Season of Discovery Retribution Paladin DPS Leveling

Retribution Paladin is one of the strongest leveling classes in the game thanks to both their incredible soloing abilities, but also the amount of utility they bring to a group. In Season of Discovery they are made even more powerful with the addition of great tools that mitigate many of the shortcomings the class faced during Classic, such as the addition of Divine Storm which is a great way to deal damage to multiple enemies, and Crusader Strike which returns a ton of mana while filling out what was once a very empty DPS rotation.

The talents highlighted in the build above focus on dealing as much damage as possible. While leveling either inside of a dungeon or out in the world soloing, the best way to maximize your uptime is increasing the rate at which you kill enemies. The quicker you kill an enemy, the less health and mana are consumed, allowing you to maximize your time spent gaining experience and lessening your time regenerating.

• Chest — Divine Storm
• Hands — Crusader Strike
• Legs — Aura Mastery
• Waist — Sheath of Light
• Feet — The Art of War
• Helm — Wrath
• Wrist — Purifying Power
• Back — Righteous Vengeance
• Ring — Holy Specialization
• Ring — Sword Specialization

Divine Storm deals a considerable amount of cleave damage to enemies within melee range as well as providing a small amount of self healing. While solo leveling or in a dungeon, it is rarely faster to fight one enemy at a time, so maximizing the amount of cleave you are able to do will greatly increase your leveling speed.

Crusader Strike deals damage to a target and fills what would otherwise be a very empty rotation. This also returns 5% of your max mana which is likely to be your most limiting resource while leveling.

Aura Mastery acts as a bonus DPS cooldown when paired with Sanctity Aura and should be used often and on cooldown in order to maximize our damage while leveling. With Exorcist becoming baseline there are not many other choices that consistently make sense so Aura Mastery is our default choice as an extra DPS cooldown.

Sheath of Light greatly increases the potency of your damaging and healing abilities.

The Art of War on melee critical strike reduce the cooldown of your Exorcism ability, a key rotational skill that deals a considerable amount of our damage.

Wrath allows your Consecration ability to crit as well as making your Exorcism and Holy Wrath abilities more likely to crit as they double dip with your melee crit chance.

Purifying Power greatly reduces the cooldown of your Exorcism, which is one of your primary damage abilities while also enabling Holy Wrath to be able to be used against all mob types.

Righteous Vengeance causes our Critical Striks of Crusader Strike, Divine Storm and Judgement to apply a damage-over-time effect to your target. While you rarely have a high amount of Critical Strike rating while leveling this is almost an entirely passive increase to your damage when you are able to critically strike with one of these abilities.

Holy Specialization and Sword Specialization increase your respective Hit Rating with your abilities that scale with your Spell Hit and your weapon skill with Swords, while this guide recommends taking Sword Specialization make sure you take the correct specialization for the kind of weapon you are currently using.

If you are unsure where to find these Runes or are just curious what other options may be available, feel free to check out our Paladin Rune guide listed included below to get a better idea of how to plan this all out in your leveling journey.

1. Ensure you have an Aura active.
2. Ensure you have a Blessing active.
3. Keep Seal of Martyrdom up.
4. Use Crusader Strike on cooldown.
5. Use Exorcism on cooldown.
6. Use Divine Storm on cooldown.
7. Use Consecration on cooldown, as mana allows.
8. Use Judgement on cooldown if you have the Mana for it, keeping in mind that you will need to reapply your seal after.
9. Melee.

Do your class quest to get Redemption as soon as possible, while this does not benefit you solo leveling its crucial to have for 5 man dungeons as no matter how skilled or careful your group you are likely to have a death or two.

With Seal of Martyrdom becoming baseline this will be your default seal while leveling. Even with the slight amount of damage it self-inflicts it is still a great choice due to the massive amount of damage it causes compared to the other options and the mana it returns will very quickly outweigh any mana spent on healing yourself through the self-inflicted damage it causes.

Strength is king while leveling your Retribution Paladin, as the more Strength you have the quicker you will kill mobs. Other stats such as Spirit, Intellect and Stamina are also essential to maximize your time spent fighting and minimize down time as much as possible.

1. Strength
2. Spirit
3. Agility
4. Intellect
5. Stamina

Each point of Strength will increase the damage dealt by nearly all of your abilities. Prioritizing this as much as possible is key to killing mobs quickly.

Spirit and Intellect are both great stats for your Retribution Paladin while leveling, Spirit increases your out of combat health and mana regeneration though the goal is to spend as much time fighting as possible this will decrease the amount of time you have to spend regenerating between pulls. Intellect increases your mana pool allowing for more uses of your abilities before having to stop and drink.

Each point of Stamina will give you 10 health points. The more health you have, the more mobs you can pull at once, enabling you to continuously fight for longer. Agility is both a DPS and avoidance stat, as it will give you a small amount of Crit and Dodge. While this is something that certainly benefits your Paladin, it should not be prioritized over Strength.

Leveling Professions at the same time as leveling your character's actual level can slow down you down if you are in a rush to hit level cap. However, working towards leveling them while you are out in the level appropriate zone will generally save you more time in the long run if you level as you go. This is especially true with Gathering Professions such as Herbalism, Skinning and Mining. These can be used both to create supplies for the crafting profession of your choosing or simply to supplement your income by selling the material on the Auction House to help pay for things like new abilities and even a mount at level 40.

First Aid is incredible, even as a class that can self heal. The fact that you can quickly heal yourself at no mana cost can sometimes be the difference between surviving an encounter or dying.

Retribution Paladin benefits greatly from Weapon upgrades are most of their abilities are tied to your weapons damage. Prioritize seeking out weapon upgrades as often as possible.