PvE Retribution Paladin Stat Priority – WoW Classic
Nevermore • Updated June 7, 2025
Retribution Paladins share a similar stat priority to most melee DPS specializations, favoring stats such as Strength, Critical Strike Chance, and Agility. However, unlike other Melee DPS specializations, Retribution Paladins also make use of an unexpected stat, Spell Power!
Stat Priority
- Hit Chance
- Strength
- Critical Strike Chance
- Agility
- Attack Power
- Stamina
- Intellect
- Spell Power (Holy Damage)
- MP5
Hit Chance is a stat that increases your chance of landing attacks against enemies, being especially needed against higher-level targets such as raid bosses. The cap for Hit Chance is 9% in WoW Classic, however, Retribution Paladins have an easier time reaching it thanks to the Precision talent they have access to which grants them 3%. In the earlier phases, you won’t be able to reach the cap, but in the later stages, you may reach the cap even without Precision.
Strength is the main stat through which Retribution Paladins gain Attack Power, increasing the overall damage of their attacks! This stat is crucial for your overall Damage Output, meaning that you will want to stack as much as possible without dampening your other stats such as Hit Chance or Critical Strike Chance. You will naturally have Strength on almost all of your gear pieces, meaning that the extra amounts of Strength will usually come from Enchants and Consumables. 1 Strength is equal to 2 Attack Power!
Critical Strike Chance is a stat that is fundamental to Retribution Paladins, being tied to a few core mechanics of the specialization. The stat grants your attacks a chance to deal increased damage (Critical Strikes) but also pairs directly into the Vengeance talent, which results in a 15% increased Physical and Holy Damage dealt by the Paladin for a few seconds after landing a Critical Strike. Luckily, Retribution Paladins have access to Conviction, which gives them a 5% baseline Critical Strike Chance besides the one gained from Gear/Enchants/Consumables.
Agility is a stat that increases your Armor, Dodge Chance, Critical Strike Chance, and Ranged Attack Power. You will mainly want this stat as a Retribution Paladin for the Critical Strike Chance it offers since it synergizes with the Vengeance talent.
Attack Power, as mentioned before, is a stat that increases the overall Damage Output of your attacks! You will find items that directly offer this stat, yet you will only want to prioritize them if you can’t find a better Strength item or if the overall value of Attack Power is higher than the Strength offered by a possible counterpart. Keep in mind that 2 Attack Power is equal to 1 Strength.
Stamina is a stat that increases your overall Health Pool. Most items from Dungeons and Raids will feature Stamina on your best items as a Retribution Paladin, meaning that you won’t have to get out of your way to acquire Stamina. You will want a considerable amount of Stamina to ensure that you don’t die to instant-death raid/dungeon mechanics.
Intellect is a stat that increases your overall Mana Pool and Spell Critical Strike Chance. You will want to stack a considerable amount of Intellect, especially if you use the “Seal Twisting” mechanic, as it can get very mana-intensive. You may also boost this stat through the Divine Intellect mechanic, although it isn’t really necessary.
Spell Power is a stat that doesn’t typically work with Melee DPS specializations since it boosts the damage of Spells, however, Retribution Paladins benefit from this stat as most of their attacks involve Holy Damage! Most paladin sets feature some form of Spell Power, meaning that you won’t have to get out of your way to acquire the stat. However, you may choose to use specific consumables that boost your Spell Power (Holy Damage) to maximize your Damage Output.
MP5 is a stat that allows you to continue regenerating Mana in combat, even while casting! The mana regeneration ticks occur every 2 seconds, despite the MP5 name, playing a decent role in your overall Mana Management. As a Retribution Paladin, you will naturally have some MP5 on your sets, just like with Spell Power, meaning that it automatically helps you. You should avoid getting MP5 items besides your set items!
PvE Retribution Paladin Stat Priority
Pride • Updated June 7, 2025
Retribution Paladins have a similar stat priority to other Strength-based physical DPS specs, with the extra gimmick that we also care about capping our spell hit chance, as a few of our abilities are considered spells and require that you meet the spell hit cap in order to not miss with them.
Stat Priority
- Hit Rating
- Cap: 263 / 230 if there is a Draenei in your party
- Expertise Rating
- Cap: 26 Expertise = 132 rating / 107 for Humans using swords or maces / 91 for Dwarves using maces
- Strength
- Agility
- Crit Rating
- Attack Power
- Haste Rating
- Spell Power
- Armor Penetration Rating
- Cap: 1400 rating (100% armor penetration after raid debuffs)
Stat Explanation
Is it really not worth going for the last bit of spell hit ? if my horrendous math skills havent left me for good then 8% melee hit would be around 12.5% spell hit, you would only need 1.5% (~40ish) more spell hit to reach the hard cap with balance druids/shadow priests in your raid.
Ret paladins do not need spell hit. Their abilities works off of melee hits.
That is incorrect. Consecration, Holy Wrath and Exorcism all use spell hit, unfortunately, which means that you’d need 17% spell hit chance in total (or 14% spell hit chance if there’s a Shadowpriest / Boomkin) in your raid to never miss with them. As the guide explains however that cap is generally not worth reaching, so you’ll settle for the 8% hit cap for melee abilities (auto, SoV, CS, DS). Going above that 8% point helps you cap your spells, so the hit isn’t completely wasted, but not worth it!
