Why does just about every ret pally leveling build I see use improved seal of the crusader? yet the guides never say to use it. Seems like a waste of 3 talent points.
Why not put the points in to deflection where it we get some use?
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Honestly i have no idea. I did some testing at level 24 in Durnholde Keep. Here are my results.
Time to kill the entire second floor, including the enemies inside the buildings.
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Judging SotC+SoC: 15 minutes and 25 seconds. Time spent drinking: 96 seconds.
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Just SoC: 13 minutes and 44 seconds. Time spent drinking: 24 seconds.
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Just SoR: 12 minutes and 12 seconds. Time spent drinking: 24 seconds.
The water used in these tests was Melon Water. Which i believe is the best available to me at this level. I also used Arcane Torrent on cooldown to regenerate a bit of mana. Despite that, using SotC ended up being significatly slower than just using SoC or SoR because my kill times were not any faster. It only drained a ton of mana.
On average, it took me 4 auto attacks to kill while judging SotC and using SoC for damage, and 4 auto attacks to kill with SoR/SoC and judging them for damage once. Meaning time to kill were effectively the same.
Despite that i have a pretty decent weapon (Arced War Axe (Rare 2h from SFK) i found that SoR slightly outdid SoC because SoC could miss and be parried/dodged while SoR could not.
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Yeah that’s it, we don’t use the ability so its 3 wasted points. Rather spend them in deflection.
Using your judge on SotC while leveling is pretty worth it if you are seal twisting a rank 1 command and lower rank righteousness.
Here is an example at 0:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3qrRoJSvp8&t=13s
If you’re going to solo level I’d take deflection. Maybe those guides are assuming some dungeons? Judge wisdom + command is what I did so I didn’t have to drink as often.
Oh yeah deflection is definitely a must while leveling and pvp, I was kinda just saying that it can be done to get a pretty significant damage increase even at lower levels. Its not absolutely necessary though.
I honestly haven’t looked to see how much more damage it does, but I am doing SoCrusade, Judge, SoCommand. That way the target takes more holy damage per swing. Yes this is a mana drain, but it nets you higher dps than just doing command or crusader. Plus crusader on it’s own nets you NO holy damage, and that’s going to take longer per kill. I’m not sure I will put points into improved crusader, a total of 3% chance for crit isn’t a lot.
Also, I have decided to put talents into Divine Str. And it’s been fun seeing some pretty big damage crits already.
Just a different perspective. I personally think it would be better to put your talents into improved BoM, I mean a total of 20% higher attack power? Yes please!
I’m not home so I can’t check but I think TBC improved seal of the crusader adds crit chance to its effect, you also do more holy damage to targets that have been judged by it, ret as a spec benefits a lot from critical strikes.
If this is for classic vanilla it just makes seal of the crusaders judgment buff holy damage by a good chunk.
Yeah, you hit big with holy damage WHEN you hit. But at least at low levels, my new pally (not this one) doesn’t always hit with SoC. That is the nice thing with SoR, there is static holy damage that happens per swing. I killed a mob earlier today that netted NO holy damage, what on earth??? So I’m currently struggling trying to figure out which one is better with dps.
SotC is for longer fights. Bosses etc, not only does it boost your damage in the long run but it the talent also increases everybody’s crit chance against that target.
I understand, it isn’t self explanatory when you first look at your seals.
Only use crusader for its judgment and only on targets that are going to last a bit,think of it like a kill mark.
Righteousness is good if you buff it in the holy tree and on weapons of swing speed 3.30 or lower it actually does different damage if its a 1h or 2h so a fast 2h gains even more benefit.
Command is RNG but I think it has a proc per minute of…7 or so, what this means is you get the most use out of it with a very slow 2h.
If you choose improved seal of the crusader in the talents keep in mind there’s a talent further in the ret tree that increases crit chance of judgments so its a good crit bonus all together for you to burst something down.
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