The Great Stat Enigma

I hate math so much, it was by far my least favorite subject in school. It’s so bad that I actually hate to see numbers, they annoy me. So when it comes to stats for my lock, I just like to hear what the “experts say” and just do what they tell me Personally, as I’m sure you know already, I prefer the good ol’ days, much more simpler back then. Now I have to worry about how much dps I am sacrificing for my crit, And on top of that I have to keep my hit up… then I learn that haste adds more dps than crit in both pve and pvp… this I had to check out myself. Turns out it is mostly true.. so I thought I would pass on my knowledge of which stats to pick up if you are having problems, which gems to grab, enchantments etc… It’s a mathy world out there and I hate it. Another Warning.. this post is really really really long and annoying, turn back ye lightweights!

First off, the PvE stats we care about are Spirit, Haste, Hit, Spell Power, and Crit. For PvP we use, Stamina, Spirit, Hit, Spell Power, Crit, Spell Penetration and resilience. We shouldn’t ever add Intellect to our gear, usually there is enough on there, and by no means should we ever use an item that has MP5. Since the importance of stats vary between play styles, it is absolutely necessary that you have 2 sets of gear, one for PvE and for PvP. This is normally a no brainer for anyone that plays this game, however I felt like including it for any of the new players out there.

Hit

In PvE, your first stat priority is Hit, this took me a while to understand, because I’m still a very stubborn old school warlock. To make this simple without using math, when burning crusade was launched, they added a chance to miss with spells (similar to how melee missed). So basically to make up for this change we have to add hit to our gear. If you have 17% hit (446) then you can never miss with you spells against even the highest bosses, and is the most important thing for doing the most damage as a caster. Trust me on this, I was the last warlock on the hit bandwagon once the change came in, and when I finally chose to worry about it, my dps shot up ten-fold. You don’t have to stress gearing for that much hit, there are other spells and talents that modify it as well, some warlocks get their hit to 14% (367) and put points in Suppression (+3% Hit). This effectively is a trade in talents for stats, and allows you to put more offensive stats on your gear if you have a few extra points in your build. Again this isn’t the only ability that modifies hit. In a raiding environment, Shadow Priests and Moonkins have debuffs that lowers the target’s susceptibility to being hit by 3%. So if you wanted to always count on that, you could leave your hit at about 11% (289) and allow your hit to be raised by your talents, and their spells, which leaves you even MORE room to add offensive stats to your gear. It is also important that you keep in mind that there are 3 races in this game that have a passive ability to be hit less by us, and need to be considered:

Drenei: Shadow Resistance
Forsaken: Shadow Resistance
Blood Elf: Magic Resistance

So really, how much hit you keep on your gear is up to you, as long as it is your first priority. In PvP hit is less important, but still a factor. Usually a small percentage of hit is enough to carry you through pvp, I recommend at least 6% (157). One way to get your hit there while wearing PvP gear, is to grab the Ascendancy Offset pieces.

Enchants and Gems for Hit:
Hit’s Gem color is Yellow, Orange, or Green.
Best Hit Gem (Jewlcrafters Only): Rigid Dragon’s Eye
Second Best Hit Gem: Rigid King’s Amber
Rare Hit Gem: Rigid Autumn’s Glow
Orange Hit/SP Gem: Veiled Ametrine
Rare Orange Hit/SP Gem : Veiled Monarch Topaz
Hit/Spirit Green Gem: Shinning Eye of Zul
Hit/Spell Pen Green Gem: Tense Eye of Zul
Hit/Stam Green Gem: Vivid Eye of Zul
Hit Enchant for Gloves: Enchant Gloves – Precision
Hit Enchant for Boots: Enchant Boots – Icewalker

If you are struggling to reach the hit cap with gear, push for it in Suppression and put a hit gem in each available slot, including red slots, use the orange Gems. Only use Green ones in your blue slots if you have no other choice. If you need help watching your gems, grab the addon Gem Watch, it’s included in my UI Suite.

Spell Power

Spell Power is very important in both PvE and PvP, luckily this stat is rather straight forward, the more of this you have more damage you deal with your spells. Some people say Spell Power is less important than haste or crit, and that you need to make sure those stats are taken care of first, I tend to disagree. I like to stack as much SP as I can before worrying about haste or crit.

