Stats and Attributes for WoW Classic

By Neryssa Updated: 2024/11/19

Best Stats for Each ClassPrimary StatsStrength

Druids, Paladins, Shaman and Warriors gain 2 melee Attack Power per point of Strength.

Hunters, Mages, Priests, Rogues and Warlocks gain 1 melee Attack Power per point of strength.

Paladins, Shaman and Warriors with a Shield equipped have a chance to block 1 Damage for every 20 points of Strength.

Agility

Rogues and Warriors gain 1 ranged Attack Power per point of Agility.

Hunters gain 2 ranged Attack Power per point of Agility.

Druids in Cat Form, Hunters and Rogues gain 1 melee Attack Power per point of Agility.

You gain 2 Armor for every point of Agility.

You gain Critical Strike Chance at varying points, depending on your class:
Druids, Paladins, Shaman and Warriors receive 1% Critical Strike Chance for every 20 points of Agility.

Rogues receive 1% Critical Strike Chance for every 29 points of Agility.

Hunters receive 1% Critical Strike Chance for every 53 points of Agility.

1% Dodge for every 20 points of Agility

Rogues receive 1% Dodge for every 14.5 points of Agility.

Hunters receive 1% Dodge for every 26 points of Agility.

Intellect

You gain 15 Mana for each point of Intellect.

You gain Critical Strike chance at varying points, depending on your class:
Warlocks receive 1% Spell Critical Strike chance for every 60.6 points of intellect.

Druids receive 1% Spell Critical Strike chance for every 60 points of intellect.

Shamans receive 1% Spell Critical Strike chance for every 59.5 points of intellect.

Mages receive 1% Spell Critical Strike chance for every 59.5 points of intellect.

Priests receive 1% Spell Critical Strike chance for every 59.2 points of intellect.

Paladins receive 1% Spell Critical Strike chance for every 54 points of intellect.

Stamina

You gain 10 Health for every point of Stamina.

Thanks to Endurance, Tauren characters gain 10.5 Health for every point of Stamina.

Spirit

Mana begins to regenerate via Spirit only when you have not cast any spells that cost Mana for 5 seconds. This is to refered to as the "Five Second Rule".

After not casting spells that cost Mana for 5 seconds, you will begin to regenerate Mana every 2 seconds, the amount depending on your class:
Druid (caster): Spirit/4.5 + 15

Druid (feral), Hunter, Paladin, Warlock: Spirit/5 + 15

Mage, Priest: Spirit/4 + 12.5

Shaman: Spirit/5 + 17

Healers: The usefulness of Spirit really depends on how often you cast spells. If you're able to spend seconds without casting any spells, Spirit is a very useful way of regeneration Mana.

Innervate targets: Innervate is a Restoration Druid talent that greatly increases your Mana generation, as well as ignoring the Five Second Rule while active (so you're able to regenerate Mana via Spirit even while casting spells).
If you're a Innervate target, it is advisable to find a weapon with large amounts of Spirit and a Spirit enchant. Since you're able to swap weapons in combat, this is a great way to benefit even more from Innervate.

What Classes Benefit from Each Stat?

Balance and Restoration Druids receive Mana and Spell Critical Strike chance from Intellect.

Feral Druids receive 2 melee Attack Power per point of Strength.

Feral Druids receive 1 melee Attack Power per point of Agility while in Cat Form only. They also receive Dodge Chance and Critical Strike Chance from Agility.

Hunters receive 2 ranged Attack Power per point of Agility. They also receive Dodge Chance and Critical Strike Chance from Agility for all forms.

In case you're forced into a close combat situation, you also gain 1 melee Attack Power per point of Agility.

You gain Mana and Spell Critical Strike Chance from Intellect.

Holy Paladins receive Mana and Spell Critical Strike from Intellect.

Protection and Retribution Paladins receive 1 melee Attack Power per point of Strength. As most of their special attacks are Spells, they also benefit from Intellect as a way to gain more chance of landing a critical strike.

Paladins with a Shield equipped have a chance to block 1 damage for every 20 points of Strength.

You gain Mana and Spell Critical Strike Chance from Intellect.

Rogues receive 1 melee Attack Power per point of Strength.

