Stats and Attributes

Find out everything you need to know about stats and attributes in World of Warcraft, from primary stats like Strength, Agility, and Intellect, over secondary stats such as Critical Strike, Haste, and Mastery and Versatility to Miscellaneous Stats and Item Attributes.

Primary stats form the core of your character’s power. These stats directly influence your character's abilities and overall performance in combat and other activities.

• Strength
  • Increases Attack Power for Warrior's, Retribution and Protection Paladin's, and Death Knight's.
  • It also increases Parry for Tanks.
• Agility
  • Increases Attack Power for Demon Hunters, Rogues, Hunters, Brewmaster and Windwalker Monks, Feral and Guardian Druids and Enhancement Shamans.
  • Also increases Dodge for Tank specializations.
• Intellect
  • Increases spell power for Mages, Priests, Warlocks, Evokers, Mistweaver Monks, Holy Paladins, Elemental and Restoration Shamans as well as Restoration and Balance Druids.
  • It does not raise your maximum Mana anymore!
• Stamina
  • Increases your character's total health at a rate of 1 Stamina = 20 health points. This is particularly important for tanks, who need more health to absorb a high amount of damage.

Armor Skills

With the start of Cataclysm, Armor Skills were introduced into the game. These skills are special to each class and specialization, granting a 5% increase to their primary stat depending on their specialization and if you're wearing a full set of armor appropriate to that class.

Secondary stats further enhance your character's performance. You also have to deal with "Diminishing Returns" which eventually apply to secondary stats. Visit the Stat Diminishing Return guide to find out more.

• Haste
  • Increases the speed at which you can perform actions like
    • Casting spells.
    • Attacking with weapons.
    • Regenerating resources like energy and focus.
  • It also reduces the global cooldown, attack animations, and the cooldowns of certain abilities while also increasing the rate at which "Damage over Time" (DoT) effects deal damage.
• Critical Strike
  • Increases your chance to deal double damage or healing with your attacks and spells.
  • Also increases the Parry chance for certain classes.

• Versatility
  • A hybrid stat that increases the damage and healing you do while simultaneously reducing the damage you take at a 2:1 rate (10% Damage = 5% Damage reduction).

• Mastery
  • Each class and spec has a different Mastery effect, which can range from increasing damage dealt by certain abilities to improving healing or defensive abilities. Click here to learn more about what each Mastery does for each specialization.

Tertiary stats offer unique benefits to your character. While every item has a chance to have a tertiary stat on it they don't appear as frequently, they can provide valuable enhancements that improve your character's survivability and utility.

• Avoidance
  • Reduces the amount of damage you take from area-of-effect (AoE) attacks.
• Speed
  • Increases your movement speed which helps to dodge mechanics, kiting enemies or just getting faster to your destination.
• Leech
  • Converts a portion of the damage or healing you deal into self-healing.
  • Do note that the damage from pets also only heals the pets.

Miscellaneous stats are Parry, Dodge, Block and Miss which can affect your survivability.

• Parry
  • Increases your chance to deflect/parry melee attacks, preventing them from hitting you. When you successfully parry an attack, you take no damage from that hit. The final parry chance is reduced by 1.5% for each level the target is above you.
• Dodge
  • Increases your chance to avoid melee attacks. When you dodge an attack, you take no damage from that hit. The final dodge chance is reduced by 1.5% for each level the target is above you.
• Block
  • Has a chance to reduce damage taken of the blocked attack by 30%.
• Miss
  • Pretty much self-explanatory. It means that an enemy’s attack "missed" or "failed" to hit you. This applies to both physical melee and ranged attacks. The final miss chance is reduced by 1.5% for each level the target is above you.

In addition to primary, secondary stats and tertiary stats, certain item attributes play a big role in defining the functionality and condition of your gear.

• Armor
  • Reduces the amount of physical damage your character takes. The higher the armor the greater the damage mitigation.
• Durability
  • Measures an item's condition. The durability decreases when you take damage or die and if the durability of an item reaches zero, it becomes unusable until repaired. Make sure to repair your gear!
• Weapon Speed
  • Determines how quickly you can attack with a weapon. A lower weapon speed indicates faster attacks. This affects overall damage output and resource generation for certain classes.
• Weapon Damage
  • Is the amount of damage your weapon deals with each hit. Your auto-attacks and abilities directly scale of it.

Special Item Attributes

These are only found on specific gear from the "Dawn of the Infinite" Dungeon. These include

• Timestrike on Borrowed Time,Nick of Time,Double Time and Traveler's Timesplitter
  • Has a chance on each spell to apply Timestrike on the target which will deal damage after 3 seconds.
• Demonbane on Gorehowl, Might of the Warchief
  • Has a chance to apply Warchief's Rend.
• Spirit on Imbued Frostweave Slippers
  • Has a chance to refund Mana on used abilities.
• Scourgebane on Quel'Zaram, High Blade of the Lion
  • Has a chance to proc Lion's Light.

Credits

Written By: Xerwo

Reviewed By: Tenkiei, Wolfdisco,Rycn