With the coming release of classic, I decided to jump on the final test to play around with paladin mechanics which were available given the imposed level restrictions. To this end I wanted to explore seal twisting and how impactful this could prove in end game content; and so i found the slowest weapon i could easily attain and got to work.
As it is widely known the role of the Retribution Paladin in PvE can take the form of a utility dps with their main contribution coming in the form of Nightfall procs upon a given target. Through seal twisting being a working mechanic in classic, and Seal of Righteousness being affected by batching; a new spell interaction can be performed through twisting SoCr into SoR.
This effectively grants the paladin 40% attack speed, while also proccing SoR on a given hit, with the key mechanic behind SoR in this case being its ability to proc weapon procs. Through this interaction a competent retribution paladin now has access to a far higher rate of proc generation; potentially shifting the meta to the extent that they may now actually have the highest uptime of nightfall of any class by a large margin; bear in mind this is purely speculation as I have not had time to perform any actual critical analysis yet.
Best regards,
Archeon.
Arugal - Oceanic.
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Archeon and I talked about this last night. It might be really mana inneffecient, but because righteousness damage hits on the second batch it seems like you can do this with Seal of Crusader into SoR for really high nightfall uptime. You could technically do double rank 1 if you really wanted to, and the mana efficiency wouldn’t be an issue if all you’re focusing on is uptime. The downside being you would do even less damage than you already do.
Could be interesting! We’ll see some classic.
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Definitely 
Esfand is 100% correct, for maximum personal damage output this rotation would be based upon twisting R1 SoCr into max Rank SoR; a rotation which is achievable through spamming Dark Runes/Demonic Runes and Major Mana potions on CD with no raid buffs (has been tested). However the rotation is extremely mana inefficient while using max rank SoR; albeit definitely possible to maintain if you consume enough as any good ret should, the fundamental principle of this twisting rotation is based upon increasing uptime of the debuff itself; rather then personal DPS. To put it in context however, a retribution paladin swinging a 2h with SoC will undoubtedly produce higher personal dps every time.
useing all your mana seal twisting on 1 mob
getting ganked on zero mana and QQing on the forums, priceless!
Yes for the first 20s until you are oom.
Where is Theoloras and his God Wills It link when you need him?
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Interesting theorycrafting - thanks for posting something productive in the midst of this forum dumpster fire.
That said - this really needs to be tested at max level, in a raid setting with consumables and buffs. Teammates blessing and judging Wisdom might alleviate some of the issues, etc.
Please drop another update if you learn more about how to sustain this strategy.
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Is this practical and reliable with a 3.6 speed weapon?
Is it sustainable for more than 5 mins?
Is the dps loss compensated by nightfall uptime?
Is it worth more to use swing speed enchants to achieve a balance of uptime/dps?
Interesting at any rate, thanks for posting! Curious how this pans out
With SotC, essentially Nightfall would be a 2.57 speed weapon, and the SoR + white swing will be two proc chances every 2.57 seconds, or one chance every 1.28 seconds. It’s not bad, but it’s still not as good as either a hunter or warrior.
Compare with a hunter spamming rank 1 wing clip every 1.5 seconds + 3.6 speed white attack, which is one proc chance every 1.06 seconds.
Compare with a 2H fury warrior with 1.5 second hamstring (PvP gloves will be available by BWL release, which give cost reduction). Same rate as the hunter, before we even talk about flurry, or using bloodthirst/WW when those are up for more damage. More than one proc chance per second is possible near crit cap and high flurry uptime. But even if you would argue that point, an offtank without flurry can get the hunter’s proc rate just fine.
So for the paladin, that’s a whole lot of consumes to go through to get worse results than a warrior or hunter can do essentially for free. Unless the goal is to have two Nightfalls in the raid, which might be a great idea, but I honestly don’t know how the interaction of two Nightfalls works.
He’s probably bust trying desperately to fish his comical Shockadin build out of the garbage…
Still, a better option than a shaman, though if a shaman can totem twist for higher tank threat, he might as well be swinging a Nightfall.
