like to add is that I assume your item level is at least 264+/BiS/near BiS because the way you play Retribution Paladin really changes depending on the Gear you're running.
Warning: Long guide.
English is not my mothertongue, so there may be some grammatical/spelling errors, forgive me if you find them.
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Content:
0. Work in Progress, still missing Links to Spells, Talents, etc. (will be probably done in 1-3 days)
1. Shortcuts used
2. Stats
3. Race
4. Professions
5. Gear, Enchants, Gems
6. Talents, Glyphs
7. Macros
8. Spell List
9. Basic PvP
10. Advanced Stuff
11. Keybinds
12. Addons
13. Sources
14. FaQ
15. Addition
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1. Shortcuts used
PvP = Player vs. Player
WPvP = Player vs. Player in the environment (examples: Player vs. Player Zones, Gurubashi Area, Slaughtering people in their cities, sniping people while leveling, getting sniped by 80s, stuff like that)
2s = 2v2 Arena
3s = 3v3 Arena
284er bracket = The 284er Itemlevel (Shadowmourne as an example)
BG = Battleground
Lib = Libram
HoJ = Hammer of Justice
TL;DR = Too long, didn't read
GCD = Global Cooldown
Ret = Retribution Paladin
Prot = Protection Paladin
Holy = Holy Paladin
IoQ = Isle of Conquest
SotA = Strand of the Ancients
HoT = Heal over Time
DoT = Damage over Time
JC = Jewelcrafting
SoC = Seal of Command
SoR = Seal of Righteousness
LoS = Line of Sight
BiS = Best in Slot (best items to obtain)
CC = Crowd Control
FaQ = Frequently asked Questions
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2. Stats
Important Stats:
Hit Rating -
„Hit rating is a value that represents the increased reduction of the chance to miss with your attack.“
- Minimum of 131.10 Hit Rating (4%)
- Normal value of 163.87 Hit Rating (5%)
- A maximum of 196.65 Melee Hit Rating (6%, you dont want to have this much Hit Rating unless you play a Tournament and know you're up against certain Matchups or your PvE offets allow you to run this much)
Strength -
„Strength increases attack power and is the most important stat for plate armor-wearing classes in the damage-dealing or tank role.“
Resilience –
„Resilience is a character attribute that reduces all damage taken from players and their pets or minions. This is the bread and butter PvP stat.“
- Minimum of 800-900
- Maximum of around 1200-1250. If you have too much you will lack in damage or other important stats.
Semi-Important Stats:
Stamina –
„Stamina is the source of all health.“
- Since every item you purchase will have the Stamina stat on it, you don't need to worry about having too much/too little.
- Maths: 10 Stamina = 100 health.
Haste Rating –
„Haste is a secondary attribute that increases attack speed, ranged attack speed and casting speed., It increases the tick rate of most of the player's damage over time and heal over time effects. Spell haste also reduces the length of the global cooldown for spells and some melee abilities.“
- Even when Haste is actually a really delicious stat for Paladins, you won't really get it in PvP because there are stats that are way more important than haste. It's way better in PvE, but there are some builds that make going Haste quite legit.
Crit Rating –
„Critical strike (often abbreviated as "crit" or "crit strike") refers to 100% bonus physical damage (twice your normal damage) that occurs as a result of an attack made with melee or ranged weapons.“
- The more crit the better, however you only want to get this stat from the items your purchase, you don't want to invest into Crit gems.
- You want crit for two obvious reasons: Art of War and painful critical strikes (hello Avenging Wrath into Judgements)
„No no!“ stats:
Agility -
„Increases attack power with ranged weapons (not including wands) or melee weapons.“
- Also increases your Critical Strike Chance and Armor.
- I've seen plenty of people actually running agility builds (284er Bracers, 277er Back, Agility Rings) combined with some Haste. But what an Agility item does compared to a Strength item is giving you 1-4% crit, less Attack Power, therefore less Spell Power and less overall damage.
Raw Attack Power
- Strength > Raw Attack Power > Agility
Intellect
- Increases maximum Mana, critical strike chance of your spells and increases your manaregeneration in addition to your spirit. Basically a stat you dont care about since you have Judgement of the Wise.
Spirit
- The only class that will ever take Spirit over Mp5 in PvP is a Holy Priest that doesn't know that mp5 grants more combat regeneration.
Expertise –
„One point of expertise decreases the chance that melee attacks made by the player will be dodged or parried by 0.25%. At level 80, every 7.688690185546875 points of expertise rating grant 1 expertise.“
- If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are (for some reason) not attacking people from behind and then have a Nightelf Priest dodge your Crusader Strike? This is what happens when you don't have Expertise.
- Also the only reason you will ever get Expertise is because of Skeleton Lord's Circle.
Armor Penetration -
„Armor penetration is a value appearing on many talents and abilities that indicates the percentage of armor that will be ignored by an attack.“
- Yes your Crusader Strike, Divine Storm and Auto Attacks deal physical damage. Yes, Armor Penetration increases physical damage output against people with armor.
- But you dont play Paladin for your physical damage. You're not a Warrior.
- Like with Expertise the only reason you will ever get armor penetration is because of Shadowmourne and Penumbra Pendant
Grey Zone Stats:
Spellpower –
„Spell power is an attribute that increases the effect of spells. Spell power increases the damage amount of damaging spells and the healing amount of healing spells.“
Why do we need Spell Power?- It increases the damage done of your Judgements, Exorcism, Seals, Consecration, Holy Wrath and your healing done. Actually in my opinion the most important stat along with strength.
But how do you get Spellpower?
- Sheath of Light is your answer. 30% of your Attack Power gets converted into Spell Power. That's why you don't want agility and raw Attack Power. You want Strength to maximize your Attack Power and your Spell Power while not losing damage.
Block Value (thx Strength) –
„Block value was number typically appearing on shields that sets the amount of damage absorbed when you block an attack."
- Even when you don't want this stat and you're not a Protection Paladin, you will still get this via Strength.
But why do I mention this in a Retribution Paladin guide?
- Simple, because Shield of Righteousness scales with it. But not only for that reason.
- You will find yourself using a shield every now and then and if you understand that you can actually block a little bit of incoming damage the way your playstyle shifts when using a shield can change drastically.
- I've seen so many Paladins with a shield not facing their opponents correctly which leading to take unnecessary bonus damage they could have prevented.
Frost-, Fire-, Shadow-, Nature-, Arcaneresistance –
„Resistance was a combat statistic that mitigated incoming magic damage and effects.“
- There are some Paladins that run Resistance gear (especially against Frost Mages, Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks) for tournament/tryhard reasons.
