Paladin Itemization: Holy

Updated 3/7/08

This will be a reference post so I can, well, reference it instead of rewriting it every time I want to mention the subject (I’ve done it a couple times concerning stats for holy paladins).

I have updated the post to reflect recent calculations I’ve done comparing the various stats. Changes have been made. I have also included situationals and pvp considerations, where one stat might become better than another. The overall importance of these stats focuses on longevity over raw healing power, where making sure you are still able to heal in the long run is more important than how much you’re going to heal for now.

As well, the recommendations herein will tend to favor what you’re doing with gems and enchants rather than gear choice (“What gems should I use?” instead of “Is item x better than item y?”).  Again, we are favoring longevity over power here.

So, in order of preference from top to bottom (of course, with exceptions), the top 5 stats:

Holy (Healing): Intellect, Mana per 5, Spell Crit Rating, Healing, Stamina

• Intellect: This ability by itself (in conjuction with the Holy Guidance talent) will increase your mana pool, spell crit chance, and healing, thereby increasing your healing longevity, mana retention, and healing power. The most basic paladin healing stat. You want to aim for having 7.5-8k mana unbuffed before heading into Karazhan. Situationals: This stat is valuable both for burst healing and for longevity and remains on top in either case.
• Mana per 5: Passive mana regeneration is never a bad thing, and tends to come with the gear you are getting anyway. No need to aim for any amount, just get what you can. Situationals: This stat is of less value when healing power needs to be considered. If you find your heals are not keeping pace with the damage no matter what you’re doing, consider trying to get more healing or spell crit.
• Spell Crit Rating: Spell critical rating, as a paladin, will increase both your healing power and mana retention through the Illumination talent. Of course, if you are a non-holy spec paladin finding yourself in a healing role, favor mana per 5 and +healing over this as you will not receive as much benefit. Situationals: Mana per 5 is in general a much better way to increase your healing longevity. However, +healing will generally be more effective at increasing healing power than spell crit rating. Combined with the mana returns from talents, however, it’s a better choice than +healing.
• Healing: Having more +healing means that you heal for more with each heal you cast. This generally makes things much easier for you as you try to keep people alive. Aim to have 700-900 +healing before Kara. Situationals: Favor +healing over mana per 5 if you feel you are not healing for enough.
• Stamina: Lastly, stamina in no way hurts you even as a healer. As a paladin, you need it less thanks to your low-threat heals and high armor value, but (especially if you plan to pvp, your heals are always high-threat there) don’t forsake it. If you’ve got less than 6k health, you may want to seek out some better gear.

PvP Considerations: Things switch around a bit when you’re fighting against players.

• Intellect remains the most important talent, for the same reasons as noted above.
• Stamina jumps up a few spots. If it’s not your dps they’re targetting, it’s you. Especially if you’re facing warlocks who will DoT and fear you around, if you don’t have the stamina to withstand the blows, you can’t heal at all.
• Spell crit rating remains on the list. You need those heals to be powerful to beat through Mortal Strike, Wound Poison, and 7 warlock/shadow priest DoTs, and you need the mana retention to continue to do it. Look no further than spell crit to accomplish these things for you.
• Resilience makes an appearance. Resilience is a newer mechanic that does two things. First, it reduces the chance of your opponents to land a critical strike on you at a rate of 40 resilience to 1%. Second, it reduces the damage done by critical strikes against you at a rate of 20 resilience to 1%. (ie, 40 resilience will both decrease crit damage by 2% and your chance to be crit by 1%.) This is a very important stat in pvp, do not neglect it, those numbers mean more than they seem. If you’ve got 120 resilience, that’s like taking 63 crit rating away from your attacker and then giving yourself 2000-some armor or 175 magic resistance when they do crit.
• Finally, raw Healing. More powerful heals means more dps from your team. A holy paladin in general is not going to win the battle with no damage-dealers in front of him/her.

I’ll look at Protection and Retribution in subsequent posts.