New Seal of Command

[Papum]

It's very simple. instead of dealing high damage when the target is stunned when using judgement of Command, it is changed to:
Every time you use the judgment of Command it will put an holy damage Dot debuff (18 sec duration) on the target that can stack up to three times (increasing the Dots damage for every stack it gets), the judgment of Command will give more damage the more stacks you have on your target. That being said now there will be no instant high burst damage but an build up to an final moderate burst damage when used against an fully stacked enemy and an passive Dot damage to help stabalise the randomness of the Seal's on hit triggers in pve and in pvp you don't have that quik stun high burst anymore.
Also if that is implemented it would be wise to change the Repentence talent so it doesn't break on only this holy Dot damage.
By so making Seal of Command the rightfull seal for dps for an Retribution Paladin.

[Kefke]

On the one hand, this makes Paladins less bursty, which I do think is a good thing. It also lets the Judgement get full effect on enemies immune to Stuns, which is most bosses.

On the other hand, it makes Ret even more debuff reliant, when they already face some trouble with Crusader Strike not being on the "approved list" for debuff slots in raids.

If a change like that is being done, I think it would be better to make it a debuff that makes all attacks against the target do additional Holy damage. It could still have a stacking effect, where more stacks make the buff deal more damage, or it could work like Judgement of Wisdom where it has a relatively short duration, but attacks hitting refreshes it. Not only would those effects make it more valuable by benefiting any class doing weapon attacks, it would also synergize with the Paladin's other debuff, making that more valuable as well.

[Edit] A party-wide benefit would be more appropriate to the name of the ability as well. It's Seal of Command after all. It would be very appropriate if it allowed the Paladin to take on the role of a commander, leading the charge and making all their allies better in the process. [/Edit]

[Kairion]

SoC currently synergized with weapon damage and as a result of that with attackpower. It occupies a unique usecase no other seal can fulfil.
Im scared a holy dot would just make it a tank seal. Especially consodering raid paladins have access to a massive 440 holy spelldmg from crusader strike this could end up speed up paladin soloing stuff. A role where he is already potent in.

If the aim is to make soc less bursty, i think adjusting proccchance upward but reducing the damage per proc is the better choice. As it keeps more of the flavor of the seal intact and keeps its weapon scaling.

To me it just sounds like a shoehorned in version of seal of vengeance from tbc

[Kefke]

SoC currently synergized with weapon damage and as a result of that with attackpower. It occupies a unique usecase no other seal can fulfil.
Im scared a holy dot would just make it a tank seal. Especially consodering raid paladins have access to a massive 440 holy spelldmg from crusader strike this could end up speed up paladin soloing stuff. A role where he is already potent in.

If the aim is to make soc less bursty, i think adjusting proccchance upward but reducing the damage per proc is the better choice. As it keeps more of the flavor of the seal intact and keeps its weapon scaling.

To me it just sounds like a shoehorned in version of seal of vengeance from tbc

So, in regards to this, a couple things.

1. Getting access to Seal of Command takes a 20 point investment into Ret, so it's not exactly easy to dip for tanking.
2. Paladin tanks want to be using Seal of Justice when possible, as their talents turn it into a taunt.
3. Yes, they can get a lot of spellpower, but they don't have a lot to use it on, and what can benefit from it burns through their relatively small mana pool quickly. As it stands, Paladins aren't very strong in the DPS department, even with Turtle's buffs. They're best at focusing down a single target, and even there Warriors and Mages (who are also better at handling groups) tend to outperform them.

[Kairion]

SoC currently synergized with weapon damage and as a result of that with attackpower. It occupies a unique usecase no other seal can fulfil.
Im scared a holy dot would just make it a tank seal. Especially consodering raid paladins have access to a massive 440 holy spelldmg from crusader strike this could end up speed up paladin soloing stuff. A role where he is already potent in.

If the aim is to make soc less bursty, i think adjusting proccchance upward but reducing the damage per proc is the better choice. As it keeps more of the flavor of the seal intact and keeps its weapon scaling.

To me it just sounds like a shoehorned in version of seal of vengeance from tbc

So, in regards to this, a couple things.

1. Getting access to Seal of Command takes a 20 point investment into Ret, so it's not exactly easy to dip for tanking.
2. Paladin tanks want to be using Seal of Justice when possible, as their talents turn it into a taunt.
3. Yes, they can get a lot of spellpower, but they don't have a lot to use it on, and what can benefit from it burns through their relatively small mana pool quickly. As it stands, Paladins aren't very strong in the DPS department, even with Turtle's buffs. They're best at focusing down a single target, and even there Warriors and Mages (who are also better at handling groups) tend to outperform them.

- The cookiecutter raidtank paladin build is 0/21/30. You can skill soc no problem in raidtank specs. Solospec can also easily get it if he forgoes holy shield (wich isn't a big sacrifice in such a spec)
- You never use Seal of Justice when actively tanking. You activate it to judge and switch back to one of the useful seals
- The only thing the proposed change does is it puts more of a mana strain on Rets because you will get less JoW procs and you can't downrank to a spell for lvl 20 without loosing damage.

This is verry much a "it'd be cool if" change that does not solve any of the problems it sets out to relieve.

[Ravenstone]

I agree with Kairion here, but I'd also like to add that SoC is pretty intrinsic to the whole Ret experience in Vanilla so I don't think it should be changed in this regard. It's one of the few things that actually worked quite well albeit needs to be fixed to have the second attack unmissable to be preferable to SoR in PvP. If anything SotC and the new JotC should be changed instead since it's increadiably unflavourful and should have filled the PvE Ret DPS side of things.

[Papum]

- The only thing the proposed change does is it puts more of a mana strain on Rets because you will get less JoW procs and you can't downrank to a spell for lvl 20 without loosing damage.

This is verry much a "it'd be cool if" change that does not solve any of the problems it sets out to relieve.
[/quote]

Nothing has changed mana wise, the changes proposed were only to be less bursty by having an build up towards max damage and having an sustain prolong damage instead of an upfront burst. Overall its an up of damage but in an controlled way for the Retribution paladin.

[Kairion]

Pretty sure dot's dont proc jow. So that alone is a mananerf.

SoC can be downranked because its seal damage is 70% of weapondamage no matter what rank you use. If your new seal is not weapon damage based, there is no way paladin can downrank to r1.

If it is a weapondamage based dot, its not only something completely new to vanilla (wich i think is not necessarily a good thing) but its also a nightmare to balance. For one stacking dots snapshot, so you would want to abuse vengeance and trinkets to apply the strongest first stack possible (with ideally a 3.8 speed weapon ofc) and once its applied you keep it rolling.
Then the game does group stacking dots of different origins into one. Only the first person to apply it owns the debuff. All threat generated is awarded to them. And ofc it gives diminishing returns the more players want to use it. Since you cant have multiple instances.

If it does not scale with weapondamage, its nerfing physical ret pally quite a bit. And while its a problem for pvp, physical ret is a necessety due to lack of offensive pally gear. Requiring you to get some warrior pieces if you want stuff like hitcap.

With the 18 sec duration its also predestined to be sealtwisted. Meaning mcp spellret gets stronger. Since he currently doesnt use soc

Its funny the more i think about it the better it sounds for prot. Having a ignite like effect held up for you by rets does do wonder for prots threat.