Sacred Arbiter lets Retribution keep every Paladin’s Judgements up

Most damage talents make you hit harder. Sacred Arbiter makes a Retribution Paladin’s hits do a job for the rest of the raid.

The talent

Blizzard’s Paladin deep dive of 15 October describes Sacred Arbiter as Retribution’s new 16-point gold medal talent. It does two things:

• It increases Holy Strike’s damage by 20%. An earlier beta build had it at 10%, before the change recorded in the development notes.
• It makes Holy Strike refresh all Judgement effects on the target, including Judgements cast by other Paladins.

Why the second part matters

Judgement debuffs carry raid utility, and keeping several up at once is the point. Blizzard’s examples are Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of Light and Judgement of the Crusader. With Sacred Arbiter, a Retribution Paladin attacking the target keeps all of them going, whichever Paladin applied them.

Blizzard’s own framing is about Paladins as a group: one Retribution Paladin with the talent increases the total utility the raid’s Paladins bring.

The pieces underneath

Two baseline changes make the talent work.

• Holy Strike is a new ability learned at level 6. It deals instant Holy damage based on 50% of your weapon damage, plus a bonus that grows with each rank.
• Judgement no longer consumes the Paladin’s active seal.

So the Retribution Paladin keeps their seal, judges, and uses Holy Strike as a damage ability that also maintains everyone’s Judgements.

Refresh, not apply

Sacred Arbiter refreshes Judgements; it does not apply them. Some other Paladin, or you, still has to put each one on first. The deep dive also gives no Judgement durations, does not say how many different Judgements can sit on one target and prescribes no raid composition.

It is also separate from seal twisting, which in Forever comes from a different Retribution talent, Twist of Light.