I would assume from the wording that it would be a PPM that gives you an extra attack that pierces armor. In other words its just the old version of Seal of Command (extra attack that isn't affected by armor) and would suffer from the same problems (PPM scaling with haste specifically).

I'm still not very impressed.

While that's true, this new seal would still be about a 43% increase in Seal DPS for Alliance Ret Paladins. While it's not perfect, it's not an insignificant amount by any means, and it would certainly help in closing the gap between SoB and SoC(SoO?) DPS. In a perfect world it would simply replace SoC and be scaled such that it outperforms SoB, leaving all Ret Paladins in the same DPS situation with a talented main seal.

Would it though? Since its an extra melee attack and not holy damage like SoC you're losing JotC damage as well as the Sanctity Aura modifier which is a very large amount of damage. I don't have time to run numbers right now since I'm raiding but I'll look into it.

So I have been Prot since early 40s, and have been tanking Hyjal/BT/Sunwell progressively over the past several months.
Over this time, I have been gathering just about every piece of haste gear I could get my hands on, for swinging [Nightfall].

Well, now that has been nerfed, and I have a ton of DPS plate on my hands, loaded with haste (+16.11% haste). So I decide what I DPS I could get with it as Ret specced, and yesterday, took that step to Ret for the first time since early 40s. My guild-mates and I were talking, and we got to the topic of Haste, and how it does, or does not affect Ret Pallys, more specifically they were telling me that it affected only white damage, and everything else was unaffected. I decided to do a test in the Blasted Lands with my haste gear, and see if it changed the proc rate at all. I wrote a quick mod that tracked:

- Start time
- Duration
- Number of Swings
- Number of Procs
- Calculated Procs Per Minute
- Calculated Proc Rate (%)

Unfortunately, I forgot to start logging a combat log until well into it, and since time was limited prior to raid, I decided to finish it out rather than clearing the information and re-starting. Due to the odd results I got, I will be doing this again this week, and I will make sure to get a log to post to you all for examination.

Relavant stats:
[Soul Cleaver]
- 254 haste rating (16.11%)
- Resulting swing speed of 3.19

Buffs:
- Seal of command (Refreshed only between swings so as to not interfere with the proc rate)
- Judgement of Light (applied before information capture was started)
- Greater Blessing of Wisdom (re-applied once)
- Devotion Aura

Data:
- 2,726.260 seconds duration (45.437 minutes)
- 887 swings
- 887 hits
- 350 procs

Calculations:
- 7.70 procs per minute
- 39.45% proc rate
- 10.04% ppm increase over reported 7ppm of SoC

Now we get to the real reason for the post. And it was damn odd. (decimal precision is lacking, since i wasn't expecting this, and this is just from memory noted)

The first 10 minutes recorded a ppm of 9.6, at 48% proc rate
The first 20 minutes recorded a ppm of 8.9, at 44% proc rate
The first 30 minutes recorded a ppm of 8.0, at 40% proc rate
The first 45 minutes recorded a ppm of 7.7, at 39.45% proc rate

I understand the return to average, balancing of a good string of procs with a bad string of no-procs. However, over time, the average should have stabilized FAR better than what I observed, and certainly should not have been a slow drop in the PPM and proc rate, to the tune of a 8.5% proc rate decline and a 35% drop in procs per minute.

Has anyone else seen this kind of behavior? Almost as if there was diminishing returns, but that is absurd.

When I re-do this test, I plan on going for 2 hours, with a combat log captured to post along with it, but thought I would post it to see what you all make of it.

Bear in mind you are attacking a much lower level mob and you're attacking it head on meaning every time you parry the npc's attack you get an instant melee attack.

Edit: after reading it again i will need to ponder it. but like someone else said. not affected byt the holy part of sanc aura

Can anyone point me to where seal twisting is discussed more in depth for those that have no clue what's being discussed?

Thx in advance.

Agreed and understood. I don't see how this would cause a continually decreasing proc rate over 45 minutes. It shouldn't affect the proc rate at all, since parry-haste it isn't pre-calculated in any method, though even if it does affect the proc rate, it should still even out over the 45 minutes, not cause a steady decline.

Seal twisting for damage:
1. Cast Seal of Command
2. When your swing timer is up, cast Seal of Blood

At the very least, you will get a white hit and one SOB hit that was procced from the white

At the most, you will get a white hit, a SOC hit that was procced from the white, a SOB hit that was procced from the white, and a SOB hit that was procced from the SOC hit.

Seal twisting for stuns (primarily for PvP):
1. Cast Seal of Command
2. When your swing timer is up, cast Seal of Justice

At the very least, you will get a white hit

At the most, you will get a white hit, a SOC hit that was procced from the white, and a SOJ stun that was procced from either the white or the SOC hit.

It's also possible to get a white hit and a SOJ stun that was procced from the white hit (but no SOC).

"Seal of Onslaught" has no judgement component in its tooltip, which most seals do.

An interesting idea, but i expect it'll turn out to be a mob ability.

5/31 16:00:11.880 50907: Seal of Onslaught ()
5/31 16:00:11.930 Instant
5/31 16:00:11.933 The Seal of Onslaught inflicts an attack that ignores enemies armor.
5/31 16:00:11.980 50908: Seal of Onslaught ()
5/31 16:00:12.030 300 Mana
5/31 16:00:12.030 Instant cast
5/31 16:00:12.030 Grants the casters attacks the chance on melee swing to ignore enemy armor.


First off, I'm an avid reader of these forums, most specifically this thread. I'm currently Prot in my beginning Sunwell guild. I'm desperately seeking to go Ret, and the work you guys do here is spectacular.

Also, I couldn't figure out how to quote a quote, nor could i find the OP where this seal was mentioned. Apologies in advance.

