Classic Retribution Paladin DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

As a Retribution Paladin, your rotation mainly consists of two spells: Judgement and Consecration. Judgement is going to be your primary damage spell that you use on cooldown, both because of its Mana efficient damage and because it is a single-target ability that can critically hit (when paired with Seal of Command), enabling it to proc Vengeance. Vengeance procs are critical to your damage rotation as a Retribution Paladin, and lining up Consecration uses with the procs will result in better damage before you run out of Mana.

• Keep Seal of Command up.
• Use Judgement on cooldown.
• Use Consecration with Vengeance procs.
• Use Hammer of Wrath whenever possible when the target is below 20% health.

This is not the most complex rotation, but the primary thing to watch out for is Mana management. Early on, you will run out of Mana quite quickly, so planning out your casts until the end of the fight is important. You can always down rank your Consecration and Judgement if you need to conserve Mana, but you should always be using Judgement on cooldown, even if it is only rank 1, just for the Vengeance procs if it crits.

One of the biggest and most controversial decisions as a Retribution Paladin is which seal to use. Your only real choices for damage are Seal of Command, Seal of Righteousness, and Seal of the Crusader. Seal of the Crusader is never going to be the seal that you use, but Judgement of the Crusader is worth keeping up if the fight will last the full 30 seconds and you can afford to use a debuff slot for it. However, debuff slots are valuable in raids, and most raid groups will not be alright with you using up a debuff slot, meaning most of the time you will never use Seal of the Crusader at all. If you do use it, you will switch to it, use Judgement, then immediately switch back to your previous seal.

The remaining seals that you can choose from are Seal of Command and Seal of Righteousness. Seal of Command does damage based on your weapon damage, and can only proc 7 times per minute. Seal of Righteousness on the other hand does a flat amount of holy damage with every swing. Seal of Command will be better with a slower weapon, specifically with a 3.5 second swing timer or slower. Seal of the Righteousness will be better with faster weapons, but generally you will want to try for slower weapons, which means you will want to be using Seal of Command at Level 60 once you get a good weapon.

Against undead targets, Exorcism and Holy Wrath are also excellent damage sources, but sadly you will not get to use them often in raids until Naxxramas.

Your Blessings are incredibly powerful buffs that should be kept up at all times. You will want to coordinate with the other Paladins in your raid to see who should be buffing what on each class, since you can only use one on any given person at a time. With the Greater Blessings they will last 15 minutes, so you generally will not need to worry about refreshing them in the middle of a fight, but you will want to check between pulls to make sure none are in danger of falling off.

While you will spend most of your time doing damage, do not forget that as a Paladin, one of your core strengths is your ability to support your raid with your powerful utility, specifically your cooldowns. Lay on Hands can be a great panic button if someone is about to die, but also can be a powerful tank cooldown with Improved Lay on Hands. You will want to pair it with a mana potion however since it will drain all of your mana when you use it. Blessing of Freedom and Blessing of Protection can be extremely powerful utility cooldowns as well. Part of mastering Paladin is getting comfortable with using the correct cooldown for the correct situation, both to play defensively and to help others.