Seal of Command
From WoWWiki
| Seal of Command | |
|---|---|
| |
| Usable by | |
| Class | Paladin |
| Properties | |
| Type | Offensive |
| School | Holy |
| Cooldown | Global |
| Other information | |
| Ranks | 6 |
| Related buff | |
| |
- "Crusaders take command of the battle, and their powers take command of their enemies."
Contents |
Spell Description
Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to 70% of normal weapon damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts 30 sec.
Casting Judgement of Command will instantly cause Holy damage, more if the target is stunned or incapacitated.
Rank table
| Rank | Level | Mana cost | JoC Damage | When Stunned |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 | 65 | 46-50 | 93-101 |
| 2 | 30 | 110 | 73-80 | 146-160 |
| 3 | 40 | 140 | 102-112 | 204-224 |
| 4 | 50 | 180 | 130-143 | 261-287 |
| 5 | 60 | 210 | 167-186 | 339-373 |
| 6 | 70 | 280 | 228-252 | 456-504 |
Overview
Seal of Command is a talent in the Retribution tree, that requires 10 talent points invested in the tree to take it. You can apply Judgement of Command to your target if you use the spell Judgement while Seal of Command is active on you to deal Holy damage, which is increased when the enemy is stunned or incapacitated.
Seal of Command is considered a Magic buff, and can be dispelled by Priests or purged by Shamans.
Since Patch 1.11, Seal of Command proc will have approximately 0.5 second delay before the animation begins and the Holy damage is incurred, instead of having the proc occur instantly with the swing of the attack. This is considered a good change, since if the normal swing is a critical strike and Vengeance is triggered, the Seal of Command proc will be affected by the buff.
Before Patch 1.9, Seal of Command had 5 procs per minute but dealt 100% of normal damage, and its judgment gave a debuff that incurred Holy damage on the enemy whenever they were stunned.
Damage
Seal of Command procs "per minute" (ppm), rather than per hit - it will proc an average of 7 times per minute. So you get the same amount of procs no matter your weapon speed, but a slower, high damage-per-strike weapon will do more Seal of Command damage per hit, on average, than a faster, low damage-per-strike weapon rated at the same DPS. Seal of Command's ppm-rate is the same through rank 1 to 6. The only difference that the ranks make is the damage of the Judgement.
Since the auto attack damage of Seal of Command is static from ranks 1 to 6, using Rank 1 Seal of Command will provide excellent mana efficiency.
Seal of Command receives 20% coefficient from normal +spell damage stats, and 29% from +holy damage stats (such as Judgement of the Crusader). Judgement of Command receives 43% coefficient from any +spell damage stats.
Seal of Command can only proc from the first attack on a Reckoning bombing.
The actual attack made when Seal of Command procs is resolved as a separate melee special-attack that deals holy damage. It is resolved identically to any Instant Attack -- it can miss, be dodged, be parried, and be blocked, and will do double damage on a crit (rather than 1.5x damage as a normal spell crit would).
Usage
Although unreliable due to the fact that it's based on a chance to proc on every melee attack, Seal of Command is most Alliance Retribution Paladins' choice of seal to DPS with, because it scales with melee DPS and crit chance. (For Horde Paladins, see comparison with Seal of Blood below.)
The Judgement of Seal of Command however is fixed according to Rank, and even on stunned opponents, at high levels, its damage is less than the normal damage it would generate when it procs.
Seal of Command is typically used with slow, hard-hitting two-handers, although some uses with certain one-handers isn't too uncommon, just slightly less reliable. As described below, slower weapons have a better chance of triggering a Seal of Command proc (a 3.8 speed weapon has a 44.3% chance and a 2.0 speed has 23.3% chance).
A Retribution Paladin would be choosing gear with +strength (for DPS) and +agility +critical strike (for increased crit chance). At level 70 with a mixture of green and blue equipment and no buffs, listed DPS should be over 200 and crit chance over 20%. Based on those values his average DPS would be about 200-250 with Crusader Strike used when available.
Seal of Command and Seal of Blood comparison
Seal of Blood(SoB) is available to horde paladins since TBC. It works very similar to Seal of Command except it procs on every hit and deals a small amount of damage back to the paladin. The overall damage output of Seal of Blood is better than Seal of Command, so SoB is the prefered PvE seal for Horde Retribution Paladins. Nevertheless, Seal of Command still has its use in situations where the backfire damage from SoB is dangerous.
Seal of Command and Seal of Righteousness comparison
Another seal to consider is Seal of Righteousness which does not scale with melee DPS but is more reliable (procs on every attack).
A quick way to compare the two is to record the Holy damage per hit for each and then adjust the damage for Seal of Command: damage = recorded damage * (1+crit chance) * proc rate. For example if Seal of Command hits for 650 average and the weapon speed is 3.5 (40.8% chance) and the melee crit chance is 20% then: damage = 650 * 0.408 * 1.2 = 318.24. If Seal of Righteousness also hits for around 320 then the two are quite similar (for your level, gear and build), with the added advantage that Seal of Righteousness will always proc.
Weapon speed and proc rate for Seal of Command
14 AP = 1 dps
Damage Per Hit = dps * Weapon Speed
Total Damage = ( AP / 14 ) * Weapon Speed
This caused some weapons to be far better than intended (Arcanite Reaper) and others far worse (Destiny). They added a normalized weapon speed (1.7 for daggers, 2.4 for 1h weps, 3.3 for 2h weps) so that fast, high dps weapons weren't outdone by slow, low dps weapons merely because of speed. Seal of Command (and WindFury) were not normalized, and retain their weapon speed.
SoC is normalized on proccing about 7 times per minute. This means that you get more out of it with a high top end damage weapon (each extra swing will mean more). As a side effect, is also makes it more reliable, as the slower the weapon, the higher the chance to proc (but still only about 7 times per minute). The formula for SoC proc rate is: [ 7 / ( 60 / Weapon Speed )
So a 2.0 speed weapon would proc 23.33% of the time [ 7 / (60 / 2) ]. A 3.0 speed weapon would proc 35% of the time [ 7 / (60 / 3) ]. The nice slow 3.8 speeds have a ~44% chance to proc [ 7 / (60 / 3.8) ].
Note that the Weapon Speed used in this formula is the weapon's speed after modification for Haste Rating. If you're using a base 3.0 speed weapon, and have enough Haste Rating to increase your attack speed by 5%, the Weapon Speed used in the formula will be 2.857.
External links
- WoW Paladin Forum - "Spell Damage Coefficients"
- WoW Paladin Forum - "Compendium of 1H & 2H Weapons + SoC DPS" Broken Link, mirrored here? Compendium of the best Paladin's weapons
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