Seals as a dual resource system for Ret.

[Schattenlied]

Make seals strikes that generate Holy Power and give temporary buffs (20-30s) in the form of seals, all seals can be active on the paladin at once, but should rarely be optimal to do so. Judging consumes all active seals to deal damage based on number/type of seals active (starts low) and apply short duration (20-30s)debuffs.

Crusader Strike: Deals ST damage.
Buff: Seal of the Crusader: Grants X% haste.
Judgment debuff: Increased holy damage.

Righteous Strike: Deals AoE damage.
Buff: Seal of Righteousness: All attacks deal additional Holy damage to the target and all nearby enemies.
Judgment debuff: X% of all damage dealt to target radiates to nearby enemies.

Vengeful/True Strike: ST damage, half instant, half DoT. Multiple hits accumulate increased damage (same mechanic as Warrior's Trauma talent).
Buff: Seal of Vengeance/Truth: all attacks deal an additional X% over 6-8 seconds, multiple hits accumulate increased damage, DoT from seal and strike are the same debuff.
Judgment: Consumes all vengeance on the target to deal 130% (or whatever % is deemed balanced) of accumulated damage immediately, added to Judgment's damage.

Insightful Strike: Strike does half ST damage half HoT.
Buff: Seal of Insight: All attacks heal you for X% of damage delt over 6-8 seconds, multiple hits accumulate increased healing, HoT from Strike and seal are the same buff.
Judgment debuff: All attacks against the target heal the attacker for X% of max HP/restore X% of max mana (short internal cooldown per player to make it reasonable).

Strikes ideally have no coodown, or share a very short cooldown (3 seconds) with 2 charges.

Judgment has a low CD, 5sec maybe, does low enough damage to be not worth casting if you have no seals unless you are out of range, but does substantially more damage for each seal you have active. Judgment consumes all active seals.

Judgment does not have a Holy Power cost. Judgment should only be top priority in the rotation when debuffs need to be applied/refreshed, otherwise spending Holy Power should be top priority (Priority would look like:: Judge to refresh/apply debuffs > Spend Holy Power(TV or DS) > Judge for damage with 2+ seals > Build Holy Power(Strikes/BoJ) > Judge for damage if out of range regardless of seals). If spending Holy Power and unleashing seals with Judgment were both on the same button it would be too shallow, shallow is bad.

So we're not just casting a seal, which has no noticeable initial effect, the seals themselves are holy power builders, taking the place of our current Crusader Strike in the rotation... It would flow much better than just casting a buff that is on the GCD, that you have to find time to weave into your builder rotation... They would just be part of your builders.

This could be a way to bring Seals, which were once a core part of Paladins and a big part of our visual aesthetic (so much so that they were even featured in the TBC cinematic), back into the game in a fun and engaging manner.


If you enjoy this idea, or think it would be fun, support it here.

[Tanthoris]

So it's sounds to me like a spin off of the WoD talent for Empowered Seals, but instead of seal weaving, you'd weave in different melee abilites.

I like the idea, but having it possible to have all 4 of these up at one time, even if it being sub-optimal, could be either OP or awkward. So maybe only 2 seals are possible at any one time, like 1 buffs stats/healing and 1 does damage.

I've missed seals and the old classic-tbc feel of casting seals, judging and then recasting. Seals and Auras were such a key part of paladin for so many years, like hammer of wrath and divine intervention it was such a shame to see them go. So I'm all for ret getting some of it's old aspects back.

[Schattenlied]

So it's sounds to me like a spin off of the WoD talent for Empowered Seals, but instead of seal weaving, you'd weave in different melee abilites.

I like the idea, but having it possible to have all 4 of these up at one time, even if it being sub-optimal, could be either OP or awkward. So maybe only 2 seals are possible at any one time, like 1 buffs stats/healing and 1 does damage.

I've missed seals and the old classic-tbc feel of casting seals, judging and then recasting. Seals and Auras were such a key part of paladin for so many years, like hammer of wrath and divine intervention it was such a shame to see them go. So I'm all for ret getting some of it's old aspects back.

