PvE Retribution Paladin DPS Stat Priority & Reforging

Retribution Paladins in Mists of Pandaria prioritize Hit, Strength, and Haste, followed by Mastery as their most impactful stats to improve their performance. Haste is extremely important to them due to the Sanctity of Battle effect, while Critical Strike Chance is the least important stat, with Mastery outperforming it considerably.

Stat Priority

1. Hit (Until Cap)
2. Expertise (Until Soft Cap)
3. Strength
4. Haste
5. Mastery
6. Critical Strike Chance
7. Stamina

Hit or Hit Chance is a secondary stat that ensures your attacks and spells land against higher-level mobs. Since Retribution Paladins use a mix of abilities, some counting as attacks and some as spells, a different amount of Hit Chance will be required for each. Thankfully, in Mists of Pandaria, Expertise adds to the Spell Hit Chance of a Retribution Paladin. You will specifically need 7.5% Hit to ensure that your Attacks never miss against a level 93 target, with each 340 Hit resulting in 1% Hit Chance. Due to how Expertise now affects Retribution Paladins, some races will have increased Spell Hit Chance when using specific items due to their racial bonuses.

Expertise is a secondary stat in Mists of Pandaria that increases Spell Hit Chance and reduces the chance of your attacks being dodged or parried. You need 7.5% Expertise to ensure your attacks can’t be dodged and 15% Expertise to avoid being parried. 340 Expertise results in 1% Expertise. Since you’ll always be behind the target, you only need to aim for the 7.5% Soft Cap!

Strength is a primary stat that directly increases your Attack Power as a Retribution Paladin! By default, this stat is the strongest damage buff that you can obtain for your character, and also provides you with Spell Power through the Sword of Light passive effect, which grants you 50% of your Attack Power as Spell Power. Since Agility no longer grants you Attack Power, you will always want to prioritize items with Strength as a primary stat!

Haste is a secondary stat that significantly enhances a Retribution Paladin’s gameplay. It increases Attack Speed, reduces Global Cooldown, and the overall cooldown of spells and attacks. While those changes affect most other Melee Classes, Retribution Paladins benefit from Haste more due to the Sanctity of Battle effect. It specifically reduces the cooldown and GCD of Judgment, Crusader Strike, Exorcism, Hammer of Wrath, and Hammer of the Righteous, improving your overall Holy Power generation.

Early on, you won’t be able to reach high values of Haste without effects such as Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp. As the expansion progresses, you will want to reach as close as possible to 50%-60% Haste while fully raid buffed, not taking into account the effects above.

Mastery is the next important secondary stat after Haste, directly empowering the Mastery: Hand of Light effect. Since you will be spamming all of the spells empowered by the effect, you will want to stack Mastery whenever possible without dampening your Haste.

Lastly, Critical Strike Chance is the least important stat for Retribution Paladins. While it does result in extra damage, the benefits reaped by stacking Critical Strike Chance are far less significant when compared to the extra Holy Damage generated by stacking Mastery. You will still want to get items that give you Critical Strike Chance, but you will not want to use any specific enchants, consumables, or gems that enhance it. More often than not, you will reforge Critical Strike Chance into either Haste or Mastery.

Stamina is a primary stat that directly increases your Health Pool. You will always gain Stamina from the appropriate items for your specialization, meaning that you won’t have to get out of your way to acquire Stamina. In addition, you should never use gems or enchants that enhance your Stamina.

Reforging

Reforging can only be done on secondary stats, meaning you can’t acquire more Strength through it! As a Retribution Paladin, you will want to primarily reforge your secondary stats into Hit, followed by Haste. After that, you will want to prioritize gaining Mastery to increase the value stored by Mastery: Hand of Light as much as possible. You will want to avoid acquiring Critical Strike Chance through reforging!

1. Hit (Until Cap)
2. Haste (As much as possible until 50% unbuffed)
3. Mastery (After Haste)