Yeah the meaningful uptime increase is what I would like to see. What it does the ret’s dps is probably not important in the grand scope of things.
Id suggest considering the mechanics at play; rather then the content of the video, I hope you are aware SoCr Rank 1 costs 25 mana regardless of whether you are level 11 or level 60 and still offers the same 40% attack speed modifier… and that there is a huge different between level 11 characters and level 60 characters mana pools…
to this extent the rotation has already been tested in external environments and max rank SoR+R1 SoCr twisting is achievable at 60 with zero raid buffs and purely Major Mana Potions and Dark Runes, it becomes far… far easier in a raid scenario.
Incorrect, Nightfall has a 3.5 attack speed, SoCr is a 40% attack speed modifier no matter the rank, which would make the paladins attack speed while twisting which makes it a 2.1 speed attack rate… and on top of that you forgot to include the fact that paldins can cast Judgement on CD which is off the GCD.
Edit:
Just as a form of back-referencing for any questions which are yet to or have already arisen, this is the reddit thread discussing this thread 
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/cq1ena/paladin_seal_twisting_nightfall_uptime_the_game/
Thank you for the correction on the weapon speed to 3.5. Still, your haste math is off. You don’t multiply by 0.6, as you did, but rather, you divide by 1.4. This results in a 2.5 speed attack, so with the seal it’s two procs every 2.5 seconds, or one every 1.25. Your 2.1 attack speed is actually 1.6666 (repeating, of course) times faster. We’ll have to look into other haste effects (juju, counterweight, glove enchant) etc as this will impact paladins more than warriors or hunters due to seal effectively doubling up on swing speed.
Next, I was under the impression that judgment did not proc the nightfall effect. If you can confirm this, or if it’s just true, then the paladin proc chances are a very respectable once per 1.08 seconds, which is on par with the other two classes, but not significantly better as you had hoped.
There are still a couple of issues though. At 2.5 attack speed, are you going to be able to twist every swing without the seal GCD causing it to clip into the next? Do you never cast consecrate? Or how about exorcism or HoW when available? We’ll need to work that out, too. I’m not looking to put paladins down, because I am a day one paladin (well, horde side anyway). I’m just looking for the correct answer here.
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Hi, Délaredia yes you are completely correct in regards to that calculation; my back-of-the-envelope math was off on that for sure; the ramifications of swing clipping due to GCD’S were beginning to be unpacked over in the reddit thread the other day actually; and will prove somewhat impactful. This being said however, while JoR does not proc Weapon Procs, JoC does and would therefore offers further Nightfall uptime (While being off the GCD). to this end my proposed dps rotation for this specific seal twisting interaction to minimise or mitigate this factor would be seen through the following; bear in mind this could see potential refinement as ideas progress:
Where the following abbreviations are used
TS - Twisted Swing, SS - Seal Swing (Untwisted), JoC - Judgement of Command
Rotation:
|TS | SS |JoC| TS | SS |Repeat…|
Attack Speed Implications:
|2.5 | 3.5| 0 | 2.5 | 3.5 |Repeat…|
Chances to Proc:
| 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
With a projected repetition time of
12 seconds
(This of course excludes external buffs which would further increase proc time and as you mentioned prove extremely effective for the paladin class, increasing procs.)
Effectively, twisting every second swing; while judging every second Seal Swing.
This being said another interaction which I am quite excited to test would be seen through SoC / SoR twisting, and while currently it is believed this may not be working; this could be due to inextensive testing or a potential bug in seal scripting, fundamentally it should work in the same way SoB and SoC twisting worked in TBC; which was an established mechanic throughout the entire expansion… and through this will yield a rotation which wont be affected by clips at all, while providing a multiplicative amount of hits which can all proc nightfall seen through SoR applying to both White/SoC and potential HoJ procs on top of this. With one swing potentially offering 6 chances to proc in 1 hit in an optimal situation.
Well I’m definitely on board to see it, and we have until phase 3 to test out the basics of the rotation beforehand. Unless the new meta will be spellpower+MCP, of course. Excited about that possibility.
Unfortunately mcp was just a bug abusing meme spec from private servers haha 
