What is the best seal for a paladin(ret)

[Sprite]

Is it still seal of command or that new one they added?

[Nialyah]

Seal twist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4Vg-arxpg

[smokeajay]

Seal twist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4Vg-arxpg

Seeing as this is the WotLK forum for Paladins and in Beta Judgement is on the GCD, that will not work anymore.

[Keelie]

PvE - Blood
PvP - Command

I THINK the one they added is just the Alliance version of Seal of Blood. The other seal is the Horde version of Seal of Vengeance.

[Biral]

Right now, as far as raiding goes with the new Seals added in (for you Aliance guys) Seal of the Martyr will be the way to go for DPS.

The only problem with the Seal is that when you're soloing or not going to get much healing from healers, you do way too much damage to yourself via the self-hate effect on the Seal.

Health stays the same, damage goes up, Martyr/Blood's effects grow in notice-ability exceedingly fast.

4k Judgement crit!? HAHAHA!!! You take 1,333 damage!

[Samiel]

SoComm for Solo/PvP

Martyr for Raid PvE

[meliancill]

seal of command hold the realy heavy burst that makes ret paladins so good in up close pvp. however for pve you want the matyr one for consistant dps.

[xanthor]

is it just more or does vengance seem more.. viable now? considering we now it proc's off of all hits so it scales with haste and with seals of the wise, we (ally) ret pallys wont be running into the mana inefficency problems as we did before. I mean this only for long boss fights. Also we would be a lesser strain on healers, giving them more mana... could work... but general consensis is that blood/matyr = godlike pve

[naypalmacus]

is it just more or does vengance seem more.. viable now? considering we now it proc's off of all hits so it scales with haste and with seals of the wise, we (ally) ret pallys wont be running into the mana inefficency problems as we did before. I mean this only for long boss fights. Also we would be a lesser strain on healers, giving them more mana... could work... but general consensis is that blood/matyr = godlike pve

the fact it procs off all hits is bloody fantastic. From a prot perspective and if mana isnt too much a concern (boss fight, many heals etc) you could affectively have both seal of vengeance ticking and switch to and from righteousness to get maximum single target threat. Also possible with ret maybe? as you mentioned with the new ret talent, judgement of the wise. More dps if it can be added to a ret pally's rotation?

[Voidseeker]

How many people are actually IN the beta here? Because my experience with Seal of Command was a waste of time. It is only good for its double damage on judgement, and only if you are attacking one mob at a time.

When I was running Ret from 70 to 75 I used Seal of Vengeance almost exclusively. Some reasons:

1) Stacks on every hit/swing, even from special abilities.

2) Damage from the DoT increased from live, ticking over 800 in quest greens.

3) Able to apply to debuf to multiple mobs, using Divine Storm & tab targeting.

4) Judgement damage highest in game for a full stack of DoTs, except for SoC Judgment on Stunned mobs.


Here are the numbers that were posted by Blizz EU:
- Seal of Blood now increases Judgement damage by 45% of weapon damage.
- Seal of Command now increases Judgement damage by 30% of weapon damage, 60% on stunned targets.
- Seal of Righteousness deals damage based on weapons speed plus an amount based on attack power and spell power,increases Judgement damage by 25%.
- Seal of Vengeance damage over time effect duration increased to 18 seconds and now applies its effect on every swing, causes damage based on attack power and spell power, and increases Judgement damage by 10% per stack of the damage over time effect.


As you can see, at 3 stacks it is as good as SoR and SoC, and at 5 stacks it is better than all others - minus stunned targets.

Aside from the Judgement damage alone, there is is the fact that every 3 seconds the DoT ticks for extra damage. In a long fight there is no way any other seal will keep up with the damage of SoV; even more true when fighting more than one mob.

The only time I could see another seal even getting close to SoV is if you have a just ridiculous strong weapon equipped - but have not done the math to figure out how strong it would need to be. And if solo you would most likely kill yourself using it, or have massive DPS drops while you stop to heal yourself.