- Explanations will be found later in this guide.
Myths from Lynea's guide:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynea
„Armor penetration - While not as useful for a paladin as it might be for a Hunter, Warrior or Rogue, it still has its uses. Auto-Attack, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm all deal physical damage, so a bit of armor penetration is welcome.“
It's not welcome, we don't need this stat at all. We just get it from two items because we wouldn't be able to maximize our stats without it. Our main source of damage is Holy damage, not physical. This is what most of the Paladins don't understand which leads to them playing not like you're supposed to play.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynea
Haste - While not being very useful, it is not completely useless. Most of your abilities are instant cast, but this increases your auto-attack speed and the cast speed of various spells that you may use that may not be instant cast spells. These include, but are not limited to, Redemption, Holy Light, Flash of Light, Turn Evil, and a non-Art of War procced Exorcism.
Even when we dont aim for Haste, it's an extremely important stat. It can be actually quite useful with certain weapons and builds (even better for Deathknights tho) and because of our spells being instant casts you actually welcome a bit of haste (even tho its fine to run 0 haste) because of Global Cooldown and Seal reasons.
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3. Race
Alliance:
Human (the best Race in the 284er Itemlevel bracket)
- Every Man For Himself: Free Trinket and a second Trinket to maximize your damage/healing output
Dwarf
- Frost Resistance: Only useful with counterbuilds against Frostmages
- Stoneform: Removes Diseases even with Unholy Blight up, removes Bleed (and Poisons) effects to counter Warriors and Rogues and also increases your armor which can be really useful when chaining it with defensive Cooldowns.
However, Paladins don't really benefit that much from this Racial because you usually counter everything this Racial is supposed to counter anyway.
Blue Elephants
- Shadow Resistance: Only useful with counterbuilds against Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks
- Roleplaying
- Niche HoT that can be helpful with Sheath of Light & Lifebloom
- +1% Hit: welcome as long as you're under 264 itemlevel, useless when BiS geared.
Horde:
Bloody Britney
- Choose between homosexual and objectified woman
- Arcane Torrent: an interrupt that Paladins would love to have, also replenishes Mana if you ever find yourself being out of Mana
- 2% increased resistance to Spells: Casters need an additional +2% Hit Rating to match that Racial if Hit Rating is scripted correctly.
Conclusion:
Alliance – Human
Horde – Human (nono, Bloodelf obviously)
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4. Professions
Alchemy – free Potions (Mana-, Health-, Free Action Potion, Flask of the North etc.)
Blacksmithing (additional two gem slots, perfect if you need to cap a certain stat)
Cooking – Stormchops (disgusting)
Engineering – Nitroboosts, Frag Belt/Cobalt Frag Bombs for an additional CC/interrupt, Saronite Bomb for SotA + IoQ and Global Thermal Sapper Charge for a surprise burst (and if extremely well used (MS/Ping/Lags hello) a Shadow Word: Death like item)
Herbalism – grants you a free HoT that heals up to 3600 damage (best paired with Elephant Racial).
Jewelcrafting - up to 42 Strength/Resilience
- Only put one JC gem in your main weapon and only do that when you also have a JC Gem in your one handed weapon or else you will lose stats when changing weapons.
Tailoring – +400 Attack Power on procc enchanted to your Cloak. Literally the best option since Cloak enchants are useless as a Ret.
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5. Gear, Enchants, Gems
I wont really tell you which item you should get, I will just bloat out the ones I personally think are the best options that exist in the game. It's up to you which one you want to use, especially when it comes to balancing Hit and Resilience.
Green = first choice
Yellow = second choice
Red = third choice/optional
Head -
Wrathful Gladiator's Scaled Helm
Necklace –
Penumbra Pendant //
Ahn'kahar Onyx Neckguard
Shoulders –
Wrathful Gladiator's Scaled Shoulders
Back –
Wrathful Gladiator's Cloak of Triumph //
Winding Sheet
Chest –
Wratfhul Gladiator's Scaled Chest
Bracers –
Polar Bear Claw Bracers(if not Hit capped) //
Wrathful Gladiator's Bracers of Triumph (if Hit capped] //
Umbrage Armbands
Gloves –
Wrathful Gladiator's Scaled Gauntlets
Belt –
Wrathful Gladiator's Girdle of Triumph
Legs –
Wrathful Gladiator's Scaled Legguards
Feet –
Apocalypse's Advance
Ring 1 –
Ashen Band of Endless Might
Ring 2 –
Signet of Twilight (if not Hit capped] //
Skeleton Lord's Circle //
Wrathful Gladiator's Band of Triumph (if you want that extra Resilience]
Trinket 1 –
Medallion of the Horde (
if Horde),
Death's Verdict (258 if Human)
Trinket 2 –
Death's Verdict (245),
Tiny Abomination in a Jar,
Bauble of the True Blood,
Phylactery of the Nameless Lich
Libram –
Wrathful Gladiator's Libram of Justice,
]Libram of Three Truths,
Libram of Valiance
Two Handed Weapons -
Bryntroll the Bone Arbiter,
Shadowmourne,
Wrathful Gladiator's Claymore/Crusher (277!)
One Handed Spell Power Weapons -
Bloodsurge, Kel'Thuzad's Blade of Agony/Royal Scepter of Terenas 2,
Wrathful Gladiator's Salvation (277!)
One Handed Attack Power Weapons –
Last Word
Shield -
Wrathful Gladiator's Barrier
Trinket Choices:
Bauble of the True Blood
- Amazing against caster classes and a great boost of survivability. Will also tilt a lot of people if you beat them with this trinket. However, useless for two minutes once used.
Phylactery of the Nameless Lich
- Actually in my opinion the best trinket you can ever get as a Ret. This is something not many people know about but it literally gives you everyting you want. A huge amount of Crit and 1207 Spellpower (which boosts your Judgement and Healing output immense.
- However, this one is only useful as a Human because when it comes to Death's Verdict or Phylactery in combination with a PvP Trinket, Death's Verdict still wins. This is a Trinket to increase the burst of your Judgements, best paired with Avenging Wrath.
- May be used as a Dueling/World PvP trinket, not recommended for Arenas and Battlegrounds.
Tiny Abomination in a Jar
- In my opinion only useful with Shadowmourne, a /cancelaura Shadowbane macro and Seal of Command specc.
Weapons:
Last Word
- You want to use this weapon as an addition to your Two Handed and One Handed Weapons. Basically you want to make it procc and then swap to your weapon of choice. +115 Strength & 340 Healing received is a huge amount.