On a more relevant topic, could the first portion of the seal that inflicts an attack be the judgement effect to this? It has no mana cost and is a good idea for a judgement in my book. It could even be a holy attack it inflicts.

The second portion does indeed sound like SoC. Would be sad to see every Ret Paladin have to use PPM.

Yes, that would be due to small sample size. One thing that ret dps is particularly vulnerable to is life & death by the RNG. Our sample size for most fights (5-8 mins) is going to be small enough that there will be anomalies here and there. Like you said your armory is showing holy at the moment so I can't see what your gear looks like, but your 47% crit does seem somewhat high, even factoring in LoTp & JoTc (Was your shaman twisting?) If it isn't near what your actual crit percentage should be, then this would be another variation based on small data pool, except this time in your favor.

I really hope that this is not a new player ability, I'd hate to get another seal like that myself.

Rather that they review and upgrade all of our current ones then adding another seal that's demanding us to completely abandon Seal of Command, making it join the ranks of seal of light, wisdom, crusader and justice (Seals, not judgements).

Or worse, a new seal that's completely useless itself while still eating one of our "new spellslots" (Alliance Paladins should know what I'm talking about for 98% of the time).

Oh and if it's an NPC ability -> See Scarlet Onslaught

The spells gathered from the recent alpha build show the following for the current maximum rank of Seal of Command (Rank 6):

Spell 27170
Name: Seal of Command
Description: Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to $20424s1% of normal weapon damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts $d. Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing $/2;271
Description2: Melee attacks have a chance to deal additional Holy damage.

It's worth noting, that the increased damage against stunned or incapacitated targets is no longer mentioned. That's the same for all other ranks. Though I cannot really make any use of the placeholder given in the damage of the judgement.

I only had LOTP for about 3 seconds while I was swapped with another shaman so my group could get a 2nd hero, and yes the shaman was totem twisting. I actually did leave a link to my gear, it's the chardev.org thing. I do run about 35% crit raid buffed and with Mongoose/Agility totem getting into the mid 40's is entirely possible.

If I get you right, you'd be casting two seals every swing, which with a 3.4 speed weapon leave .4 of a second for slowness/lag. Thanks to the gcd you would not be able to judge, consecrate, or exorcism. Am I missing something? Sounds like missing out on a lot?

One thought would be to have your judge/reseal macro have SoC as the seal it does. Have SoB as a separate button and then try going for double procs after each judgment, once every 8-12 sec. It's less damage but certainly easier to fit in with haste gear and other spells. What do you think?

I think that seal twisting SoB is a good dps increase in PvE, especially if you decked out in haste gear.

I think you have to be smart about it though. If I try to do it every time I will miss CS cooldowns and have to wait because of the Global Cooldown. It is best to use it when you can fit it in. With practice you can get a feel for it.

I have found that it works best if you don't use a judgement macro that auto refreshes your seal. You need to be able to recast either seal, incase you judge early on you swing timer so you can do command, or if it late you can do blood. Plus, you technically don't need any seal on your weapon until you actually start to swing. You can always judge + Consecrate and then Seal after your GCD is up. I never did get into the Judge+Seal macro. You don't gain any DPS from it and you lose control.

Also, with the delay that SoB has you can usually fit it in when you wouldn't think you could. You just have to play around with it and practice.

Forgive me being noobish. How does this work then? Surely casting SoB cancels SoC?

Here you go, I uploaded this video I made months ago to show how it works. It makes for some nasty burst in pvp if you get it work off a wf+Soc proc.

YouTube - Soc and Sob Seal Twisting

I can confirm seal twising works but will have to do further testing to see if its dps / mana efficiency is worth it.

7:54 PM> ***** gains Seal of Command.
7:54 PM> *****'s melee swing hits Timber Worg for 700 Physical.
7:54 PM> ***** gains Vengeance (2).
7:54 PM> *****'s Seal of Command hits Timber Worg for 1491 Holy. (Critical)
7:54 PM> Timber Worg's melee swing hits ***** for 103 Physical.
7:54 PM> Seal of Command fades from *****.
7:54 PM> ***** gains Seal of Blood.
7:54 PM> *****'s Seal of Blood hits Timber Worg for 377 Holy.
7:54 PM> *****'s Seal of Blood hits Timber Worg for 395 Holy.
7:54 PM> *****'s Seal of Blood hits ***** for 38 Holy.
7:54 PM> *****'s Seal of Blood hits ***** for 40 Holy.

EDIT: Ya i dont see this being efficient at all. Maybe its just my ping but it doesnt feel like it could be at all.

Yes, it can be quite difficult to do this on each and every swing, and would certainly leave you with no time at all to cast anything else if you tried doing it like that.

Instead, using a SOC judge/reseal macro and SOB on a separate button does work, and it would probably be best to forego twisting depending on what other cooldowns are lined up.

Because twisting depends so much on your base weapon speed, any passive haste you have plus any haste procs, I don't think anyone has really mathcrafted out a rotation for it.

Yes, but then that's why you cast the SOB just as your swing timer hits 0, such that the server processes the white swing as still having a chance to proc SOC, and if the SOC does go off, then the server also processes that the SOC will proc a 2nd SOB.

It's basically utilizing server lag and SOC's ability to proc other effects.

pardon my lack of knowledge, assuming that this is what it is. But assuming a blood elf can twist SoC/SoB. Is a paladin capable of doing the same thing with SoC/SoV?

Please mind the criticism on how viable this is mana wise for damage. I don't care about that yet. But I downloaded a swing timer, and unless I am just suck at this, you can not.

I just want to know if it works.

--edit, do you reseal as the swing timer is ending (.5 - 0 seconds till next swing ) or in the "blank spot" where the swing timer is "resetting"?