WoW Classic Retribution Paladin Leveling Talent Build from 1 to 60
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Retribution leveling guide for WoW Classic. Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Paladin leveling guide. We also have an Holy Paladin leveling guide and a Protection Paladin leveling guide.
If you were looking for TBC Classic advice, please refer to our TBC Classic Retribution Paladin leveling guide.
Level by Level Rotation, Talents, and Trainer Skills
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Talent Tree
Your first talent unlocks at Level 10.





- Levels 10 to 14 — 5 points in
Benediction
- Levels 15 & 16 — 2 points in
Improved Judgement
- Levels 17 to 19 — 3 points in
Deflection
Benediction provides an excellent Mana
efficiency increase since you will be spamming
Judgement on cooldown.
Some people like
Improved Blessing of Might better, but for solo play
Benediction will be better since the extra AP from Blessing of Might is minimal
compared to the downtime you save with better Mana efficiency. When playing in
a group with other melee players however, you can choose to get the
improved Might, since more people will be benefiting from it. After that, the reduction
in
Judgement cooldown and extra parry chance is your best bet. It is
worth noting here, if you know you are going to be running dungeons in a group as soon as
possible, it will be better to start Holy to go for
Consecration for the
AoE damage.
- Levels 20 & 21 — 2 points in
Pursuit of Justice
- Level 22 — 1 point in
Seal of Command
- Levels 23 to 27 — 5 points in
Conviction
- Levels 28 & 29 — 2 points in
Deflection
It cannot be stressed enough how important movement
speed is early on before you get your first mount. Pursuit of Justice may
only be 8% movement speed, but it will be awesome to have. This is worth delaying
by 1 level however if you already have a slower weapon (>3.5 weapon speed) and could
start using
Seal of Command immediately. After that, you will want the crit
chance from
Conviction and then to finish off
Deflection.
- Level 30 — 1 point in
Sanctity Aura
- Levels 31 to 33 — 3 points in
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
- Level 34 — 1 point in
Improved Blessing of Might
- Levels 35 to 39 — 5 points in
Vengeance
Sanctity Aura is an awesome damage increase
for single-target while leveling and should be picked up immediately. After that,
you get
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization for the straight damage increase,
followed by 1 filler point that you can place wherever you want, but the recommended
spot would be into
Improved Blessing of Might for the slight AP gain. Lastly,
you will want to take
Vengeance for the high damage gain when it procs.
- Level 40 — 1 point in
Repentance
- Levels 41 to 45 — 5 points in
Divine Strength
- Levels 46 to 49 — 4 points in
Improved Seal of Righteousness
Repentance is not a damage increase, but
is too powerful of a control tool to pass up. After taking it you will want to
transition to the Holy tree where you will pick up
Divine Strength and
Improved Seal of Righteousness for the damage increase they provide. Some
people like to start with Holy since these are good talents, but it is not worth
the gold to respec later on, and Divine Strength only becomes good once you start
to get more Strength on your gear, which will not happen until you are into
your 30s and 40s anyways.
- Level 50 — 1 point in
Improved Seal of Righteousness
- Level 51 — 1 point in
Consecration
- Levels 52 to 54 — 3 points in
Healing Light
- Levels 55 to 58 — 4 points in
Improved Blessing of Might
- Levels 59 & 60 — 2 points in
Improved Lay on Hands
After finishing off Improved Seal of Righteousness,
you will want to immediately pick up
Consecration for the AoE damage it
brings. This will become a core part of your rotation.
Healing Light provides
a great increase to you healing which is good for both group and solo play, and
finishing
Improved Blessing of Might comes just in time for you to get the
final rank of
Blessing of Might for the max AP bonus. The last two points
are personal preference, but
Improved Lay on Hands provides a nice buff to
one of your strongest cooldowns.
Leveling Rotation
- Keep
Seal of Righteousness up.