Bryntoll the Bone Arbiter
- Earlier in this guide I talked about Haste builds. This is the item you want to get when you're going for PvE pieces that have Haste in it. The „Chance on Hit“ can be really amazing especially against Deathknights and Caster classes.
Informations Lynea didn't tell you:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynea
„PvE items: Using two parts of Tier 10 for the set bonus can be effective. It is also very popular to use a PvE weapon for additional damage.“
The only reason you ever want to do this is because you're running a Bryntoll Haste build. However, this build lacks in Resilience, therefore only viable if you're not a Human. Also since Judgement is your highest damage spell, you really don't want to sacrifice the -1 CD the set grants you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynea
Trinkets: Sharpened Twilight Scale // Deathbringer's Will
Do not ever build them. Yes, Deathbringer's Will has an amazing procc, but it's way too RNG as a Ret to be useful at all. Also the passive stat Armor Penetration is just useless, that's why you're better of with Death's Verdict due to granting you both Attack Damage and Spellpower even when it's not procced.
Enchants:
Head = Arcanum of Triumph Enchant (+50 Attack Power, +20 Resilience)
Shoulders = Inscription of Triumph (+40 Attack Power +15 Resilience)
Back = +22 Agility // Swordguard Embroidery (+400 Attack Power when procced)
Chest = Chest – Exceptional Resilience (+20 Resilience)
Bracers = Bracers – Greater Assault (+50 Attack Power)
Gloves = Gloves – Crusher (+44 Attack Power) // Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket
Belt = Eternal Belt Buckle (+free Gem Slot), Frag Belt
Legs = Icescale Leg Armor (+75 Attack Power, +22 Crit) // Earthen Leg Armor (+40 Resilience, +28 Stamina)
Boots = Boots – Greater Assault (+32 Attack Power) // Nitro Boosts
Two Handed Weapon = Berserking (+400 Attack Power, -5% Armor) // Icy Chill (for additional kiting) // Death Frost (vs. Casters)
One Handed Spell Power Weapon = Weapon – Mighty Spellpower (+63 Spell Power)
One Handed Attack Power Weapon = Weapon – Mighty Spellpower (+63 Spell Power)
Shield = Shield – Resilience (+12 Resilience)
Gems:
Meta - Relentless Earthsiege Diamond (+21 Agility, +3% increased critical strike damage)
Red - Bold Cardinal Ruby (+20 Strength)
Yellow - Bold Cardinal Ruby (+20 Strength) // Mystic King's Amber (+20 Resilience, if you feel like you need more resilience, more common as a Human)
Blue – Bold Cardinal Ruby (+20 Strength), 1x Nightmare Tear (to activate Meta)
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6. Talents, Glyphs
"Battleground, World PvP with a Healer, Maximum Judgement/Seal Damage"
"08/15 generic Duelspecc"
It's up to you how you want to balance Vindication and Righteous Vengeance. But having at least one point in Vindication can be really useful because it serves as a Trashdebuff against Casters and reduces damage output from Melee classes slightly.
"Tryhard/Arena"
"Tiny Abomination in a Jar feat. Shadowmourne"
Glyphs:
Glyph of Judgement is a must have while Glyph of Seal of Righteousness gets useless with one or less points in Seals of the Pure
https://i.imgur.com/vxfpAY8.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/Ny2gfSP.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/4LlVJQI.png
Judgement = 10% more damage from your Judgements
Seal of Righteousness = 10% more damage done by Seal of Righteousness
Salvation = If you cast Hand of Salvation on yourself, your damage taken gets reduced by 20%
Cleansing = Purify & Cleanse cost 20% less Mana
Exorcism = Exorcism deals 20% more damage
Hammer of Justice = +5yards to your Hammer of Justice
Turn Evil = Turn Evil is an instant cast, but has a 8 sec Cooldown
Blessing of Kings = 50% reduced costs for Blessing of Kings
The Wise = 50% reduced cost for Seal of Wisdom
Sense Undead = 1% increased damage against Undeads while Sense Undead is active
Things mentioned in Lynea's Guide:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynea
Toughness over Divinity
Divinity grants you +2% additional healings from all of your sources (Sheath of Light, Flash of Light, Judgement of Light, Seal of Light) even tho 2% is not much, it is in my opinion better than getting 200-600 armor depending on your gear. The Slow duration doesn't matter since you will get rid of all your slows anyway and if you can't, it's usually because it's ground that slows you therefore you cant utilize the 6% enough. However, it's preference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynea
"Benediction VS. Deflection - 5% chance to parry (chance to avoid damage) against reduction of spell mana cost when you have almost infinite mana as it is? Well, it all depends on if you have mana issues or want to avoid the issue.“
Yes, +5% increased parrying looks good on paper, but +10% reduced Mana costs on literally every spell you own is a must have. Especially when it comes to dispeling, reapplying trash buffs and spaming Judgements into Shields (because youre doing it wrong) these 10% can actually decide wether you die or not.
Even when get around 1,4-1,8k Mana per Judgement back, you will spend even more mana than you got when using Deflection while your Judgement is on cooldown. So always use Benediction over Deflection
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynea
Improved Blessing of Might: "Improved Blessing of Might - Sure, it increases your attack power by a small amount when you use it, but often times it will be dispelled/spellstolen, and you might be using Blessing of Kings instead, anyway.“
You will use Blessing of Might against people that will steal your spells, and having an additional +137 Attack Power can be really useful. However, Blessing of Kings wins in every situation as long as your average item level is at around 264.
The worse your gear, the better you're off with Improved Blessing of Might. The better your gear, the worse you're off with it.
Even when you will still use Blessing of Might against Mages in every situation.
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7. Macros
Quote:
/cancelaura Chaos Bane
+270 Strength is amazing, yes, but the damage Chaos Bane deals is way better. Especially because Avenging Wrath is also increasing its damage. Also your Crusader Strike and Divine Storm can stack the stacks up rather fast again.
Quote:
/cancelaura Divine Plea
In case a Mage wants to steal it or you need to Heal up and would be in danger with this buff still being on you. Try to cancel it after it granted you a portion of mana so you don't waste it.
Quote:
/cancelaura Divine Shield
/cancelaura Hand of Protection
I usually use Divine Shield as a second trinket, canceling it in the moment I used it to not lose any damage. There are situations where it's still better to sit it out, heal yourself or chase your enemy while having this Buff, but there are situations where you just need a second Trinket.
