Below is a general guide to what kind of stats you'll be looking for as you gear your Paladin through the current expansion of World of Warcraft.
Protection:
Bonus Armor > Strength > Mastery > Versatility = Critical Strike > Multistrike > Haste
Gem for Mastery
Enchant for Mastery
Bonus Armor > iLevel Upgrade
iLevel Upgrade > Mastery
What about Stamina? Damage in WoD, if you play the paladin correctly, is not spiky. Plus, there is no way you could get enough Stamina to offset a Healer going OOM. So do not go out of your way, or sacrifice any of the above, for additional Stamina.
What about Haste? It was HUGE for us back in MoP, sure... but times change and so do mechanics; we have Shining Protector now.
Retribution:
Note: Stat priority is dependent upon Talent choice and Talent Choice is dependent upon iLevel. Currently, SimCraft is showing that after iLevel 660 the Talents Divine Purpose and Sanctified Wrath are superior. And, based on those Talents, the Stat priority would be:
Strength > Haste to ~9% (unbuffed) > Mastery > Multistrike > Critical Strike > Versatility > Haste
Gem for Haste up to ~9%
Gem for Mastery after ~9% Haste
Enchant same as Gem
What does "~" mean? It's called a tilde and in English it means "approximately". What do you mean then by saying "approximately 9% Haste"? It's not a hard number and is gear/spec/talent/rotation/latency dependent. It's the 'ballpark' number - if you want to know exactly - then you'll have to SimCraft yourself.
I'm not at 660 iLevel yet, is there a different Talent/Priority that is superior? Yes, in theory - but it impacts your rotation as well and the percentage difference is not a game-breaker. And since we're not a progression guild trying for a World's First; does it really matter?
You mentioned 'rotation" Yep, I sure did - but that's not within the scope of this guide :-)
Holy:
Disclaimer: I personally have not played Holy yet, so the following is partial copy of Andraste's 'Libram of Light' post from the WoW forums, http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13204350709 with no personal insight - except for a comment on Spirit:
Intellect > Critical Strike to Holy Shock Cap > Haste > Versatility > Mastery > Multistrike > Critical Strike
Holy Shock Cap... according to Andraste:
- HS always crits with AW+SW
- you need ~2000 Crit with AW
- you need ~4000 crib without AW
Spirit, what about Spirit? Here is my personal take on Spirit, from my experience as a Priest healer - it does not make your heals larger, it does not make you heal faster, it does not make you heal more efficiently. What it does do is impact your mana regeneration rate and mana is your resource pool. If you finish a challenging/lengthy encounter with mana left and you haven't popped every one of your mana consumption/regeneration augmentation abilities throughout the fight, on cool-down, then you have too much spirit. And those points in Spirit could better suit you elsewhere to help you heal larger and faster. Bottomline - only have enough Spirit to get you through your worse-case encounter - while using your other regeneration abilities.
Revisions:
I will make changes as the expansion unfolds and additional data comes in. If you notice a discrepancy, let me know in the comment section below, and I will update.
Thanks for Reading,
Zentao
