The Naked Fear

So I came here expecting all kinds of sage advice from the numerous paladins in the guild.

This thread is SORELY lacking.

For instance, my paladin is level 60 now, and my dps sucks for her level. Yet there is no information here that I see on ret dps--I mean important info, like Hearthyn, you idiot, you don't use a 1h w/a shield on a ret pally!!!

Can anyone (Thunderz) at least link some of the pally forums you go to? I felt like a complete noob in Ramps today...

But then, I feel like a complete noob most days.

are you judging ?

what avis said

#2926289 Avish wrote:

are you judging ?

Yes, I'm judging. And using cons, and crusader strike. I need points in 2h weap now that I have one, and that should help once I get em.

Ret lvling was alot slower for me than Prot lvling. To get to 80, Id go Prot, as you can do insta ques in dungeons, and for quests, you can pull 4-5 mobs your lvl without flinching. I lvled Prot with the RET Shoulder and Chest BoA.

For ret, Buy the BOA 2 hander, shoulder and chest. I used mana and Health BoA trinket up to lvl 60 or so.

The spec, if you go Ret, is pretty straight fowrard.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sVVzZVZVfMtbIuhdIfsu

Rotation: J > CS > DS > HoW > Cons > Exo > HW

But as I said, I stopped playing ret around 55, cause with LFG, it was way easier to just play prot and grind dungeons.

Wow how did I miss this. Sorry hearthyn. As for leveling as ret I couldn't tell you. I level Thunderz Prot ever since I got talent points. When you get to 80 the priorty list is like Zit posted. If you get 2 piece T10 then it changes slightly. J>DS>CS>How>Ex>Con>HW. I found Leveling Prot super ease.
With Prot you 5 spell you use get group into either a 6 or 9 sec cast CD. called the 969 rotation. This is the optium threat rotation and damage.

"Tanking Rotation, AKA 969 With thanks to Psiven & Theck for all their work on TPS & 969.

Why we use 969

Paladin tanking moves are all instant-cast, on the GCD, and have cooldowns. Most of our abilities are pure threat moves, Holy Shield is excellent mitigation, we want close to 100% uptime (it also provides decent threat). Judgement is one of our weaker threat moves, but also applies a variety of debuffs on the mob and also procs our tanking Libram (the BV one is the only tanking Libram at the moment).

We have more moves than we can actually use - under most boss-tanking circumstances, every single GCD will be used. The 969 rotation can be mathematically proven to be the best possible TPS rotation - Psiven has done this in his monumental TPS sticky. What follows is a very brief summary of his findings. Credit his, mistakes mine.

Although I talk about "best" and "worst" moves in this section, our worst move (HotR-single-target) still does 75% of the DPS/TPS of our best move (ShoR), so it isn't worth losing half a second to dead time to switch from worst move to best move. Given that a half-second delay in order to go from worst->best isn't viable, ANY tanking rotation with dead-time in it is automatically a non-optimal rotation.

Dead-time = mathematically non-optimal TPS rotation. Any suggestions of "I use a weird rotation and just take a 0.5 second break every so often" cannot be as much TPS as 969.

The GCD is 1.5 seconds, and is checked client side, so Internet lag/ping is a non-issue (within reason - past about 500ms everything goes to hell). Human reaction time doesn't change the results either.

We have two moves that are on 6 second CDs, which is 4 GCDs - HotR & ShoR. Both moves are very good - ShoR in particular is our best DPS move. HotR is weak single target, but amazing for 2+. So that's half our GCDs gone. So we have half our GCDs left.

We have three moves on 8-10 seconds CDs - roughly 6 GCDs: Consecrate, Judgment & Holy Shield. We want HS to have 100% uptime, but it has 10-sec duration and 8 sec CD, and 9 seconds = 6 GCDs, so we use HS every 6 GCDs.

So we're using some things every 4 GCDs and some every 6 GCDs. Which lines up in 12 GCDs - our rotation is 18 seconds long. Once we get HotR, ShoR & HS in, we end up with just enough GCDs left over to get Consecrate and judgement in every 6 GCDs as well.

The base CD of Judgement is 10 seconds - that's more than 6 GCDs - so we have to talent it to 9 seconds. But we've already shown that dead-time reduces our TPS under all circumstances, so there isn't any point dropping it to 8 seconds, because 8 isn't divisible by 1.5. We have a GCD at 7.5 seconds - but we can't judge then, too early. And we don't want dead-time, so we use something else and now we get to judge at 9 seconds. Thus: 1/2 Imp Judge.

