PvE Protection Paladin Tank Stat Priority & Reforging

Protection Paladins in Mists of Pandaria prioritize a mix of defensive and offensive stats with Hit, Expertise, Stamina, Haste, and Mastery being the most important ones. They also utilize stats such as Parry and Dodge, albeit in far fewer amounts than the rest of the stats. Protection Paladins will always prioritize gear that has Strength and Stamina as primary stats, avoiding any other combination of primary stats.

Stat Priority

1. Hit (7.5% Cap)
2. Expertise (15% Cap)
3. Stamina
4. Haste
5. Mastery
6. Parry
7. Dodge

Hit or Hit Chance is a secondary stat that ensures your attacks and spells land against higher-level mobs. Protection Paladins use a mix of abilities, some of which count as attacks and some as spells. A different amount of Hit Chance will be required for each. Thankfully, in Mists of Pandaria, Expertise adds to the Spell Hit Chance of a Protection Paladin. You will specifically need 7.5% Hit to ensure that your Attacks never miss against a level 93 target, with each 340 Hit resulting in 1% Hit Chance. Due to how Expertise now affects Protection Paladins, some races will have increased Spell Hit Chance when using specific items due to their racial bonuses.

Expertise is a secondary stat in Mists of Pandaria that increases Spell Hit Chance and reduces the chance of your attacks being dodged or parried. You need 7.5% Expertise to ensure your attacks can’t be dodged and 15% Expertise to avoid being parried. 340 Expertise results in 1% Expertise. You will always want to ensure you reach the 15% Hard Cap as a Protection Paladin.

Stamina is a primary stat that directly increases your maximum Health Points. As a Protection Paladin, this is one of the most important stats that you must stack, being directly tied to your overall survivability. Stamina is often more important than avoidance or mitigation stats, such as Mastery, Parry, and Dodge, in most cases. However, you won’t want to use Stamina gems; instead, gain more Stamina from enchantments, consumables, and gear itself.

Haste, surprisingly, is one of the strongest stats for Protection Paladins! While stacking Mastery was the meta in the previous expansion, stacking Haste is more important in Mists of Pandaria since you now have access to the Sanctity of Battle effect. Acquiring Haste will now not only increase your Attack Speed and reduce GCD, but also specifically lower the cooldown and GCD of Judgment, Crusader Strike, Consecration, Holy Wrath, Hammer of Wrath, Hammer of the Righteous, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteous, improving your overall Holy Power generation and rotation.

Early on, you won’t be able to reach high values of Haste without effects such as Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp. As the expansion progresses, you will want to reach as close as possible to 50%-63% Haste while fully raid buffed, not taking into account the effects above.

Mastery is the next important secondary stat after Haste, directly empowering the Mastery: Divine Bulwark effect. Stacking Mastery is the superior way of increasing your damage mitigation since it directly empowers the damage reduction of Shield of the Righteous and your overall Block Chance.

Parry is a stat that allows you to Parry attacks from mobs and bosses attacking you, effectively providing you with avoidance. The stat directly synergizes with the Grand Crusader effect in Mists of Pandaria, no longer functioning only as an avoidance stat. The only real merit to the stat itself is the reset provided to Avenger’s Shield by Grand Crusader, since Mastery: Divine Bulwark is superior. You will still get items with Parry, but you will reforge most of them to either Haste or Mastery.

Dodge is a stat that provides the same type of avoidance as Parry, directly synergizing with the Grand Crusader effect. Like Parry, Dodge is mostly eclipsed by Mastery and is most of the time more useful for the Avenger’s Shield reset provided by Grand Crusader. Same scenario with Parry, you will get items with Dodge, but you will reforge them when possible to either Haste or Mastery.

Reforging

Reforging can only be done on secondary stats, meaning you can’t acquire more Stamina through it! Protection Paladins will want to primarily reforge their secondary stats into Hit & Expertise, followed by Haste. After that, you will want to prioritize gaining Mastery to boost the benefits of the Mastery: Divine Bulwark as much as possible. While Parry & Dodge can be beneficial, they pale in comparison to Haste & Mastery, meaning that you will not want to acquire more of those stats through Reforging.

1. Hit (Until Cap)
2. Expertise (Until Cap)
3. Haste
4. Mastery