Rogues receive 1 melee Attack Power per point of Agility. They also receive Critical Strike and Dodge Chance with Agility.

Elemental and Restoration Shaman receive Mana and Spell Critical Strike chance from Intellect.

Enhancement Shaman receive 2 melee Attack Power per point of Strength.

Enhancement Shaman receive Critical Strike and Dodge Chance with Agility.

You gain Mana and Spell Critical Strike Chance from Intellect.

Your pets also gain Mana and Spell Critical Strike Chance with Intellect.
Warlocks can also benefit from stamina, more so than other casters, due to their ability to convert health into mana ()

Warriors gain 2 melee Attack Power per point of Strength.

Warriors with a Shield equipped have a chance to block 1 damage for every 20 points of Strength.

Warriors also gain Armor, Critical Strike and Dodge Chance from Agility.

Weapon StatsArmor PenetrationBonereaver's EdgeBadge of the SwarmguardAttack Speed

Weapon speed directly affects Attack Speed. The lower the number on your weapon, the faster it attacks. Faster weapons usually hit for less damage than slower weapons.

Some abilities, such as the Rogue and Blade Flurry, increase Attack Speed.

Select consumables, enchants, and item procs also increase Attack Speed.

Attack PowerCritical Strike Chance

You can gain Critical Strike chance with Agility, for weapon-based classes, or with raw Critical Strike as a stat provided by certain pieces of gear.

Hit Chance

Against level 60 targets, you need a total of 5% Hit Chance to never miss a target.
Dual Wielders need 24% Hit Chance to never miss on every single auto-attack.

9% Hit Chance

Dual Wielders need 25% Hit Chance to never miss on every single auto-attack.

Weapon Skill

Each Weapon type has its own weapon level-up.
You level your weapon skill by attacking mobs, each non-evaded hit has a chance to increase your Weapon Skill.

Certain pieces of gear, such as the legacy version of Edgemaster's Handguards, can increase your weapon skill above 300.

Not having a certain weapon at 300 or closer to 300 means you have a higher chance to miss PvE mobs.

Weapon Skills are maxed in PvP combat.

Humans have +5 weapon skill bonuses to Swords and Maces, both 1-hand and 2-hand;

Dwarves have +5 weapon skill bonus to Guns;

Orcs have +5 weapon skill bonuses to Axes, both 1-hand and 2-hand;

Trolls have +5 weapon skill bonuses to Bows and Thrown Weapons.

Critical Strike

Hit chance

Chance to dodge your attack

Chance to parry your attack

Chance to block your attack

You cannot diminish the chances of a Glancing Blow310 Weapon SkillCaster StatsSpell Power (Damage)

Spell Power also works on healing spells, which have their own increasing stats as well.

Spell Power can be divided in Spell Damage, which increases the damage of all your spells, regardles of their school, or Elemental Spell Damage (such as Shadow Spell Damage, demonstrated in items such as Formula: Enchant Gloves - Shadow Power, which only increase spell damage of one specific school of magic).

Healing Power

Healing Power does not work on offensive spells, which have their own offensive stats.

Spell Critical Strike Chance

Many specializations have talents to increase how much a Spell Critical hits for, up to double of a spell's normal damage.

You can gain Spell Critical Strike with Intellect, or with raw Spell Critical Strike chance provided by certain pieces of gear.

Spell Hit Chance

Against level 60 targets, you need a total of 3% Spell Hit Chance to not miss a Spell.

Against level 63 (or Boss level) targets, you need a total of 16% Spell Hit Chance to not miss a Spell.

Regardless of the amount of Spell Hit you have, spells have a innate 1% chance of being resisted. This chance cannot be mitigated by any means.

Mana/5 Seconds

Mana/5 is independent of Spirit and the 5-Second rule, working even while constantly casting in combat.

Spell Penetration

Due to the way Spell Penetration works, it is considered to be a PvP stat. It was intended as a way to help players counter resistances from things like Mark of the Wild or Paladin Auras.

In PvE, targets have an innate resistance to spells that cannot be countered by Spell Penetration or any other stat. Very few bosses actually have a substantial amount of resistances that can be overcome with Spell Penetration.