Once Judge is in, we're down to one GCD free every 6 GCDs. We insert Consecrate, with 8 sec CD, and we get to 8/9 uptime - about 89%.

Psiven did a whole pile of analysis trying various different options using 8 second Judge/Consecrate, and there was no solution that provided higher DPS than judging/consecrate on 9 sec CD.

This has been confirmed (again) in compelling and accurate detail by Theck. Go read his sticky."

One of the best site I have ever found about pallies is http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/

Good guys there and Lots of info.

at school readin this, and god damn this makes pally tanking seem way more complex than it is... or maybe im just "ignant". haha. i just play on instinct.. i dunno...the way thunderz explains this makes me feel like i gots downs....damn.. well done

Ret Pally Guide PvE/PvP
PVE - Player vs. Environment - Heroics and Raids (first half of guide)

PVP - Player vs. Player - Battlegrounds and Arena (second half of guide)

PVE

PVE Enchants

Here's a list of enchants arranged by the slot the enchant affects, the best enchant for each slot is listed first, and the second best enchant is listed second and so on.

Helm- Get Revered with Knights of the Ebon blade for awesome head enchant, need to do the questline beginning with It’s All Fun and Games (Horde: http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=12892 or Alliance: http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=12887 ), this will unlock the city Shadow Vault for you.
Shoulder- Get Honored/Exalted with Sons of Hodir for blue/epic PVE shoulder enchants, this is in storm peaks, to get dailies to get reputation you need to do the quest line that starts with They Took Our Men ( http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=12843 ) at K3 and ends with dailies.
Cloak- 22 Agility, 23 Haste, 16 Agility, 15 Haste
Chest- 10 stats, 8 stats
Wrist- 50 Attack Power, 38 Attack Power
Hands- 44 Attack Power, 15 Strength, 35 Attack Power
Legs- Icescale Leg Armor (75 Attack Power and 22 Crit)
Boots- Greater Assault (32 Attack Power), Icewalker (+12 Hit and +12 Crit)
Weapon- Beserking, Massacre, Greater Savagery
Belt- Technically not an enchant, but since everyone can buy the Eternal Belt Buckle from the AH, put it on their belt, and then put any gem in it, it functions like an enchant. This buckle does not affect your socket bonus, can be used regardless of current sockets on belt, only one can be used on your belt, and contributes to your meta gem.

*Your gear determines whether 22 Agility or 23 Haste is better, use Rawr to compare. Icewalker is more dps (Damage Per Second) than 32 AP if you are 5 or more Hit Rating away from cap (hit cap = 263 Hit Rating).


Professions for PVE

(Black Smithing, Jewel Crafting) > (Inscription, Leather Working, Enchanting, Alchemy) > (Skinning, Tailoring, Engineering)

*Herblore is useless for PVE.


Stat Values for PVE

Hit and Expertise should always be capped or very close to cap- Expertise cap: -6.5% dodge/26 expertise/ 214 expertise rating. Hit Cap: 263 hit rating/8% increased chance to hit. Going over the cap is also a problem, as that Hit Rating or Expertise Rating is being wasted, if you are not within 15-20 points of the hit cap (263) your are reducing your dps by a fairly large amount.

The actual DPS of each stat:

(Hit) > (Strength) > (Expertise) > (Crit Rating, Haste, Agility) > (Armor Pen, Attack Power)

*Only use gear that has the above stats on it (with the exception of librams of course). The Agility/leather gear will usually go to rogues/feral druids first in raids because that's the only type of armor they can use. Many people will assume that since this happens often in raids that all plate gear is better than all leather gear for plate-wearers. However, even though Strength gear is usually more DPS than Agility gear, this isn't always true. For example, when comparing the Ashen Verdict rings from ICC, the Agility DPS ring is actually more dps for ret than the Strength DPS ring. So, just be aware that while it is indeed fair that the Agility gear go to rogues/feral druids over rets, you could most likely use the gear if the rogues/feral druids don't want it.

Rawr

Download at http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr. Use to compare pieces of gear. Note that Rawr will use inflated values for Hit Rating and Expertise, so using it for items with those stats is fairly inaccurate. But, if you do want to compare gear that has Hit Rating or Expertise on it, then the optimizer should be used, as it takes into account the fact that they are cappable. The optimizer is somewhat difficult to use correctly though, it will try to match all of the gear you have (inventory, bank, equipped etc.) into the best gear combination for you. The green diamonds next to each item in Rawr indicates whether you have possession of that item and determines which items the optimizer will use when you run it.

