What Do Paladins Need?

Statistics and you: What do paladins need?

The most gear dependant class in the game, or the class that is made or broken most by the gear it is wearing, is the Warrior. But we’re second on that list! Remembering that keeping your weapon, armor, and even your trinkets up-to-date is critical to having a powerful character. Don’t go into a gunfight with a stick, and don’t run into an epic battle with a green. But which stats, you may ask, are most critical to a paladin and what do they all do?

This should shed light on what each statistic does to improve the paladin class:

Statistics with an asterix (*) are based on a level 60 paladin. With these particular stats, it can be assumed that a lower-level character would gain MORE for the stat, not less.

1 strength = 2 attack power
20 strength = 1 more block value to shields (this means that it will increase the damage absorbed by your shield each block by 1. It doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up)

14 attack power = 1 damage per second.

20 agility = 1% chance to score a critical melee-based attack*
20 agility = 1% chance to dodge a melee attack*
1 agility = 2 armor class

1 intellect = 15 mana
28.5 intellect = 1% chance to score a critical strike with spells*

1 stamina = 10 health, plain and simple.

Spirit, as a statistic, is not something most paladins should really consider. There are some exceptions to this rule, and there have been stories of paladins using Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon and heavy spirit builds to great effect, but even in these cases, it is my opinion that MP/5, Intellect, and +healing is a better route to take.

1 defense = +.04% chance to block, dodge, and parry and decreases your enemy’s chance to score a critical strike and hit you by .04%.
5 levels of defense effectively makes you block, dodge, and parry as something a level above you would. Defense also reduces your chance have a crushing blow landed on you. (Note: Players cannot score crushing blows, this is a myth. Only mobs can.) This note about crushing blows is only true until your defense skill matches the enemy's weapon skill. I.E. 300 defense makes it impossible to have a crushing blow landed on you by a standard level 60 mob, +/- 5 defense for each level. Note that I said standard mob... certain boss mobs can behave quite differently. This is getting into advanced tanking though, and it should just be duly noted that +defense is good, even well past this "cap.")

The answer to which stats are best is not so simple. Difference in playstyles will always have the greatest effect on how a paladin wants to gear himself.

These is one point about playing a paladin though. There are only 3 statistics that improve all aspects of a paladin. These three statistics are Stamina, Intellect, and +Spell Damage. As such, I recommend all paladins try to keep a strong foundation in the first two statistics, and start looking for +Spell Damage gear the moment you turn 60 and it is more easily available to you.

[EDIT FOR 2.0!]: Some of these numbers are a bit off now, and anything specific to a level 60 will be harder increase at level 70 (i.e. more agi per crit, etc...). The presence of ratings really changes things up, but so far I know that the two different schools of rating are either 10 to the percent or 14 to the percent. Basically if it's divisible by 14, it's 14 to the percent, if it's divisible by 10, it's 10 to the hit.