Mitigation StatsResistances

There are five types of resistances in Classic: Fire Resistance, Frost Resistance, Arcane Resistance, Nature Resistance and Shadow Resistance.
Holy Resistance was not a stat back in Classic - Nor players, nor NPC enemies, can resist Holy spells.

Fire Resistance is used through Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, being a huge requirement for Ragnaros;

Nature Resistance is heavily used in Ahn'Qiraj, especially for the Princess Huhuran encounter;

Frost and Shadow Resistance see uses in Naxxramas - Shadow against Loatheb, and Frost against Sapphiron.

315

The Damage Absorption formula is Soaked damage per HP point = 1 / (1 - (resistance / (5 * caster level)) * 0.75) - 1

The more resistance you have, the more effective each further point becomes.

Defense

Like Weapon Skill, you need to level your Defense Rating - By letting enemy NPCs hit you. The default defense cap is 300 for level 60 players.

Every point of Defense gives 0.04% dodge, 0.04% parry, 0.04% block, 0.04% reduced chance to be hit, 0.04% reduced chance to be crit.

At 300 Defense, you still have a chance of being critically hit/crushed against Boss (level 63) mobs. Tanks need to increase their Defense Rating to avoid this.
At level 60, you need 440 Defense Rating to avoid being critically hit by level 63 mobs. This requires a fully leveled 300 innate Defense, and an additional 140 Defense Rating from gear.

This may be difficult to reach and focusing gear with +defense may leave your gear lacking in other important tank stats. Consider striking a balance between melee mitigation (Stamina, Armor), resistance gear when useful, and threat gear (Hit Chance, Crit Chance) instead of prioritizing the defense soft cap.

Crushing BlowsArmor

There are four types of Armor that players can equip. From the weakest (least amount of Armor) to the strongest (most amount of Armor):
Cloth - Mage, Priest, Warlock

Leather - Druid, Rogue

Mail - Hunter, Shaman

Plate - Paladin, Warrior

17,26516500Block

Block Rating increases the chance of you blocking an attack, on top of the base amount of 5%.

You're only able to Block an attack when facing your attacker.

Block formula: 5% base + Block Rating + talents + ((Defense skill - enemy's weapon skill) * 0.04)

Block ValueThe Face of Death

Block Value increases the amount of damage mitigated per blocked attack.

Strength increases your Block Value.

Dodge

Dodge can be gained with Agility for all classes, as well as raw Dodge value in select pieces of gear.

One point of Defense adds 0.04% Dodge.

Weapon Skill reduces the enemy's chance to dodge your attacks by .04% per point.

Night Elves have a innate 1% chance to Dodge thanks to Quickness.

You're only able to Dodge an attack when facing your attacker.

Classes

Base

Agility to Dodge

Druid

0.9%

Hunter

0.0%

26.5

Mage

3.2%

19.444

Paladin

0.7%

19.767

Priest

3.0%

Rogue

0.0%

14.5

Shaman

1.7%

19.697

Warlock

2.0%

Warrior

0.0%

Parry

Only Hunters, Paladins, Rogues and Warriors can Parry attacks. Enhancement Shaman have a talent that also allows them to Parry attacks.

One point of Defense increases the chance to parry by 0.04%

When an attack is Parried, the defender swings its weapon 40% faster for its next attack.

You're only able to Parry an attack when facing your attacker.

Comments

Comment by 1935270

Hunters, Rogues and Warriors gain 1 ranged Attack Power per point of Agility.

Hunters gain two ranged attack power, not 1, from 1 agi.

Comment by 1935270

At level 60, you need to achieve 440 Defense Rating to avoid being critically hit by level 63 mobs. This requires a fully leveled 300 innate Defense, and an additional 140 Defense Rating from gear. Although you still gain minimal value after 440 Defense, you need at least 440 to be considered a Raid tank.

This is extremely misleading. You don't need to reach the soft defense cap to tank a single boss in vanilla. Not only is it not required but it's typically not ideal either. Stacking gear with +defense, prior to naxx gear at least, will leave you with a lot less of the other stats that you need to tank. At 440 defense in let's say MC or BWL gear you're going to output very little threat and dps will rip aggro in seconds. There's very few bosses in MC through AQ where 440 defense is worth equipping.