PVE Librams

Libram of Three Truths (Frost badges) > Libram of Valiance (Triumph badges) >>> PVP Librams/other

PVP Librams

Libram of Three Truths (Frost badges) >>> PVP Librams/Libram of Valiance/other

*Libram of Valiance only works when you're using SoV so it's a questionable choice when it comes to PVP. The Libram of Three Truths works very well for both PVE and PVP. ">>>" means "much greater than", while ">" just means "greater than".

Tier Sets

Using Rawr I determined the % dps increase of the tier set bonuses with full 245 gear:

T10 4 set: 3.76%
T10 2 set: 3.97%

T9 4 set: .74%
T9 2 set: 2.05%

T8 4 set: 2.14%
T8 2 set: .53%

*These values would change a small amount depending on your own gear.


Gemming for PVE & PVP

First of all, use the 21 agi and 3% crt damage meta gem, for both pve and pvp, you need 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 blue for this to work. Buy the Nightmare Tear (10 stats) from an auction house and use it to meet your meta gem requirements. Put your Nightmare Tear in a blue slot where you can get the highest dps socket bonus. Gem all bold (red, Strength) gems for your red and blue sockets, and for yellow sockets gem all bold gems (however, if you have the 2pc T9 bonus read the below section about yellow sockets). If you're gemming a PVP set gem all bold and don't use any etched or inscribed gems.

Advanced Gemming - Gemming inscribed with 2 piece T9

Sometimes using one inscribed gem (orange, Crit and Strength) in a yellow socket of a piece of gear to gain the socket bonus is a dps increase (assuming the other slots are red or blue with a Nightmare Tear in it). Having 2pc T9 will increase the value of crit rating enough to make inscribed worth putting in your yellow sockets if the socket bonus is high enough DPS (4+ Strength, 6+ Agility, 10+ Attack Power, or 6+ Crit).

Advanced Gemming - Gemming etched without 2 piece T9

Etched gems should be used cautiously. 99% of the time its better to get Hit Rating from the actual stats on your gear because then the Hit Rating is replacing stats lower dps stats like Expertise Rating, Armor Pen, Crit, Haste, whereas if you gemmed for Hit Rating that Hit Rating would be replacing the higher dps stat Strength you could be getting from bold gems. So, you should try to get as close to the hit cap as you can (263), then make sure you have Icewalker on your boots, if you are still short of hit cap you can either wait for more hit gear to drop for you and continue gemming bold and inscribed (if you have 2pc T9) or you can temporarily increase your Hit Rating using etched gems (orange, Hit and Strength) until the Hit Rating gear drops to get you to hit cap. These etched gems can really go in any socket (though they would be most effective in yellow sockets) and all 10 points of the Hit Rating should go towards reaching hit cap, if an etched gem would put you over hit cap dont gem it (however, if the etched gem you are gemming gives you a socket bonus, then you can go one over the hit cap for each point of Strength the socket bonus gives). Gemming etched in this way means you should be concerned with replacing these etched gems with bold gems after you get enough gear to reach 263 Hit Rating using just the Hit Rating from gear.

Advanced Gemming - Gemming etched with 2 piece T9

If you have 2pc T9 then there is a loop hole to getting around using etched gems as temporary Hit Rating. Since the whole reason you avoided gemming Hit Rating in the first place was because you would rather replace Crit, Haste, etc. with Hit Rating than Strength with Hit Rating, you can use an etched gem in a yellow socket bonus if you follow the same rules as putting an inscribed gem in a yellow socket. In this way, you are replacing 10 Crit with 10 Hit Rating, which is not a bad trade-off. The etched gem must give you a socket bonus with 4+ Strength, 6+ Agility, 10+ Attack Power, or 6+ Crit. If you are getting those socket bonuses, then for each point of Crit and Agility that you are above the minimum socket bonuses you can go 1 point over hit cap and still be justified for using that etched gem. For every ~.75 point of Strength you can go 1 point over hit cap and for every 2 points of Attack Power you can go 1 point over hit cap. Gemming etched in this way means you should not be concerned with replacing these etched gems with bold or inscribed to do higher dps or itemize better, because it wouldn't help.
The Ret Priority System

Whenever you have 2 or more dps moves off cooldown and ready to use, you want to use the highest priority spell you have, and the priorities below these few paragraphs should indicate which moves are considered a higher priority than others. This is an important part to following a priority for ret: watch your DPS spells and use the highest priority spell out of all of your spells that are off cooldown. Note: off cooldown means your dps move is ready to use, while on cooldown means you are currently waiting for that dps move to be ready.