[Apocalyptic]

seal of command hold the realy heavy burst that makes ret paladins so good in up close pvp. however for pve you want the matyr one for consistant dps.

Let's not forget that one of the reasons we use blood/martyr, is that you take damage so that people can heal you, thus, regain mana.

[Voidseeker]

Let's not forget that one of the reasons we use blood/martyr, is that you take damage so that people can heal you, thus, regain mana.

Again, this is NOT an issue in WotLK. You will NOT have mana issues as Ret if you take Judgements of the Wise. And any Paladin that goes Ret and does not take that talent should reroll Warrior/DK.


Seal of Blood/Martyr does not even have a button assigned to it on my action bar in beta.

[smichels]

ive done some math and with mostly t4 gear at 70, with 2k AP and an epic weapon, SoR is gonna do 650 damage per swing while SoB is gonna do around 360-400 damage per swing, and SoV will do around 3-400 damage per tick with 5 stacks

im thinking to maximize dps ur gonna wanna switch between SoR and SoV to keep up 5 stacks of vengeance up

switching seals every 15 sec shouldnt be a mana problem with judgments of wise

[Cowpies]

But SoB scales best according to what I remember from posted coeffecients and it can crit unlike SoR. Vengeance isnt as good because it doesnt proc off crusader strike and divine storm like other seals do, so the damage from the ticks < damage from direct seals. But most importantly vengeance and righteousness don't benefit from one of our main stats as much as other seals, crit.

Everything I said is tested and true according to my lvl 75 paladin with 2.4k attack power self buffed.

[Voidseeker]

But SoB scales best according to what I remember from posted coeffecients and it can crit unlike SoR. Vengeance isnt as good because it doesnt proc off crusader strike and divine storm like other seals do, so the damage from the ticks < damage from direct seals. But most importantly vengeance and righteousness don't benefit from one of our main stats as much as other seals, crit.

Everything I said is tested and true according to my lvl 75 paladin with 2.4k attack power self buffed.

I think you are mistaken on DS not procing SoV. When I was Ret there was many times that I would switch targets and the new mob would already have stacks on him/her/it and the only damage they had taken was from DS.

CS SHOULD proc all seals, that is the intended way the abilities work, and if it does not now then it is a bug and will be changed. The class devs have stated that all weapon based abilities should proc seals.



SoV is the highest DPS seal a Paladin can have up. Changing seals is silly as you cannot judge the seal for 50% damage if you are hoping for SoC procs. And you GCD will be PACKED so that wasting two of them to switch back and forth between seals is going to be a loss to your DPS.

[PalliesThrowStuff]

As you can see, at 3 stacks it is as good as SoR and SoC, and at 5 stacks it is better than all others - minus stunned targets.

Not quite true.

If you look at the explanations (And the formulas) Judging with Righteousness and Vengeance active are a flat % increase.

Blood and Command increase it by a number equivalent to a % of the damage your weapon does.

Say Judgement hits for 100 damage, and your weapon swings (before mitigation) hit for 200 damage.

A Righteous Judgement will hit for 125 damage, a full-stacked Vengeance Judgement will hit for 150 damage.

a non-stunned Command Judgement would hit for 160 damage.

What it means is that the damage of your weapon impacts Command and Blood, but has no impact on Righteousness or Vengeance, at least as far as Judgement goes. It means that Vengeance/Blood/Righteousness are all viable seals to use, which one you use depends on the arrangement of your stats. If you have a lot of haste and AP, but very little crit, and a weak weapon, you'll want to weave Vengeance in with Righteousness, and Command/Blood will be poorer damage options.

Command seems weak overall, although the burst potential has skyrocketed due to the ability to proc off of DS/CS. This might become a PvP-oriented seal, which is probably fine.

