Warrior Attributes (Str, Agi, Sta, etc)

[Viracnis]

Whatchu Talkin' about, Viracnis?

There is a lot of question over the Stats/Attributes that a Warrior should focus on when it comes to gear. The problem is, there's not much good information about which stats are most important. What I've done here is compiled a lot of information both from experience, asking questions, and various manuals and guides available online to really deep down and dirty discuss the important warrior Attributes.

Below is the list of the attributes that I will discuss in this portion of this guide, and the role they play in the warrior's arsenal.

In no particular order:

Strength - This attribute impacts a lot in the warrior's life. Every point in strength:
1.) Increases your Attack Power by 2
2.) Increases your Block Power by .07.
Strength also makes you less likely to become victim to a “Crushing” blow and a crit. This is very important to mitigation.

Stamina – This attribute increases your health. In fact, for every 1 point in Stamina you gain 20 health. Health is significant to a warrior, because (except with resistances) magical attacks ignore armor rating.

Agility – This attribute increases your Armor (1 Agi = 2 Arm), Chance to crit (20 agi = 1% to crit), and chance to dodge (20 agi = 1% to dodge).

Spirit – This attribute increases the speed that you regenerate health, as well as increasing the chance for your gear to “proc” (chance on hit, chance when hit). I haven’t been able to find any hard numbers here, and I’ve emailed Blizzard asking them for this information, but they’re slow responding.

Intellect – This attribute increases the speed at which your melee skills improve.

So there you have it. In the next section I'm going to discuss the different Roles that a warrior can play in WoW.

[Viracnis]

What type of warrior are you trying to be? When you are trying to decide which attributes are the most important to you, it's essential to first decide what you want your role to be in the World of Warcraft. The warrior class is not completely hedged into the roll of Main Tank, and many will tell stories of well equipped highly skilled warriors being a real asset in a party, sometimes taking the place of a Rogue (Rogue in Plate) and a terrible threat in PVP. With that in mind, I've organized the important Attributes by Role and use. As a highly gear dependant class, the same warrior might have several sets of gear that he can switch to in order to fill the role of the moment.

The DPS Warrior

Try as they might, warriors cannot completely shuck the stigma of tank. This is primarily because they do it so darned well, even when they aren’t specc’d/geared for it. Even so, a warrior can be a very effective DPS machine, especially at higher levels. This high DPS lends itself well to instance groups where more slice’n’dice is needed. Keep in mind, though, that these warriors will be called on to Off-Tank, so wear your plate.
I’ll let the individual warriors decide what Talent Build they want to go with, while I discuss here the stats that any good DPS warrior should look for.

In order of importance:

Strength – This is #1 by a narrow margin for the DPS warrior. Every point in Strength increases your attack power by 2. And since 14 attack power = 1 DPS, 1 Strength = .14 DPS. Now consider that most high-end warrior gear has, at the very least, 15 strength added to it, that’s over 2 DPS per piece of your high-end gear that you are wearing, which can really add up to a significant increase to your DPS. Also, the decreased chance to fall victim to crushing blows and crits helps in PVP and Off-Tanking situations.

Agility – This one almost beats out Strength for #1. More Crit = Higher DPS. It takes 20 Agility to increase your chance to crit by 1%, so choose your gear wisely. The increase in Armor really helps in Off-Tanking situations as well.

Stamina – For the high-end DPS warrior Stamina is fairly easy to accomplish. Most of the good high-end gear that is going to provide Strength and Agility has a good a stamina boost as well. This will really come into play while Off-Tanking bigger mobs in high-end instances where the healer’s primary focus is going to be the Main Tank.

Spirit – This is only marginally more important than Intellect, as in most situations you’ll have food or a healer to increase your health after a fight. What makes this better is the increased chance to Proc your “Chance on Hit” and “Chance when hit” gear.

Intellect – The only time Intellect is ever important to a Warrior is while grinding weapon skills. Luckily, very little warrior gear provides +int, and those that do will probably be claimed and gobbled up by Paladins (or Shamans) before you even finish your greed roll.

These ideas very much translate over into PVP as well, where the primary goal is to stay alive, while doing as much damage as possible. I've just always referred to DPS warriors in my mind as "Spank Tanks"... it's funnier if you're me.

[Viracnis]

The primary role of a warrior is the Main Tank. As MT, it will fall on the warrior's shoulders to catch and hold threat, take damage and lead the party/raid against the bosses. The biggest part of this is damage mitigation. It is essencial to the Tank's life that he be able to Block, Parry, Dodge and just flat out absorb enough damage that he stays alive long enough to get a heal, without sacrificing attributes necessary to hold the threat off the goo-ey caster types behind him.

With that in mind, the following Attributes are most important to a Tank. In order of importance:

Stamina - Unlike the DPS warrior, the Tank doesn't need a high % to-crit. They just need to stay alive. The more health they have, the better they'll be able to absorb it when damage does manage to get through the heavy tin can they've got strapped over their shoulders.

Strength - This is #2 by a narrow margin. I started to make this #1, but yet here it sits. Strength gives the Tanking warrior a MUCH appreciated bump in their Block. This really cuts down on the Mana it takes to keep your steel-plated ass alive. More than that, though, Strength gives the Tank a boost in DPS that will help hold a bit more threat. That doesn't mean the Tank should be at the top of the damage meters, but threat is threat.

Resistances - These haven't been mentioned before, but they really need to be mentioned here. These are important to all classes, and all types of warriors, but they are ESPECIALLY important to Tanks running End Game content like MC and AQ.

Agility - The armor bonus makes this almost as important as Strength and Stamina for the Tank. The only reason this doesn't replace Strength as #2 is the dodge. Strength increases your block and parry, both of which lead to more rage in defensive stance. Dodging does not generate rage, so it is not as desirable to the Tank. However, dodging is very important to damage mitigation, so Agility is not to be ignored.

Spirit - Like the DPS warrior, the Tank only really needs Spirit for the +proc, and even that isn't significant enough to really be worth investing in +spirit items.

Intellect - By the time you're tanking an instance, you shouldn't be improving your melee skills. Therefore, Intellect is about as useless as Condoms to a eunuch.

Feel free to leave comments. I spent a lot of time researching this, and I crave feedback. Also, if any more experienced end-gamers want to comment on the ideal VALUES of each stat, that would be great. (For example: An end game Tank might want to shoot for +150 sta, etc).

[kyran64]

Nice! I never new that spirit increased proc chance, or that intelligence increased skill grinding. That's bad-arsed!

[Viracnis]

As I understand it, Intillect does not increase all skill grinding, just melee. I'll check on that, though.

[Viracnis]

Just a quick word about Armor to a warrior. I found this on WowWiki and thought it might be useful.

%Reduction = (Armor / (Armor + 400 + 85 * Enemy_Level)) * 100

So that means that at Level 60 fighting Level 60 Mobs with 7400 Armor (my armor rating right now):

Reduction = (7400/(7400 + 400 + 85 * 60)) * 100
Reduction = (7400/(7800 + 5100)) * 100
Reduction = (7400/12900) * 100
Reduction = 57% and change.

That means (for simplification) that when fighting a level 60 mob, 55 points of armor ~ 1% mitigation.

Reduction = (55/(55+ 400 + 85 * 60)) * 100
Reduction = (55/(455 + 5100)) * 100
Reduction = (55/5555) * 100
Reduction = (.0099) * 100
Reduction = .99% ~ 1%

Just thought I'd share, as I found that to be a VERY helpful formula.