The second rule of the ret priority system is FCFS, or First Come First Serve, which is a mandatory concept that any ret pally, regardless of what priority he is following, should understand and follow. It means you use whichever move comes off cooldown first when all of your moves are on cooldown, even if you have a better move that will be ready to use soon. Generally, in a priority, when you see X>Y, this means that when X and Y are both off cooldown you want to use X, rather than Y. However, in all cases, if Y comes off cooldown before X, then you should use Y, even if Y had just barely come off cooldown. Omni CC is an addon that will help you tell which spell comes off cooldown first, and CLCRET is a very helpful addon for keeping up with FCFS and your priority, read more about them in the addons section. Here's some examples of situations that may occur while you are following your priority and the FCFS rule:

Example 1: Lets say you have all your dps moves on CD (meaning you have no dps moves to press and are just waiting for a move to come off CD) you see that Divine Storm will be up in 3 secs and Crusader Strike will be up in ~3.1 secs (this is easiest to see with the OmniCC addon) and in this instance you would press Divine Storm first right when its ready because it will be ready to use ~.1 seconds before Crusader Strike. This is because First Come First Serve is always more important than the priority you are following.

Example 2: Lets say you have Divine Storm and Crusader Strike as the only moves you have available to use, because the others are all on CD. Look at the priority system right under this, it says that in this situation Crusader Strike should be used, because it is prioritized over Divine Storm.

General Priority: Hammer of Wrath > Crusader Strike > Judge > Divine Storm > Consecration > Exorcism.

*">" does not mean "and then", it means "greater than, or prioritized over". The ">" sign is used to indicate the higher DPS move or the higher priority move. Also, as you get better gear your priority may change, your T9 2 set, T10 2 set, and T10 4 set will have the most affect on your priority.

Link to T9/T10 priorities: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t68951-retribution_updated_3_3_a/#Addendum

AOE damage: Prioritize consecration and Divine Storm and Crusader Strike early, and Holy Wrath if they are undead. Also for a group of 3 or more use Seal of Command would be the highest dps (because of the cleave effect added in 3.2.2). When there are two targets, Seal of Vengeance (or Seal of Corruption if your Horde) and Seal of Command are very close to equal damage.

Divine Plea should be used when you have the time to wait out the 1.5 sec GCD (Global Cooldown) without another move coming off CD while your GCD is still finishing (Generally, you need to know your next move wont be off CD for another 3 secs, because you may still be going through a GCD and you will also need to wait out the 1.5 sec GCD for Divine Plea). If you're using CLCRET and Omni CC, when you see a number 3 or higher show up in the CLCRET window indicating you have 3 seconds or more before your next dps move is off CD, that's when you can use Divine Plea, Hand of Salvation, or Sacred Shield without lowering your dps.


Your Seal In PVE

If your target(s) will die in less than 15 seconds, use Seal of Command.

If your target(s) will live longer than 15 seconds, follow these rules:

-One target: Seal of Vengeance/Corruption
-Two targets: Seal of Command or Seal of Vengeance/Corruption (both are roughly equal on 2 targets)
-Three or more targets: Seal of Command

Try to swap seals at times when: 1) you will gain a dps increase, 2) not miss using a DPS move, and 3) are not swapping so often that you are running out of mana.

Each seal has its own "trick". Seal of Vengeance/Corruption requires 5 stacks of Holy Vengeance on the target to out dps the other seals, but when you can get the 5 stack its a very large dps increase. Seal of Command and Seal of Righteousness don't require build-up time, so they are generally the best for shorter fights. Seal of Command will also hit up to 2 nearby targets with the seal damage, making it very good for aoe situations. Seal of Righteousness has very similar single target dps to Seal of Command without the cleave ability, if you glyph Seal of Righteousness and have Seals of the Pure then Seal of Righteousness is more dps than Seal of Command on a single target fight, but Seal of Vengeance is a ton more dps than either of them regardless for single target.


Macros for PVE and PVP

/cast Redemption
/raid Resurrecting %t
*Lets your raid know who you are resurrecting.

/cast Crusader Strike
/startattack
*Also use for your Judges, Divine Storm, Hammer of Justice, Consecration and whatnot. Most spells only start your attack if you are in range and have the mana. This macro bypasses that and starts your attack regardless if the spell cast occurs or not.

/cast [target=focus] lay on hands
*Set the main tank as your focus and try to watch his health. When you see his health drop you can use this macro to save the raid.