Quote:
#showtooltip Blessing of Might(Rank 10)
/cancelaura Blessing of Kings
/cast Blessing of Might(Rank 10)
Against Mages.
Quote:
/cancelaura Avenging Wrath
Against Mages.
Quote:
#showtooltip Avenging Wrath
/cast Avenging Wrath
/cast Judgement of Light
/use Global Thermal Sapper Charge
Burst macro that deals a huge amount of damage.
Quote:
#showtooltip Judgement of Justice
/cast Judgement of Justice
/stopattack
In case of Retaliation
Quote:
/equip Wrathful Gladiator's Salvation
/equip Wrathful Gladiator's Barrier
One Handed Spell Power Weapon Macro (you can change the names for your weapons)
Quote:
/equip Last Word
/equip Wrathful Gladiator's Barrier
For Last Word Dance
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8. Spell List, skip if you already know which Spells a Paladin has
Holy
Cleanse: Dispels Poisons, Magic and Diseases at the same time.
Be careful with dispeling Vampiric Touch, Living Bomb, Unstable Affliction, Wyvern Sting, Haunt.
Purify: When you want to dispel Poisons/Diseases but there's one of the magic school debuffs above on you.
Consecration: Deals damage if people stand in its zone. High costs, good tool for zoning and supports you quite good against Rogues.
Divine Plea: Replenishes 25% of your base mana but reduces your Healing done by 50%. You usually want to use this one when youre not taking damage/your health is full and have a good Sheath of Light procc on you. You want to use it before you run out of Mana, not when you already ran out of it.
Exorcism: Great Damage Spell with a 15 sec Cooldown. Great way to get rid of Grounding Totems or when you just don't have anything else to use at the moment.
Flash of Light (+Art of War Procc): Your main healing ability. Proper use of this spell is what makes the difference of a good Paladin and a regular/bad Paladin. See Sacred Shield for more informations.
Holy Light: Heals for a good amount especially when it crits. Common strat is to swap into your Spellpower Weapon after using Repentance or hiding behind something and then use this spell.
Holy Wrath: Great way to stun Gargoyles, Warlock Pets, Deathknights (Lichborn) and Warlocks (Metamorphosis)
Lay on Hands: Never use this, thank you. Replenishes 100% of your maximum Health to your target and restores 1950 Mana.
Sacred Shield: Absorbs up to 4k damage depending on your Spell Power. If it's absorb proccs your Flash of Light has a +50% chance to crit, that's why you always want to use Flash of Light when Sacred Shield proccs.
Rule of Thumb: Once Sacred Shield ran out you die.
Turn Evil: Fears Gargoyles, Warlock Pets, Deathknights (Lichborn) and Warlocks (Metamorphosis)
Protection:
Divine Protection: Reduces all damage Taken by 50%, great Cooldown when your enemy has used his offensive Cooldowns (for example Shadow Dance, Bladestorm).
Divine Sacrifice: 30% of the damage taken from your party members gets redirected to you. Great way to escape Blind, Sheep, Scattering Shot, Freezing Trap, Hex. Paired with Divine Guardian it also decreases damage taken by 20% so it's like Divine Protection when you're alone. Can be used when Hexed or W
Divine Shield: "I hate this Noob Class!" - literally everyone who lost to a Paladin using this spell. This is one of the most amazing spells in the entire game. Grants you immunity to everything (except Mass Dispel and Shattering Throw) for 12 seconds and reduces your damage done by 50%. You can use it as a Trinket, avoid Burst damage, Bubble/Hearthstone Panic Button, a way to dispel every Debufff (Mortal Strike as an example) and to heal yourself.
Hammer of Justice: Stuns your Target for 6 seconds (and interrupt NPCs for 3 seconds). Your main Crowd Control Ability. You can use it to interrupt Spells, get in range, make people waste their Cooldowns, force a Blink.
Addition: if you sidestep jump on max range and use it at the same time you can increase the Range of your Hammer of Justice by 1-3yards. Quite useful against Mages that Blink instantly when they're stunned or to get back to your Main Target when you want to stun a Healer.
Hand of Freedom: Grants you immunity to slows and movement impairing effects and removes a Stun as a Retribution Paladin with Divine Purpose. Helps you kiting your enemies.
Hand of Protection: Divine Shield but you can cast it on a friendly party member. However the person affected by Hand of Protection can not use physical abilities and still gets harmed by offensive spells and dispels. You usually want to use it as a additional Trinket for your party member or to save him in dangerous situations when there is no enemy to dispel it. Can also be used to get rid of spells like Mortal Strike (but that's a Holy Paladin thing).
Hand of Reckoning: Taunts your enemy, keeps them infight/interrupts eating and drinking. Not affected by Global Cooldowns.
Hand of Sacrifice: Basically what Divine Sacrifice does, but no Damage Reduction
Hand of Salvation: Reducing total threat in PvE, reduces damage taken by 20% if you cast it on yourself wtih the Hand of Salvation Glyph.
Righteous Fury: Trashbuff that decreases your damage taken by 6% with Improved Righteous Fury. Costs no mana therefore you should always spam this Buff when people are dispeling you to waste their mana.
Shield of Righteousness: Deals more damage than Crusader Strike and Divine Storm when you're using a One Handed Weapon and a Shield, but does not trigger Art of War.
Retribution:
Avenging Wrath: Increases all of your Damage and Healing done by 20% for 20 seconds. Perfect to burst people to force defensive Cooldowns or to kill them when they've spent their defensive Cooldowns. You don't want to instantly cast it when the Duel starts to burst them down. Can get dispeled and spellstolen.
Crusader Strike: Deals 97% weapon damage. Critical Strikes trigger Art of War and Righteous Vengeance. You mainly want to pair it with Auto Attacks and to break Shields before using Judgement.
Divine Storm: Deals 110% weapon damage, has a 8yard range so you can use it while kiting enemies and still hit them because you don't need to be in melee range. Also heals you (and two other party members) for 25% of the damage dealt. Critical Strikes trigger Art of War and Righteous Vengeance.
Hammer of Wrath: Execution Spell that has an additional 50% chance to deal a critical strike. Always use it when it's ready and Judgement is on Cooldown because it deals more damage than Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, Exorcism and Shield of Righteousness.
Judgement of Justice: Deals a huge amount of damage depending on your Seal and debuffs your enemy. Enemies affected by Judgement of Justice will have their maximum movement speed decreased to 100%, so spells like Sprint, Nitroboost, Ghost Wolf will be useless. Helps in kiting enemies.
