So I'm fairly new to the paladin class. When TBC went live, I was one of the crazy people that decided to reroll a paladin and do all the old content for the 5th time instead of spending my time in Outland.

So after hitting 70 and getting into some good gear, I'm starting to really enjoy the staying power paladins have. My gear is now to the point where I actually have to look at items and decide which stats I prefer, rather than having to upgrade everything because it's some pos item. Which is what brings me to this question, maybe some more experienced paladins can share some insight here, since I haven't had much time to expirement with different stats yet.

How do you value different stats on gear? How much mp5, for example, are you willing to give up for 1% spell crit (22 spell crit rating)?

I hadn't thought too much about it before, especially since some of the first pieces from Kara I got were the chess legs and shade shoulders (which combine mp5, spell crit and healing), but then when T4 helms started dropping, I actually had a hard time deciding whether I'd prefer mask of pennance or the justicar healing helm. At first glance, the T4 helm felt more like a sidegrade than an upgrade, but I picked it up because I've been shifting my gear more towards spell crit. Now that I meet the requirements to add a spell crit meta, I definitely prefer the T4 helm.

So far, what I've had the hardest time with is comparing mp5 to spell crit. Healing is a little easier, because spell crit indirectly adds to healing (and the higher your spell crit, the more you can "rely" on that crit for bigger healing) as well as mana efficiency. However, mp5 vs spell crit was a reliable way to sustain my mana pool vs an unreliable way to sustain my mana pool. Now that I've got the gear to sustain my mana pool pretty well either way, I need to find a good way to evaluate the two against each other.

Overall, spell crit seems more useful to me. It adds to healing as well as mana effiency. Mana efficiency is not something easy to obtain. I can drink potions to fill that blue bar, but I can't really drink anything to make my heals more efficient (save for adepts elixir thanks to spell crit). However, there comes a point where the mp5 is still worth more I imagine.

Right now, I've valued 20'ish spell crit rating about equal to 6mp5, and healing mostly as an afterthought compared to spell crit, good spell crit healing gear can be hard to find, items with high +healing aren't.

Appreciate any input from others.

At the moment, I'm just switching from Protection to Holy, so I'm in the same situation as far as gathering gear goes. On the surface, one would think that +spell crit would be the way to go, but as Vulajin points out, this is not necessarily the case.

I personally value +healing and +mp5 at about the same place. Intellect would be 3rd, with spell crit taking up the rear. With +healing, I can safely use even one lower rank to conserve mana, and stacking mp5 keeps any healer going for the long-run.

Real quick ,real dirty.

When evaluating Paladin Gear, use the following point system:

+1 Healing =1 point
+1 Spell Crit Rating=1 point
+1 Intellect =2 points
+1 MP5 =7 points

I'll post the math when I have some more time... But the assumptions are:
8000 base mana
No Blessing of Light
1000 +Healing
5 minute duration fight
75 MP5
4000 mana regained via mana spring/pots/etc

I know that the meanest Palas in my guild have over 1600 +healing in raid situations, so assuming only +1000 is quite low. Few kara / Maulgar drops and you'll reach 1500+ unbuffed I guess.

Would love to see the math for that when you have time.

My current stats are (unbuffed):

8900 mana
1300 +healing
105 mp5
18.5% spell crit (before talents)

My mp5 seems pretty good, which is why I'd been leaning towards more spell crit.

First off : Mana is about 7300, Healing + 747 with all healadin on (no major enchants yet though - and mainly rewards from outland quests), and mp5 (which i'm guessing is mana regen every 5) is about 150.

I would personnally choose +Healing over others with mp5 coming in second, then spell crit then int. With a more efficent heal u shld have to heal a lot less often - although with illumination +spell crit might be more useful so more of your healing spells crit and therefore give you mana back so mp5 becomes redundent (in some respects)

That is Holy perspective though. if your a retadin (although if your raiding your most likely a healadin.)

On the other hand your a retadin mana use if highly comsuptive and your bar can drop quicker than a fire mage in Molten Core, and so you might be more interested in getting as high a mp5 as poss. (remember BoW can add an extra 40 to whatever your gear gives you - BoM ain't all that useful even as retadin beacuse you have to rely on holy spells (ie mana usage rather than pure weapon DPS (CS SoV SoC etc...) ).

and here's a scary thought - I have been playing pally for almost 2 yrs now - and yes I'm still learning - as are we all i think.

Anyways hoped that helped to some degree.

According to your calculations, 21 spell crit rating(0.95% to crit) is worth the same amount of points as 3mp5. Most theorycrafted information like this is calculated for the purpose of sustained healing or being able to push yourself for longevity. Assuming you are chain casting flash of lights as earlier stated 1% crit is equivalent 6mp5, double the amount of what it states in your calculations. Using pre-karazhan gear you can hit +1500healing with at least an 8k mana pool. I would agree with the int being worth 2x the amount of healing in your point system but i would boost up crit a little and make mp5 worth less, since with no crit having to chain cast you max rank holy light (840 mana) you'll be OOM within a minute regardless of your mp5.