Enchants and Gems for Spell Power:
SP Gem colors are Red Orange and Purple
Best SP Gem (Jewelcrafters Only): Runed Dragon’s Eye
Second Best SP Gem: Runed Cardinal Ruby
Fishing SP Gem: Runed Stormjewel
SP / Resilience Orange Gem: Durable Ametrine
SP / Crit Orange Gem: Potent Ametrine
SP / Haste Orange Gem: Reckless Ametrine
SP / Hit Orange Gem: Veiled Ametrine
SP / Stamina Purple Gem: Glowing Dreadstone
SP / Spell Pen Purple Gem: Mysterious Dreadstone
Sp / Spirit Purple Gem: Purified Dreadstone
Cloak Enchant (Tailoring Only): Lightweave Embroidery
Ring Enchant (Enchanters Only): Enchant Ring – Greater Spellpower
Staff Enchant: Enchant Staff – Greater Spellpower
Staff Enchant : Enchant Staff – Spellpower
Bracers Enchant: Enchant Bracers – Greater Spellpower
Bracers Enchant: Enchant Bracers -
Weapon (1H Enchant): Enchant Weapon – Mighty Spellpower
Gloves Enchant: Enchant Gloves – Exceptional Spellpower

There are some other spellpower enchants, but they are much lower quality, and considering the large influx of enchanting mats since the new dungeon system and disenchant system, mats should be affordable for even the poor player.

Spell Penetration

Spell Penetration is a PvP only stat, you shouldn’t ever stack Spell Penetration on any of your PvE gear, luckily its a stat only boosted with gems or enchants, so you don’t need to worry about it when itemizing your gear. Spell penetration is important because for each point of it, you reduce your target’s resistances to all schools by 1. I recommend trying to get at least 80 Spell Pen, that’s my personal sweet spot as, its a decent amount and will only take 2 gem slots and a cloak enchant. If you really want to be super efficient with it you can try for 130 as it will eat through any class’s  resistances except for mage’s. Though to reach that amount, you need to practically give up all available gem slots for it. Spell pen can be difficult to stack without really sucking up your other stats, so be smart and find the right amount for you.

Enchants and Gems for Spell Penetration:
Spell Pen Gem colors are Blue
Best Spell Pen Gem (Jewelcrafters Only): Stormy Dragon’s Eye
Second Best Spell Pen Gem: Stormy Majestic Zircon
Rare Spell Pen Gem: Stormy Sky Sapphire
Cloak Enchant: Enchant Cloak – Spell Piercing

Considering how Difficult it is to get Spell Pen, I suggest getting the best gems possible, as well as the Spell Piercing enchantment.

Haste

Haste is a mis-understood stat it seems, there has been much debate on forums as to how important haste is, and even currently with all the math there are still discrepancies. Until recently, my understanding of haste was that it was a stat that that was to be stacked after ALL my other stats have been taken care of. Essentially the more haste you have, the faster you cast things, and the smaller the global cooldown is. At the time, a few marginal milliseconds didn’t mean much to me in comparison to extra spell damage or a huge crit amped by Ruin. Turns out that haste is just a better stat all around for any and all specs, point for point it is more valuable and more damaging than spell power and crit, which really took me by surprise. I don’t want to get into the math, seriously I don’t it is a mind effer, just take my word on it, stack haste, there is usually is enough crit on most of your gear, or added to you through talents to take care of you, this applies to both PvE and PvP gear sets.

