Paladin attributes

The base attributes of each race are standard and increase at predictable rates with leveling. Obtaining equipment with bonuses to the various attributes is essential to the paladin's development. Choosing the best attribute bonuses is a challenging and ongoing process. This article is a guide on Paladin attributes.

Strength
Strength affects the base damage a Paladin can do with melee attacks and affects the amount of damage that can be blocked with a shield. The natural leveling of a Paladin enhances strength faster than agility, intellect, or spirit. Equipment that adds to strength will increase the damage done with each attack slightly. Retribution Paladins specced with Divine Strength usually stack a lot of strength.

Agility
Agility increases the melee critical hit chance and dodge. Point for point, critical strike rating is better for damage and dodge rating is better for tanking, but agility is still useful.

Stamina
Stamina adds to the characters hit points (or health). Stamina is the other attribute that increases rapidly as the Paladin levels. Being able to absorb more damage is always a good thing for a Paladin. It is the key stat for tanking, and many level 80 tanks will stack pure stamina once they've reached the defense cap.

Intellect
Intellect adds to the characters available mana pool, and increases spell critical strike chance. It is by far the best stat for holy paladins, since it contributes to sustained healing ability in several ways: the size of the initial mana pool, the amount of mana returned through Replenishment, and the mana returned through Illumination (paladin talent).

Spirit
Spirit increases the regeneration rate of health and mana when not in combat. Spirit helps shorten downtime between fights. Paladins rarely have much downtime between fights due to self healing and Blessing of Wisdom, which accelerates mana regeneration. Unlike other casters, paladins do not have an ability that allows a percentage of out-of-combat mana regeneration to continue while fighting, so spirit is of very little use.

Nevertheless, since TBC, secondary attributes (e.g. spell damage, defense, critical strike rating, etc.) on the gear has become more important than ever before. Please refer to specific guides for priority of importantce for those stats.

Attribute values at different levels
Starting attribute values depend on the race.

However, attribute gains on later levels don't depend on the race. The only exception is spirit, since the human race has The Human Spirit racial trait which increases their spirit by 10%.

Also, the Divine Strength talent modifies strength by up to 15%, the Sacred Duty (former paladin ability) talent modifies stamina by up to 6%, the Combat Expertise talent modifies stamina by up to 6%, and the Divine Intellect talent modifies intellect by up to 10%. Base attributes include those modifications too. If a Paladin has both Sacred Duty and Combat Expertise, the base stamina modifiers stack via multiplication (for example, at maximum ranks ).