The idea is, that just like Emp Seals, you can have all 4 buffs up at once if you absolutely need all their effects for some reason, but doing so is going to be a decent DPS loss.

You'd really normally only want to have 3 up at once, Crusader, Vengeance, and Righteousness, and Righteousness only if you're doing AoE. On ST you'd want to get Crusader going and then keep using Vengeance to stack the DoT higher, on AoE you would get Crusader and Vengeance up and then spam Righteousness for AoE damage/ + the AoE DoT from Seal of Vengeance (if it even activates on AoE, which it probly shouldn't).

In PvP, you'd rarely use Righteousness, as the damage loss from using the AoE strike/seal to try and do a 3-4 seal judge would be lower damage than just using Crusader, or Truth to stack the DoT more before judging, because Righteous Strike would hit for far less on a single target..

Insight is of course entirely a DPS loss to use in exchange for survivability.

The numbers should be balanced in such a way that you would ideally only want to have 2 or 3 max active at once, depending on the situation... If you're ever in such a pinch that all 4 are necessary, things are going very wrong and it should feel awkward/stressful to properly balance using all 4, just like it was with the buffs from Empowered Seals.

[Super Kami Dende]

actually sounds pretty sweet.

[Deleted]

So instead of 1 Crusader Strike I will have 4 abilities on my action bar, and rarely will 2 of them be useful together?

Insight will be flat out useless, since it cannot possible have a good enough heal and a good enough dmg. Vengeance will always be better against enemies that stay alive for more than 2 seconds so Crusader strike is out.

Righteous is good for AoE, so there's that. Basically it's back to Cata generators. Except Crusader is replaced with Vengeful, and we have 2 more Strikes that will never be used.

[Schattenlied]

Insight will be flat out useless, since it cannot possible have a good enough heal and a good enough dmg.

If you're in healing stressed situation, it will help, the Judgment heals and restores mana to attackers, the seal and strike both heal you. Good for fights where the raid takes lots of AoE damage, and good in PvP.

Vengeance will always be better against enemies that stay alive for more than 2 seconds so Crusader strike is out.

You're still going to Crusader Strike at least once every Judgment cycle to refresh Seal of the Crusader's haste buff and refresh the holy damage debuff on the target.

Righteous is good for AoE, so there's that. Basically it's back to Cata generators. Except Crusader is replaced with Vengeful, and we have 2 more Strikes that will never be used.

You will regularly use 2 minimum (Crusader and Vengeful), 3 in AoE, 4 if you need to take pressure off your healers or there's arcane mages in your raid who will benefit from Judgment of Insight's mana regen.

Basically it's back to Cata generators

You will still have BoJ, this was in the OP.

[Deleted]

If you're in healing stressed situation, it will help, the Judgment heals and restores mana to attackers, the seal heals you. Good for fights where the raid takes lots of AoE damage, and good in PvP.

You're still going to Crusader Strike at least once every Judgment cycle to refresh Seal of the Crusader's haste buff and refresh the holy damage debuff on the target.


You will use 2 minimum, 3 in AoE, 4 if you need to take pressure off your healers or there's arcane mages in your raid who will benefit from Judgment of Insight's mana regen.

Oh yeah I missed the buffs. So Crusader is good in that case and Vengeful is the basic use every time generator. AoE is AoE. I still think Insight is useless. Maybe in PvP it's good. But the heal on it cannot possibly be good enough even in high AoE damage situations. You're better of just Shield of Vengeancing yourself and let the healers cast 1 heal on you.

[Starry Sidekick]

This is an AMAZING idea! I would even switch to ret from prot if this were in the game.

[Schattenlied]

I still think Insight is useless. Maybe in PvP it's good. But the heal on it cannot possibly be good enough even in high AoE damage situations. You're better of just Shield of Vengeancing yourself and let the healers cast 1 heal on you.

debuff also heals/restores mana to the rest of the raid/group when they hit the target, like Judgment of Light/Wisdom used to, they were never considered useless back then, why would they be now?