Retri PvE: Please explain seal choice and seal "dancing"

Hello, sorry to create a separate post for my question but the PvE Retribution guide is apparently closed


I've read a bit of discussion about seals, and I understood the obvious: SoC is good for aoe cleave, SoV is good for single target sustained damage. So far so good. Then I read that apparently, there are palas that, on some encounters, like to temporarily swap seal to "SoR" (I assume Seal of Righteousness).

My problem is, when try SoR on dummy, the base damage isn't really that high: less than SoC, and much less than stacked SoV. The judgement damage isn't outstanding either: it does start at slightly higher values than SoC/1 stack SoV but nothing crazy (think 5k crit instead of 4k). When I read posts, people are claiming that this is a must do, and that they gained a few thousand DPS doing so.


What am I missing ? was this due to a previous (now patched) change ?

Does anyone have an up-to-date answer to the seal choice question (namely on PP/Sindy/LK)?

Bonus question: does SoV snapshot critrate like SW:P (SPriest) / Corruption (Warlock) or is it a totally different type of spell?


additional facts if it matters: my pala is on Icecrown, it does not posses SM, it does possess Taiaj HC, it also equips 4t10 and I usually use judgement of wisdom

Seal dancing is 99.99% of the time a DPS loss unless something in a fight changes. For example, when there is a sudden need to cleave adds when you were previously doing strictly single-target damage. As such, seal dancing isn't covered in the Ret pve guide (here). It is significantly more important for high skill levels for PvP, however, and so it is covered in the Ret pvp guide (here).

@SoR, it's more about the greater output from the Judgment damage. It does really good damage baseline compared to the Judgment of other seals and also applies the seal damage itself (as if it were a melee hit) to the Judgment. Which means it's only good for targets that live for a very short amount of time and/or you don't have the ability to build SoV stacks.


@Seal choice question for PP/Sindy/LK;
For PP, SoR can be good for oozes, otherwise SoV on the boss.
Edit: This assumes the oozes are being properly slowed by the abom, and your group is quick to kill them. If they die slowly, you may use SoV on them as well.

For Sindy, seal choice for the tombs depends on your group's strat. It's a mix-up between SoCommand and SoR depending on how hard you want to cleave the tombs, or potentially SoV if you won't be doing any cleaving at all and DOT damage on the tombs is acceptable.

For LK, SoV on p1 unless dropping ghoul health is part of the strat, in which case you can use SoCommand, but boss damage is still probably more of priority. After p1, SoV for the boss and on singular Raging Spirits - SoCommand or maintaining SoV dot on 2 Raging Spirits. Seal choice on Valks also depends on how quickly the Valks die, and how good your group is about clustering the Valks together - ideally you want to be able to use SoCommand if the Valks get clustered together with proper raid positioning.


@Bonus question, yes it does snapshot. No, it does not have enough value for you to bother with it and seal dancing.

Thank you for the answers, I was starting to get confused, as I picked pala ret to learn MDPS because I was told it was easy, except the more I read about in-depth gameplay the less easy it sounds. At least I won't have to constantly seal switch on top of that.

Just some follow-ups to your answers if you don't mind:

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For PP, SoR can be good for oozes, otherwise SoV on the boss.

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Would SoC be a decent choice on this ? I find the on-hit to be pretty good for <10s fights, how big is the difference on this instance using SoR vs SoC ? if you have any "estimate" ?
Because I currently use this macro

#showtooltip
/castsequence !Seal of Command, !Seal of Corruption

As you can see, I completely disregarded SoR until now..

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yes it does snapshot. No, it does not have enough value for you to bother with it and seal dancing

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Even with a nevermelting ice crystal active ? this one doesn't take too much effort





another extra question just to make sure I'm going the right way: I'm 6k gs (around 100 over the hit cap but working on it, and only 2 agility offset pieces so far) glorenzerg + taiaj HC, I'm currently doing 12 to 13,5 k DPS on DBS/Fester/Marrow etc (with ICC 30% buff ofc), is that acceptable ?

