The Basis of Pally Combat

[Muridin]

The Basics of Paladin Combat
Herein lies wisdom and advice on the very basics of Paladin combat. There are no diatribes about what we should or should not have as a class, rather, a cold and hopefully insightful treatment of the various methods Paladins use in combat. The most basic thing to note is that Paladins do not have attacks like the Rogue, Hunter and Warrior have. We use the Holy Light to augment our basic attacks, something that has caused much ire among those that want to be a "Warrior with Heals".
Holy Damage
Let's start by discussing a unique aspect of the Paladin, the ability to deal Holy damage. While Paladins are not strictly speaking "unique" in their ability to deal Holy damage (Priests can too), we have no other damage type besides physical (where as most Priests will use Shadow for damage) and many Paladins like to maximize Holy damage. Holy damage is rather unique in itself, which is why you don't see a lot of it in the game. There is no resistance category for Holy damage, meaning that it can not be mitigated by other players or most monsters. Holy damage can still be absorbed by spells such as Power Word: Shield, or a warrior's 10% damage reduction from Defensive stance, but there is no way to "gear up" to reduce the damage it deals.
This is important for several reasons. While high-level monsters might have serious spell mitigation, it's safe to say that 95% of your targets will take full damage from a Holy attack, no matter who they are. You may notice if you play a melee-based class that most times your non-critical melee attacks never really do the damage listed on your character sheet. This is due to armor, and mobs usually have artificially high armor. Holy damage will ignore that armor - which is why Seal of Command is so popular.

Judgment
Judgment is an ability that takes the current seal on the Paladin and unleashes its energy on a target, creating either a debuff effect or doing damage. Judgment is a rather interesting concept that has suffered from poor execution until the recent patch. What was previously a 15 second recast is now 10 seconds and with talents available to lower Judgment to an 8 second recast. This alone has made the ability more viable as a form of repeatable, controlled damage.
The following Seals create direct damage when Judged:
•   Seal of Righteousness - instant holy damage
•   Seal of Command - instant holy damage, does more when the target is stunned
The other Seals create a Judgment effect when Judged:
•   Seal of the Crusader - target takes increased Holy damage
•   Seal of Light - melee attacks against target can heal attacker
•   Seal of Wisdom - spell and melee attacks against target can restore mana
•   Seal of Justice - prevents computer controlled enemy from fleeing
Judgment effects are now refreshed when the Paladin that judged them attacks the judged target in melee.

Procs per Minute (PPM)
Most of our seals operate around a system called "procs per minute", which is a number representing the average amount of times a seal will proc in a given minute. This is not a guarantee - this is an average, which is applied to your weapon speed when determining the likelihood of a seal proccing an effect. What this means in rough terms is that the slower the weapon, the higher the chance you have of proccing a seal on each attack. This of course is balanced by the fact that you will swing slower, possibly missing on potential procs. In 1.9, the following seals work off a Procs per Minute system:
•   Seal of Wisdom
•   Seal of Light
•   Seal of Justice
•   Seal of Command

Damage Per Second (DPS)
DPS is the standard nomeclature to gauge damage. It is a metric, more than anything else, of average damage over a given period. As with any average, the true performance of an index falls between two extremes, so an average should never be taken to be the maximum (or minimum for that matter) of what you can do. DPS is often a concern for those in melee that want to make the most of what they have. If you're going to hit something, you want to hit it as hard and as often as possible, yes? That is what drives comparison by DPS.
For Paladins, DPS can be misleading because it is often lower than any other class. This often is frustrating for those that want to play a more offensive role in PvP, as high damage is often what wins the day. However, this is not a treatise on what's effective in PvP or PvE - that is for you to figure out. Your view will not the same as mine, and that's alright. At any rate, do not use these DPS numbers to compare to other classes - you're more than any other class can be when played well, so why gimp yourself by trying to be a rogue?
The DPS of your attacks is computed by a few factors, your weapon, your attack power and your current seal. Your weapon is pretty obvious, it's right in the description of the weapon what the DPS is.

Attack Power
Attack power is the statistic that adds damage to each attack based off the speed of your weapon. For every 14 points of attack power, 1 DPS is applied to your weapon, that is 1 is multiplied by the speed of your weapon and that number is added to the base damage of every hit you make. You can see in your character screen the amount of DPS your current attack power is adding to your attacks. Strength is the sole contributer to attack power (besides directly increasing your attack power), one point of strength adds 2 attack power.

