+spell damage and SoCFollow

Just a quick question.

I had a tankadin tell me a couple of days ago that Seal of Command no longer received any benefit from +spell damage. He then proceeded to tell me that with this change, I was better off using Seal of Righteousness at all times...even while using my 3.6 speed Oathkeeper.

This goes against everything I have learned from these boards. And I am pretty sure that this is incorrect since my SoC still hits for more than my white damage whenever it procs. If this change was made wouldn't it make SoC worthless?

I didn't see anything in the patch notes about any changes....anyone know about this? Or was this guy misinformed.

yeah, SoC still benefits from 20% spell damage. Crusader strike was the only one that changed. if you use JoC much that still benefits from 43% of your spell damage too. are you holy or ret though? if your ret spec the change to crusader strike doesn't mean switch to abilities that do use spell damage. It means we can stack more AP and not worry about stacking spell damage more. Strength/AP will still boost your overall dps more. If you're holy you should be using improved SoR anyway, since you'll have less str and more spell damage.

to be honest, the biggest problem with holy/ret specs is that holy and ret pallys deal damage in very different ways. holy pallys deal primarily spell damage while rets deal mostly melee based damage. the first 2 tiers in ret have some good talents to boost holy damage, but beyond that your return on investment is minimal unless you're going all the way down the tree. if you're looking to solo a little faster, i'd recommend benediction for cheaper seals/judgments, improved SotC, and improved judgment. talents beyond that would be better spent in improved SoR and improving your healing.

i do reccomend 2 sets of gear. one for healing and one stacking as much +spell damage as you can.

i can't make you change obviously. just so you know where i'm coming from i have 2 pallys at 70. my first is holy and my second is ret. before i got my ret to 70 i played around with how to deal damage on my holy pally. for a little while had 16 in ret like you do. wanted that 5% crit and SoC. in the end i settled on the 51/0/10 build that i was talking about. my holy is still that way. with a simple gear change i can either heal in heroics/kara or dps in regular 70 instances keeping up with most non-raid geared dps'ers.

we had a shaman switch from elemental to resto to be another healer for kara, and while he was still working on his gear and learning to heal in 70's i would go as dps and backup healing when necessary. i can't tell you how to play, but i cn tell you that as a primarily holy spec pally, your best bet for maximizing your dps is to rely on SoR and spell damage not melee damage. upside of this is when i need to cast that emergency heal it will still hit hard enough to make the difference without killing my mana pool. my ret will cast that heal if necessary, but to use SoC and CS effectively you need to stack melee stats which will be less compatible with your spec and not allow you quite the healing utility. i vendored Oathkeeper long ago in favor of a spell damage 1h and shield for more dps (trust me it does work that way for holy) and better survivability.

on the other hand i love swinging a big 2h'er as a pally... thats why i rolled a ret pally too. wanted to make another pally to be prot, but i think that'd be too many pallys haha. so i'm starting to level a warrior to tank with.

51/0/10 is a shockadin set up. Unlike the traditional 40/0/21 build, this one leans more towards healing than damage.

As for shield skills in prot, it won't help much even if you are getting hit in heroics (which you shouldn't). That's the tank's job. To be honest, neither of the tier 1 defense skills are that great.

As a holy paladin, if you're taking damage letting redoubt proc, then either you're doing something wrong, or your tank is. Shield talents benefit protection paladins, and POSSIBLY people in PvP, but they should never come into play in an instance, heroic, or raid for a holy paladin.

before i started playing with the holy/ret builds i was 50/11/0 for instance healing. when i get my other healers in my guild to a point where we can get a Kara group together i'll probbly switch back to kings. honestly kings is the only thing in prot i'd want. first and scond tier is pretty well useless for me in PVE. if it wasn't for kings i'd stick with my 51/0/10 spec. those 10 points in ret allow for more dps for less mana.

edit: that extra dps is really only useful in solo play and if played well, regular instances. i don't really recommend trying to be holy dps for much else... thats what ret is for.

Edited, Jan 14th 2008 9:07pm by toolofjesus

lol, good changes there punk... i get enough people questioning my sanity for having 2 pallys already... while i'd love another, it would settle it that i've lost my sanity.... hmm, perhaps... actually punk, i've gone the easy way for prot and i'm just farming prot gear on my healadin and when i get a full set i'll be able to respec when needed. but who knows maybe i'll eventually level up my third pally, apollos, as a skinner/enchanter to make use of the aoe farming though. we'll see. i want to level up another class first though for some more variety.