WotLK Paladin Seal of Righteousness underperforming

[Selaya]

no you're wrong, SoR has a much better AP scaling than SoC has (.49 plus talents vs .36), so it becomes much better the more AP you gain
you just have to overcome it's lack of initial scaling with your weapon dps but once you do that SoR becomes much better
besides, crits arent all that effective in pvp because they get nullified a lot by resilience and SoC crits dont proc anything relevant (TAoW)

[psyanide]

Why are you using SoR anyway? SoCommand is flat out better not just on the obvious multiple targets, but better on singles too. I just dont get why so many people believe SoR is better for anything. Yes, SoR has better judgements, but its seal damage massively lower becaus SoR is lower damage per hit, and cant crit, it ends up about +50% more damage on the seal and the overall effect is that SoC is just massively better, not just a little bit, but a lot better. And thats just on singles, add in more targets and its an insane difference. To put it simply, SoR and smourne will lose to SoC and Gloren. As a side bonus, you can get the SoC glyph for pvp which keeps you from ever needing to judge wisdom and allows for more self heals.

Don't believe me? Feel free to test this out on some dummies, and i mean the target type, not the ones sitting in Stormwind. Or maybe test it out on them too, its lots of fun.

SoR has always been known as the stronger seal in 3.3.5 just as it was on retail in 2009. Look at any guides from back then and you'll see they all say to use SoR. SoComm depends on you hitting your target at all times, its terrible when being kited which happens often... SoR is much better better because of its a powerful attack with range so you can hit kiters. And if you are facing an enemy who can't kite you SoV is actually the best seal. That is, if you can keep 5/5 SoV stacks up (having a 1h/shield swap helps)

[DarkenedHue]

Why are you using SoR anyway? SoCommand is flat out better not just on the obvious multiple targets, but better on singles too. I just dont get why so many people believe SoR is better for anything. Yes, SoR has better judgements, but its seal damage massively lower becaus SoR is lower damage per hit, and cant crit, it ends up about +50% more damage on the seal and the overall effect is that SoC is just massively better, not just a little bit, but a lot better. And thats just on singles, add in more targets and its an insane difference. To put it simply, SoR and smourne will lose to SoC and Gloren. As a side bonus, you can get the SoC glyph for pvp which keeps you from ever needing to judge wisdom and allows for more self heals.

Don't believe me? Feel free to test this out on some dummies, and i mean the target type, not the ones sitting in Stormwind. Or maybe test it out on them too, its lots of fun.

In a PVP situation, SoR's effect of turning your Judgement into another hard-hitting and somewhat bursty ability is valued a lot more than sustained damage on paper. Seal of Command was patched recently not to proc off Judgements, whereas SoR still does (and should). The much stronger Judgement is what it comes down to. If it were PVE we were talking about then SoR would be quite redundant in high-end gear, but in PVP a lot more emphasis is placed on the ability of the stronger Judgement to either land a kill, open an opportunity for one, or to force defensive cooldowns. Judgement is also one of your few abilities usable outside of melee range as another posted mentioned so there's also that.