So very many paladins forget when they're doing math that crit heals don't just restore mana, they make your heal do 50% more.

On a raid (wrath of air totem on me/healing power/adept's, Blessing of Lighted/amplified tank) my holy light does about 4700. It's a pretty standard value for me to have in karazhan or 25 mans, since we have so many paladins. 1% crit is a maximum of 21 mp/5, and in realistic scenarios I've found it's more like 7 mp/5. It's also equivelent to an extra 23.5 healing on holy light, which would take 33 +healing to match.

So a potential 21 mp/5 (though more like 7) + 33 healing per crit %. Or about 1 mp/5 per rating (1/3rd in practice) and 1.5 healing per rating.

Using your values for healing and mana/5, that'd make crit worth...
+1 healing = 1 point.
+1 mana/5 = 7 points.
+1 crit rating = 4 points, 8 when chain casting.

Just as an exercise in how TRULY ridiculous full out mana regeneration can be, let me go off on a tangent about that 5 minute fight you mentioned. To chain cast Holy Light for 5 minutes would require 126000 mana.
I've got about a 35% crit rate on holy light, so that goes to 81900.
I start with 13000, so we're down to 68900.
Mana spring is about 45 mana/5, BoWisdom 50 mana/5, mana tide will add in another 3k mana, down to 60200.
A shadowpriest doing 1k dps will restore 400 mana/5, so the gap is now 36000.
Three super mana potions is 7200 more mana, bringing the gap down to 28800.
70 mana/5 from a flask makes that 24600.
Toss in 3 guaranteed crits from divine favor, we're down to 22300.
Two uses of Divine Illumination save 6300 more mana, down to 16000.
Actual mana/5 from gear, for me at least, is around 60 if memory serves, making that 12400.
As long as I'm being retarded, toss in 16 mana/5 from mageblood and another 14 mana/5 from mana oil and we're at 10600.
So we'd fall a bit short of the goal to cast a Holy Light every 2 seconds for 5 minutes - best we'd be able to manage is every 2.2 seconds or so. Good thing that's all that's possible with lag. Of course, there isn't a single fight in the game that calls for that level of healing (regardless of how hard something hits, sometimes the tank is full hp from evasion and you can't heal him - in theory there could always be someone else missing hp from an AE, but that begins to really reach).

For the holy light every 6 seconds figure I'm calculating my 4 point per spell crit rating value on, using the above consumables etc. you would plain and simply never run out of mana. The mana expenditure is 455 mana/5 (less factoring in DF/DI), and really, the shadowpriest alone covers that, zero consumables required.

Given how much cheaper crit is than mana/5 on the itemization table, it's almost always best to go for the spellcrit gear. Using gems as a handy example, you can get either 18 healing (18 points), 3 mana/5 (21 points) or 8 spell crit rating (32-64 points). That said I don't necessarily agree with those point values, but just trying to demonstrate my point.

Granted you can make the argument that +crit's extra healing is more likely to be overhealing, but that's something you have to value personally, since play style will really vary the impact of that.

Vitae: While what you say is true, there is one important factor (taking the Blizzard item formula into account) that i did the math on some time back, and that is mana regeneration periods.

Mana/5 sec and crit are "almost" equal worth when casting (crit being slighly superior for an illumination specced paladin, but in this case slightly does indeed meen VERY slightly). However for mana regeneration periods spellcrit does absolutely NOTHING, which means that when you aren't casting (including when inside the 5 second rule but still not casting) mana 5/sec is very much superior.

Spellcrit is good for Healing per Second output though its a random output (but healing those 500-700 extra on FoL is nice) since its chance based though, so its not to be entirely dismissed. But from my experiences and math you get mana regen and +healing first, spellcrit later.

The way I originally looked at it, and what made me compare it to ~6mp5 is looking at how many spells I'll usually cast in a 10 second window. If we cast one max rank holy light in that 10 second window, that's 840 mana. 1% spell crit would, over time, reduce that mana cost by 1%, so 8.4. 8.4 mana per 10 = 4.2 mana per 5. Throw in a few flashes of light or a lower rank holy light and I figure it'll be around 6mp5.

Course it entirely depends on the fight. Any patchwerk like fight where mass consumables and constant spamming is needed, spell crit becomes insanely efficient compared to mp5.

The thing is, if you're casting LESS than once per 6 seconds (assuming the shadow priest) mana/5 is pointless, because you will NEVER run out of mana. Who cares if it's better than crit if you're casting once per 13 seconds, if you're not going to ever run oom anyhow? This argument only has meaning when you're in danger of running out of mana, and to run out of mana, you must cast fast enough that spell crit trumps mana/5.

That changes somewhat if you're not using consumables AND don't have a shadowpriest, but that situation is basically nonexistant on raids, for me at least.

Athinira: Additionally, where do you get the idea that mana/5 and spellcrit are almost equal worth while casting? Are you assuming you're just casting Flash of Light? Probably 95% of my healing is done with Holy Light, though I can only speak for myself.