PvE Holy Paladin Stat Priority

PvE Holy Paladin

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Stat Priority

Best Races

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Rotation & Cooldowns

Best Professions

Best in Slot (BiS) & Pre-Raid Gear

Addons & Macros

In this section of the guide we will lay out all the stats relevant to a Holy Paladin and analyze them.

Gearing as a healer in WotLK will vary from fight to fight depending on several factors. As such, it’s critical to build multiple sets of gear and adjust for each encounter. There is simply too much loot to build a comprehensive list of all the gear in the game and when to use it; you must evaluate the gear you have access to, and compile these sets on your own.

That is why it is so essential to have a deep understanding of the various stats, and more importantly, how they effect your character.

Stat Priority

1. Intellect (Until you have enough mana to sustain)
2. Haste
3. Mp5 (Until you have enough mana to sustain)
4. Spell Power
5. Critical Strike Rating

Anything not listed here, including Spirit, is not effective at increasing your healing.

There is no one-size-fits-all stat priority for every fight. To model which stats hold the highest value for your character on a specific fight, use this tool.

Stats Explained

Intellect

Intellect is your bread and butter. It is necessary to achieve a certain value of int in order to sustain your Holy Light spam. It also gives us spell power via the talent Holy Guidance, as well as crit. It should be noted, however, that once your mana has been solved for an encounter, the value of intellect can plummet to next to nothing. On certain fights, output stats such as haste, spell power or critical strike rating may overtake intellect in effective value.

It should also be noted that due to the nature of percentage returns with Divine Plea, Seal of Wisdom, Hymn of Hope and Mana Tide Totem, the higher mana pool you have, the more value you will see from these mana restoration spells.

1 Intellect = 15 Mana
5 intellect = 1 spell power
166.67 Intellect = 1% Spell Critical Strike Chance

Haste

Haste is a close second to Intellect, and may even overtake Intellect later in the expansion, as kill times plummet and our mana pool becomes greater. This is our primary stat when it comes to scaling our output. It should be noted that haste has a detrimental impact on our mana pool; if we cast more spells, we will require more mana. As such, gearing as a Holy Paladin will always be a counterbalance of output stats (haste, spell power) and mana stats (int, mp5).

Haste exhibits diminishing incremental returns relative to other stats. Meaning that as your cast speed increases, so does the value of spell power. Later in the expansion as haste becomes more plentiful, we may reach a relative haste soft cap where the value of haste drops dramatically. But this is of no concern to a Holy Paladin in Tier 7.

32.79 Haste Rating = 1% faster casting speed

Mp5

Mp5 is far more plentiful on gear in WotLK compared to TBC. Through best in slot gear in phase 1, we can achieve a grand total of 79 additional Mp5, which should net us ~1900 mana in a 2 minute encounter. Like any mana stat, however, you only need enough to sustain you; anything more is wasted. If you are ending a fight with mana, you should analyze your playstyle and gearing for that encounter.

For fights where you find yourself OOM and are forced to use Divine Plea or auto attack with Seal of Wisdom, Mp5 should be weighted very highly. Conversely, for fights where mana is not an issue, this stat may become useless.

When weighing the value of Mp5, it is important to factor in all the ways in which you gained mana, and ask yourself if adding more Mp5 on gear could have boosted your output indirectly.
Here are some ways in which adding more Mp5 could boost your output:

• Fewer uses of Divine Plea
• Fewer auto attacks spent fishing for Seal of Wisdom procs
• Consuming Potion of Speed instead of Runic Mana Injector

43.5 Mp5 = 1 Additional Holy Light per 2 minutes

Spell Power

Spell Power is very low on our stat list. This is due to the nature of Holy Light being so powerful. In the majority of scenarios, continuing to scale your Holy Light with SP will simply result in greater overhealing. So if the size of your HL doesn’t really matter, what is spell power even good for?

• Sacred Shield scaling
• Healing during Divine Plea
• More residual heals through Glyph of Holy Light

If output is what you seek, it is typically better to increase the number of Holy Lights casts via haste than it is to make them stronger with spell power. That being said, spell power is still a large scalar to our output, and does so without compromising our mana pool like haste does. More spell power is never a bad thing, so we should seek it out where we can.

1 Spell Power = 1.67 Additional healing to Holy Light
1 Spell Power = .81 Additional healing to Holy Shock
1 Spell Power = .75 Additional healing to Sacred Shield

Critical Strike Rating

Critical Strike Rating has all but fallen into the realm of obscurity for Holy Paladins. In WotLK we saw a 50% nerf to Illumination, which now only grants us 30% of the mana back from critical strikes compared to 60% in TBC. While crit may still grant us a decent bit of mana from this talent, it is certainly inferior to Mp5 as a mana regen stat.

As far as output is concerned, crit has never been fantastic for healers throughout all of WoW without the aid of talent procs. In the vast majority of scenarios, a critical heal will simply result in greater overhealing, netting you only a fraction of the stats theoretical gains. Do not seek this stat out on gear, but appreciate pieces that happen to have crit on them alongside other, more valuable stats. 

45.91 Critical Strike Rating = 1% increased Spell Critical Strike Chance