The first one that I am sure people will have a question on is going to be spirit. Why would we not want a stat that will help us restore mana? That is a good question and rightly asked. The reason you do not want to focus on spirit is because there is no benefit to this stat. Sure it regenerates mana every five seconds, but this is while not casting. If you are out of battle and you need to regenerate mana you should be able to do so without wasting time waiting on your statistical regeneration to support, you. Not to mention that groups will despise you and probably give you the swift boot out of the group.
Another statistic that I am sure someone may have wondered why it was not included was stamina. Wouldn't it be a good idea to be able to take a hit or two in combat? Good thought, but let me ask you why in the world would a healer (I am thinking of this from a group/instance/raid standpoint, we will deal with individual in a second) want to take a hit? You are there to heal, not to tank or DPS. If those were your goals, immediately quit reading this blog and go log onto your account and re-spec yourself to the proper tree for doing that sort of thing. Remember, if you are taking hits, you or the tank are more than likely doing something wrong. Do not feel too bad, it is easy to get carried away with adding stamina. When in solo play, having stamina is not a bad idea, but considering we wear plate armor, I would still shy from looking for stamina as a main pillar. Again, we want to think of this as an overall goal for our build. The other thing to remember is that as you level, you will find gear that has multiple options, if you find a piece with two or three of the main pillars of our build and it has stamina in addition, then I would say equip it. Remember to do this in moderation though.
The rest of the statistics that you could equip are all going to be focused for either a retribution or protection spec and would prove to be worthless to our cause. I hope in closing that this has been helpful. I know that when I started playing there was a lot of information for me if I wanted to pursue being a tank, but not so much information for going the holy route. I am not sure what the next topic will be in the basics series. There is some basic information we can touch on regarding the gear itself and what to look for or we could look at talent builds. I will do a little thinking because I want to stay basic and then move on to some deeper topics such as methods to healing and the mechanics of the spells and some different methods you can employ, and yes there are other methods besides spamming Flash of Light, especially with all the new toys.