Seal of Righteousness

Seal of Righteousness
	Seal of Righteousness (8 ranks); Level 1 paladin ability; Instant; Fills the Paladin with holy spirit for 30 sec, granting each melee attack an additional 3 to 9 Holy damage. Slower weapons cause more Holy damage per swing. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time.;
Properties
Class	Paladin
School	Holy
Cooldown	None/Global Cooldown
Other information
Level learned	1
Related buff
	Magic ; Seal of Righteousness ; Melee attacks cause an additional 3 to 9 Holy damage. ; Duration: 30 seconds ;

TCG artwork.

"There are no limits to what you can accomplish when you wield the Light." - Grand Marshal Goldensword^[1]

Seal of Righteousness is a Protection and Retribution paladin ability, learned at level 42. Using [Judgment] when Seal of Righteousness is active deals a high amount of Holy damage. A moderate amount of Holy damage is also applied on each weapon swing.

Damage

Seal of Righteousness deals additional Holy damage on every swing to a single target. Due to normalization, seal damage over time is a constant independent of weapon speed. What is means is, that a 4.00 speed weapon will deal twice as much damage per hit as a 2.00 speed weapon, but since it swings twice as often, the effective damage over time is the same.

Usage

SoR is best used with one-handed weapons, or for Retribution paladins, when fighting multiple enemies because of the cleave bonus. The threat generated by its Holy damage is enhanced by [Righteous Fury] and can thus be used to keep aggro.

Seal of Righteousness is appropriately used when the fight or phase is short or where targets are switched so often that applying DoT stacks again every time would be impractical. Seal of Righteousness is replaced by [Seal of Truth] when it comes to long boss fights.

It is good to remember that a Seal's power always depends on the situation. Skilled Paladins with good situation awareness will switch Seals to adapt to the situation, sometimes several times during a fight if necessary. Good examples of fights like this are Razorscale and Freya in Ulduar.

Trivia

Seal of Righteousness is a Common Paladin ability card in the World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game's Drums of War set.

Patch changes

Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Removed.
Hotfix (2015-07-10): Seal of Righteousness should no longer sometimes deal more damage than intended.
Patch 6.0.2 (2014-10-14): No longer available to Holy paladins.
Patch 5.2.0 (2013-03-05): Now causes melee attacks to deal 9% damage (was 6%) to targets in the area-of-effect.
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Redesigned. Fills you with Holy Light, causing melee attacks to deal 6% weapon damage to all targets within 8 yards.
Patch 4.2.0 (2011-06-28): Can now be activated by any melee ability, not just single target melee abilities. This adds [Hammer of the Righteous] (the physical component) and [Divine Storm] to the list of abilities that can activate this seal. In addition, Seal of Righteousness procs can now be critical effects.
Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Icon updated to
Patch 2.1.0 (2007-05-22): This seal will no longer cause additional chances for weapon procs to trigger.
Patch 1.1.0 (2004-11-07): Has changed significantly.
Patch 0.7 (2004-06-15): Mana cost and duration reduced. Cooldown added.
Patch 0.6 (2004-04-13): The duration for Seal of Righteousness has increased.