Judgement (Classic)

Judgement may refer to:

• [Judgement of Light]
• [Judgement of Wisdom]
• [Judgement of Justice]

Chance to Miss with a Judgement

Although a Judgement cannot be dodged, parried, blocked, or "deflected", it has the same chance to miss its target as a melee attack. It may be resolved internally as a ranged attack, which also shares a melee attack's base miss chance. Thus, if you have enough Hit Rating so that you never miss with a melee attack, you will also never miss with a Judgement.

This Miss chance uses an effective weapon skill equal to your level * 5, regardless of what weapon you're actually wielding. In other words, if your Weapon Skill with the weapon you're wielding isn't fully trained up to your level * 5, this won't increase the Miss chance of your Judgements.

Talents directly improving Judgements

• You can decrease the cooldown by 2 seconds of Judgement with Improved Judgements (2 ranks, 1 second per rank) in the Retribution Tree.
• [Judgements of the Wise] (3 ranks) gives a 33%/66%/100% chance of granting 25% of the Paladin's base mana, and cause [Replenishment] to 10 party or raid members.
• The Retribution tier 8 talent [Fanaticism] increases the critical strike chance of any Judgement that is capable of critical hits by 6%/12%/18%; this would include Righteousness, Command, Vengeance and Corruption.

Talents directly improving specific Judgements

• The Retribution tier 2 talent [Heart of the Crusader] increases the critical strike chance of all attacks and spells made against a target affected by any of the Paladin's Judgements by 1%/2%/3%.
• The Holy tier 1 talent [Seals of the Pure] increases the damage of the Seal and Judgement effects of Seal of Righteousness, Vengeance and Corruption by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15%.
• The Retribution tier 3 talent [Seal of Command]'s Judgement no longer deals higher damage than Judgement of Righteousness and no longer deals double damage on stunned or incapacitated targets. Judgement of Command is weaker than Judgement of Righteousness or Vengeance (although it is stronger than a Judgement cast with Seal of Light or Wisdom active), but its Seal effect hits two additional targets if procced by an attack or ability that normally only hits one target, making it the best Seal of choice for any AoE situation.

Related equipment

• The Tier 2 Paladin armor set is called Judgement Armor and includes an 8-piece set bonus that inflicts 60-66 additional Holy damage to the target a Paladin is Judging.
  • The set also offers a distinct and fitting look for Paladins and many Paladin-centric armor pieces in the Burning Crusade expansion have used variations of the Judgement set, normally a different color theme.
• [Libram of Avengement] will cause Judgements to increase the Paladin's Critical Strike Rating by 53 for 5 seconds.
• [Libram of Saints Departed] will cause Judgements to heal the Paladin for 41 to 49.
• The Retribution-centric Tier 5 Paladin Armor set Crystalforge Battlegear has two set bonuses, both related to Judgement:
  • Two-piece set bonus that reduces the mana cost of Judgements by 35.
  • Four-piece set bonus that, for each Judgement cast, grants a chance to heal nearby party members for 244 to 256.

Patch changes

• Patch 3.2.0 (2009-08-04):
  • Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can't be dodged, parried or blocked.
  • All paladin judgements are now properly considered as melee attacks that cannot be dodged, blocked or parried. Previously Seal of Light, Seal of Wisdom, Seal of Justice and Seal of Righteousness would cause the judgement to be considered a ranged attack.