Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Shadow Priest Kindergarten - Stats

Alright, class, our subject for today will be stats. What are they? What do they do? Which stats should we, as shadow priests, look for first?


Here we have our baby priest. She can't be shadow yet, because all she has are holy spells. That's ok, it still gives is some insight into what stats to start for from day one.


Our baby has 20 of everything it seems, with a small bonus to Intellect and Spirit. Intellect gives a priest 15 mana per point, and a small amount of critical spell bonus. Spirit gives a small amount of health and mana regeneration. Stamina gives 10 health points per point. Agility and Strength are melee stats, and generally not useful to a priest. After reading that little bit, I have determined that, for now, I will want to pick up gear with Intellect, Stamina, and Spirit, with the emphasis on importance being in that order, to start. As you get higher in level, it pays to stack Intellect and Spirit as evenly as possible, and add the Stamina when it doesn't interfere too much.

As we level, some other stats will show up on our gear choices. Spell Power grants a bonus to damage and healing spells. Critical Strike Rating will increase our chance to get a critical hit. Haste will speed up our spell casting. The first of those three is easy to understand. An item with +20 spell power will give us 20 more damage and healing. Critical Strike Rating is a little different. All the bonus points your armor gives to critical strike do not just add in. Take that number, divide by 45.91(at level 80), and that will tell you what percent of crit rating your gear gives you, before figuring in the bonus from Intellect. As for Haste Rating, 32.79 points of haste give you 1% faster casting. For what fun this is causing with my global cooldown, I would rather go for crit rating instead. So, of the three stats, spell power, then crit rating, then haste, in that order. If your spell power is pretty high, you can reverse the first two, and work toward a better crit rating.

One stat I forgot to mention is Hit Rating. Hit Rating starts to be important around level 70. This helps you keep from missing with spells when attacking mobs from 3 levels below you to 3 levels above you. You will normally have 4% chance to miss a spell cast at a mob your level. In order to get rid of that 4% miss rate, a level 70 would need about 52 hit rating. But that only works for mobs at the same level. Most raid bosses are 3 levels above the cap of that zone (for example, Netherspite in Karazhan is a level 73 mob). In order to ensure that you would not miss on a level 73 mob, you would need 215 points of hit rating. At 80, the number, before talents, to shoot for is 446.

There you have them. Stats, and how they affect a priest. Next article will be on talent trees, and how to best spend your points. This will be, in part, an opinion piece, as I am sure how I spend my points may not be how most would spend their points. Stay tuned!

Thanks to WoWWiki and Shadowpriest.com for their insight into what stat is worth what. For a little help in game, try the add-on Rating Buster!

2 comments:

Friday Macfay said...

Thanks for this. :) I've been meaning to start looking up stats for mah Preist, instead of just wearing what looks pretty. :D (Course that's incredibly difficult mini-game in itself when powering through outland. gah!)

What about mana regeneration? What little I've read seems to make it important for higher level stuff, so getting curious about that as she approaches 70.

Thanks again for the great lesson! :D

-Fri

ShawndraKai said...

Hey Friday! Mana regeneration for a leveling shadow priest is mostly tied into Spirit Tap, Imp Spirit Tap, and Vampiric Touch. I'll explain that in my next post that I'm supposed to be working on right now. Keep stacking Intellect and Spirit, and you should have no problems. Mp5 is meh, as it doesn't give you anything but that.