Stat Priorities
Stat Ranking
When looking to see if something is an upgrade, the best thing you can do is to sim it. Generally, item level prevails above all. Otherwise, below are some general guidelines.
Damage oriented: Item level>>haste>crit>=vers>mastery
Defensive oriented: Item Level>>haste>mastery>vers>=crit
Stat Outline
Haste has been and is an important secondary stat for Protection Paladin. It lowers the cooldown on most of our important abilities which results in greater holy power generation and thus more dps and survivability.
Mastery is Protection’s best defensive secondary stat, even after the nerf it got going into The War Within. The increase in block chance, flat damage reduction and chance to reduce the damage of harmful periodic effects while in Consecration make it an incredibly potent defensive stat, provided you are in Consecration. Damage-wise it’s not great, giving only a flat percent attack power.
After the mastery nerf, Versatility gained some value. While defensively it is still worse than mastery, given you remain in your consecration, versatility provides more damage, and allows you to be more flexible with your movement while keeping all the benefits.
Critical Strike is the least defensive secondary for Protection, but it’s still very good. Crit increases parry, which is nice defensively, especially on aoe fights. This increase in parry also increases the chance of getting Grand Crusader procs, which results in more holy power from Judgements, and more uses of Avenger’s Shield. Damage-wise crit is really good, especially paired with high haste.
Races
While races generally don’t matter too much, and you can just go for the one you prefer aesthetically, here are the minor benefits you can get from best races for Protection Paladin:
Dwarf and Dark Iron Dwarf come with a unique ability to remove most debuffs on a 2 minute cooldown with Stoneform/Fireblood, including magic debuffs and bleeds. This historically has been valueable in some raid encounters and M+ dungeons, and you will find good uses for it in the first season of The War Within as well. While Dwarf is considered a better pick out of these two, mostly due to Might of the Mountain and 10% physical DR on Stoneform on demand, going with Dark Iron Dwarf because of personal preferences is perfectly fine.
Tauren will grant you more HP with Endurance, while also buffing critical damage and healing similar to Dwarf with Brawn, and giving you an extra AOE stop in the form of War Stomp. Beware that War Stomp is target capped at 5 targets, so don’t rely solely on it in big pulls.
Earthen - a new addition in The War Within - is also a good option for Protection Paladins. Its main value comes from 10% increased armor from Titan-Wrought Frame, which will result in a decent gain of physical DR. You can also save some gold on food with Ingest Minerals :)
Enchants
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Chant of Leeching Fangs
Chest: Enchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance
Bracers: Enchant Bracers - Chant of Armored Leech
Boots: Enchant Boots - Defender’s March or Enchant Boots - Scout’s March
Legs: Stormbound Armor Kit
Rings: Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste
Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Authority of Radiant Power
Gems
The War Within version of the main stat gem - Culminating Blasphemite - also grants 0.15% increased Critical Damage and Healing per unique gem color. To get the most value out of this effect, and Elemental Focusing Lens in case it is being used, you want to have at least 1 gem of each color. The rest of sockets can be filled with Haste-Mastery or Haste-Verse gems which results in the following gem combination:
- Culminating Blasphemite
- Quick Ruby
- Quick Sapphire
- Masterful Emerald
- Quick Onyx
- Quick Amber
- Fill the rest of your sockets with Masterful Emeralds or Versatile Emeralds
Consumables
Food: Feast of the Divine Day or Feast of the Midnight Masquerade for main stat or Beledar’s Bounty/Empress’ Farewell/Jester’s Board/Outsider’s Provisions for secondary stat
Phials: Flask of Tempered Swiftness
Potions: Tempered Potion
Health Potions: Algari Healing Potion
Weapon Oil: Algari Mana Oil