As I was looking over retribution Paladin gear for newer level 70s to go for, I realized that the retribution sets from PVP are actually very good for PVE Ret pallies as well. I suppose nothing much has changed for Paladins in that regard in the Burning Crusade, as aside from AQ40 gear, some of the best Ret gear was also from PVP.
Kalgan made it clear in a post a while back that he and the dev team regard Retribution spec as a solo PVP and solo grinding spec. In other words, the bastard red-headed stepchild spec of what was billed as the "melee hybrid" class at release. Like many, I signed on for a melee fighter with mediocre heals and nice buffs to help out when soloing and add utility to a group. Over the last two and a half years, my paladin has evolved from a capable fifth man in a group, both able to offtank and dps, to a raid healbot, to a main instance healer. As I have a warrior, I never bothered to spec for the tanking role Blizzard wants to shove down our throats as part of the new "tanking/healing" hybrid paradigm, though I've tanked a bit of stuff as Holy.
So, it's no wonder Ret itemization is a little weird, and no wonder some of the best Retribution items are to be had from PVP. Unlike the spell damage and healing sets, the retribution gear is very light on Resilience. The stat points lost in resilience are spread around among spell damage and strength. This has caused a bit of debate. In my opinion, for PVP purposes, the spell damage should have been left as resilience rating for ret gear, and for PVE purposes strength would have provided better gains for damage output.
However, the stuff does have enough damage and healing to boost your heals by a bit, and that's somewhat useful. It becomes more useful when you realize you can toss on a healing shield like the Crystal Pulse Shield and the new +423 healing Gladiator hammer with a +81 healing enchant, and get a fast +778 Healing boost if you're in full Gladiator's/PVP gear. That's not too bad of a quick role switch if you find yourself tossing emergency heals.
My current build is 5/8/48
Sources for my numbers (subject to change when realms come back up with live data):
Arena Weapons
Arena Paladin DPS Plate
Honor Rewards from Here and Here
Here's the setup I'm looking at. It requires nothing other than getting into an arena team and accumulating points. I plan on waiting until a friend of mine finishes leveling his Hunter and just doing ten 2v2 matches a week for the Gladiator stuff. This has got to be the least optimal way to go about it, but eventually those six (seven counting healing mace) Gladiator slots will fill up!
This isn't the best gear build for pure PVE DPS. The honor cape should be replaced with a Vengeance Wrap and eventually I plan on getting Furious Gizmatic Goggles for the head slot, since I'm an Engineer. Likewise, you can probably find higher-DPS rings in instances, and from reputation rewards like Adal's Command from exalted Sha'tar rep. There are also better trinkets for DPS purposes, such as Hourglass of the Unraveller, but I chose quest rewards everyone can get easily and without loot drama.
Likewise, for pure PVP, you may want to mix in two pieces of the Season 1 Gladiator gear and get resilience gems and trinkets to boost your resilience.
The main point of this gear list is that it is obtainable on a casual basis, if you invest some time in PVP, and it's a very well-rounded setup.
Head: Merciless Gladiator's Scaled Helm
Neck: Veteran's Pendant of Triumph
Back: Sergeant's Heavy Cloak (I could not find an upgraded version of this item.)
Shoulders: Merciless Gladiator's Scaled Shoulders
Chest: Merciless Gladiator's Scaled Chestpiece
Waist: Veteran's Scaled Belt
Wrist: Veteran's Scaled Bracers
Legs: Merciless Gladiator's Scaled Legguards
Hands: Merciless Gladiator's Scaled Gauntlets
Feet: Veteran's Scaled Greaves
Ring 1: Veteran's Band of Triumph
Ring 2: Band of the Exorcist (PVP Ring you grind Auchindoun instances for. Sort of illogical, but not too tough to get with time.)
Trinket 1: Blackhand's Breadth
Trinket 2: Uniting Charm or Bladefist's Breadth (I chose the spell crit quest reward so no BFB for me. Stats below use Charm)
Weapon: Merciless Gladiator's Greatsword (The stats are the same on all the slow weapons, I happen to like the sword graphic best.)
Libram: Libram of Zeal (There is a new Arena Libram, but I don't have stats for it yet)
Now, if we add all of the above up, before customizing the gear with enchants and gems, we get:
STR: +278 / +305 with Holy STR
STA: +519
INT: +185 / +203 with Holy INT
Attack Power: +204
CRIT Rating: +368 (+16.65% chance to Crit)
Spell Damage and Healing: +239
Resilience: +145 (-3.68% chance to be Crit, and -7.36% damage from Crits)
HIT Rating: +28 (+1.77% Chance to Hit, +4.77% with Precision)
1x META Gem Slot
4x RED Gem Slots
4x YELLOW Gem Slots
Needless to say, this is a VERY good baseline set of stats for a Retribution Paladin. My ultimate goal in obtaining this gear will simply be to go bash in the skulls of monsters and NPCs while grinding out unfinished (or new) quests, rep, and crafting supplies, while stepping into the occasional battleground and bashing in the heads of my fellow players. (Well, their characters, let's not get too carried away.)
With that in mind, here's how I plan to slot gems and enchants on the above gear:
Head: Glyph of Ferocity (Cenarion Expedition Revered rep; +34 AP, +16 Hit Rating)
Back: Greater Agility (+12 AGI)
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Blade (Scryers Exalted rep; +15 Crit Rating, +20 AP)
Chest: Exceptional Stats (+6 All Stats)
Legs: Nethercobra Leg Armor (+50 AP, +12 Crit Rating)
Wrist: Brawn (+12 STR)
Hands: Superior Agility (+15 AGI)
Feet: Dexterity (+12 AGI)
Weapon: Mongoose (Proc: +120 AGI and Haste)
Meta: Swift Windfire Diamond (+20 AP and Minor Run Speed Increase)
Red: 4x Bold Living Ruby (+32 STR total)
Yellow: 4x Brilliant Dawnstone (+32 INT total. Plenty of Crit elsewhere, and I like a decent mana pool)
This would give me:
STR: +360 (Including Holy STR)
AGI: +45 (+1.8% Crit)
STA: +519
INT: +223 (No Holy INT)
Attack Power: +328
CRIT Rating: +395 (+17.87% Crit)
Spell Damage and Healing: +239
Resilience: +145 (-3.68% chance to be Crit, and -7.36% damage from Crits)
HIT Rating: +44 (+2.78% Chance to Hit, +5.77% with Precision)
This would give me a 29.67% crit chance, +5.77% hit chance, and over 1500 unbuffed attack power, while still maintaining a decent 9.5k Health and 7k Mana (roughly). Not a bad mix of damage output (30% or so crit should keep Vengeance stacked nicely) and survivability.
Of course, if you're not up for Arena, the blue PVP gear is still very nice in its own right, and the rest of the gear listed can also be had from normal battlegrounds PVP. A nice crafted epic weapon like Thunder with the blue PVP set and honor reward epics will still perform VERY nicely.
