Seal of Command Bug

[Exsurgo]

What is the bug?

The damaging seal of command proc does not have any delay time from when triggering to when dealing damage.

Is it a spell or database issue? (database relates to any NPC, quest or item)

Spell issue.

How can you reproduce it?

Attack a target dummy with Seal of command active. Currently when Seal of Command procs it hits and damages the target at exactly the same time as the melee swing. (The white and yellow damage numbers appear at exactly the same time)

Please describe, in detail what is suppose to occur when this bug happens:

See above.

Please describe, in detail what happens when it bugs up, and how it's malfunctioning:

From Wowiki:

Since Patch 1.11, Seal of Command proc will have approximately 0.5 second delay before the animation begins and the Holy damage is incurred, instead of having the proc occur instantly with the swing of the attack. This is considered a good change, since if the normal swing is a critical strike and Vengeance is triggered, the Seal of Command proc will be affected by the buff.

This may seem like a minor problem, but actually it nerfs a huge and complicated element to retribution playstyle that was dubbed Seal Twisting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5YpDd4z7gw
http://www.retpaladin.com/warcraft/2008 ... eal-twist/

From retpaladin.com:

"You swap seals when your swing animation, of any sorts, happens. Even if it isn’t a seal of command proc you can swap seals and still have SoJ proc off your white attack with this method. Seal of Command MUST be your starting seal, from there you can swap seals to any of the other seals that are procs. However, the only ones that would serve a high benefit is Seal of Justice, and for those lucky souls, Seal of Blood."

"TL;DR:

1. put on seal of command

2. right as your swing animation happens (normal, socomm proc, or crit) swap seals to SoJ or SoB

3. Profit"

This is a big deal that reduces the skill cap of the class, and reduces the maximum obtainable dps by as much as 10-20% in the hands of a great player.

SF needs to introduce the 0.5s delay (and should probably add a little extra to compensate for the servers low latency (maybe another 0.25s delay). I am by no means an expert so it would be good if some more experianced paladin players like Xaru could weigh in on this one. I am just tired of seeing ret being so abnormally useless on SF.

And don't say this does not affect pvp, there was a big thread on arena junkies when this was first discovered. It enabled higher burst and also gave an improved ability to interrupt spells by getting seal of justice stuns without losing damage.

[Henhouse]

This was extremely confusing. You would refer to it as a "nerf" and the instructions made it constantly sound like this was currently happening and need to be fixed. The instructions on how to do it with the "profit" lead to believe this was a problem and I kept trying to replicate it with no success... Then I finally read you think it will help paladins. -_-

I'll look into it.

[Exsurgo]

Ha, sorry. It is a complicated gameplay mechanic that is hard to describe. Counter-intuitive I know, but not having the delay actually hurts paladins because it is needed to pump out the extra dps/utility that seal twisting can provide.

Let me give you an example of how it would work.

On SF:

Melee Hit - Seal of Command Proc (at the same time)

On retail the following was possible altough not 100% of the time:

Judgement of Command (Right as the melee swint starts) - Apply Seal of Blood - Melee Swing Lands - Seal of Command Proc - Seal of Blood Proc - Seal of Blood Proc.

Yes! It was indeed possible to get TWO seal of blood procs and a seal of command proc off one melee swing. The burst potential of this as you can imagine was incredible.

The reaason the mechanic is "nerfed" on SF is because without the delay on the damage trigger the mechanic is impossible to pull off.

So in really simple terms on SF when your melee swing lands the yellow damage from a seal of command proc will land straight away and the two numbers will appear at the same time. In reality the yellow damage of SOC should appear ~0.7s after the melee swing. It is this delay that enabled seal twisting on retail.

THe problem is the technique needs a lot of timing and is tricky to get right, so maybe someone could show you ingame how the mechanic works. I will be on my Shaman Epicsaxguy later today so I could log my paladin and show you how the mechanic should work.

[Henhouse]

I checked with Hufsa on this and there is already a 500 millisecond delay. This has been bumped up to 750 milliseconds now (pending restart to see change). However, I still find it impossible to know exactly when this spell is procing as the damage is done as soon as you see the animation. I guess you just get lucky and change your seal and hope it procs?

[Exsurgo]

Thats it. With a slow weapon SOC has about a 40% chance to proc per hit. So by weaving in your judgements and seal applications to right on the melee swing timer you have a good chance of getting chain procs.

I do get the feeling that the spell delay is not working ,as the damage appears instantly on the combat text. I guess I will test it after you apply the change and see what happens.

[Deems]

Same thing happens with windfury. Should have a small delay before the damage appears but it seems to be appear instantly atm.

[Henhouse]

Is the damage supposed to appear after the swing animation? Because it seems this delay system is working via making the actual effect happening later altogether in the system.

[Peekaboo]

After it is initiated, so pretty much during it.
(It should pop 0.5s after the weapon damage which triggered the Seal)

Although this +250ms suggestion sucks imo... at least as hard as making libram-swapping and stuff not invoke a GCD in combat. =P
Bonus hint: It's low latency.

[Exsurgo]

After it is initiated, so pretty much during it.
(It should pop 0.5s after the weapon damage which triggered the Seal)

Although this +250ms suggestion sucks imo
Bonus hint: It's low latency.

The latency on private servers is way lower than it ever was on retail. Should that really rule out entire game-play mechanics? Even arena tournament realm introduced extra latency into their server to keep gameplay elements that existed in retail.

If a +250ms is needed to emulate these retail mechanics, then so be it. I really do not see the problem in that. However that may not solve the problem, it really is too early to tell. I think their is something else at work here preventing seal twisting from working.

[Henhouse]

After it is initiated, so pretty much during it.
(It should pop 0.5s after the weapon damage which triggered the Seal)

Although this +250ms suggestion sucks imo
Bonus hint: It's low latency.

The latency on private servers is way lower than it ever was on retail. Should that really rule out entire game-play mechanics? Even arena tournament realm introduced extra latency into their server to keep gameplay elements that existed in retail.

If a +250ms is needed to emulate these retail mechanics, then so be it. I really do not see the problem in that. However that may not solve the problem, it really is too early to tell. I think their is something else at work here preventing seal twisting from working.

dafaq? They implemented latency? I'm confused. Or they increased delays in spells? Not sure what you meant.

Also, the 750ms for Seal of Command is live by the way.