Finding Retribution Paladin gear pre-raids can seem like a daunting task. So many emblems to acquire, countless heroic runs, and possibly heaps of gold to spend. I just got a request for a pre-raid BiS gear list for Ret Paladins, and I realized I have many gear lists up for Rets, I don’t have a BiS pre-raid.
This list may look similar to my other lists, but I am hoping to get a focused set of gear for Rets to aim for, assuming they don’t touch a raid. That said, this is goign to be a Best in Slot (BiS) list, so it will NOT include all the gearing options. There may be other viable options, but this is what I consider to be your best bet.
Also, I am going to try and focus on strength plate items as opposed to agility leather. Yes, some leather items will work, but I don’t want to give the advicethat leather gear is always better than plate, because sometimes it is not. I hate seeing Paladins that come in with over half their gear agility/leather instead of strength/plate. Remember, the agility pieces you see on BiS gear lists are best because their stats are used in combination with other gear pieces. Their values are further enhanced by a solid core of strength gear. So, I won’t go overboard with leather items.
Retribution Paladin Pre-Raid BiS Gear List
- Helm – [Turalyon's Helm of Conquest]
- Neck – [The Executioner's Malice]
- Shoulders – [Lightsworn Shoulderplates]
- Cloak - [Drape of the Untamed Predator]
- Chest – [Titanium Razorplate]
- Wrists – [Titanium Spikeguards]
- Hands – [Lightsworn Gauntlets]
- Belt – [Belt of the Titans]
- Legs – [Turalyon's Legplates of Conquest]
- Boots – [Grinning Skull Boots]
- Ring 1 – [The Lady's Promise]
- Ring 2 – [Bloodshed Band]
- Trinket 1 – [Darkmoon Card: Greatness]
- Trinket 2 – [Needle Encrusted Scorpion]
- 2H Weapon – [Tyrannical Beheader]
Note that I did include 2 T10 pieces, because Emblems of Frost can be obtained by doing daily heroics. Going into raids with 2 T9 and 2 T10 is very do-able without stepping a foot into a raid. Several of these pieces are BoE and more than likely must be purchased from the AH or another player. I also have 2 blacksmithing pieces.
I am sure there are other combinations that will work, but this would be my ideal list if I couldn’t do one raid before completing my gear set.
Finally, remember these are top of the line without actually raiding. There are many other viable gear options, so don’t be afraid to stray from this list, or others similar to it!
Just a thing about this:
You’ve got two items (Neck and Cloak) that are from ToGC-25, which doesn’t really jive with a pre-Raid list.
@Darthregis – You’re right, those are from ToGC 25. But they are also BoE, and can be bought in the AH or from another player, thus making them attainable without raiding.
I know it’s a fine line, but since this is more of a BiS list, I have to include purchasable items, too. That said, there are BoE items from ICC, but I’m trying to keep this list within the realm of possibility. Most new Paladins won’t be able to afford an 8k gold neck or shoudlers…much less multiple ICC BoEs.
Thanks for the info, I am a new lvl 80 ret and am wondering what BiS gear I could get before heavy raiding. Great site too, very helpful for us younger pallys.
@Khor – Fair enough on the BoE items.
I just brought it up because when I make my gear plans, it’s usually based upon gear I can get on my own, without requiring crafted or BoE items. That said, it would kind of take away from that whole BiS theme, wouldn’t it? 
Yeah, it does. I probably should make a more complete list, because in essence, this really isn’t a TRUE BiS list, because I ma excluding some BoE gear. What I should probably do is make another list that has no raid gear at all in it, only heroic acquired items.
Thanks for a good starting point and for such great info for Ret Pallys.
Would you say using additional T9 Turalyon pieces such as Battleplate of Conquest and Gauntlets of Conquest as alternates for the Titanium Razorplate and the Lightsworn Gauntlets? At least until the frost badges can be collected for the T10 pieces.
Hey Ben, after crunching some Rawr numbers, it is actually very, very close. I am showing a 20-30 DPS increase by using the Razorplate and Lightsworn gloves, without any set bonus on the T10. The dual 232 chest and gloves is a smidge behind. Really, it’s negatable, so you could be safe going with the other 2 T9 if you don’t have the emblems yet for the gloves.
Hope this helps!
@Khor that’s kind of what I was seeing as well. I’m averaging (approx) 2800-3200 DPS right now per Recount. Any other suggestions for us newb 80 Rets out there?
Bendigeidfrn: http://bit.ly/9F0h
Identity Crisis – Alleria
Thanks for the list! I’m very close to this as well. As you said, there are lots of things to mix and match, and RAWR’s calculations are all based on what you currently have. Some of the things on your list are very nice, but too expensive for my blood on my server (Darkmoon Trink, e.g.) Here are some other items for people to think about. It’s what I used to get over a 5k gear score without raiding.