With Holy Vengeance/Blood Corruption at 18 seconds and every swing, with the highest raid-usable Judgement, and our new mana refund options (Beefed up JoW, USING JoW instead of JotC, and the almighty JotW) I think weaving Vengeance/Corruption into your rotation once every 18 seconds is hardly an issue for the massive damage increase you'll see (If numbers allow, maybe even more often than that, just to Judge the thing.)

What it comes down to, is that the real competition for PvE is between Blood/Martyr and Righteousness, and the balance of overall stats vs. Weapon's contributions. What will make all the difference, is whether or not the new Righteousness can crit.

[Voidseeker]

Sorry, I was not totally clear in my post.

You are right, that with a weapon the judgements would be a little better (depending on how great the weapon is) but you would lose the DoT if you were to run the other seal by itself.

Seal Twisting is also a waste of a GCD, which will be in short supply.

[Gerbill]

I´ve tested some seal damage in Beta and came up with the following numbers.

My stats are:
2048 AP (with imp. BoM)
28.34% crit
3.6 speed weapon
938-1125 weapon damage (without vengeance)
639 spelldamage

All the following numbers were made while I was affected by 3 vengeance stacks.

Seal of Blood/Martyr:
Now procs on every melee attack also CS and DS
Proc:
350-400 hits
700-800 crits
Judgement:
1350 judgement hit
3040 judgement crit

Seal of Corruption/Vengeance:
Now applied on every melee attack also CS and DS
DoT:
1 stacks 185 damage per tick
2 stacks 370 damage per tick
3 stacks 580 damage per tick
4 stacks 775 damage per tick
5 stacks 968 damage per tick
Judgement:
5 stack judgement - 1867 hit
5 stack judgement - 4142 crit

Seal of Command:
Can now proc on every melee attack also CS and DS
Proc:
1080 hit
2105 crit
Judgement:
1132 judgement hit
2290 judgement hit (on stunned target)
2774 judgement crit
5337 judgement crit (on stunned target)

Seal of Righteousness:
Now procs on every melee attack also CS and DS
Proc:
470 hit
Judgement:
1629 judgement hit
3788 judgement crit


What I didn't notice before is that SoC can proc on CS and DS aswel, this might make that glyph for SoC to have a 20% greater proc chance more interesting.
But keep in mind that Blizzard still has to tune the DPS of all classes and Paladin will get reduced DPS. At the moment it is quite insane. But I do think this should give a good overview about the seal numbers compared to eachother.

[Voidseeker]

Thanks for doing the testing that I did not have time to do.

The numbers you have posted are in line with what my experience was with beta. And as I said Vengeance/Corruption is the top seal for DPS, esp with extended/prolonged fights.

Over a 60 second time frame (massive rounding), leaving out white damage as it should be the same for all, and Seal of Command as it has a set 7 PPM mechanic that makes it an apples/oranges comparison:

Blood/Martyr:
16 total attacks, of those 4 of those should be crits
12 x 400 = 4800
4 x 800 = 3200

7 Judgements
5 x 1350 = 6750
2 x 3040 = 6080

Total: 20,830


Seal of Vengeance:
19 ticks of DoT
1 @ 185 = 185
1 @ 580 = 580
17 @ 968 = 16456

7 Judgements
5 x 1867 = 9335
2 x 4142 = 8284

Total: 34,840


Seal of Righteousness
16 total attacks
16 x 470 = 7520

7 Judgements
5 x 1629 = 8145
2 x 3788 = 7576

Total: 23,241



But just for giggles - Seal of Command:
7 total procs
5 x 1080 = 5400
2 x 2105 = 4210

7 Judgements (all non-stunned)
5 x 1132 = 5660
2 x 2774 = 5548

7 Judgements (all stunned - why not?)
5 x 2290 = 11,450
2 x 5337 = 10,674

Total: 20,818 (no stuns)
Total: 31,734 (all stuns)



Even if EVERY TIME you judged Seal of Command it was on a stunned target, it would not equal the damage of Seal of Vengeance. The other Seals are not even close, and have the draw back of doing damage to you in the case of SoB. Plus there is the fact that you can stack Seal of Vengeance on more than one mob at a time with DS, increasing your DPS exponentially by the number of mobs present.