Judgement of Light: Deals a huge amount of damage depending on your Seal and debuffs your enemy. Attacks against the marked target will heal the attacker for 2% of his maximum health. You want to use this Judgement mostly.
Judgement of Wisdom: Deals a huge amount of damage depending on your Seal and debuffs your enemy. Attacks against the marked target will restore 2% of the attackers maximum mana.
Repentance: Incapacites your target for 6 seconds. Mainly used to CC Healers, to Heal yourself or force a trinket. Incoming damage breaks the effect.
Blessings
Blessing of Wisdom: Replenishes 92 Mana every 5 seconds (around 18,4 Mana per second), most useful on Healers
Blessing of Kings: Increases total Stats (Base Stats) by 10%. Most useful against people above 264 itemlevel. The Buff you always want to use.
Blessing of Might: Increases Attack Power by 550. Gets removed by Battle Shout. Most useful with Improved Blessing of Might (+687 Attack Power instead) when your average item level is below 264.
Auras
Devotion Aura: Increases your Armor by 1205. Good against Rogues and Feral Druids that open on you and Hunters.
Fire-, Frost-, Shadow Resistance Aura: Grants 130 Frost-, Fire- or Shadow Resistance. Makes you resist these kind of magic schools as long as they don't have enough Spell Penetration.
Retribution Aura: Acts like Thorns. Each time someone hits you with a physical attack you cause around 168 Holy Damage. This is the Aura you want to use in every situation (except you're playing against Casters, Healers and Hunters).
Seal Spells
Seal of Righteousness: Your main damage ability. Deals a huge amount of Judgement Damage, scales extremely well with both Spell Power and Attack Power. Every Weapon Swing, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm deals additional Seal damage. You want to use it all of the time.
Seal of Light: No. Every attack has a chance to replenish 1157 health, does moderate Judgement damage.
Seal of Wisdom: Most effective against Priests that Mana Burn you or if you've managed to run out of Mana. Each attack has a chance to replenish 4% of your maximum mana. Perfect with Judgement of the Wise. Deals moderate Judgement damage.
Seal of Justice: Trollseal. Your Attacks have a chance to stun your target for 2 seconds. Can be useful against Healers, doesn't share the same diminishing return with Hammer of Justice. Deals moderate Judgement damage.
Seal of Vengeance: Your attacks have a chance to deal additional damage and debuff your enemy with a DoT. You want to change between this Seal and Seal of Righteousness in certain Matchups. Judgement deals moderate to high damage depending on stacks.
Seal of Command: Scales best with Attack Power and Weapon Damage. Deals a huge amount of damage per Attack, that's why it's best paired with Shadowmourne and Tiny Abomination in a Jar. Deals weak Judgement damage.
Addiotional Spells:
Gift of the Naaru: a Heal over Time with a 3 minute Cooldown. Can sometimes save your life, especially with Lifebloom but usually not worth it.
Stoneform: Gives 10% armor for a few seconds and cleanses you of Diseases (even with Unholy Blight), Bleeding Effects (good against Rend, Rupture and Garrote combinations) and Poisons (when you need to get rid of that Wound Poison asap to heal yourself). In my opinion extremely good for Healers, but useless as a Retribution Paladin.
Arcane Torrent: Silences every person hit by 2 seconds and replenishes 6% of your Mana. Extremely useful as a Paladin since you don't have any interrupts. 2 minute Cooldown.
Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket: Great way to get Rogues that want to restealth, kill Grounding Totems, break Shields or just have an additional source of damage. 45 Second Cooldown.
Global Thermal Sapper Charge: See Burst Macro. Deals a pretty decent amount of damage.
Frag Belt/Cobalt Frag Bomb: Deals a bit of damage and incapacitates every enemy hit for two seconds. Can be hard to land properly against moving enemies, but great way to interrupt spells, gain distance or to sneak in a Flash of Light.
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9. Basic PvP/Duels
Even when there are lot of people doing that and are actually winning by this method, please never start with Repentance -> Hammer of Justice > Avenging Wrath > Judgement/Crusader Strike/Divine Storm. Every person that knows what a Paladin can do will win the Duel instantly once your Avenging Wrath ran out.
This is my opinion on how to deal with these classes. If you have a different opinion or think that my information is incorrect, feel free to correct me.
Green = Easy
Yellow = Skill/Experience based
Red = Hard
Warrior (
Protection,
Fury,
Arms)
- Always jump away when they charge, if you're good at abusing your environment this can actually help you getting not damaged at all while being stunned from the first charge.
- You can Hand of Freedom/Trinket Intercept (only use this against Intercept due to stun duration being longer) while outjumping the charge to make it completely useless, especially paired with a Judgement of Justice. Keep in mind that if you trinket Intercept a Warrior can still fear you.
- (more for Holy Paladins) Don't just hammer in your Hammer of Justice when it's ready. It will trigger Second Wind. Try to bait the trinket with the first one and then only HoJ when the Warrior has proccs or Mortal Strike has less than two seconds remaining which basically means you can heal yourself without any form of healing reduction.
- Warriors can't use Berserker Rage when they're on Enraged Regeneration, therefore you should Repentance them when they've used Enraged Regeneration so they have to cancelaura it or wait till it's gone (don't do this when they're standing on Consecration).
- If a warrior has used Retaliation, you can Hand of Freedom + Judgement of Justice out of range if playing correctly. Also you should sit on your One Handed Spell Power Weapon, facing the Warrior and use your "Retaliation" macro till it runs out.
- Kite.Shield Block. Revenge hurts.
- Shattering Throw removes Divine Shield and Hand of Protection
- Don't use Repentance and Hammer of Justice on Spell Reflect
Important Spells:
Sacred Shield
Judgement of Justice/Light
Hand of Freedom
Retribution Aura
Paladins (
Holy,
Protection,
Retribution)
- You can't kill a Holy Paladin
- Ret vs. Ret is all about who dances and kites better
- Flash of Light into Sacred Shield proccs
- You want to Crusader Strike the Sacred Shield procc before using Judgement
- You dont want to waste your mana dispeling unless you can get that Judgement of Justice of in 1-2 dispels
- It's usually better to trinket the second Repentance instead of the first one (unless youre 100% certain you will get the kill) because usually Paladins can't rotate their cooldowns in a way that they will survive a burst on their second Repentance. This means they will have to blow up a big cooldown or die. But comes down to Experience.
