Paladin Tank Itemization - What Stats Do You Want to Maximize?

I was browsing around some other WoW blogs when I stumbled on Chris Jahosky’s article Building a Better Paladin. He gives an overview of the argument many Paladins have over what is the best spec to be - Holy, Prot, or Ret. He suggests that one of the reasons Prot and Ret Paladins are looked down upon is that a lot of gear is mis-itemized for their roles, and I tend to agree. People pick up gear that has “Paladin” written all over it, but this gear may not be appropriate for real Retribution specs or for raid tanking.

So, in order to provide guidance for aspiring tankadins, here’s an overview of what you should be looking for in tanking gear itemization. What stats do you want a lot of, what do you want a little of, and what should you be avoiding?

First, it helps to set some goals. Here is what you should be aiming for, in order of importance:

  • Reach 490 Defense Skill (Uncrittable)
  • Reach Uncrushable Status (102.4% Total for Miss, Dodge, Parry, Block)
  • Reach 11k Health
  • Reach 200 Spell Damage

If you don’t want to tank raids (i.e. any encounter with a Boss Level mob) you can ignore the Uncrushable status, but you should still try to maximize your avoidance. The Health and Spell Damage are baseline markers, and you should aim to increase these once your other goals are met. More health means more breathing room for your healers, and more spell damage means more threat generation.

So… with these goals in mind, what statistics are we looking for?

In order to become uncrittable and uncrushable, you’ll be looking for a lot of avoidance stats. Defense should be your first priority until you hit 490, and Shield Block Rating should be your first priority after that. Any avoidance statistic will help you, but you need a lot of it, and certain ones are “better” in terms of item rating. For example, 1 Block Rating = 1 Defense Rating = 1 Parry Rating in terms of item value, but an equivalent amount of Block Rating will give you far more avoidance than Parry Rating. Here’s a list of approximately how much of each statistic you’ll need for 1% of Avoidance.

  • 8 Block Rating = 1% Block
  • 15 Defense Rating = .25% Miss, .25% Dodge, .25% Parry, .25% Block
  • 19 Dodge Rating = 1% Dodge
  • 22.4 Parry Rating = 1% Parry
  • 25 Agility = 1% Dodge (With Blessing of Kings, 23 Base agility will give you 1% Dodge)

As you can see, Block Rating and Defense rating are the cheapest ways to get avoidance. Until you reach uncrushable status, you should stack these two statistics as much as possible. Once you get to be uncrushable, though, you’ll want to upgrade to gear that provides real avoidance over block. The reason is that 1% Block will prevent you from getting crushed, but you will still take damage. 1% Dodge or Parry will prevent you from being crushed and prevent you from taking any damage at all.

So you’re uncrittable and uncrushable… what next?

You’ll want to boost your hit points as much as possible. 11k is often given as a baseline suggested before you tank heroics or Karazhan. I am able to tank Karazhan with 11.5k unbuffed, no problem. However, you’ll want to have more hit points if you want to try tanking Gruul’s or Magtheridon. To do this, you’ll need to find epic gear that gives you the same avoidance as your old gear, but more stamina or more gem slots. I tend to split my gems between avoidance and stamina, unlike most warriors who stack pure stamina in every gem slot.

You’ll also want to boost your threat generation abilities. Your threat generated is based on the damage you cause, but it’s mostly caused by your holy damage. Through your Righteous Fury, all of your holy spells create gobs of threat. So, increasing your spell damage will increase the damage all of your abilities cause and subsequently increase your threat. To get your base spell damage, get a + Spell Damage weapon ([item]Continuum Blade[/item] and [item]32660[/item] are great starters) and put [item]Formula: Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower[/item] on it.

Some people intuitively think that they need to get a lot of spell damage, which is not true. With ~200 Spell Damage, I was able to tank Karazhan with a rogue and a shadow priest geared out in epics. Spell Damage is a secondary statistic for Tankadins. You want to maximize it once you reach uncrushable and have a lot of hit points, but you don’t want to sacrifice survivability for threat generation.

What should you avoid?

Strength will help you slightly, since it increases the amount blocked and it increases the amount of weapon damage you do, but you should avoid it if possible. Strength is mostly a warrior statistic - they generate more threat with their melee and based on their block value. You’ll end up getting some since you’ll probably be wearing some warrior gear, but for the purposes of comparing items, pretend that Strength doesn’t exist. If everything else is the same, take the item with + Strength, but never sacrifice stamina, avoidance, or spell power for strength.

Similarly, you should take Block Value if all else is equal but don’t value it too highly. It will give you some damage mitigation, since it increases the amount of damage blocked by your shield. However, it’s greatest value is for warriors - it increases the amount of threat generated by a shield slam. You can’t do that, so you might as well look for Dodge or Defense over Block Value.

Spirit is fairly useless. You’ll usually be constantly casting spells, so you’ll rarely get out of the five second rule. You probably won’t find any items with this on it, but if you do… run the other way.

Intellect is nice, but non-essential. With a base mana pool of 4-5k, you should be fine. You’ll want to increase this along with your spell damage, after other essential goals have been met.

Mp5 gets mixed reviews. Intuitively, you may think that you want mana regen so that you don’t run out of mana. However, you should usually rely on Spiritual Attunement to give you your mana back. While tanking Heroics and Karazhan or higher raids, you should be taking enough damage to refill your mana bar. You should also be able to count on having Blessing of Wisdom on you (hopefully your raid brought along one Paladin healer, so you can have Kings and Wisdom). The only time that you may want to get Mp5 is if you plan on tanking a lot of regular 5-man instances. In these instances, you will likely not take enough damage with raid-ready gear to refill your mana bar. I just steer clear of them, but if you are likely to tank a lot of them for friends you may want to invest in two sets - a 5-man set (with more mp5, int, and spell damage and less avoidance) and a raiding set (maximizing avoidance, stamina, and spell damage over mp5 and int).

Finally, if you’re a fresh level 70 or if you’re just thinking of tanking, here are some items you’ll want to obtain to start out…

  • Head - [item]Tankatronic Goggles[/item], [item]23519[/item], [item]28180[/item]
  • Shoulder - [item]27739[/item]
  • Neck - [item]Strength of the Untamed[/item], [item]Necklace of the Juggernaut[/item]
  • Chest - [item]29127[/item], [item]28262[/item]
  • Bracers - [item]28167[/item], [item]23538[/item]
  • Gloves - [item]23517[/item]
  • Legs - [item]29783[/item], [item]29184[/item]
  • Feet - [item]29325[/item]
  • Back - [item]27804[/item], [item]24253[/item]

That should get you started. Good luck tanking, and remember that a well geared Tankadin can equal a Warrior tank any day.

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