Comment by shipwreck

I have a couple of small suggestions. Block "rating", dodge rating, and parry rating do not exist for Classic. If those types of mitigation appear on gear, they appear the same way hit/crit chance and spell hit/crit chance appear on gear. So instead of a block rating heading and so on, I'd suggest using block chance as a heading so there is uniformity with the Weapon Stats and Caster Stats sections.

This is very minor, but defense was never converted to a rating system at any time in WoW's history. It always contributed directly to defense skill until it was removed as a statistic. However, there are quite a few people that refer to it as Defense rating—especially after the TBC pre-patch when ratings were introduced. The same is true for armor, though a lot of people have referred to it as armor class (AC) as a carry-over from table-top games. It's just slightly verbose to add rating in these cases.

Also, I agree with Scyllaxo that hitting the Defense soft/crit cap was not a realistic goal to be ready to tank in raids. Rather than placing such a priority on defense, a tank would be better prepared for raids if he struck a balance between melee mitigation (Stamina, armor, etc), resistance gear (where beneficial), and threat gear (hit chance, crit chance, etc).

Lastly, I want to say thank you for taking the time to write this and for putting all this information in one place.

Comment by sandreid87

Clearly written by someone who had their prime in Wrath of the Lich King:

Armor Penetration: This was already huge in The Burning Crusade - By the end of the expansion, physical DPS could easily reach 800-1000 Armor Penetration in Sunwell Plateau.
Spell Power: That is the name of the stat in Wrath of the Lich King, after it got merged with Spell Healing. However, prior to this the stat was simply known as "Spell Damage".
Dodge and Parry Ratings: There was no "ratings" in WoW prior to Patch 2.0.1. It was simply Dodge % or Parry %. Might want to change that, to avoid confusion.

Comment by Mutantsteak

Warriors benefit the most from Strength.
Warriors gain 1 melee Attack Power per point of Strength.

Might want to edit that

Comment by marth354

It might be worth mentioning that higher stamina can be more useful for Warlocks than other casters thanks to their ability to convert health into mana which is extremely important in Classic.

Comment by Aerolite08

While I do hope that other people can enjoy this re-Vanilla thing, I did not enjoy the old system at all.

It took until Cata for us to dispense with stupid $%^& like hunter ammo and mana, and I see no reason going back.

Comment by Ryecoke

A couple notes, take them or leave them:

Defense gives 0.04% dodge, 0.04% parry, 0.04% block, 0.04% reduced chance to be hit, 0.04% reduced chance to be crit (so +25 is 1% for all) - would be cool to mention that.

Would be nice to have a section about Crushing Blows:
Crushing Blows formula is as follows (for percentage): ((Attacker weapon Skill - Defender defence skill)*2)-15 ... so for level 60 vs a 63 boss, it is 15%.
Defense Rating from gear does not directly reduce crushing blows (it is not calculated in the above formula), though it does help by adding to your avoidance. Crushing blow chance can only be reduced by having enough avoidance (block/dodge/parry/miss) to push them off the attack table.

Comment by Sedlina

Attack speed is multiplicative not additive in classic it turned into additive during TBC when haste rating was normalized.

hunter tests in the beta (not mine) and stress test - tests (mine) have proven that much already
no quiver
2,1
https://imgur.com/uaitmoC

quiver (10%)
Speed = 2,1/1,1
Speed = 1,909
blizzard rounds to 2 behind the comma
Speed = 1,91

https://imgur.com/m5u1Q8g

with quick shots (10%*30%)
Speed = 2,1/(1,1*1,3)
Speed = 1,468
rounded up to 2 behind the comma
Speed = 1,47

https://imgur.com/voLfDOL

If the system were additive then
Speed = 2.1/(1+(0,1+0,3))
Speed = 1,5
which it isn't

same goes for rogues with blade flurry SnD Juju's and so on and so forth by the way.

P.S.: and yes private servers can eat ... the 0,5 sec Auto Shot cast time is also affected by ranged attack speed.

