Quick question for my more knowledgeable Paladins, as a ret paladin what is the threshold for weapon speed where I should use SoC over SoR and vice versa?
What I read was that SoC can only proc twice every 7 seconds, so the cutoff is 3.5 seconds. If your weapon strikes more than twice in 7 seconds, SoR will be better.
Honestly - and someone correct me if im wrong but ive always assumed that seal of command is without question the seal for damage dealing. It can crit, crits give vengeance, its judgement hits harder - ive never even thought of using SoR
In a recent interview, one of the designers said that all the seals were designed/supposed to be used based on the situation.
SoR does have its use. It procs on every hit regardless of speed, scales with spell power, and can proc weapon abilities. The new spelladin setup uses that to its benefit.
For the OP, generally you use SoC on anything 3.5 and slower and SoR on anything faster or that has a proc. For example, Nightfall is a 3.5 speed but you’d use SoR on it because SoR can trigger the on-hit proc, increasing the uptime.
I’m mad that you came up with the correct number for the wrong reason.
SoC has no limit on its proc chance. It has 6.8 PPM, which is not a limit. PPM is a method of calculating chance per swing; the chance per swing is calculated to get you an average of 6.8 procs in 60 seconds of swinging. There is always a nonzero chance that every swing you make will proc, regardless of how many swings you’ve made in how long.
That said, the way the math works out with ranks of SoR vs available weapons vs weapon damage vs SoC proc rate vs weapon speeds, assuming you’re using a weapon that is reasonably close to your level, the cutoff is indeed 3.5 speed. Use SoC if it’s 3.5 or slower, SoR if it’s 3.4 or faster. If your weapon is extremely outdated, use SoR regardless of speed. If your weapon is extremely overpowered for your level, use SoC regardless of speed.
Thank you for clearing that up. I didn’t think the answer I read from whatever website when I Googled it made complete sense. I wish it was a little more clear which one to use. It sounds to me like if you use Seal of Command, you’re giving up sure, steady, predictable damage for a chance to do more damage. And we all know about getting screwed by RNG in this game. So far with my paladin, I’ve been preferring Seal of Righteousness. It seems like SoC almost never procs for me.
BTW, the converse of the way you put it is that there’s also a non-zero chance that you will get no procs from Seal of Command during a given minute of fighting.
There’s also value in this! Sometimes you just want to know that your damage will be predictable and reliable, even if it might take a little longer on average. There’s also the case of wasted damage to consider; if the target has 1 HP left and you get your first SoC proc of the fight, you effectively got zero procs. Sometimes I switch to Rockbiter or Flametongue just because I don’t feel like dealing with Windfury, even though WF will average higher damage for me.
This is absolutely true as well.