Therefore, still — according to your conclusion, Ret palas do not require more than 8% hit, since these can be entirely replaced with higher-yielding attributes like criti or AP.
Hi Pride, thanks for your work!
Do you have a pawn string using your calculations?
Idk why agility is higher up in priority over crit attack power and haste? agility should be below attack power then crit then haste then armorpen. If the piece has agility on it its bonus crit (agi is only for melee and crit rating scales higher than agi) but sense all the stuff out of ulduar has high agi and low AP it sucks for ret. you are better off stacking str, crit, and haste while staying hit/exp capped.
Can you explain me why 263 hit rating is cap and your bis items give 310 hit rating, you did smth wrong here
Agility does not grant any attack power, therefore it is not 3rd slot for stat.
-Strength
-Crit
-Agility
-Haste
Wow, this list is amazingly crap. Ass backwards. DO NOT follow this. Not even the stat prio is right lol. /sigh
You actually need 9% hit. It was recently released with WoW Classic by Blizzard themselves that any ?? or Boss mobs actually have an unseen 1% hit suppression aura that ignores 1% of hit from gear. This has been in the game ever since 2006 so make sure your hit is 9%, even on private servers.
You’re right that Blizzard said this, however this hidden 1% hit suppression was removed in Wrath of the Lich King, after Blizzard removed the weapon skill stat in patch 2.3. So in WotLK, you only need 8% hit, thankfully!
Pretty sure if you are hitting from behind enemies cant dodge or parry. So why do you have to be expertise capped?
That’s only in pvp. Pve you still get dodged
As another user said, it’s only in PvP that enemies can’t dodge or parry from behind. In PvE, they can dodge from behind, with a 6.5% chance to do so, meaning you need 26 expertise to fully avoid that happening.
Blizzard never removed the weapon skill stat for Wrath, that was for Cataclysm.. You still need to hit 400 weapon skill in Wrath. Pretty sure you’re talking about Cataclysm where they removed all weapon skills.
The author is talking about the weapon skill STAT not weapon skill in general.
And weapon skill stat did indeed get removed in BC. Weapon skill stat refers to items with “+8 dagger” or smthg like that.
Ret paladins don’t need armor pen whatsoever. Shouldn’t even be on the list. ;)
PvE Retribution Paladin Stat Priority
Judgement • Updated June 2, 2025
The stat priorities for Retribution Paladins in TBC Classic are, in order of value;
- Expertise
- Hit
- Strength
- Haste
- Crit
- Agility
- Spell Power
- Armor Penetration
TBC introduces three new stats to the game; Haste, Expertise and Armor Penetration.
Haste is a good stat for Retribution Paladins and increase our attack speed, but it’s hard to come by early on in TBC. It will get more and more common later on as we get to Phase 3 and onward.
Expertise will reduce the chance bosses have of Dodging and Parrying your attacks. If you played Ret in Classic you know that there is nothing more frustrating then having a good parse ruined by a few dodges. Same principle applies in TBC, and this is where Expertise comes in and saves the day. The main problem is that it’s also very hard to reach the cap, and you will be forced to wear some leather or non-optimal items if you want expertise, as there is no Expertise gems that you can supplement with.
Armor Penetration is also a new stat that only existed on special item effects in classic. It starts showing up in Black Temple and Sunwell on gear, but overall it’s a bad stat for us since a lot of our damage is magical, so it’s not something you should itemize for.
Hit Cap
You need 9% or 142 Hit Rating to be physically hit capped against bosses in TBC. The talent Precision gives you 3% which lowers the amount you need to get down to 95 hit rating. Any extra hit rating you get above this will be worthless.
Other external factors that can help you reach hit cap against bosses are Heroic Presence from a Draenei Hunter, Paladin or Warrior that are in your group (1% hit / 15.8 rating) or a druid with the talent Improved Faerie Fire can also help everyone in the raid by reducing the needed hit by 3% or 47 rating.
Because of this, it can be a good idea to have a few extra items with or without hit which you can swap depending on if you have a Draenei or Druid that lowers the amount of hit you need.
Spell Hit is also a factor for Retribution paladins since several of our abilities are considered spells. You will not find spell hit on any traditional items for Retribution paladins and you should never itemize for it on purpose.
Expertise Cap
All mobs and enemies have a base 5% chance to dodge and parry your attacks. As bosses counts as level 73 they will have an additional 0.6% chance to dodge/parry for a total of 5.6%.
- Mobs can still dodge when you attack them from behind, but they can only parry from the front.
- In order to reach Expertise cap and never be dodged or parried you need a total of 91 Expertise rating.
- If you are a Human Paladin you will get 5 expertise with Maces and Swords from your racials, which equals 19 expertise rating. So as a Human your cap will be 72 expertise rating.
Abilities That Use Hit and Spell Hit
wrongs, its 103 expertise
Also Consecration doesn’t need spell hit. You can’t miss with it.