/cast [target= ArenaPartner] cleanse
*This type of macro is useful for arena in 2s and 3s. In 5s you probably don't have enough key bindings for all of your team members. You should make a macro for everyone on your team for the spells Hand of Protection, Hand of Freedom, and Cleanse. Ret doesn't have many dps spells, so you should have some extra key bindings for these macros (compared to other classes/specs). Set the macros to easy to press key bindings and get in the habit of using them. If you can cleanse a fear off your partner instantly, that means your playing your spec exactly how you should be.
PVE Spec

11/5/55 (with Aura Mastery)

Spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sVcdZVZVfbtbIuhdIfsu

For this spec, you can remove points from Improved Might or Swift Retribution to get Vindication depending on the current available buffs your raid has (a few classes can apply the "Vindication" debuff, but it seems that prot pallies are the ones that will most likely apply the debuff - if you know you raid often with a prot pally with Vindication you can safely skip this talent). This spec includes Aura Mastery, which varies in usefulness depending on the boss fight, read more about it in the Supporting the Raid section.

7/5/59 (without Aura Mastery)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sV0bZVZVfrtbIuGdIfsu

This spec is designed to get out of the stuns/fears from bosses so you can get back to dpsing the boss quicker. Vindication also fits better into this build than the above build. Also, Divine Intellect was dropped from the above build, but the dps gain from that talent is only about .05 dps per point (basically an unnoticeable amount). This is not a PVP spec, but it does have more PVP ability than the above PVE spec. I would be careful about running this spec in PVE, as if your raid leader says "I will need you to use aura mastery when..." and you respond with "I dont have it" you may have some problems. The choice between using this spec without Aura Mastery and the above spec with Aura Mastery is generally one between situational increased raid survival or situational higher personal dps, which is your choice to make.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs: Judgement, Consecrate, Seal of Vengeance. If u change from the Seal of Vengeance glyph to the Exorcism glyph, you will lose about 60 dps, and this usually makes switching from Seal of Vengeance glyph to Exorcism glyph a bad idea, as you would be able to get more dps if you just treated 16 as your expertise cap and went for the highest dps gear based on that - there's always exceptions though, you may decide to switch glyphs for a temporary dps increase (for a temporary increase, your expertise must be 23 or higher for Exorcism to be higher dps).

Minor Glyphs: Glyph of Sense Undead, Glyph of Lay on Hands, and Glyph of Blessing of Might (for convenience).


Supporting the Raid

Support Spells- Hand of Protection, Blessings, Divine Sacrifice, Sacred Shield, Lay on Hands, Hand of Sacrifice, Heals, Cleanse, Auras

Hand of Protection- Having an addon to alert you to who has aggro is very helpful, i know that GRID does this, and so you can Hand of Protection any heals or dps who need it easy with Clique.

Blessings- You and all the other pallies in your raid should have Pally Power, this addon is fantastic at managing raid buffs

Divine Sacrifice- Very useful in heroics if your party is taking a lot of damage, use wisely and with Divine Shield.

Sacred Shield- I would just keep this on yourself when you can use it without interfering in your rotation/priority.

Lay on Hands- Use this to save a tank, set him as your focus and use a "/cast [target=focus] Lay on Hands" macro to apply quickly.

Hand of Sacrifice- This wont stack with Divine Sacrifice, but using this on a tank at the right time can be very helpful. He's probably getting hit for like 20k a hit so that will hit you for like 6.5k every now and then. If you already used your divine shield so you could divine sacrifice the raid, remember you can use divine protection to negate 50% of the damage you would take from this. Id save this for a time when the tank is in trouble, remember you have lay on hands also to help him.

Heals- Usually you just heal if you are unable to dps at the current time, i also wouldnt heal yourself past half mana, really you are not responsible for healing. However sometimes (like on KT when someone is frozen) one heal can make a huge difference. If you're ever unsure if you should be helping heal, just keep dpsing.

Auras- Devotion: I would leave this aura to a prot pally if hes in the group so you get improved, if there isnt a prot pally then this is a high priority aura if a resistance aura isnt needed. Concentration: this is important for pve because healers are sometimes hit by AOE that can make casting more difficult, this should be second priority aura if a resistance aura isnt needed. Shadow Resistance: 130 resistance is really nice, but if there's a priest to buff shadow resist you dont need this; this resistance along with frost and fire are very important to have for bosses with certain spell types (Razorscale: fire, Hodir: frost, and etc.). Retribution Aura is next to useless in pve and should only be used if you have all the other auras.

