[devonin]

Maybe the right answer is to learn your class, learn the mechanics underlying the powers you have and use, and make your own educated decisions as to what is better for you.

I'm a paladin tank, however, most sources I've ever seen for the ranking of paladin tanking gear emphasizes stamina over absolutely everything else. As a personal build choice, I tend to stack an above average amount of avoidance to make up for less stamina and do perfectly fine. However, as a result, I disagree with many "this is better than that" lists on the internet.

If you're prepared to use the same talent build and spell rotation as the shamans who make the websites you're looking at, then their ranking of gear is going to work for you.

To make matters worse, raiding gear and playing gear aren't going to be the same thing.

You'll see holy paladins wearing cloth, leather, mail and plate. Since in raids, they should basically only ever be getting hit with raid/area damage and never pulling aggro, they don't need the high armour values native to plate, and many pieces of gear intended for other classes work perfectly fine for them. Try soloing in cloth and you'll find the results less than ideal.

Put simply: There is no single list of "this is the best gear for this level of play" unless you assume that your playstyle is the same as theirs.