Let’s face it. Retribution blows.

Blows things up, that is. Out of all the trees — and I mean all including the other classes — no tree got more love than Retribution in the Echoes of Doom patch. For many of us, it’s been a long time coming. No other class spec has been the butt of more jokes and the target of such derision as Retribution. Not anymore. Not inPatch 3.0.2 and the days leading up to Wrath of the Lich King. Retribution deals so much pain that we’ve sent the rest of player base running to Ghostcrawler crying for a nerf. And we’re getting nerfed. To the ground.

Don’t panic. The changes are really, mostly aimed at PvP Paladins — okay, that’s me — but will largely leave Paladin PvE damage output the same. That’s excellent news. Because I’ve grown accustomed to the idea that quite a lot of you guys prefer PvE to PvP, we’ll take a look at a PvE Retribution build that will make you the darling of your Heroic runs and more than welcome in raids. Let’s bring on the pain after the jump.
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Ah, the glyph section. This is where things start to get a little hairy, because the bulk of arguing about the right balance DPS rotation hinges a lot on the glyphs you’ve got equipped and the type of fight you’re doing. But first, some of what I think are going to be less important glyphs in the great scheme of things:

• Glyph of Entangling Roots: Great for solo work and some dungeon work (if a mob can be safely rooted somewhere without attracting attention from a patrol).

• Glyph of Hurricane: Eh. Not really all that impressive, and I’m kind of stumped as to where or even how this will be put to good use outside of battlegrounds (most obviously Alterac Valley) while defending against a rush.

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New talents available in the Balance tree:

• Genesis: This will affect three Balance spells (Insect Swarm, Moonfire, and Starfall), but it’s another prime candidate for a restokin, as most of a Restoration Druid’s healing power still lies in HoT’s. The vast majority of your firepower as a moonkin is still going to come from a rotation making heavy use of the direct-damage Starfire or Wrath. A flat 5% increase to the damage of Insect Swarm and Moonkin isn’t bad, with that said, Insect Swarm has typically been phased out of a high-DPS rotation as gear improves (the DPS loss from a global cooldown devoted to that rather than Starfire just isn’t worth it, unless your tank really needs the extra avoidance), and 5% isn’t really enough to devote 5 talent points to supplemental damage spells in an already-bloated tree. You will be getting 5/5 Starlight Wrath and that takes care of your first tier.

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 The good news is that the balance spec is more viable than it’s ever been, with a better raid buff, better individual DPS, and significantly more group utility. Moonkin have literally never been better than they are right now, and that’s about the only thing that everyone can seem to agree on. The bad news is that Blizzard caught thatamazing Typhoon bug that basically allowed you to solo Tier 7 bosses and walk home with all the loot. C’est la vie.

Gray Matter also an excellent post here about stats you’ll want at 80 so you can plan ahead.
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If you’re looking at the new Elemental tree and wondering what talents to pick, here’s a little help for you from someone who’s been speccing and respeccing almost pure Elemental on the beta servers for several months now. (That would be me.) 

For my part, I leveled to 70 as Elemental and saw no reason to switch as I worked my way up the new Wrath talent tree. Since we’ve already been over the new spells, the point of this post is to simply recommend a build for you. So let’s get a-buildin’!
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It’s a sweet time to be a Tankadin. I know that AoE tanking is no longer the exclusive domain of Paladins, but that’s cool. With the changes to the way tanking works now, tanks generally generate threat by dishing out more damage… and boy does a Protection Paladin deal damage. Because Protection is the tanking tree, a PvE-oriented endeavor, I’m going to put away my PvP-fanatic hat aside and focus on a build that is optimal for tanking. Don’t worry, even in this spec Paladins are still formidable. That’s just the way it works in the new world.

We see a big change right away on the first tier with Blessing of Kings made accessible to all. It’s not quite the baseline spell we’ve been asking for, but it’s close. Some players can choose to pick up a scaled down version for less than five points, but since this is standard raid fare, we’re throwing in 5 points here including Improved Blessing of Kings. We’re also going to pick up Divine Strengthon this tier, which was moved from the Holy tree. It’s important to note that pretty much everything we use scales off attack power now, too, so more Strength means more pain. And more pain means more threat. Strength also contributes to block value, so we’ll be looking to get Strength in our gear, too.
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Shadow has always been the “off-spec” for priests, from Classic, where it was questionable whether Shadow was viable for anything but leveling and PvP, to BC, where Shadow provides superb utility but limited DPS. Now I’m not saying Shadow will suddenly become the spec of choice for raiding priests, but the game is changing significantly in patch 3.0.2 and Wrath of the Lich King. Our coveted mana return is getting nerfed and spread around to Survival hunters and Retribution paladins, as well as us. But to compensate, our DPS is (supposedly) being brought up to par with the best of them.

A lot of this is coming in the form of a new and improved Mind Flay. Previously the “filler” spell that you cast during your rotation when you couldn’t cast anything else, its spellpower coefficient is now being bumped up greatly, and perhaps more importantly, it can now crit! No longer must you shun crit rating to be a decent shadow priest.

Of course, there are also some dramatic talent tree changes - almost every talent is modified in some way. Let’s start from the top and work our way down.

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What sets Rogues apart is the true uniqueness of the new abilities. They are very different from anything we have ever seen before, and this can cause confusion and makes them harder to evaluate in terms of usefulness. I have been able to test Shadow Dance first hand, find my full report after the cut.

Shadow Dance, how I wish thee were how I once knew you. This talent was drastically rebalanced from essentially 4 consecutive Vanishes to 4 consecutive openers. While any and every Rogue can see that 4 Vanishes was the more powerful version, it looks like we’re stuck with the current opener flavor. In addition, since the Rogue will no longer Vanish, your target will almost ALWAYS be in combat (any smart target will put themselves in combat when fighting a Rogue), so I would write off the ability to Sap completely. It does however add the ability to use the recently buffed Premeditation during the Dance, which is another buff to the previously neglected 31 pt Sub talent.
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Five points in Holy Powerbecause we love our crits. Then we skipPurifying Power because the only thing we’re really getting out of that is a 10% discount on Cleanse.

On tier seven we have mandatory four points for Light’s Grace and Holy Shock. Light’s Grace is even more important because we need the buff up almost all the time for those 1 second heal nukes. We can skip Blessed Life, although you can consider it for PvP. Still, we only have so many points to spend.
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