Paladin tactics Basic Leveling / soloing Strategies . During the early levels , you should spec retribution for higher melee damage . Use a 2 - hand weapon with good DPS , and wear mail armor ( plate after level 40 ) with Strength and Stamina . You should also keep a shield and a fast 1 - hand weapon in the bag for special situations . Be sure to get Improved Judgements at 14 - 5 , Seal of Command at 20 , Art of War and Judgements of the Wise at 40 - 44 , and Crusader Strike at 50 . The other talents should be pretty self - explanatory ( more damage is good ) . Paladin soloing is dull but fairly fast . At early levels , you don ' t have very many buttons to press , but with a good weapon you have enough burst that things will die quickly . Pull with ( at level 16 or above ) Hand of Reckoning ; this does a lot of damage for very little mana and is off the GCD . Judge whenever you can . That ' s basically it . If the mob runs , Hand of Reckoning will finish it off ( since it ' s no longer targeting you ) . Exorcism is useful when cast while pulling but not while the mob is hitting you , since it interrupts your melee attacks . When you have Art of War , Exorcism becomes instant cast and should be used whenever possible . You ' ll finally get a short - cooldown attack at 50 with Crusader Strike , and another at 60 with Divine Storm . After level 20 , you can kill 3 - 5 mobs pretty easily by using Consecration and Seal of Command ' s cleave ability . Don ' t bother using Consecration on single mobs until you get Judgements of the Wise , since it ' s a big mana hog . When fighting , always remember to keep your Aura , Blessings and Seal up all the time ! You generally want Retribution Aura , Blessing of Might and Seal of Command , but consider Blessing of Kings and Devotion Aura when soloing elites . You have a lot of options when things get dicey . Lay on Hands is a full heal on a moderate timer . Hand of Protection and Divine Shield make you invulnerable long enough to heal up with Holy Light . If these are all on cooldown , put on Concentration Aura and try to get Holy Light off before you die . Hammer of Justice , Turn Evil and Repentance can all help incapacitate a particularly tough foe . Glyph of Seal of Command is great to reduce downtime at lower levels , though between 40 and 45 you ' ll get Judgements of the Wise , giving you nigh - infinite mana and making the glyph unnecessary . Glyph of Judgement and Glyph of Exorcism are both moderate DPS boosters . The minor glyphs worth using are Glyph of Blessing of Might , a nice time saver , and Glyph of Sense Undead , the only minor glyph that increases damage . What stats affect my damage the most ? As a Retribution Paladin there are several stats that are important to your dps . These are strength / attack power ( AP ) , hit rating 8 % for PvE or 5 % for PvP , and critical strike rating above 25 % to keep Vengeance up . Spell damage no longer plays a major part in a Retribution Paladin ' s damage since patch 2 . 4 . Retribution Paladin ' s main seals for longer , single target fights are Seal of Vengeance ( Alliance ) and Seal of Corruption ( Horde ) . Since patch 3 . 0 . 2 , strength and attack power became the most important stats for Protection Paladins dps . There is one basic stat for Holy Paladins dps : Spell Power . DPS Holy Paladins , or shockadin s ( not recommended for leveling ) also benefit from critical strike rating and intellect . Spell damage coefficients and ability crit types are listed here . All paladins benefit from spell power ; however , only Holy Paladins should wear gear specifically with spell power on it . Protection and Retribution both possess talents ( deep in each respective tree ) to obtain a significant amount of spell power through a percentage of a baseline stat - Attack Power ( and as a result , Strength ) for Retribution , Strength for Protection . Weapon Choice . Retribution utilizes two handed weapons with Seal of Vengeance , Seal of Command or Seal of Corruption . These seals combined with a two handed weapon yield the highest DPS . Typically , a weapon with higher melee damage is preferred in weapons with near - identical weapon dps . Protection utilizes one handed weapons with Seal of Corruption or Seal of Vengeance while tanking , only using Seal of Righteousness if they are Seal Twisting in order to push out a bit extra threat . Tanking with Seal of Corruption / Vengeance also has the added benefit of having the damage over time component being applied to every target Hammer of the Righteous strikes , allowing the paladin to build stacks of the dot on up to 2 additional targets . If solo ' ing or dps ' ing as Protection , the paladin most often should use Retribution gear while continuing to wield a one - hander and a shield , as Hammer of the Righteous does not work with a two - hander and you cannot use Shield of Righteousness without a shield . Holy utilizes one handed weapons with Seal of Righteousness , Seal of Wisdom , Seal of Light , or Seal of Vengeance / Corruption . Attack speed of the weapon does not affect the overall damage as most damage caused will be caused by using Holy Shock offensively , as well as Judgements and Consecration . In addition , the holy damage of Seal of Righteousness for each swing is inversely proportional to the attack speed . However , a faster weapon does give more proc when using Seal / Judgement of Wisdom / Light . Holy Paladins may also use Shield of Righteousness in their solo ' ing / dps rotation when in melee range . Basic Partying Strategies . As a hybrid class you can have three roles in a party : dps , tank , or healer . Which one you play at any given time will depend on your talent spec , the gear you bring with you , and the composition of the rest of the party . Make sure you ( and others ) are aware of your role from the outset to avoid problems later . See Paladin instance grouping guide for further tips . For details of different roles of paladins in group , please refer to Paladins as healers , Paladins as tanks , and Paladins as DPS . Strategies in Details . Auras . Always make sure you activate an aura appropriate to your situation . Change as the situation calls for because it ' s instant and costs no mana . It should be emphasized that Resistance Auras are very helpful for harder boss fights . For example , going off of the Resistance table on this site , a level 80 paladin using a resistance aura will block about 23 . 