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Originally Posted by Firzenn

I picked pala ret to learn MDPS because I was told it was easy, except the more I read about in-depth gameplay the less easy it sounds.

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That has to be the biggest misconception about WOTLK, ever. Out of 6 specs between 5 classes that I play frequently in PvE, ret paladin is the most difficult one for me.

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Originally Posted by Firzenn

Thank you for the answers, I was starting to get confused, as I picked pala ret to learn MDPS because I was told it was easy, except the more I read about in-depth gameplay the less easy it sounds. At least I won't have to constantly seal switch on top of that.

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Essentially backing up what Lawwl above me has already said. So long as all you do is mash buttons for big numbers, it can be fairly easy - and that's why it's meme'd on (along with crazy burst damage on demand). However, once you delve into mastery of the spec, you'll find it has a lot of depth - significantly moreso than all but 1 of the other melee specs.

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Originally Posted by Firzenn

Would SoC be a decent choice on this ? I find the on-hit to be pretty good for <10s fights, how big is the difference on this instance using SoR vs SoC ? if you have any "estimate" ?

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You want to use SoR when the target lives for about ~7s or less IIRC. When it lives a few seconds longer than that, the value of your seals change a fair amount, which varies depending on weapon speed, haste and ilvl. IIRC, SoCommand performs better than other seals during the 7s-10s window or about that point, and then after that SoV takes over.

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Originally Posted by Firzenn

As you can see, I completely disregarded SoR until now..

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Yeah, Seal of Righteousness is your #1 seal if the target is living long enough to essentially only get a Judgment hit off on the target.

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Originally Posted by Firzenn

Even with a nevermelting ice crystal active ? this one doesn't take too much effort

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You should pretty much never be using that trinket.

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Originally Posted by Firzenn

another extra question just to make sure I'm going the right way: I'm 6k gs (around 100 over the hit cap but working on it, and only 2 agility offset pieces so far) glorenzerg + taiaj HC, I'm currently doing 12 to 13,5 k DPS on DBS/Fester/Marrow etc (with ICC 30% buff ofc), is that acceptable ?

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Naturally, you should be doing the best that you can, but if you're the only Ret in the raid, it honestly wouldn't matter if you were doing 8k dps. A Ret's contribution to a raid is fairly significant. DPS-wise, those numbers are OK. Your gearscore tells me very little, though. For all I know, you could be wearing a full set of intellect armor much like the trinket you previously mentioned. An armory link would be better.

Oh don't worry I dont actually wear Nevermelting haha, I was just talking about equipping NIC -> activating the crit buff -> reequipping Herkumi (cause thats what I have) and start the boss with extra crit rating for the snapshotting

No idea if this works, but I've been doing it in the past for SW:P on Spriest, which is why I'm curious since you tell me SoV can snapshot crit too


As for the gear it is very standard: a little over 500 haste, hit & exp capped, 4t10 with focusing on getting str/crit with a few agi items


Anyway, thanks a lot for the input

Any update on this ?
I'm considering trying myself since I nearly have enough vote points to get NIC
So far, the only downside I've encountered to the usage of this trinket buff is that the other trinket you replace is "on CD" for 30s, but if you time it right, you can get the NIC buff 15-18s before the pull, making your actual trinket "on CD" for only 12-15sec

I personnally don't even have that issue since my current trinket is Herkumi War Totem which doesn't come with a proc, but builds passively

Anyway, if nobody has given it a try, I'll probably be trying this in a few days.
No idea how it will interact with SoV stacks but it can't hurt to try

Using the trinket to gain the buff, then swapping trinkets, is an exploit. The trinket buff should disappear when you remove the trinket.

Oh... I see
I'll keep my vp then, thx

corruption/vengeance stack ticks can't crit. The damage part from weapon swings on 5 stacks snapshots crit or what do you mean?

I'm not sure at this point, but it doesn't matter. It's not something worth pursuing regardless of how you try to approach it. This thread has been dead for a while.