What should your attack and defense stats be?
It's difficult to give any hard and fast rules about stats. A lot of it really will just depend on your own personal playing style. You'll just have to decide and prioritize for yourself what stats you want and what level you want to get them to.
I dump all my extra points into defense, personally. To me, "extra points" means the points left over after I'm happy with how much energy, health and stamina I've got. For example, I decided at some point I wanted 25 stamina and 200 health. So I didn't put any points into defense until I reached those goals. Every few levels I usually bump up my energy too. But whenever I don't have a specific goal in mind, it goes straight into defense.
For me, it was all about deciding that I wasn't happy with how fast my health was getting depleted or how many times in one sitting I could attack, so I set some goals for health and stamina. And every few levels, I start getting unhappy with how fast I run out of energy, so I pump points into it until I reach some arbitrary number that makes me feel good, like 475 or whatever it may be.
I prioritize attack/defense in that it's my default place to put points. You might come up with another strategy, who knows! Do what you are comfortable with and what makes you feel like you're utilizing your points best.
For me this was easy...
As some already stated, your health can be bought, so you should always be going back to NY to heal, no matter where you are fighting. U.S. $$$ comes in almost endless supplies for me now, so investing in health wasn't my concern. Anyone who was trying to kill me was going to do it regardless...
The first thing I did was move up defense and energy, focusing primarily on energy. I wasn't concerned about attacking anyone until my family was up there in size, since that is such a big factor in winning a fight. I wanted my defense up there because I was getting attacked a lot and I was missing opportunities to take their cash and gain exp while I wasn't even playing.
Once I got my energy up to 200, I leveled my defense and attack to twice that of my level. Now, everytime I level I put 2 in attack, 2 in defense, 1 in energy. Any points I get in between that go into energy. When I reach an energy level that is divisible by 5, I put my next 2 points into stamina.
However, since I've gotten my mafia up to 501 I really don't lose many fights. I do expect this to change when I get higher in level, I figure the more involved people will have more members. Also, I am keeping my defense up there for when robbing comes back, if ever. Right now I only get attacked 2-3 times a day, other than several hit list marks.
I am level 147...attack: 294, defense: 294, Health: 133, Energy: 390, Stamina: 40.
I notice that I am able to successfully defend against people twice my level at times...find this out when people try to claim bounty on me, although I am thinking they are maybe energy heavy? Would like to get my energy up there...stam isn't so bad since I get that 30 sec reduction, and I only need 10 or so to go on a mini-attack spree.
Stamina
i messed up,when i very first started, playing Mafia Wars.because i didnt know wot i was doing,i was putting all my points onto my Stamina.i dont know where i got the idea from,but i thought , higher the stamina,,quicker my energy gets restored!! i was doing jobs on 15 energy and my stamina was on 59!!
Health
You have so much money that to pay for your health is more in your favor and save your hard earned points for Stamina and A&D. I learned this the hard way and now cannot change how much health I have and I could have put that to my A&D which for me is where you need it. Stamina is also good as it is valuable as far as drop loot items are conserned. It takes way more health to do a job than it does stamina to fight someone and get a drop loot item so you can actually gain more with the stamina. There is also the lucky chance and probability that you will get put on the Hit List by players who once again don't understand the game yet and gain more exp. if you are set up well with your allocations.