5 % of spell damage inflicted of that magic type for a level 83 boss . If a boss hits the entire raid for 5000 damage to each person , that ' s 125000 damage in a 25 - man . If the aura is used , that number can be brought down to 95625 damage . You would be mitigating about 29375 damage . Blessings . Make sure you always have a blessing active . As of Patch 2 . 2 all lesser Paladin buffs have had their timers increased to 10 minutes . At higher levels you can use Greater Blessings for 30 minute buffs but they have a components cost . The Greater Blessings also buff all the group members of the same class as the target at the same time . Remember that it is an instant cast , so even if you ' re in combat you can go ahead and bless yourself or others as necessary . Seals & Judgements . Seals are self - buffs which boost the Paladin ' s power temporarily . Effectively , they add a weapon proc to their melee strikes . Additionally , Paladins can judge these seals upon an enemy which deals damage and provides a " judgement effect " for 20 seconds . The " judgement effect " can benefit the paladin as well as others who are hitting the mobs , and only one " judgement effect " per paladin can exist on a target . For more detailed information see Paladin # Seals . Note * As of Patch 3 . 2 , Seal of Blood has been removed . Judgements . Judgements cause holy damage based on whichever seal is present on the paladin , and cannot be cast without a seal . A number of talented skills are triggered by Judgements , whether beneficial to the paladin or detrimental to the target . Holy paladins can increase haste rating by up to 15 % through Enlightened Judgements , Protection paladins can decrease attack speed of an enemy by 20 % Judgements of the Just ( single target ) , and Retribution paladins can increase the chance of critical strikes on the target Heart of the Crusader as well as provide the Replenishment buff with Judgements of the Wise . Seal and Blessing Sequencing . Some of these sequences are talent independent ( Mana and Health Conservation ) , while others are designed for Retribution or Protection paladins . There are a few quality addons that can aid in sequencing , " Supercast " being one of them . Generic 2 hand damage dealing . This sequence is for low level paladins . Retribution paladin 2 hand damage dealing . This sequence is for high level retribution paladins . Judgement is always given priority due to high damage as well as significant mana returns ( both with Replenishment and the solo mana return ) Protection paladin tanking . This sequence is for high level protection paladins . Sequence : Ideally a protection paladin should spec 1 / 2 Improved Judgements for a 9 second cooldown on Judgement . If done this way , a protection paladin follows a cooldown rotation of 96969 ( http : / / www . failsafedesign . com / maintankadin / viewtopic . php ? t = 13944 credit to PsiVen from Maintankadin ) Another Rotation . The first two abilities protection paladins use are Hand of Reckoning , as it is a good opening move for PvE fights like pulling bosses or groups or mobs , since that move does not share global CD , Avenger ' s Shield is an excellent move to use directly after Hand of Reckoning . These two keys are generally placed next to each other , ( at least that ’ s what i do ) they are mainly used after each other because of their short 6 second CD . If you have the glyph , Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous your Hammer of the Righteous will hit four targets instead of 3 , this is very useful for tanking multiple targets in instances , and also for PvP fights , but not for arena teams . Shield of Righteousness is useful for when most of your main abilities are on their CD ' s . Also there are the moves Holy Shield , Consecration and the three Judgments ( i . e . Judgement of Justice , Judgement of Light and Judgement of Wisdom ) . Holy Shield is a good move to use after Avengers Shield as it will give you a temporary block increase . Consecration will help you with the aggro holding of multiple mobs . Finally the Judgments are very useful for a variety of purposes , Justice to stop mobs from running away when they reach low health , Light for a chance to regain some health with every attack ; this is the same with Wisdom except with mana . As a final note , make sure you always have Righteous Fury enabled or you will have major problems holding the aggro of multiple mobs and bosses . And it goes without saying that you should have a Seal and a Blessing active whenever you are fighting players or mobs . So , the final rotation is : 1 - Hand of Reckoning 2 - Avenger ’ s Shield 3 - Holy Shield 4 - Consecration 5 - ( Your choice of judgement ) 6 - Hammer of the Righteous 7 - Shield of Righteousness 8 - Repeat from 3 - 8 ( Or if the fight lasts longer than 30secs then use Avenger ' s Shield again , and if you lose the aggro of a mob pull it back with Hand of Reckoning ) Protection paladin AoE grinding . This sequence is used for a Protection paladin when AoE grinding . PvP . Holy paladins are good healers in PvP because of their good survivability and various abilities to help other group members . Retribution paladins also perform very well in PvP because of their high burst damage and survivability . On the other hand , there is no good protection spec for PvP . The reason is most of the damage of protection paladins depends on reflective damage , which means you are not going to do much damage in PvP except against very stupid rogues , fury warriors or enhancement shamans . Also , the healing is not as good as Holy paladins . Protection paladins still have use for ( multi - ) tanking bosses in Alterac Valley , holding flag in Warsong Gulch or Eye of the Storm , or defending bases in Arathi Basin ( until help arrives or the offenders kill you eventually ) . For details of PvP as paladins , please see Paladin PvP guide . Gear . See Paladin Gear Sets for info about building the different sets of gear that are essential to being an effective paladin in a group . See also :