Last update: 6th of January 2011

How Gear Is Chosen

Post-4.0.1 / Cataclysm

Gear is chosen based on the following statistics in the current patch along with a fair amount of subjective reasoning. Some Cataclysm stat information used from Zaroua's EJ post. Stats listed here are in order of importance.

Intellect

Intellect is our most important stat along with spirit. It provides increased HPS since intellect and spellpower have been rolled into one. It also increases regeneration from Divine Plea and replenishment. Intellect has no conflicts with other stats or any potential downsides. You should most likely be gemming this stat (though int/spi gems may be smart choices for socket color).

Spirit

This is our bread and butter and the minimum you should aim for is the amount that lets you keep casting HS/HL/WoG without losing mana (around 2500 at level 85 with buffs). Other spells will be used obviously, but the point is to make it so the really expensive ones don't hurt as much when you do have to use them.

Haste

Before Cataclysm, your haste soft cap is 675 where your global cooldown will be 1 second and cannot be improved further. Cataclysm-style healing relies on a good deal of holy light casts which can be hasted further than this so it continues to be valuable after 675. After Cataclysm the soft cap will raise significantly so haste will retain its position as a very important stat. More haste means more Daybreak procs. It doesn't necessarily mean you use more mana either in conjunction with Tower of Radiance and cheap holy lights .

Mastery

As of 10/10/2010 mastery in beta does not roll and it subsequent heals that heal for less than a heal before it only refresh the shield on your target. If you crit a heal and then heal with a second spell that doesn't crit the second spell will not have any effect from mastery (unless the second one was larger). This means the stat is very poor.

Crit

Crit has been nerfed because it no longer affects our regen at all in Cataclysm. While extra healing is nice and it helps out our mastery, the potential for overhealing still exists. It should be less likely in Cataclysm with such large health pools, but crit is also unpredictable. Crit and mastery are roughly equal in value (the non-rolling mastery).

 

Pre-4.0.1

Gear is chosen based on the following statistics in the current patch along with subjective reasoning. Once you reach 675 haste your global cooldown cannot be reduced further so haste's value drops after that point. A 1 second GCD effectively caps your reaction time. More haste past that point is still useful for holy light and even flash of light (it still reduces the cast time but doesn't allow you to cast more per second), but my personal feeling is that this is a good point to focus more on regenerative stats. For a good post about holy paladin haste, see : "Haste is not linear"

For tier 10 the focus is on maintaining the 2 piece bonus. The 4 piece is also quite useful. To obtain 4 piece, I recommend subbing out hands and legs to obtain it. The off pieces are once again more powerful than the tier items, however.

1. Intellect
2. Haste Rating
3. Mana Per 5
4. Critical Strike Rating
5. Spellpower