You lose the buff when you unlearn the talent, I imagine that will be the same behavior when you swap specs.

I believe Blizzard is fine with class-unique utility as long as its not spec-specific. That seems to be the pattern anyways (with kings a bit of an outlier since it's talented, though it's accessible to all specs (with greater or lesser sacrifices as has been discussed), and some of the others have talents that improve them). Now HotC is low enough (and ret attractive enough as a subspec) that most paladins will probably have it regardless of spec, so it didn't overly need to have alternatives (though the assassination rogues will hardly complain about being able to skip those talent points and just let the paladins put up the crit buff).

You don't have to relearn the ability, but if you switch off of the Kings spec back to your primary spec, everyone who has a Kings buff from you will lose it. At least, that's my suspicion.

...

SoB scales WORSE with haste than SoR. SoR procs on only 2 specials, while SoB procs on 3. Both proc on autoattacks 100% of the time and as such when you are using SoR you benefit more from haste than SoB in relative terms. So yes, people at 70 have haste, and yes, they will have it at 80. This isn't convincing anyone that SoB is better.

I have a spreadsheet made that takes all raid/gear stats from a level 80 paladin with full naxx10 gear. With 3/5 SotP or better SoR does more damage. With 0/5 SotP SoR does about 3% less damage, with 5/5 it does about 3% more damage. Since 3/5 SotP is something you can get absolutely trivially with a ret pve build while missing nothing, I would suggest SoR as the best seal for level 80.

->Build<-

->Spreadsheet<-

Note with that build you might want to drop 2/2 Imp Ret Aura for more SotP, and you might also be able to get away with dropping Kings, Swift Retribution, Sanctified Retribution or Pursuit of Justice depending on circumstance and raid composition. There are a number of ways to get up to 5/5 SotP, but since 3/5 is easy to get without missing anything good, I like SoR as the basic seal for now.

One caveat is that the latest build mucked with a ton of things that might alter my numbers. The WD coefficient on Blood went up to 45%, SoC got a spellpower coefficient and SoR got 2hspec added onto it. In addition to that all kinds of things are bugged to hell, especially Sheath. As such my sheet reflects the previous build since I don't really have any idea what is right or wrong with this new build.

I won't be using SoR for two reasons:

1. SoR is possibly the most boring seal we have.
2. I cannot imagine Blizzard would want to make two seals completely useless. If SoR pulls ahead for ret, it will be fixed.

Pardon if I fell out of the loop, but did SOR only get back into the limelight because it's now being affected by Sheath of Light (which may or may not be intended)?

It's a little jarring to hear about Holy having soloing problems purportedly because SOR hits like a day-old kitten and then having it compared to SOB within a few pages.

I hate to say it, but Holy solo at 80 is quite bearable. Today I specced 51/5/15 to test Holy in Naxx, and after the raid I went to do some dailies in full healing gear. In mix of 70 epics and Northrend blues, with healing mace and shield, using SoV, JoW, Shock and ShR, DPS wasn't stellar - felt slightly lower than prot - but there was literally no downtime, I was looting the mob and immediately running to next one, regenning mana faster than I could spend it. As prot I was killing mobs maybe 1-2 GCDs faster (my prot gear is vastly superior), but 5600 mana was tight even with BoS, I had to drink from time to time.

As of healing, 51/5/15 build has all improved blessings missing only 3% crit (a sacrifice, yes), healing while trying to manage JotP haste, BoL and SS is immensely more involving and complicated compared to lvl70 facerolling, and to lvl80 JotW build max HL spam. I don't have efficiency numbers, but what's important - it feels fun. Just let's hope that they buff deep holy enough to justify BoL builds in raids...

You may have missed the post where I asked if assassination dps is high enough to justify the debuff. It was answered with: yes but it isn't worth the talent points if a ret is around. If true, this makes this utility unique ... unless hunters are going to drop frost traps every CD. Although some buffs/debuffs are not unique in theory they may be in practice.

Question is of course how much of these changes are intended. If intended, they might be the missing link to debunk SoR + SotP and rid us of this uncertainty.


1. It really doesn't matter what we perceive as boring. If it's better, people will use it. No one said spamming shadowbolt for extended hours is the most challenging/entertaining way to play wow, but that's the best way to play a warlock currently.

2. I agree and I do hope they're on top of this. Blizzard stealth readers, you following this?


The working theory at the moment is that SoR is weaker while soloing/unbuffed, yet due to scaling better it overtakes SoB raidbuffed at a low Point of Inflection where the major factor is AP.

What might be the missing link to debunk all this are the current undocumented changes which may or may not be intended.

Mana it's not an issue simply because of DP, I tested it before this judgement "buff".

Yep, as debated for dozens of pages somewhat back, it never made sense from a design standpoint. We work with what is given though ;/