What are Paladin seals?

Seals are temporary buffs that only apply to Paladins for 30 seconds. They have a secondary use in that a Paladin can judge these seals, providing an instant effect or a debuff on an enemy for 20 seconds. The duration of the debuff is refreshed every time the enemy is hit by the Paladin who cast that judgement.

Seal of Righteousness (SoR)
-Imbues the Paladin with holy energy, causing each melee hit to damage the Paladin’s target with X holy damage. (X is affected by melee weapon speed)
-Judgment: Instantly deals Y amount of holy energy to the target. (not effected by melee weapon speed.)
-This is the standard seal for use when you have a 1-hander and a shield. Especially good in tanking, it provides a nice steady flow of threat towards the Paladin.

Seal of the Crusader (SotC)
-Causes the Paladin to hit faster and increases attack power by X, while also lowering the damage dealt by a single swing. This results in the Paladin dealing less damage with each hit but more damage over all.
-Judgement: Causes the target to take Y more holy damage.
-This spell is mostly used for the judgement. There are other seals that will increase your overall damage with each hit, and putting this up in combination with Seal of Righteousness or any other seal that does holy damage to the enemy will increase the amount of damage you do overall.

Seal of Command (SoC) (Requires 11 talents in Retribution)
-Gives every melee hit a chance to deal holy damage equal to 70% weapon damage.
-Judgement: Deals X to Y damage to the target. Deals double damage if the target is stunned or incapacitated.
-This is the premier damage dealing seal for a long time. With a slow 2-handed weapon, the extra holy damage when SoC activates is almost like getting a critical hit. However, both are also independently capable of dealing critical hits, giving the very nice “double crit.” Judging this after stunning the enemy is nice for some quick burst damage.

Seal of Justice (SoJ)
-Gives every melee hit a chance to stun the target for 2 seconds.
-Judgement(Rank 1): Causes the target to be unable to flee from the battle.
-Judgement(Rank 2): Causes the target to be unable to flee and removes/prevents any speed increase effect on the target, effectively keeping them at 100% run speed or less.
-This is very good for it’s judgement. This will keep enemies from fleeing, which is very useful in instances where the mobs tend to run into other groups. Also good in PvP as an anti-kiting maneuver, however if you have nothing to increase your speed then the target is moving just as fast as you. The seal itself is useful for interrupting casters, though it doens’t proc often enough to be devastating.

Seal of Light (SoL)
-Gives every damaging attack a chance to heal the Paladin for X amount.
-Judgement: Gives every damaging attack a chance to heal the attacker for Y amount.
-Very useful for keeping your health topped off in long fights. The judgement is very useful in parties, especially if you are the main healer. It helps to keep everyone topped off while you focus on healing the tank. Earlier in the game, keeping this judgement up will make solo fights against melee mobs much easier. Although later, judgement of Wisdom is better.

Seal of Wisdom (SoW)
-Gives every damaging attack a chance to restore the Paladin’s mana for X amount.
-Judgement: Gives every damaging attack a chance to restore the attacker’s mana for Y amount.
-This is a very good judgement for keeping your mana up. Very useful in long grinding sessions, as the less time you spend drinking your mana up, the more experience you are getting by killing mobs. Later in the game, post-50s, this judgement will help more against fighting elites, as the amount you can heal for the mana you get is far more than the healing you get from SoL.

Seal of Vengeance (SoV) (Alliance only)
-Gives every melee attack a chance to cause X holy damage over 12 seconds. This can stack up to 5 times.
-Judgement: Deals X amount of holy damage per application of Seal of Vengeance.
-This is a very useful tool for tanking. It allows the Paladin to bring a nice amount of threat towards himself. The judgement is useful if the Paladin loses aggro, instantly dealing a great amount of holy damage, while also keeping the DoT on the enemy, generating even more threat. This should be used for long encounters whlie tanking, wheras Righteousness should be used for trash encounters.

Seal of Blood (SoB) (Horde only)
-Every melee attack deals another 35% in holy damage. However, deals 10% damage of the total damage back at the Paladin.
-Judgement: Deals X amount of holy damage, dealing 33% of the damage at the Paladin as well.
-This seal deals the most damage of any other seal given a nice, slow, 2-handed weapon. The damage dealt back at the Paladin is mostly negligible, just throw a heal at yourself every once in a while, or your healer in the group will do it for you. This was designed for Paladins with sustained DPS in mind.