One of the biggest mistakes I made as a Retribution Paladin while leveling and early heroics was not understanding Attack Power (ATK PWR), Strength (STR) and how that relates to damage done or Damage Per Second (DPS). Ret Pallys unlike our Protection and Holy brothers and sisters are all about damage and destruction. In raids and heroics our role is to bring down the boss and adds as fast as possible while the tankers keep the attacks and damage focused on themselves and the healers keep the tankers standing first and then DPSers.
Destroying Scourge in IceCrown
So attack power is a Ret Pally’s best friend besides and good tank and healer. How do you get attack power? First attack power is generated by strength. As a melee every point of strength generates two attack power. Attack power is also generated by items. Some weapons and armor may have attack power, strength or both. Also jewels and enchantments to items can add strength or attack power. Finally attributes in your talent tree/trees can add strength which will increase your attack power.
I used to mistakenly always go for an attack power upgrades over strength upgrades. This is a mistake; generally given the choice a Retribution Paladin should chose upgrading strength over attack power. Usually you’ll see some trade off in items for example adding a jewel to an item slot. You might be able to add a red +20 strength jewel or a red +40 attack power jewel. On face value they appear to be equal in that both give you + 40 attack power. But the strength is better because it scales with buffs. So if you take the +20 strength jewel you get +40 attack power. If you are in a group and another Paladin gives you a Kings buff your strength is upped by +10%. That jewel is now worth +22 strength and +44 attack power which is greater than the straight +40 attack power jewel. That may not seem like much but it adds up quickly when you think about all the enchants and jewels you’ll on all your different items. Below are two epic gems you can have for a slot in an item, which should you take?
Take the strength over attack power
Strength trumps attack power
In this case the Bold Cardinal Ruby is a better choice because the strength will scale with buffs and give you more attack power.
I mentioned that you can get strength from your talent trees earlier. However we’ll leave this for the next post. Until you max out your talent points choosing how to spend your points is a trade off and many leveling characters want to get to the bottom of the tree as fast as possible rather than stacking up those abilities.
Don’t suffer the horde!
Noob Retribution Pally 