Aura Mastery- Use this to double your raid's resistances that are already being increased by Paladin auras. This is very useful for boss abilities like Koralon's Burning Breath and Hodir's Frozen Blows. Unfortunately it has been nerfed to last for only 6 seconds, many pallies consider this spell to be more useful in a raid than Divine Sacrifice. If rets could reach Divine Guardian (the talent that allows Divine Sacrifice to affect the raid instead of just the party, among other things) without sacrificing dps then Divine Sacrifice would be used and talented for more often in PVE builds, unfortunately we would lose dps by grabbing Divine Guardian, so Aura Mastery is one of our alternatives.


Addons for PVP & PVE

Curse Client- The client used by curse.com will make it a lot quicker to download all the following add ons.

Omni CC- Will give you the CD on your spells as numbers, highly useful.

GRID and Clique OR Healbot- Either you can use GRID and Clique combined or just Healbot by itself, both setups involve creating click bindings for spells and arranging unit frames to see the health/mana/other details about the members in your raid.

Omen- Useful to make sure you don’t pull threat during the first 10 secs or so when the tank picks up a mob.

Gladius (PVP)- Use to replace the blizzard arena frames (you have to turn off the Blizzard ones) with pretty much the same thing but with more info. The icons next to the enemy's names will light up with powerful moves like Fear, Sheep, Divine Shield, etc. to indicate which enemy is affected with what. You can also watch the yellow bar to see what spell the enemy is casting. The trinket icon indicates that the enemy still has his trinket to use, if the icon is not there that means that he has used his trinket.

Deadly Boss Mod- Will provide you with extremely useful alerts throughout a boss fight.

Configuring GRID- Right click GRID icon in minimap, go under Frame, check the following: border- your target, healing bar- unit health, center text- unit name, center icon- none, top left corner- aggro, top right corner- magic, bottom left- disease, bottom right- poison. Under Frame Alpha, check the following: death warning, > 10, 30, 40, 100 yards, offline warning. Under Layout, select Clamped to screen and frame lock after you have moved GRID where you want it, you can also go under Raid Layout to change the # of people in your raid. Use the macro "/grid standby" to make it appear and disappear. And now you’re done!

Configuring Clique- Press P, click the last tab, click custom, select Cast Spell, type the name of the spell in the appropriate area, and then set the click binding you want (try middle mouse, ALT-left click, ALT-right click, ALT-middle mouse, and you can replace ALT with CTRL or SHIFT depending on your keyboard).

TellMeWhen- Configure this for The Art of War and Sacred Shield (the buff, i dont think you can set it for the proc). Id move it near your health on the screen so you can quickly check to see if you even need the heal. In pvp you want to always have Sacred Shield up (unless someone keeps dispelling it off you, if so just leave it off 500 mana is a lot to keep wasting on it).

CLCRET (a.k.a. Retribution FCFS helper)- This is very good for learning the priority concept. If you stick with this addon you can pull very high dps and pay less attention to your rotation and more to the raid environment. Plug in your priority for a single dps target and follow the suggestions from the addon for a single target fight.
PVP

Enchants For PVP

Here's a list of enchants arranged by the slot the enchant affects, the best enchant for each slot is listed first, and the second best enchant is listed second and so on.

Helm- Get Revered with Knights of the Ebon blade for awesome head enchant, need to do the questline beginning with It’s All Fun and Games (Horde: http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=12892, Alliance: http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=12887), this will unlock the city Shadow Vault for you. Use stone keeper shards to purchase a PVP head enchant at Wintergrasp, you can get this whether you control WG or not.
Shoulder- Get Honored/Exalted with Sons of Hodir for blue/epic PVE shoulder enchants, this is in storm peaks, to get dailies to get reputation you need to do the quest line that starts with They Took Our Men ( http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=12843 ) at K3 and ends with dailies. Use stone keeper shards to purchase a PVP shoulder enchant at Wintergrasp, you can get this whether you control WG or not.
Cloak- 22 Agility, 23 Haste, 16 Agility, 15 Haste
Chest- 10 Stats, 8 Stats, 20 Resilience, 15 Resilience
Wrist- 50 Attack Power, 38 Attack Power
Hands- 44 Attack Power, 15 Strength, 35 Attack Power
Legs- Icescale Leg Armor (75 Attack Power and 22 Crit)
Boots- Greater Assault (32 Attack Power), Icewalker (+12 Hit and +12 Crit)
Weapon- Beserking, Massacre, Greater Savagery
Belt- Technically not an enchant, but since everyone can buy the Eternal Belt Buckle from the AH, put it on their belt, and then put any gem in it, it functions like an enchant. this buckle does not affect your socket bonus, can be used regardless of current sockets on belt, only one can be used on your belt, and it contributes to your meta gem.


