World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Updated for 4.0

This section of the Paladin guide is all about your gear.  You spend a lot of time leveling, questing, and raiding to earn your gear, but what is it that really makes a piece any good?  Which stats is good for which type of Paladin?  Better yet, what can you do to make that gear even better? 

We start this guide by looking at the basic and advanced stats that you will require as a Paladin in each of your three forms (Retribution, Holy, and Protection).  Since gear lists change all the time depending on your level or the current raid content you are working on, it is far more important to have a good understanding of the stats you are looking for rather than the pieces at that level or in that raid. 

Basic Stats

Lets Start out by looking at the basic stats and see which is best for each of the types of Paladin.  For a breakdown of what the stats provide check back to the Paladin Basics page. Remember though that these are only your basic stats – Strength, Stamina, Intellect, Agility, and Spirit, not your advanced stats.  The next section will cover your advanced stats and they are at least as important as the basics, if not more so.

Retribution – As a Retribution Paladin your main goal is to get as much Strength as possible since it allows you to cause the most damage. Beyond the stats that come on the gear that brings you the most Strength, don’t even worry about other stats.

Holy – As a Holy Paladin your main stat will be Intelligence, since it provides more mana to use to cast spells and more spell power and spell crit. After that you will want Spirit as it allows your mana pool to regenerate faster.

Protection – As a Protection Paladin you will be looking to stack Stamina as a primary stat.  Even more than the other two spec’s though Protection Paladins really need to balance this with their Ability Bonuses.

Advanced Stats

The advanced stats in WoW are all the extra things past what would be considered normal stats in most RPG’s.  These advanced stats include things like your critical hit chance, block chance, defense score, and more.  These stats are critical to your character and must be watched closely to ensure you are getting the right ones.

Retribution – Retribution Paladins require several bonus stats.  While leveling you should just focus on bonuses to Crit and Attack Power.  Once you have reached max level then you should also focus on getting Hit, Expertise, and Mastery. 

Holy – As a Holy Paladin your key advanced stats to get are Spell Power and Crit since the Spell Power makes all your heals larger and the more times you critically heal the more mana you get back and the longer you can keep healing. 

Protection – Protection Paladins probably have the worst of it when looking at Advanced Stats since they have so many to worry about.  Protection Paladins must focus on Dodge, Parry, Mastery, and to a lesser degree Hit and Expertise. 

Gems

Now that you understand the best stats for each of your builds, gems should be pretty easy to understand as well.  You should always gem for your most important basic or advanced stat.  Ideally every gem will be the same other than your meta gem in your helm and enough other gems to meet its requirement.  This means that for most slots you will not be matching the slot color.  This is important to understand, since many players think that they must follow the slot color and therefore hurt themselves by not getting the biggest benefit possible.

Retribution – You should be gemming and enchanting for hit and expertise until you reach the caps and then focus on Strength.  If you are still leveling just focus on Strength.  The best meta gem is a Chaotic Skyflare Diamond since it provides crit and a causes all critical hits to cause more damage.

Holy – You should gem and enchant for Spell Power as much as possible.  This means red “Runed …” gems. The best meta gem is Insightful Earthsiege Diamond which provides Intellect and a chance to restore mana each time you cast.

Protection – You should gem and enchant for Stamina, Dodge, and Parry. The best meta gem is an Austere Earthsiege Diamond which provides more Stamina and increases your armor value. Mixing in Mastery, Hit, and Expertise helps at times, but it really is a juggling act.

Enchants

Enchants are much the same as gems.  Focus on the stats that are best for the type of Paladin that you play and you should be good. 

A very important thing to remember with both gems and enchants is that each time you get a new piece of gear your balance will change. This is critical for any spec and you should remember to look all the time and see where all your stats are currently.

This chart provides some suggestions as to which enchant is good for which slot based on your talent build.

Glyphs

Glyphs are found in three different types, Prime, Major and Minor.  Once you reach max level you can have 3 of each type.  As a Paladin the three majors vary depending on your talent spec, while the minors do not have a huge effect as we do not have very good minor glyphs.

Retribution – As Retribution your main goal is to do more damage, therefore your glyphs focus on that.  You three prime glyphs should be Glyph of Templar's Verdict, Glyph of Exorcism, and Glyph of Crusader Strike. Templar's Verdict provides a 15% increase in damage to a core ability. Exorcism provides a 20% boost to an ability you will use quite often due to the procs you get that make it a free instant. Lastly Crusader Strike increases the critical strike chance, making sure you do even more damage with another of your main attacks.

Your three major glyphs should be Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader, Glyph of Holy Wrath, and Glyph of Hammer of Wrath. The big one here is the extra stun ability on Holy Wrath making it an even more useful short term AOE stun.

Holy – For a Healing Paladin it is all about big heals and mana and there are many glyphs that can help with that. For Prime Glyphs you should grab Glyph of Divine Favor, Glyph of Seal of Insight, and Glyph of Word of Glory.

For Major Glyphs Glyph of Divine Plea is always nice for the extra mana regeneration. Glyph of Beacon of Light as the added uptime is great. Lastly the Glyph of Light of Dawn is pretty good as well increasing the amount healed and decreasing the cooldown of your AOE heal ability.

Protection – Tanking Paladins have several solid Glyphs. For Prime glyphs you should get Glyph of Seal of Truth, Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous, and either Glyph of Crusader Strike or Glyph of Judgement. For your major glyphs there are several good ones including Glyph of Consecration, Glyph of Dazing Shield, Glyph of Holy Wrath, Glyph of Salvation, and Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader. All of these glyphs provide bonuses that are useful as a tank, and should be considered depending on your playstyle.

There are no really solid minor glyphs for any of the talent specs specifically.  Everyone should take Lay of Hands to reduce the cooldown.  Other than that though, there really isn’t a whole lot.  You can take Sense Undead to do slightly more damage, or increase the time on your blessings, the choice is really yours.

For general Paladin information, check out our complete Paladin Guide.

Comments or questions? Post them in our Paladin forums!