Reckoning
This talent deserves special focus as it commonly regarded as one of the best ways to control burst damage, and it can in fact pack a wallop. Reckoning is a 21-25 point talent (5 Ranks) in the Protection tree that when maxed gives an one-hundred percent chance to return instantly with a counter attack. when you are the victim of a critical attack. This includes ranged critical attacks, which means sometimes, you aren't in a position to return fire. To alleviate this problem, the developers changed Reckoning so that it would "store" charges of return shots, so that when you entered into melee range, you could unleash all of these charges at once.
Then they actually saw it action and limited Reckoning to 4 charges max. I guess Paladins shouldn't one-shot outdoor bosses. Anyway, Reckoning as it is is still a decent attack. You can be critted on many times, especially by Rogues and Hunters, and all those crits, if you can stay alive and unleash them, become the "Reckoning Bomb", which is four consecutive, instant attacks with your currently equipped weapon. Ouch. These hits can in fact trigger Seal of Command strikes, making for further ouch. These can proc your weapon or enchant, meaning, yes... further ouch even still.
For more information about Reckoning, check out this thread on the official forums, which pretty much says it all. Courtesy of McHammer. Also see the Talents Page for Reckoning Bomb builds in 1.9.


Seals, Sorted by DPS in 1.9
A Paladin does his or her damage with auto-attack and spells that are called "Seals." A Seal is a self-only buff that modifies your auto-attack ability. Seals typically add a chance for your weapon attacks to release some effect. There are 7 seals available to Paladins, one of which is a talent.
Seal of Righteousness (Base +16 Holy DPS at level 60)
Seal of Righteousness is the first seal you get, at level 1, which adds an addition bit of holy damage to each and every attack you make. This extra damage is shown as a separate attack in your combat log and a separate number floating over your target's head. Higher ranks of this seal increase the damage done per proc and the mana needed to cast the seal. Seal of Righteousness does more damage on each attack for a slower weapon, maintaining a constant damage per second increase (roughly a base 16 DPS at the highest level). The damage from SoR is always Holy meaning that it can not be mitigated (but it can be resisted, 5% of the time).
When Judged, SoR does a set amount of Holy damage instantly. Cycling SoR/JoR can deal significant damage over time, while slow. Seal of Righteousness gains 10% of your +damage items (meaning if you currently are wearing +100 damage, each hit will do 10 more holy damage). Judgement of Righteousness gains 50% of +spell damage item bonuses (meaning 50 more damage per Judgement in the previous example)
Seal of Righteousness is the most consistant damage you can deal in the 1.9 patch, but is not modified by your weapon DPS at all.
What Improves Seal of Righteousness?
Improved Seal of Righteousness
6-10 Points Holy Talent    +3% damage per point (max 15%)


Holy Power
26-30 Points Holy Talent    +1% Holy spell crit chance (max 5%)


Sanctity Aura
21 Point Retribution Talent   +10% Holy Damage


Vengence
26-30 Points Retribution Talent    +3% Physical and Holy damage (max 15%) after any crit


+ damage Gear    10% of damage value applied to Seal attacks
50% of damage value applied to Judgements


Judgement of the Crusader
Base Ability, Improvable (see below)   10% of JotC value applied to Seal attacks
50% of JotC value applied to Judgements

Seal of the Crusader (Base +23 Physical DPS at level 60)
Seal of the Crusader is unique in that it is the only seal in 1.9 that does not have a 'proc' like effect attached to it. Seal of the Crusader is an often misunderstood seal that has not gained any appreciation from the Paladin community since a bug fix to it nerfed it pretty hard. What Seal of the Crusader does is three-fold: it adds a healthy amount of attack power (322 at the highest rank), it increases your attack speed by 40%, and lowers your BASE damage by the amount needed to maintain the same BASE DPS of the weapon equipped.
Wow, confusing, huh? What does that mean? That means that the net gain in DPS is what DPS you gain from the attack power boost, NOT the speed increase. Remember 14 attack power = 1 DPS, so the highest rank of SotC adds 23 DPS, and has the by-product of increasing your attack speed. Yes, this is more base DPS than Seal of Righteousness - so why use SoR? Well, SotC's DPS increase is purely physical damage, meaning that it can be mitgated. However, against low-armored targets (most of which have to cast spells, meaning the increased loss in casting time can be a factor), SotC can outdo SoR. However, you may not see the big damage hits you will want.
Judgment of the Crusader has an unique function as well, it places a debuff on your target (much like Judgments of Wisdom, Light and Justice) that increases the amount of Holy damage that target takes. This is considerable since this acts like a built-in +holy damage for priests and paladins that attack the target. For this reason, the Judgement aspect has always been more popular than the Seal aspect; we'll see if that changes with 1.9 much.
Seal of the Crusader is best used against low-armored targets, especially casters.
What Improves Seal of the Crusader?
Improved Seal of the Crusader
6-8 Points Retribution Talent    +5% damage/damage increase per point (max 15%)


Vengence
26-30 Points Retribution Talent    +3% Physical and Holy damage (max 15%) after any crit

