* some new bear stats out there now.
1. Basics.
The stat priority for a Guardian Druid is:
1.Stamina (until you have enough, see below);
2.Hit Rating (until 7.5%);
3.Critical Strike Rating;
4.Expertise Rating;
5.Haste Rating.
These statistics have been obtained by combining common sense, in-game testing, and simulations using Simulation Craft.
2. Getting a Better Understanding.
Most encounters have abilities that cannot be mitigated or avoided. Also, you need to have a decent amount of health, in order to give yourself the chance to be healed before a subsequent attack kills you. As such, you need a minimum amount of Stamina. This amount will, in most cases, simply come from the Stamina found innately on your gear. Therefore, you should never have to go out of your way to gem for Stamina.
Hit Rating and Expertise Rating improve your threat generation as well as your survivability, because they allow you to land more hits and thus generate more rage, which can then be used on Savage Defense and Frenzied Regeneration. In the case of Hit, you will want to aim at reaching the 7.5% cap. For Expertise, the 15% cap is desirable, though probably not reachable at the moment.
Critical Strike Rating greatly increases your rage generation, which in turn allows you to use Savage Defense and Frenzied Regeneration more often.
Haste Rating also improves your rage generation, indirectly boosting your survivability. It also provides you more auto attacks, which increases the amount of procs from Tooth and Claw that you will get.
Agility is a very strong survival statistic. It increases your chance to dodge and it also increases your Critical Strike chance (which improves your rage generation and, therefore, allows you to use survival cooldowns more often). This will be present innately on all your gear, but in terms of optimisation (gemming most specifically), it is outweighed by the secondary statistics we mentioned above.
Dodge Rating and Mastery Rating provide excellent damage reduction, but we do not currently ADVISE prioritising them over rage generation-increasing stats.