- Bloodelf tip: you can HoJ a Paladin when his Global Cooldown is triggered and use Arcane Torrent when his GCD is gone so you win around 0,1-0,9 seconds from plus an additional 2 seconds from Arcane Torrent (they cant Hand of Freedom while being silenced). Only works against Retribution Paladins, and tracking/manipulating Global Cooldowns is a hard thing to master. A good way to improve at it is to play as a Shadow Priest against Warriors.
- The Paladin with more Spellpower/better Weapons usually wins in Ret vs. Ret that's why dancing is so important
- Repentance has two uses. 1) Heal yourself 2) Interrupt Healings and end the Duel
Important Spells:
Sacred Shield
Flash of Light
Hand of Freedom
Repentance
Retribution Aura
Judgement of Light/Justice
Hunters (
Beastmaster,
Marksman,
Survival)
- Don't Hand of Freedom the Ravager stun, you will get rid of it but you're still knocked down
- Seal of Justice & Devotion Aura are your friends
- Always try to Crusader Strike/Divine Storm his pet for Art of War Proccs
- Check your environment and try to manipulate the Hunter into a location where it gets harder to kite (mountains, terrain going up instead of down, objects behind him which he may not see when fighting, etc.)
- Dispel everything
- Hunters can dispel so check your buffs frequently and re-apply them if needed
- If needed just Divine Shield a freezing trap instead of eating the CC and then try to get in range with Judgement of Justice
- As long as you're not in melee range you should sit on your Spell Power Weapon and Crusader Strike/Divine Storm the Pet to get Art of War proccs
- Watch out for Deterrance
Important Spells:
Hand of Freedom
Scared Shield
Devotion Aura
Hammer of Justice
Repentance
Judgement of Justice
Divine Shield
PvP Trinket
Devotion Aura
Rogues (
Assassination,
Combat,
Sublety)
- Sit on your Spell Power Weapon till he blows up all of his cooldowns
- You can usually win this by just spaming Judgement, Exorcism and having the Rogue attack you in Consecration
- Judgement of Justice is your friend
- Hand of Freedom Kidney Shot as soon as it appears
- Jump around like the Floor is Lava and annoy the Rogue with it to get some distance
- Just spam dispel and Flash of Light when you managed to get rid of Wound Poison
- Dont even bother trying to burst/attack when Evasion is up, wait till its over
- Rogue trinkets on Repentance? Great, you've won the fight. Press Avenging Wrath to make them feel superior because you needed Wings or just don't and make them feel bad.
- Rogue trinkets on HoJ? Repentance, Dispel, Heal up and win the fight.
- Hand of Reckoning keeps them infight
- You can use Divine Sacrifice in Garrote in case a Sublety Rogue starts with Garrote and Shadow Dance
Important Spells:
Hand of Freedom
Judgement of Justice
Repentance
Hammer of Justice
Consecration
Cleanse
Sacred Shield
Divine Sacrifice
Hand of Reckoning
PvP Trinket
Devotion Aura on start, Retribution Aura after opening
Priests(
Discipline,
Holy,
Shadow)
- Seal of Vengeance + Righteousness Dancing will help you against Healers (or just Seal of the Wise + Judgement of the Wise till theyre out of mana)
- Usually takes years, one person goes oom and loses
- Shadowpriests usually win when they're still alive when their 3rd Fear is ready so try to kill them before that happens
- Manaburn? Just run straight through them and always try to be behind them
- Dispel Shadow Word: Pain and Devouring Plague immediately (Vampiric Touch only if you have an Art of War Procc with your spellpower weapon up)
- Always rebuff yourself so they spend additional mana on their dispel, if RNG hates them they just go oom
- Fighting a Shadow Priest is a really good way to learn how to fight against casters since it's a pure Skill matchup
- Trinket their first fear, Divine Shield their second one and wait 1-2 seconds, then cancelaura it. They wont have enough time to heal properly, nor can they re-apply dots because of the window you're still immune. (This is the way I usually fight against them, there are different tactics and there can be better ways to beat them)
- Starting Hammer of Justice and Avenging Wrath while being buffed is actually legit against them and can really hurt them when their dispel isn't dispeling perfectly
- you can use Hammer of Justice as an interrupt instead of a CC, you basically want to avoid getting Vampiric Touched/want to interrupt that Flashheal.
- Thanks to Sanctified Wrath you can still burst Shadowpriests with Avenging Wrath when they used Dispersion in Hammer of Justice.
- You want to use Avenging Wrath to end the Duel
Important Spells:
Repentance
Hammer of Justice
Cleanse
Sacred Shield, Righteous Fury, Blessing of Kings, Hand of Salvation, Hand of Sacrifice, Hand of Freedom
Divine Sacrifice
Divine Shield
PvP Trinket
Shadow Resistance Aura
Deathknights (
Blood,
Frost,
Unholy,
Hybrid)
- For the love of god kill the pet – a dead pet cant be Deathpacted, stun you and deal additional damage.
- Deathknights love to kite and hate it if you're in control of kiting
- Try to avoid Desecration at any costs
- You usually want to Hand of Freedom the stun from their pet, but you can also use it to get rid of Desecration/getting kited and then use trinket on the stun
- The only reason you should not kill the pet is if you're running Phylactery of the Nameless Lich because of Art of War proccs and when Anti Magic Shell isn't on Cooldown.
- DK used Gargoyle or Lichborn? Holy Wrath & Turn Evil them
- Try to LoS the Gargoyle to avoid getting killed by it
- You cant use Hammer of Justice on Icebound Fortitude, but you can Repentance it
- Sit on spellpower weapon when Icebound Fortitude & Anti Magic Shell are up
- Always dispel everything. A DK doesnt heal and doesnt do damage if it has to re-apply his diseases all the time.
- As long as the Deathcoil didn't hit you you can still dispel diseases. You can actually dispel up to two diseases when Deathcoil is flying towards you depending on your distance, GCD management and ping.
- Paladins win this fight unless they screwed up.
- The first minute usually determines the winner of the Duel even when the duel takes more than 5 minutes.
