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.

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 [Divine Strength] usually stack a lot of strength.

Agility

Agility increases the melee critical hit chance, adds armor, and increases dodge. Agility increases slowly for the paladin and for certain builds increasing agility is very effective. Retribution tree paladins with the Vengeance skill can boost their damage significantly with extra agility. It is one of the most important stats for a protection paladin due to the added dodge and armor.

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. Functioning as a primary tank or off-tank always benefits from extra stamina.

Intellect

Intellect adds to the characters available mana pool. Intellect builds slowly as a paladin levels. Paladins are a hybrid class of melee and caster. The caster part of the paladin needs more mana. For support healer or primary healer extra mana is a necessity.

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 that can accelerate mana regeneration.

Discussion

There are three talent trees for paladins: Retribution, Protection, and Holy. Paladins that primarily focus on the Retribution skills will benefit from Strength, Agility and Intellect to help boost their melee damage, critical strike chance and mana pool. Protection tree will benefit from stamina, which allows them to absorb more damage. Paladins focusing on the holy tree will benefit from intellect, which helps boosting their available mana and indirectly increases their spell damage, healing and critical chance.

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

Attribute values at different levels

Starting attribute values depend on the race.

Race	Strength	Agility	Stamina	Intellect	Spirit
Blood elf	19	22	20	24	20
Draenei	23	17	21	21	23
Dwarf	24	16	25	19	20
Human	22	20	22	20	22

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

Level	Additional strength	Additional agility	Additional stamina	Additional intellect	Additional spirit	Human base spirit
1	0	0	0	0	0	22
2	1	1	1	1	1	data missing (23 or 24)
3	2	1	2	1	1	data missing (23 or 24)
4	3	2	3	2	2	data missing (24 or 25)
5	4	2	4	2	3	data missing (25 or 26)
6	5	3	5	3	3	data missing (25 or 26)
7	6	3	6	4	4	data missing (26 or 27)
8	7	4	6	4	4	data missing (26 or 27)
9	8	4	7	5	5	data missing (27 or 28)
10	9	5	8	5	6	29
11	10	5	9	6	7	30
12	11	6	10	7	7	30
13	12	7	11	7	8	31
14	13	7	12	8	9	33
15	14	8	14	9	9	33
16	16	8	15	9	10	34
17	17	9	16	10	11	35
18	18	10	17	11	12	36
19	19	10	18	11	12	36
20	20	11	19	12	13	37
21	21	12	20	13	14	38
22	23	12	21	14	15	39
23	24	13	22	14	16	40
24	25	14	24	15	16	40
25	26	14	25	16	17	41
26	28	15	26	17	18	42
27	29	16	27	17	19	44
28	30	16	28	18	20	45
29	32	17	30	19	21	46
30	33	18	31	20	21	46
31	34	19	32	21	22	47
32	36	19	34	22	23	48
33	37	20	35	22	24	49
34	39	21	36	23	25	50
35	40	22	38	24	26	51
36	42	23	39	25	27	52
37	43	23	40	26	28	53
38	45	24	42	27	29	55
39	46	25	43	28	30	56
40	48	26	45	29	31	57
41	49	27	46	30	32	58
42	51	27	48	31	33	59
43	52	28	49	32	34	60
44	54	29	51	32	35	61
45	56	30	52	33	36	62
46	57	31	54	34	37	63
47	59	32	55	36	38	64
48	61	33	57	37	39	66
49	62	34	59	38	41	68
50	64	35	60	39	42	69
51	66	36	62	40	43	70
52	68	37	64	41	44	71
53	70	38	65	42	45	72
54	71	39	67	43	46	73
55	73	40	69	44	48	75
56	75	41	71	45	49	77
57	77	42	72	46	50	78
58	79	43	74	48	51	79
59	81	44	76	49	53	81
60	83	45	78	50	54	82
61	85	46	80	51	55	83
62	87	47	82	52	57	85
63	89	48	84	54	58	86
64	91	49	86	55	59	88
65	93	51	88	56	61	90
66	96	52	90	58	62	91
67	98	53	92	59	64	93
68	100	54	94	60	65	94
69	102	55	96	62	66	95
70	104	57	98	63	68	97

Also [Divine Strength] talent modifies strength by up to 15%, [Sacred Duty] talent modifies stamina by up to 6%, [Combat Expertise] talent modifies stamina by up to 6%, and [Divine Intellect] talent modifies intellect by up to 15%. 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 base stamina with talents = base stamina without talents * 1.06 * 1.06 = base stamina without talents * 1.166).