Again, as has been stated before, if the quality of the weapon was to be raised at some point it would allow the weapon based seals to pass SoV in total output on a single target. It would take a HUGE improvement to surpass total DPS with more than one mob present.


I have been up for 24 hours, so if my basic math is off somehow please feel free to point it out. Thanks =D

[PalliesThrowStuff]

Thanks for doing the testing that I did not have time to do.

The numbers you have posted are in line with what my experience was with beta. And as I said Vengeance/Corruption is the top seal for DPS, esp with extended/prolonged fights.

Over a 60 second time frame (massive rounding), leaving out white damage as it should be the same for all, and Seal of Command as it has a set 7 PPM mechanic that makes it an apples/oranges comparison:

Blood/Martyr:
16 total attacks, of those 4 of those should be crits
12 x 400 = 4800
4 x 800 = 3200

7 Judgements
5 x 1350 = 6750
2 x 3040 = 6080

Total: 20,830


Seal of Vengeance:
19 ticks of DoT
1 @ 185 = 185
1 @ 580 = 580
17 @ 968 = 16456

7 Judgements
5 x 1867 = 9335
2 x 4142 = 8284

Total: 34,840


Seal of Righteousness
16 total attacks
16 x 470 = 7520

7 Judgements
5 x 1629 = 8145
2 x 3788 = 7576

Total: 23,241



But just for giggles - Seal of Command:
7 total procs
5 x 1080 = 5400
2 x 2105 = 4210

7 Judgements (all non-stunned)
5 x 1132 = 5660
2 x 2774 = 5548

7 Judgements (all stunned - why not?)
5 x 2290 = 11,450
2 x 5337 = 10,674

Total: 20,818 (no stuns)
Total: 31,734 (all stuns)



Even if EVERY TIME you judged Seal of Command it was on a stunned target, it would not equal the damage of Seal of Vengeance. The other Seals are not even close, and have the draw back of doing damage to you in the case of SoB. Plus there is the fact that you can stack Seal of Vengeance on more than one mob at a time with DS, increasing your DPS exponentially by the number of mobs present.


Again, as has been stated before, if the quality of the weapon was to be raised at some point it would allow the weapon based seals to pass SoV in total output on a single target. It would take a HUGE improvement to surpass total DPS with more than one mob present.


I have been up for 24 hours, so if my basic math is off somehow please feel free to point it out. Thanks =D

Your math is just fine.

What you say seems to greatly support what I'm seeing from the formulas (I wish I was in on the beta, just to crunch numbers, if nothing else) that Vengeance/Corruption blow the other seals out of the water in overall DPS.

I dont think weaving it in for a CS once every 18 seconds is going to cripple our rotation due to the GCD, really you've got to worry about Judgement every 8, CS every 6, DS every 10, and now seal-swapping twice every 18, more of the same occasionally overlapping cooldowns we saw with Judgement/ReSeal and CS. Similarly, I believe a solid rotation designed to produce the best results with our given restrictions is just an hour or two and excel sheet away.

Someone in beta could inform me, but if all haste rating is being merged, does this mean melee abilities now see a reduction in GCD from haste? This might help.

As your math indicates, and as I would expect, current numbers show that Blood/Martyr and Righteousness are in competition, Command is essentially PvP only, and if you can only truly pick one, it's hands-down Vengeance/Corruption, although it's likely you'll weave it in with another once we get a solid rotation worked out (Best bet is to swap to Vengeance on the swing just before a CS rolls up, so the CS can act as a backup for the swing in case it misses.)

Someone brought up a point I hadn't thought about, for AoE Grinding, Divine Storm + Seal of Vengeance is mercilessly powerful (At least compared to what we're used to) in its capability to output damage, add in Consecration, and our AoE front gets rather shiny and pretty, even worse if it's against undead.