Professions in PVP

Listed by PVP ability:

(Black Smithing, Jewel Crafting) > (Alchemy, Inscription, Leather Working, Enchanting) > (Skinning, Tailoring, Engineering, Mining) > (Herblore)

*Engineering is placed where it is only based on the glove enchant, remember you can also get rocket boots from engineering, but that's somewhat difficult to measure as far as usefulness in PVP.

Gearing for PVP

Sometimes you can get away with a mix of pvp and pve gear as ret, but all of the high rated ret pallies are using full pvp gear. Trinkets are a different story, for a 2s team where you play with a healer, you probably want Greatness and the Titan-forged Rune of Determination. If you cant afford Greatness you can get the 190 Attack Power Battlemaster trinket. If you are on a 2 dps 2s, or a very hard hitting 3s team, you may want to use the Platinum Disks of Battle that can be used to give you like 700 Attack Power, which is fantastic for bursting someone down.


PVP Spec

7/13/51

Spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sV0bZVGzbZVf0xbIuGdIbsu:ua0

Glyphs

Major Glyphs: Judgement, Seal of Righteousness, and Exorcism/Hand of Salvation/Crusader Strike. Use Exorcism for a little more burst and use the Hand of Salvation glyph for more survivability, while Crusader Strike should be used if you run a team setup where the matches average at 5+ mins in length. You can also remove one point from Unyielding Faith for imp RF, as its hard to compare 2% less damage to 15% less being feared.

Minor Glyphs: Glyph of the Wise (should you for some reason get drained to 0 mana, this can happen if your judgements are being absorbed). Glyph of Blessing of Kings (if for some reason you get into a fight with a dispeller who is determined to keep you at 0 buffs, you can reduce the mana cost of kings here and just spam kings on yourself - this severely reduces your dps, and i dont recommend doing it unless you have a very good reason to). Glyph of Blessing of Might (for convenience).
Arena

-Hit your targets in the back so they can’t dodge/parry, and 5% Hit/164 Hit Rating is the cap for pvp, so you don’t miss, but they're many high rated ret pallies who arent hit capped. However, they are close, like within 1% should be good. Dont get your hit from gems, use your gear, its a much better stat trade-off.

-Judge Judgement of Justice, most players have some kind of speed increase, minor speed, etc., this will help you keep up with them, sometimes do light if you aren’t worried about keeping your target close to you.

-Sacred Shield is good and you want to do your best to keep it on you (or maybe someone on your team who is often targeted by the other team) often, and instant Flash of Light (when Art of War is up) when you need it (be at least half health, otherwise use Exorcism), however casting both spells will use a GCD and so you dont want to use them when you have Divine Storm, Crusader Strike, Judge available to use or you are gimping your damage.

-Make sure you have 2 points in Divine Purpose and you are using Hand of Freedom to remove stuns on yourself, this can be done even if you are stunned. I would only use this for long stuns like a high combo point Kidney Shot or a Hammer of Justice, otherwise your Hand of Freedom is better off on someone who needs it more. You can also Hand of Freedom a teammate who is stunned and it will remove it.

-Coordinate with your teammates, make sure everyone is on vent. Dont just say "ok you heal us and we'll kill this guy" (dont tunnel vision, try to be creative, arena is more of a puzzle rather than who can press buttons faster). The most effective team switches targets at the right time and uses CC and other support moves. In arena you're no longer "dps", and the same goes for your partners, you're job is to defeat the other team, not just hit them as hard as you can, i.e. if you're running with a rogue against a healer and dps team, you guys sap the healer then start killin the other team's dps. Say the healer uses his PVP trinket and heals the dps to full, here tell your rogue to vanish and then you bubble and run farther from the fight. Then, get your rogue to sap the healer again, then u guys dps the dps, maybe throw blind/rep on the healer after sap. Knowing your arena partners moves is important so you can call out when you need them to use their moves. I run with a disc priest, whenever i get someone low i ask him to fear the heals, and that really helps to kill who im on. The best thing i can say is dont tunnel vision.