Comment by 1976850

Each point of Weapon Skill provides .04% increase to the following:

Critical Strike
Hit chance

It will also reduce the following on enemy mobs by .04%.

Chance to dodge your attack
Chance to parry your attack
Chance to block your attack

Each point of Weapon Skill EXCEEDS opponent's defense
Coz if def is highter then weap skill there are different formula for hit as example.

Comment by marth354

Druids also gain 2 armor per point of agility, but it is unfortunately not multiplied by the Dire Bear form multiplier as far as I know.

Comment by Spiffyriffic

Fantastic collection of info. Just wanna mention that:
"damage per hp point" reads as "damage per hitpoint point." It's like referring to an ATM machine :P

Comment by Ghyndui

Where on my character can I see my block rating and/or block value?
Generally, in Classic I seem to remember there was a 'box' that laid out my character's defense against melee, ranged, and magic attacks.

Comment by Wardom

Your pets also gain Mana and Spell Critical Strike Chance with Intellect.

I have no idea how this has not been pointed out yet but this statement is incorrect. Warlock pets did not have any of their stats scale alongside the warlocks stats until later expansions. A warlock that takes off all of his intellect gear will see no change in their pets mana pool.

Comment by TripleCow

Innervate is a Restoration Druid talent

It's actually just a regular Druid spell

Comment by Syous

I did some calculation on my character and to me it looks like paladins get 1% spell crit chance every 59.88 intellect points, instead of every 54
(and the base chance before talents is 3.5%)

Comment by AnaseSkyrider

Technically, every class gains Ranged Attack Power from Agility -- not just Warriors (1 per AGI), Rogues (1 per AGI), and Hunters (2 per AGI). It's just that, aside from Hunters, Warriors and Rogues are the only ones who can use ranged weapons.

On my level 13 Human Paladin, wearing no gear with +Agility on it, I had 34 Ranged Attack Power. When a Druid cast Mark of the Wild (rank 2) on me, it added 2 to all my attributes, and it shot up to 38, so it seems to be +2 RAP per AGI on a Paladin. Either that, or Mark of the Wild also adds +2 to Ranged Attack Power on top of the +2 AGI.

Comment by Thaodan

Paladins get 2 AP per Str and 3 AP per Str if talented.

Comment by Syous

I don't know about other classes, but I did some test and on Shaman you get 1 block value every 24 strength, not 20

Comment by SimonM

I have two questions about Spell Damage. If I use Wizard Oil (increases spell damage by up to 24), how do I see the effects? My DPS seems to increase by around 10-12 DPS/Sec. Does the spell damage only impact instant damage spells (like Mind Blast), or does it aid channelled spells (Like Mind Flay)?

Comment by notCherai

The formula presented for damage soaked per hp of damage taken under resistance may be best for some analyses, but in some niche contexts it makes more sense imho to think about the average damage reduction from resistance, which is given by this expression:

(resistance / (5 * caster_level)) * 0.75

The average damage reduction given here is also your chance to fully resist spells with binary effects, such as silences, CC, frostbolt, etc. For most direct damage spells, however, it is only the long run average, as each individual spell will still hit you for some fraction of the full damage. Resistance just governs the probability of you getting a full resist, various partials (1/4, 1/2, 3/4), or no resist at all. See https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Formulas:Magical_resistance for more detail.

Yeah you can figure this out from what's there, but hopefully this saves somebody some time.

Comment by Kiryh

Instead of saying "Dual Wielders need 25% Hit Chance to never miss on every single auto-attack" it might be more accurate to explain that dual wielding adds a 19% miss chance penalty to white auto-attacks.

The base miss chance against a level 63 boss is 8%, so dual wielding results in 27% total miss chance (19+8%) for white auto-attacks. On top of that there's a 1% hit suppression, which means you need to collect 28% hit to never miss with white auto-attacks. However, this suppression can be eliminated by getting higher weapon skill.

The "25% hit cap" figure often quoted assumes the player has +5 weapon skill, which reduces the miss chance or Hit Cap to 6% for bosses. But the key point is that the 19% penalty comes from the dual wield mechanic itself — it’s not a flat 25% requirement for all dual wielders.

Stats and Attributes for WoW Classic

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