- Dueling DKs is the best way to learn Retribution Paladin
Important Spells:
Judgement of Light/Justice
Cleanse
Sacred Shield
Flash of Light
Repentance/Hammer of Justice
Holy Wrath/Turn Evil
Shadow Resistance Aura
Shamans (
Elemental,
Enhancement,
Restoration)
- Always re-apply (trash) buffs
- You wont kill Restoshamans
- Enhancementshamans are useful as long as they have their cooldowns popped. Much resilience is appreciated for this matchup. The longer you survive the easier this matchup gets
- LoS Eleshamans and wait for them to come, you will lose when you're trying to get in range especially open field
- This means you have to make the Shaman come to you, punish him for that but dont follow him on grounds where you can't hide and heal up
- Always try to kill Grounding Totems when possible (but dont Judgement them)
- Judgement of Justice is your friend
- Hand of Freedom Earthbinding Totem Roots
- You want to tilt the Shaman with sitting behind objects
Important Spells:
Judgement of Light (Enhancement)
Judgement of Justice
Cleanse
Scared Shield, Blessing of Kings, Righteous Fury, Divine Plea, Hand of Sacrifice, Hand of Salvation, Hand of Freedom
Exorcism
Fire Resistance Aura (Elemental Shamans)
Frost Resistance Aura (Enhancement Shamans when they're trying to kite), Retribution Aura (if not)
Mages (
Arcane,
Fire,
Frost)
- Farm as much Frost Resistance Gear as possible to stand a chance against Frostmages
- Always fight in for the Mage unfair conditions
- Blessing of Might in every situation, use Sacred Shield to negate damage and cancelaura it instantly if Mage tries to steal it
- If you Hammer of Justice the Mage dont run into Melee range, just stun him and sit around ~10yards and see what the Mage does
- Never. Run. Towards. A. Mage. With. Blink. Up. When. You. HoJ. It. It will just blink in the direction it faces, it's usually better to stun them, most mages will blink instantly so you want to close the cap as fast as possible
- Hand of Freedom removes Deep Freeze
- Repentance Evocation
[*)Don't trinket Polymorph unless you fight an Arcane Mage - Watch out for Blizzard when you try to LoS him
- A good Mage always wins
Important Spells:
Hand of Freedom
Cleanse
Judgement of Justice
Repentance
Hand of Freedom
Blessing of Might
Righteous Fury, Hand of Salvation, Hand of Sacrifice, Sacred Shield only if buffed
Frost Resistance Aura (Arcane, Frost)
Fire Resistance Aura (Fire)
Warlocks (
Affliction,
Demonology,
Destruction)
- A good Affliction Warlock is like a Frostmage – you wont be able to win
- When a Demonology Warlock used Metamorphosis you can Fear them with Turn Evil and Stun them with Holy Wrath
- Hand of Freedom Shadowfury instantly so you can dispel the incoming immolate as soon as possible, because eating a Conflag will lose you the duel
- The person that has more free time to burst wins
- CC pet when using Avenging Wrath so it wont instantly dispel it/Hammer of Justice
- Always have Trashbuffs on the Warlock (Vindication, Judgements, Righteous Vengeance) before stunning it so the pet has a higher chance of dispeling the wrong buff
- Never ever use your Avenging Wrath when you can get feared for 9 seconds
- You want to end it before the second 9 second Fear hits you
- For Demonic Circle you want to either a) kite the warlock in it's range so the distance the Warlock travels will be reduced or b) anticipate it like the Mage Blink and then hide behind objects so the warlock has to fight you
Important Spells:
Sacred Shield
Flash of Light
Cleanse
Hand of Freedom
Holy Wrath
Devotion Aura (to reduce some Pet damage, Curse of the Elements renders your Resistance Auras useless)
Druids (
Balance,
Feral Combat,
Restoration)
- Boomkins can be annoying, just dispel everything as soon as it's up on you, Hand of Freedom Typhoon & Trinket Cyclone + HoJ them when their trinket is on cooldown. Dueling a Boomkin is about who catches each other off-guard, they wont kill you and you wont kill them unless you surprise them.
- The Eleshamantactic also works wonders against them
- You can HoJ Star Fall to negate some damage and force trinket
- Judgement of Justice is your friend
- If against Feral Druids, Hand of Freedom their Stun and sit on spellpower weapon all night long and Judgement them till they're dead. Burst them when their defensive spells are on cooldown/their trinket is gone.
- You want to Repentance the Druid when he shifted out of form to heal himself
Important Spells:
Cleanse
Judgement of Justice
Sacred Shield
Flash of Light
Repentance
Devotion Aura (against Ferals), Retribution Aura (against Ferals after opening)
Concentration Aura (against Balance Druids)
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10. Advanced Stuff
Art of War and Sacred Shield Proccs
I already talked about this but I want to make sure to talk about it again because this is a really important subject many Paladins just dont think about which then ends to them losing the Duel. Yes, a simple skill like this can actually lose you the fight.
If you experience an Art of War procc do not instantly use it to heal yourself, even when you want the additional health. It's better to wait one or two seconds and have your Sacred Shield procc and then cast your Flash of Light because its critical hit chance will be +50% when Sacred Shield has procced. It's better to wait one more second and then get that crit instead of wasting a precious procc, not having it crit and then be unlucky and dont get any more Art of War crits.
Weapon Dancing
If you watch experienced Rets doing PvP you will notice that they won't usually sit on their two handed weapon. It's more likely that you will see them using a one handed spell power weapon and a shield. But why is that?
Art of War & Sheath of Light is your answer.
What you want to do is to maximize your healing output while maintining the damage done you do while wielding a 2 handed weapon.
An example would be like this:
Start with Shadowmourne
Art of War proccs and you're below 80% health
dance weapons into 1handed Weapon + shield, use Flash of Light when your Sacred Shield proccs for the +50% crit chance and then change back to your two handed weapon to maximize your damage with Crusader Strike and Divine Storm.
It's not wrong to use Judgement when sitting on a one handed weapon, because it scales extremely well with Spellpower and sometimes you need more than one Flash of Light/Art of War procc to get more than 90% health again.
This is what „dancing your weapons“ means, you change your weapons according to the situation.
Then we have a advanced version of weapon dancing. You basically add a 3rd weapon into your dance, it's Last Word. You use that weapon to get it to procc and then change to either your 2handed weapon or spellpower weapon according to what you need.
Please mind that you should not dance in every situation, it's actually most useful against Paladins and Deathknights and less useful against casters.
You will also use your one handed weapon different against casters, Feral Druids and Rogues.
Seal Dancing
Another dance Rets can do is Seal Dancing. Most useful Seal dance is Seal of Vengeance till you've stacked the DoT 5x, then go back to Seal of Righteousness for better bursting. Then change back to Seal of Vengeance again to refresh the DoTs, then change back to SoR again.
You also dont want to change into Seal of Righteousness to refresh the DoT when your Auto Attack has just happened. You want to change as soon as your Auto Attack is happening, apply the DoT, then change back to Seal of Righteousness so your Crusader Strike and Divine Storm apply the Seal Damage from SoR again. This way you wont risk losing around 500-800 damage.
This is the most useful method to fight Healers and Retribution Paladins.