- Keep up either
Seal of Righteousness or
Seal of Command depending on which one you should be using.
- Use
Judgement on cooldown if you have the Mana for it, keeping in mind that you will need to reapply your seal after.
- Use
Consecration on cooldown for more than 1 target, if you have the Mana.
- Melee.
Do your class quest to get Redemption.
This will not benefit you while you level alone, but is invaluable if you ever level
with other people or do dungeons.
This is the point where you pick up Seal of Command.
You will either use Seal of Command or
Seal of Righteousness while leveling
depending on your weapon speed. With slow weapons (>3.5) you use Command, and with
faster weapons (<3.5) you use Righteousness.
Paladin Quests
- The first Paladin-only quest becomes available at Level 12.
- At Level 12, you can do the Redemption quest.
- At Level 20, you can do the Sense Undead quest, which also
rewards a strong 2H weapon:
Verigan's Fist.
- At Level 40, you can do the Paladin mount quest.
Leveling Stats
Choosing what gear to wear is usually pretty straightforward since upgrades will be obvious most of the time. However, when given the choice, you are going to want to try to get Strength for more damage and Spirit for better recovery. Your basic priority will be:
- Strength;
- Spirit;
- Agility;
- Intellect;
- Stamina.
Agility is a great damage stat for Paladins, but only once you get Vengeance.
This increases the value of crits, so until you get it Agility is worth much less.
Strength is your most straight forward damage increase and will provide the most
value. Spirit is a strong recovery stat, which will be more efficient than just
going for more max mana or health through Intellect or Stamina. Spell power is also
not a bad choice, but is rare to come across. Specifically you could pick up +Holy Damage
pieces for even more damage.
List of Trainer Skills to Buy
Paladin specs benefit from upgrading roughly the same skills, so our list of skills to buy from trainers is the same, regardless of the spec. For this reason, you will find that list in our general Paladin leveling page.
How to Advance as a Paladin at Level 60
Well done on hitting maximum level in WoW Classic! Now that leveling is over, you can learn more about level 60 gameplay by reading our Retribution Paladin Guide, which covers every facet of gameplay at 60 in detail.
The best individual pages to read through are as follows.
- The Retribution Paladin Talent builds guide has the best builds for Level 60 covered.
- Our PvP Paladin guide is where you can find PvP builds for all 3 specializations, as well as various tricks and tips for PvP combat.
- Goldmaking Guide for Paladins is a page with details on where / how to farm gold quickly as a Paladin when you are Level 60.
- The Retribution Paladin Rotation guide is where you can read on how to optimize your PvE damage and how to prioritize your abilities.
- DPS Paladin Stats guide contains detailed information on all Paladin stats, including a list of their priority for damage dealing.
- Our Gear guide for Retribution Paladins lists all the optimal pieces of gear that you will want to farm at Level 60, in order to optimize your damage.
Changelog
- 18 Nov. 2024: Page updated for Classic Anniversary.
- 05 Oct. 2019: Page added.
Classic Dungeon Guides
Classic Profession Guides
Classic Race Guides
Classic Class Overviews

This guide has been written by Abide, TBC veteran for nearly a decade. Abide is a Warrior tank and multi-class expert currently playing on Faerlina as Horde. You can find him in the the Icy Veins Discord. You can also see him live on Twitch.
- New Cataclysm Classic Valor Cap Set to Week 2 Due to Bug
- Season of Discovery Naxxramas Soft Reset Issue Fix and Warning
- Cataclysm Classic: Hour of Twilight Is Now Live!
- Currency Conversions, New Caps and Ways of Acquiring Them Coming With Hour of Twilight Patch
- Season of Discovery Hotfixes: February 14th
- Auction House Update and Countdown Phase in Cataclysm Classic: February 17th
- Classic Hardcore, Era, and Anniversary Realm Black Lotus Respawn Rate Increase
- Massive Nerf Coming to Firelands With Release of Hour of Twilight