In looking at reviews of my Paladin, particularly those on Youtube, I often find that whoever plays the class COMPLETELY ignores the basic design decisions, and then complaining about the classes' playstyle/balance.

Thus, this little discussion is to simply give an introduction into how I meant the WoW Style Paladin to be played, which, if read, will hopefully negate any more uninformed comments.

Retribution:
The Ret spec is a rotation-based DPS spec. The goal is to use your Holy Power generating moves - such as Speed of Light, Crusader Strike, and Holy Wrath - and use the Holy Power generated in a powerful finisher, such as Templar's Verdict, and Divine Storm.

Explanation of individual moves:

The purpose of Speed of Light is to get you into combat quickly, or to chase down fleeing enemies. It should be the first move you use.

Crusader Strike would typically come next, given it's shield breaking properties, and power increase to your moves.

Holy Wrath is a good aoe damager, with knockback properties designed to give you some room of you SoL'ed straight into the middle of enemies.

Templar's Verdict is your go-to finisher, with a crap-load of power if all the holy particles it releases hit the same target; despite being aoe capable, it really is a single target move.

Divine Storm is a perfect aoe finisher; whatever it doesn't kill, it weakens drastically, hence the lengthy cooldown.

Avenging Wrath is your typical power-increase - use it as often as you can. In addition, it allows you to generate extra Holy Power, letting you TV or DS more often, giving you a serious power boost.

Finally, Light's Hammer is a short cooldown move that generates no holy power, designed simply to soften up your enemies before you come in, or for some basic ranged DPS.

Hence, when playing Ret Spec, I tend to line up my action bar as follows:

Left Click - Lights Hammer

Right Click - Templars Verdict

1 - Speed of Light

2 - Crusader Strike

3- Holy Wrath

4- Divine Storm

5-9- Avenging Wrath


You may have your own variations; that's fine. But between the 6 attack moves that the Ret spec has, you should NEVER be using auto-attack (except at low-levels).

I will update for Prot spec later.