Protection Paladin Tank Stat Priority — The War Within (11.2.5)
On this page, you will find out the optimal stat priority for your Protection Paladin. We first present the stat priority, before delving into more complex explanations. Our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.2.5).
If you were looking for Mists of Pandaria Classic content, please refer to our Mists of Pandaria Classic Protection Paladin stat priority.
The Basics of Stats for Protection Paladin
Defensively, the stat priority for Protection Paladins is as follows:
Templar
- Haste;
- Mastery;
- Versatility / Critical Strike
Lightsmith
- Haste;
- Critical Strike;
- Versatility / Mastery
It is important to take into account that the value of your secondary stats are all extremely close in terms of value, and item level is by far the most important aspect of gear upgrades. In most cases, this stat priority is only really useful comparing when you have two items of the same item level.
Mastery Breakpoints
It is possible to reach 100% block at specific amounts of Mastery rating.
This assumes that you have the bonuses from Holy Shield,
Barricade of Faith,
and
Faith in the Light
- 100% Spell Block: 10800 Mastery Rating (Reduced to 9400 with
Skyfury from a Shaman).
- 100% Physical + Spell Block: 19550 Mastery Rating (Reduced to 18200 with
Skyfury from a Shaman).
Getting a Better Understanding of Protection Paladin Stats
Statistics Explanations
Haste reduces your global cooldown and the cooldowns of most of the
abilities that are part of your rotation. Haste's main task is to increase
Shield of the Righteous uptime, to generally smooth damage intake
and make you more predictable to heal. At ~20% Haste, you will have more than
enough rotational Holy Power to achieve very high uptimes on
Shield of the Righteous. At ~25-30% Haste, you will be able to cast
Word of Glory
without fear of dropping Shield of the Righteous uptime. Once you are at this
level of Haste, you will want to
start looking to maximise the benefits of other stats over Haste.
Mastery, thanks to Mastery: Divine Bulwark, increases your
chance to block attacks and your attack power, as well as increasing the
damage reduction you get from standing in your
Consecration. Mastery also allows you to block periodic spell damage
at a rate equal to your block. Finally, Mastery increases your attack power which
will improve the damage of your abilities but not damage that comes from external
sources such as trinkets or enchants.
Versatility increases all damage and healing done as well as
reducing damage taken. Versatility gives you slightly more damage reduction
per point than Mastery, and it will also be active outside of
Consecration. However, it is not as strong as
Mastery due to missing out on block chance as well.
Critical Strike increases your damage and healing output
and also gives you Parry, as you get 1 Parry from for every 1 point of
Critical Strike. Critical Strike does very little for you defensively outside
of the parry increasing, which can increase the frequency at which
Grand Crusader can trigger. It is worth noting that in scenarios
where Physical attack from multiple sources is happening (Mythic+), parry
becomes a very valuable defensive stat.
Strength increases the Armor gained from
Shield of the Righteous, your attack power, and your parry chance
(by a small amount).
Against most encounters, you need to have a decent amount of health in order to give yourself the chance to be healed before a subsequent attack kills you. In addition to this minimum amount of Stamina, we feel that Stamina remains quite valuable for Protection Paladins. However, most of your Stamina is innately found on your gear, but it is always a good option to have additional Stamina available, should it temporarily be necessary through trinkets, enchants, and gemming (in that order). As you become more comfortable determining the amount of survivability needed for each encounter, you can shift some of that Stamina into other stats.
Changelog
- 05 Oct. 2025: Updated Stat Priorities for each hero talent. Added specific Mastery thresholds for 100% Block.
- 04 Aug. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.
- 15 Jun. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.7.
- 21 Apr. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.1.5.
- 24 Feb. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.0.
- 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
- 22 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within Launch.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Paladin Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Panthea, who raids in Catalyst and is the author of TankNotes. He plays all tanks and is a Moderator for the Hammer of Wrath Paladin Discord. You can follow him on Twitter.
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