Seal of Command (variant DPS, see below)
Seal of Command is an eleven-point talent in the Retribution tree, and is the mama-jamma big daddy of the three damage-bearing seals. This seal gives a 7 PPM chance to deal additional holy damage equal to 70% of your weapon attack. This is a rather interesting change from the previous versions of the seal. Seal of Command no longer takes your paper doll damage, but rather does 70% of the amount of damage you hit for - but hits more often now.
Seal of Command is the only seal that deals more damage based on what weapon you have equipped, meaning that if you are disarmed, Command procs will do considerable less damage. This also makes Seal of Command have a variant DPS, meaning some weapons will perform better with Seal of Righteousness or Seal of the Crusader. The formula for figuring the average DPS increase of Seal of Command is;
SoC DPS = (Avg. Weapon Hit x .70) / 8.5
This works out to the following estimates:
Seal of Command DPS Estimates
100 Point Avg. Hit    +8.1 DPS (Avg. 70 damage SoCommand proc)


150 Point Avg. Hit    +12.2 DPS (Avg. 105 damage SoCommand proc)


200 Point Avg. Hit    +16.3 DPS (Avg. 140 damage SoCommand proc)


300 Point Avg. Hit    +24.4 DPS (Avg. 210 damage SoCommand proc)


400 Point Avg. Hit    +32.6 DPS (Avg. 280 damage SoCommand proc)
It's pretty clear that Seal of Command shines with hard-hitting, two handed weapons, the PPM mechanic also lends towards slower weapons for up front big hits. This is obviously the Seal of choice for those that want to do damage with a big two handed weapon.
Judgment of Command has received a HUGE change with the 1.9 patch, now being an instant direct damage spell much like Seal of Righteousness. However, unlike Seal of Righteousness, the Judgment does far less damage to a target unless it is stunned or disorientated (from Hammer of Justice, Repentance, Bombs, Gouge, etc.). This creates a great deal of synergy and strategy of when to Judge this seal, as well as having a good synergy with Seal of Justice, a second paladin, a rogue, a warrior, etc. Judgment of Command also crits as if it were a melee ability (x2 damage) and scales up with +spell damage gear and JotCrusader.
Seal of Command is best when you want to produce large amounts of Holy damage with a two-handed weapon, or if you want to quickly damage something that is stunned. Seal of Command has the best growth potential.
What Improves Seal of Command?
Divine Strength
1-5 Points Holy Talent    +2% Strength Bonus per point (max 10%)
Larger attacks increase SoC proc damage


Blessing of Kings
11 Point Protection Talent    +10% Strength, +10% Agility
Larger attacks, more criticals increase SoC proc damage


Blessing of Might
Base Ability, Improvable (see below)    Added attack power increases damage/hit
Larger attacks increase SoC proc damage


Judgement of the Crusader
Base Ability, Improvable (see below)   29% of JotC value applied to Seal procs
43% of JotC value applied to Judgements


Conviction
11-15 Points Retribution Talent    +1% crit chance per point (max 5%)


Sanctity Aura
21 Point Retribution Talent   +10% Holy Damage


Vengence
26-30 Points Retribution Talent    +3% Physical and Holy damage (max 15%) after any crit


Large DPS Weapons    Slower attacks increase chance of SoC proc
Larger attacks increase SoC proc damage


Strength, Attack Power    1 STR = 2 ATK, 14 ATK = 1 DPS
Larger attacks increase SoC proc damage


+ damage Gear    29% of damage value applied to Seal attacks
43% of damage value applied to Judgements
 


Blessings for Fighters
A comparison of the two blessings, Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings isn't truly germane since the two have different functions. Might is signular in purpose, making you do more damage with your attacks. Kings makes you better in every sense, but does not grant as much attack power. However, Kings is an eleven point Protection talent, Mights is a baseline ability. Pound for pound, here's how they measure up.
Blessing of Might vs. Blessing of Kings
Blessing of Might
Baseline Ability
Receives +20% more attack power from talents.    Blessing of Kings
11 Point Protection Talent
Recieves no extra ranks or improvements.


+155 Attack Power (base) translates into an added 11.1 DPS.    +10% Strength means higher attack power and better blocking from shields.


+186 Attack Power (w/ talents) translates into an added 13.3 DPS.    +10% Agility means higher dodge/parry/crit rates and a small amount of armor.


   +10% Stamina means more hit points.


   +10% Intellect means more mana, very slight improvement in spell crit chance.


   +10% Spirit means a bit more regeneration, useful for Innervate.
It's pretty obvious that you would have to have insane amount of strength for Kings to offer the same benefit to your attack power that Might adds. However, Kings is much more extensible, resulting in a larger buff the higher your ability scores are. It's not too difficult for level 60s to gain 300 in one or two ability scores, making Kings a 30 point buff to those scores. (By comparison, a fully talented Gift of the Wild gives 16 to all stats.)