I assume that you will be running Heroics constantly to (1) get your 2 Frosts/day, and (2) max out your Triumph Gear. A nice bonus is that part of the time you’ll also be building up Stone Keeper’s Shards if your faction controls Wintergrasp while you’re running all of these heroics. Those Stone Keeper’s Shards can be turned in for Wintergrasp Commendations, which in turn can get you 2000 Honor Points each. Then you can use the Honor Points to buy some nice pre-raid gear…all without ever running any PVP, just continuing to run your Heroics. After way too much time on RAWR (lol) it appeared to me that the following items are decent alternatives to some of the things on your list for those of us with a little less gold at our disposal:
Battlemaster’s Rage: 34,100 Honor Points (i245 Trinket, you can get 2 if you like, sold by Captain Dirgehammer in Stormwind)
Wrathful Gladiator’s Bracers of Triumph: 43,400 Honor Points (i264/sold by Lieutenant Tristia in Stormwind)
Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Triumph: 52,200 Honor Points (i264/sold by Lieutenant Tristia in Stormwind)
With a little luck, by the time you’ve maxed out your Triumph Gear (T9 Gear/Libram/Rings/maybe a Trink) and are buying your first T10 piece, you’ll also have accumulated enough Honor Points for these items to boost you up over 5k gear score with a 7400ish RAWR DPS (your mileage may vary, I only get around 3,700 dps in heroics with this set up).
My current set-up has no crafted/boe purchases. All Badge/Heroic Drop/Honor Points per above: (Sorry, don’t know how to link)
4 T9 for bonuses (Head/Chest/Hands/Legs)
Barbed Ymirheim Choker
Accursed Crawling Cape (Currently still need for Hit Cap)
Wrathful Gladiator’s Bracers of Triumph
Flayer’s Blackbelt (I know, leather, sorry…best I have)
Grinning Skull Boots
Bloodshed Band
Dexterous Brightstone Ring
Mark of Supremacy (really helps get to that Hit Cap)
Battlemaster’s Rage
Libram of Valiance
Tyrannical Beheader
First T10: Lightsworn Shoulders
Next upgrades: Lightsworn Gloves for 2T10 bonus/Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Triumph.
Hope this helps! If not, sorry to make you skip through the wall of text.
Erek (Kirin Tor)
Go to wow-Heroes.com and look up spikeleeroyy on us server and kirin tor only piece of gear that is raids is the back which is from ICC 10 and the boots which are from TOC 10 every other piece was bought with emblems made from a BS or picked up in Heroics I just recently got the new back and boots the old back piece was 200 as well were the boots
Why don’t you put the Quel’Delar might of the Faithful as the BIS pre-raid ?
isn’t it possible to complete this without being in a raid ?
And also, what would you put instead of t10 ?
I dunno if you think this set up would be good and easier to get ?
weapon – tyrannical beheader ( Quel’Delar )
ring1 – Runed Ring of Kirin Tor
ring2 – Bloodshed Band (with upgrade possible being ring of rotting sinew)
Trinket1 – Mark of supremacy
trinket2 – needle-encrusted scorpion (Dark Moon card Greatness being upgrade)
neck – Painfully sharp choker (Executioner’s Malice being upgrade)
Head – Helm of thunderous Rampage
shoulder – Pauldrons of trembling rage
Bracer – Malykriss vambraces ( Titanium spikeguards being upgrade)
gloves – t9 of conquest
chest – t9 of conquest ( Titanium razorplate being upgrade)
belt – Belt of singing blade ( belt of the titan being small upgrade)
legs – t9 of conquest
Boots – grinning skull boots ( battlelord’s plateboots being upgrade)
cloak – Tapestry of Frozen throne.
My choices are not gear using Primordial saronite to craft,
and no gear using frost emblems as this is my secondary spec.
What do you think ?
Absolutely Boum! I need to add it, thank you very much!
Superb list, this is also extremely viable.
Very nice list all, but doesn’t both setups lack hit and expertise?
You only need 22 expertise for Heroics and you get 10 free from glyph seal of vengence.
so you need 12 more (without any racial).
And for heroics you only need 214 hit rating instead of 263…
Was just wondering what Libram would be used? great list btw
Ah, the 245 emblem libram is what most Paladins take with them. The 264 emblem trinket is better, but it is dead last on the Paladin Frost Emblem priority list, so it is usually acquired after everything else.
Awesome, thanks very much. Keep up the good work helping the Retribution nation
in this gear what dps should you be pulling off
On single targets, anywhere from 3000-4000 DPS. On trash and AoE, 3500-5000 (depending on number of mobs). Doing more than these numbers can easily be done, but I’d say those are par for this level of gear.
You know its this things u putted have Arm.Pen. palas with arm.pen. really suck you should better find some other things maybe 226 too with not arm.pen. and you ll do more dps on raids
We need to be real careful not to dismiss gear with armor pen, just because it has armor pen. When players read sites like this, they see armor pen listed as our least desireable stat.
But in actuality, never have I said it’s a bad stat. Armor pen still benefits us, just not as much as the other stats do. The reason is because armor pen only affects 40-50% of our attacks since it applies to physical damage. The reason it is lower than haste or crit for us is because the other 50% of our damage is spell power.
That said, it still DOES provide benefit. When compared to other options, be careful not to immediately dismiss armor pen gear.
And the reason this gear is on the BiS pre-raid gear list is because they are the best options OUTSIDE of raiding. Don’t reject gear just because it has armor pen. You’re missing out on some good gear if you do that.
As of 4.0.1 it is easier to get T10 pieces by just running heroics over and over. Wowhead says that both T9 and T10 set bonuses increase all damage done by 5%. Do those two bonuses stack together (I assume 2 T9 pieces and 2 T10 pieces). Is it worth to get such setup of maybe better idea would be to go full T10 (better overall stats)? I dinged 80 just before the patch and managed to buy T9 legs b4 my emblems were converted and I would prefer to keep them for a while…
Thank you for any help and great site BTW
If only I had known it earlier…