-The best way to get better at PVP is to duel. Go to a place where it seems a lot of 80s are dueling and duel anyone and everyone. This will help you learn about certain classes/specs spells and how you can best counteract them. If the guy you're dueling uses something you havent seen before, ask him about it. Dont expect to win all your duels against healers, ret pallies have a pretty hard time killing healers now, ignore what others may say about us being OP, the fact is we just dont have the silences or the -50% healing debuff to kill a healer with any consistency.

-Use fire resistance aura if the other team has a hunter, frost resist if they have a mage (the mage may possibly be arcane though), and shadow resist if they have a shadow priest or warlock. Having fire resist is a nice plus also if you already have shadow resist against a warlock. If you can't use these resist auras, see if you're healer needs conentration aura (most healer should want it), and if your healer doesn't need concentration aura for whatever reason you can use devotion aura against a melee heavy group, or retribution aura against a team with a rogue (he can do some descent dps to himself when you have it up).

-Use your support moves on yourself and your teammates. Use macros that are set to easy to press key bindings to use your support moves, use these macros in 2s and in 3s, however in 5s you probably wont have enough key bindings and you will need to use Clique or Healbot to apply your support moves. Use Hand of Sacrifice on someone who's at like half health, maybe throw him a heal or two. Use Hand of Freedom on someone if you see they have the Hamstring/Crippling Poison icon on them. Cleanse someone if they have the Fear icon (considering there arent alrdy too many DoTs on him), Freedom someone if you see the Kidney Shot icon on them (this will remove it and is really worth your time if you catch it early), use Divine Sacrifice if one of your teammates is getting low on health, same for HoP. if you're out of support spells dont forget you can always heal.

-Remember you're a hybrid, and many ppl will complain that you're OP, but as you do more arena you will realize that choosing the right moments to act as a hybrid (i.e. healing) is a large portion of what determines your skill. Remember that as long as you are healing you arent dpsing, so if you're on a full dps team you really do not want to heal during "burst" time, but you do want to heal during "reset" time.

-Dont split your dps, if there's more than one dps on your team, the dps should be focusing one target (in most cases), and if there needs to be a switch it should be called out, switching targets really helps to catch the other team off-guard, so having one person in vent calling switches and everyone listening is a powerful tool in arena.

-If you and another melee dps are duking it out, and you have a healer, save your Freedom to be used defensively, keep Judgement of Justice on the other melee dps, and when your health starts to get low just use Freedom and start strafing away (with him at 100% speed and you at 115% you should be able to kite him), this will give your healer a break and he should be able to heal you back up, then you can run back in, or switch targets if you think you should.

-Don't forget about consecration. I know it takes a lot of mana, but if you can keep consecration in your rotation and keep your enemy in your consecrate, you gain a damage increase of about 10-20%, and if 2 enemies are in your consecrate that's a 20-40% increase. I recommend only trying to use consecrate if you have some way of making sure your enemy doesn't move and you are using judge of wisdom, Crusader Strike glyph, and using Divine Plea whenever you have 3 seconds before your next damage ability comes off cooldown. In your 2s games, if your partner is a melee dps, you and him just focus down the other team's melee, your target will have to target either you or your partner, and you both are right by him.

-Consecration continued: In 2s, if your partner is a healer, have your healer stop moving when a melee dps is on him, this may sound weird, but if the melee dps is descent your healer wont ever be able to get away anyways, then you can focus down the other teams melee dps. Even if this melee is a DK or a war with a shield up, remember that you have a 10-20% dps increase, very few teams can survive that high of a constant increase in damage from a ret paladin. In 3s, drop a consecrate whenever your target is stunned, or when you're killing a healer that is just spamming heals and not moving. In 5s, you shouldn't use consecrate if you have a mage/rogue on your team, because you may break their blind/sap/sheep, but if you dont have those classes on your team you can consecrate when the other team is somewhat grouped up, this will either do a large amount of damage to the other team, or convince them to move, both of which help your team.


Suggested Setups

2s partner- Disc Priest, Mutilate Rogue, Restoration Shaman, Unholy Death Knight, Restoration Druid.

3v3 setups- Retribution Pally, Melee/Hunter, and a healer. The other melee really shouldn't be another Ret Pally though.


Your Seal in PVP

You should be running with Seals of the Pure (5 points in 1st tier of holy) and the Seal of Righteousness glyph. Then you should use Seal of Righteousness. However, it is possible to use Seal of Vengenace (or Corruption if your Horde) if you know you will be on your current target for at least a minute without being interupted by fears, etc. (this is near impossible, making Seal of Righteousness better in 99% of situations in PVP).

tl;dr

Thank you all, this is what I wanted to see--some actual useful information for paladins.

Your Welcome