PvE Retribution Paladin Best Professions

Author: Pride
Date: September 20, 2022
Updated: September 20, 2022
Expansion: WotLK Classic

Retribution Paladin

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Stat Priority

Best Races

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Rotation & Cooldowns

Best Professions

Best in Slot (BiS) & Pre-Raid Gear

Addons & Macros

Professions are a crucial part of your World of Warcraft character, potentially offering a large boost to your damage, healing or survivability, while also allowing you to generate some gold.

This section will cover some of your best options for professions as a Retribution Paladin.

Best Professions

Like with most other classes & specs in the game, Engineering will be your strongest profession. For the second profession slot, we recommend Jewelcrafting, though Blacksmithing is extremely close to it in performance.

Engineering is the king of professions for PvE content, offering a vast, vast array of different benefits.

The main benefit of Engineering lies in the Hyperspeed Accelerators gloves enchant, which gives +340 haste rating for 12 seconds, on a 1 minute cooldown. This translates into a ~10% attack speed increase with a 20% uptime, which is already amazing on its own — but it becomes even bigger when you use the Accelerators when your various trinkets proc.

Additionally, as an Engineer you have access to the Nitro Boosts boots enchant, passively giving +24 crit rating and coming with an-use effect which massively increases your speed for 5 seconds, allowing you to move out of dangerous AoE effects or catch up to your target quickly. As Retribution Paladins don’t have any movement-related abilities, such as Charge or Sprint, this speed boost will be invaluable for us.

Finally, just like in previous expansions, Engineers can use powerful explosives such as Saronite Bombs and Global Thermal Sapper Charges.

No surprises there, Jewelcrafting is an extremely potent profession for most classes / specs and that includes Retribution Paladins. Not only do you gain access to powerful, Jewelcrafter-unique gems, but you also get to sell gems to others, giving you a modest income through this profession.

The main benefit of Jewelcrafting is the Jewelcrafter-unique gems, Dragon’s Eye, which are more powerful than regular gems, but are limited to 3 equipped at a time. The main ones you’ll be crafting as a Retribution Paladin are Bold Dragon’s Eye, resulting in a +42 strength boost compared to using regular epic gems.

Useful Professions

The following professions are considered viable, but offer a lesser benefit compared to the best professions, so they’re not recommended. If you’re not focused on making your character 100% optimal, you can use any of these professions just fine.

Blacksmiths can add 2 extra gem sockets to their gear — 1 on wrists, and 1 on hands. Socketing 2x Bold Cardinal Ruby into them translates into a +40 strength bonus, which barely loses out to Jewelcrafting.

Moreover, Blacksmithing allows you to craft some neat gear for yourself, which is specially useful early on in the expansion or when your character is freshly dinged level 80. However, the crafted gear is generally not as powerful as it was in previous expansions.

As a Tailor, you gain access to the Swordguard Embroidery cloak enchant, a proc which gives you +400 attack power for 15 seconds with a 45 second internal cooldown. This translates into a possible +133 attack power bonus on average if it procs exactly every 45 seconds, or a +100 attack power bonus on average if it procs every 60 seconds, which is absolutely massive.

However, there is a significant opportunity cost attached to this bonus, as it prohibits you from using the standard cloak enchant, Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed, making it slightly weaker in practice. Procs are extremely powerful as they can be stacked together with cooldowns, so this bonus shouldn’t be written off at all because of this — it’s just not as powerful as Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing, with their large passive strength bonuses.

Tailoring is pretty weak on the gold generation side, unfortunately, so the cloak enchant is all you really get here.

As a Scribe, you gain access to the Master’s Inscription of the Axe shoulder enchant, which provides a +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Greater Inscription of the Axe. This bonus ties Enchanting and Leatherworking, but is strictly speaking worse than the +40 strength bonus that Blacksmithing offers.

Scribes also get to make Glyphs & scrolls, providing a nice source of income, but many will argue that the real benefit in Inscription comes in not having to grind The Sons of Hodir reputation for the shoulder enchants!

As an Enchanter you gain access to the Enchant Ring – Assault enchant, which you can apply to both of your rings for a modest +80 attack power bonus. This bonus ties Inscription and Leatherworking, but is strictly speaking worse than the +40 strength bonus that Blacksmithing offers.

You also get to enchant your own equipment without needing to tip another enchanter, which results in a neat amount of gold saved, on top of the gold you can generate by enchanting others.

As a Leatherworker you gain access to the Fur Lining – Attack Power bracer enchant, which proves a +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault. This bonus ties Inscription and Enchanting, but is strictly speaking worse than the +40 strength bonus that Blacksmithing offers.

There are sadly no other useful benefits gained from Leatherworking, and you generally don’t get to make much or a profit with it either.

As an Alchemist, you gain access to the Mixology passive effect, which increases the effectiveness of flasks and elixirs you consume, but only if you can craft them yourself. This results in a +64 attack power increase when using Flask of Endless Rage, our preferred flask. This is sadly a smaller boost than what other professions can offer, but not by much.

On the flipside, Alchemy is one of the best professions for gold generation, as potions, flasks and elixirs are always relevant and in high demand. This makes it a great profession for your alts to have.

Skinners gain access to the Master of Anatomy passive, which offers a +40 crit rating boost. This is weaker than all of the other professions mentioned in this list, but at least it’s something.

Skinning is generally not that good at gold generation either, so it’s overall not a great profession.

Sub-Par Professions

The following professions do not offer any DPS-increasing benefits and are thus not considered viable for Retribution Paladin in PvE.

Herbalists gain the Lifeblood active skill, which heals you for 3600 over 5 seconds, with a 3 minute cooldown. This can occasionally come in handy, particularly while leveling, farming or questing, but will generally never be enough to save you in a dungeon or raid.

On the flipside, Herbalism is one of the strongest professions for gold generation, as herbs are used in Alchemy and Inscription, and thus always in demand. This makes it a good profession to have on an alt, particularly a Druid, Rogue or Hunter.

Miners gain access to the Toughness passive, which offers a +60 stamina boost. This is alright for tanks, but generally won’t cut it for a Retribution Paladin.

Mining is okay for gold generation, but as with Herbalism, it’s best saved for a Druid, Rogue or Hunter alt.

About the Author

Pride

Classic WoW is my jam, with a passion for PvP. Most know me as Baranor, the ret paladin guy, but I'm secretly a druid main, don't tell anyone. In my free time I play Switch games, particularly JRPGs. Some day I'll be making my own games and I humbly hope you play those too!