Keep in mind that excessive Seal Dancing will drain your mana extremely fast.
Libram Dancing
The 3rd and hardest dance Paladins can do is to Lib-Dance. This is a thing I haven't really seen Paladins doing at all and most of the people don't know about it, even in higher Arena brackets. You can do this one as a Shaman, Paladin and Deathknight.
Basically what you want to do is to get a good amount of Bonus Strength from a Libram like Libram of the Three Truths (+220 Strength) or Libram of Valiance (+200 Strength) and still have the +510 spellpower bonus for Flash of Light.
Example situation:
You start the Duel against a Person with Seal of Vengeance and Libram of Valiance. You managed to get a DoT from Seal of Vengeance on your target and dance back to Seal of Righteousness. After around 3 seconds Libram of Valiance should procc so you change your Libramd of Valiance back to your Wrathful Gladiator's Libram of Justice.
If you're not used to Seal Dancing you could exchange Libram of Valiance with Libram of the Three Truths and stack it up in your Spell Power Weapon 5x, then change both your Weapon and Libram again. Once it's stacked and done properly you only need to change your Libram for two seconds while keeping the stacks up.
If you're really used at doing so there are Duels and situations where you can dance your Librams in a way where you get 420 Strength and the +510 Healing Bonus. This is immense, especially against Retribution Paladins and Healers.
Cons of Dancing:
This all looks really amazing and nice on paper, but it's actually really hard to do properly. The reason why is due to the global cooldown appearing as soon as you change your weapons and seals infight. It's hard to find a proper balance between rotating your spells in a way where you wont conflict your cooldowns, changing Librams and Weapons and then dealing damage at the same time. Especially when fighting tough enemies.
Imagine you're low on health and stuck on Libram of Valiance and Shadowmourne. What you actually want is to have in this situation is your Spell Power weapon up and your Wrathful Gladiator's Libram for the extra healing. But you don't. So you will need to change both your weapons and your Librams while also maybe needing to deal some damage because Art of War hasn't procced yet. Which means you lose out more than 3 seconds which can cost you an entire duel.
Paladin is usually about doing many things in a short amount of time. It needs planning and thinking ahead. Where do you want your health to be, where do you want your enemy to be?
It's like playing chess and your Weapons, Spells, Seals and Librams being your pieces you move to kill the King. You can only move one piece at a time.
This is why I usually get annoyed when people say that Paladin is „easy and requires three buttons to play“ because they don't.
Yes, they deal a ridicoulous amount of damage and can burst people down in less than three seconds, but playing Paladin on a higher level is rather difficult because you dont have your basic spells to use, like a warrior, you also have your Librams, Seals and Weapons you need to utilize.
Kiting, Abusing Swing Timers
The last thing I want to talk about is Kiting and abusing swing timers.
What is kiting?
Kiting is a „hit and run“ technique that allows you to trade with your enemy while avoiding most of their damage.
The classical example is the following (this is an example):
Warrior charges and wants to damage you
You jump out of his charge to gain distance.
Then you want to use Judgement of Justice to slow him down to 100% movement speed, but because you have Pursuit of Justice you will be 15% faster. This means it is way harder for the warrior to hit you in his melee range because you are faster than him.
What you now want to do is to walk around him avoiding his melee range. So you use Divine Storm, Judgement and Exorcism to attack him, while he cant attack you. Then you will use Consecrate and kite the warrior inside of it for an additional damage output.
Now the warrior will do two things – jump back and Intercept you, which you can prevent with jumping away and Hand of Freedom/Trinket it and repeating the same or he will try to get in Range with Piercing Howl.
Which means you know what the Warrior will do next. So you can counter him on that move. Maybe the Warrior failed and has zero debuffs on you, that's perfect. He wont have proccs and enough rage to hurt you, so you can allow him to fight you on your conditions.
An example would be you HoJ him and use your rotations to force a trinket or some defensive cooldowns and then you will just kite him again because you chose to not let him do as he pleases.
This is how kiting is supposed to be. You keep your distance and manipulate your enemy into limited options which you profit from.
Yes you will get hit and slowed, but that's fine. If youre kiting him properly he needs to answer with Cooldowns and thats what you want to do. You want to burn his cooldowns and then beat him with yours, because he has no cooldowns left.
If you want to learn how to Kite you should Duel Warriors as an Unholy Deathknight.
Another thing you should consider when kiting/zoning your enemy into a certain terrin is abusing your swing timers.
Your Auto Attacks deal damage and apply Seal damage. Not much but it can be pretty decent (usually 1k-3,5k). But you wont really attack every second. If you're using Shadowmourne, your base speed is 3.70 seconds, which means with 0 haste you will auto attack once every 3.70 seconds. What you want to do is to get in Melee range to Auto attack and then move out of it for 3.60 seconds, then go back it to apply another Auto hit and then go back out. You can pair this one up with a Crusader Strike to maximize the damage you do every 4 seconds. The reasons you can do this as a Paladin are your Judgements and Divine Storm having a 8yard range.
Another thing, but quite hard thing to do, is to track the swing timer of your enemy and abuse it. Enemy just did an Auto Attack? Perfect, he wont do another one for 3.60 seconds, so you can train him, then run back out till yours is back up and go back in. He wont be able to utilize his next Auto Attack and has to match yours, therefore he loses around 1-2 seconds worth of damage.
I found myself winning many duels from people just giving up because they couldn't get in range while I was still hitting them as freely as I wanted to, even kiting people for minutes.
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11. Keybinds:
Bind „Strafe Left“ to A
Bind „Strafe Right“ to D
Why? Because you will use your mouse to turn around anyway and moving around with these two changes is way easier and it also allows you to jump away from charges better.
This is what my current binds look like. Feel free to use whatever binds you want, but always remember: using your keyboard is way more efficient than using your mouse.
https://i.imgur.com/1SQnQlG.png
S = Shift (for example: SA = Shift + A)
C = CTRL (for example: C1 = CTRL + 1)
W = MouseWheel (for example: WD = MouseWheel Down)
An additional bind you can use is the ALT key (for example: AE = Alt + E)
I don't use ALT binds because I currently use ALT as an Auto Self Cast.
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12. Addons
Aesa
SnowfallKeyPress
Bartender 4
MoveAnything
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13. Sources
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14. FaQ
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15. Addition
I'm always up for positive Feedback and constructive critik. I know this Guide is really long and there may be informations in it that people may not understand (due to the language barrier) and there even may be useless information in it. Anyway, thank you for reading this and I really hope this Guide could help you out.