Enchants and Gems for Haste:
Haste Gem Color is Yellow, Orange and Green
Best Haste Gem (Jewelcrafters Only): Quick Dragon’s Eye
Second Best Haste Gem: Quick King’s Amber
Rare Haste Gem: Quick Autumn’s Glow
Haste / SP Orange Gem: Reckless Ametrine
Haste / Stam Green Gem: Forceful Eye of Zul
Haste / Spirit Green Gem: Intricate Eye of Zul
Haste / Spell Pen Gem: Shattered Eye of Zul
Cloak Enchant: Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed
Enchant
Enchant

Stamina

In PvE, Stamina holds the least weight in itemization, which means, you shouldn’t trade any piece of gear based on the stamina amounts, and therefore shouldn’t gem or enchant your gear with stamina unless you don’t have a choice.  There are a few enchantments where this is the case

Enchant Bracers – Major Stamina
Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats
Enchant Boots – Tuskar Vitality

Even in PvP, the same rules apply, enchant only with stamina when no other choice and  only trade a blue socket for stamina if you are maxed on spell Pen. If this is the case, you can grab one of the following stamina gems:

Best Stam Gem (Jewelcrafters Only): Solid Dragon’s Eye
Second Best Stam Gem: Solid Majestic Zircon
Fishing Gem: Solid Stormjewel
Stam / Haste Green Gem: Forceful Eye of Zul
Stam / SP Purple Gem: Glowing Dreadstone
Stam / Crit Green Gem: Jagged Eye of Zul
Stam / Resil Green Gem: Steady Eye of Zul
Stam / Hit Purple Gem: Vivid Eye of Zul

Critical Strike

If you know what you are doing, and Prefer crit for PvP (I’m still partial to it) Then replace haste for crit. Its the same gem color, and to me, seems like the stat that would effect the outcome of a fight more than Haste does (Even though haste might be better overall dps wise). Only gem and gear out for crit if you understand the pros and cons of haste and crit, otherwise, the safest bet is to use haste.

Enchants and Gems for Crit:
Crit Gem Color is Yellow, Orange and Green
Best Crit Gem (Jewelcrafters Only): Smooth Dragon’s Eye
Second Best Haste Gem: Smooth King’s Amber
Crit / SP Orange Gem: Potent Ametrine
Crit / Stam Green Gem: Jagged Eye of Zul
Crit / Spirit Green Gem: Misty Eye of Zul
Crit / Spell Pen Green Gem: Radiant Eye of Zul
Gloves Enchant: Enchant Gloves – Greater Blasting

Resilience

Resilience is the most necessary stat in PvP, while also being the easiest stat to really manage. In a nut shell it does what it sounds like it does, makes you more resilient. Alright alright maybe a little math wouldn’t hurt. For every 1% of resilience, you in effect, reduce the chance to be critically hit by 1%, and when you ARE crit it reduces the damage the crit deals by 2.2%. On top of that each 1% of resilience reduces damage done to you by 1% and blocks mana drains by 2.2% Like they say “Resilience will fix it” It comes with all the PvP gear that you can purchase with you honor points, all the off-set pieces give you choices of which stats you want to use in correlation with resilience. Each piece has a specific suffix that refers to which stat is boosts, the list is as follows:

of Ascendancy: Hit
of Deliverance: Spell Power and Spirit
of Salvation: Spell Power and Spirit, on occasion MP5
of Subjugation: Haste
of Dominance: Spell Power and Crit
of Alacrity: Spell Power and Haste

Engineering

There are a few things Engineers contribute that add to us but aren’t necessarily stats. They are as follows..

Gloves Tinker (Engineers Only): Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket
Gloves Tinker (Engineers Only): Hyperspeed Accelerators
Boots Tinker (Engineers Only): Nitro Boosts
Cloak Tinker (Engineers Only): Springy Arachnoweave

The first 2 Glove enchantments indirectly increase dps, the accelerators do more overall dps, while the Pyro Rocket is obviously better for burst. I use the rockets in PvP and I use an enchantment for PvE. The reason I included the boots and parachute is I want to address what you are losing if you use them. First off the boots can’t be used in arenas, so if you wanted to use them in Bgs but also do arena, either you have to sacrifice something, or keep 2 sets. The parachute is in the same boat, it can’t be used in arena, and wouldn’t have much of an effect if it could be used. Also you would lose the strength of the Spell Piercing enchantment, the situation is similar to the boots. If you aren’t sure what to do, skip them and use enchantments.

Wrap Up

Spirit, Intellect and are stats that you should worry the least about, they usually come with the gear that you wear, and only under special circumstances should you focus on geming them. Haste pulls more weight that spirit over all, so if you have to make that choice take haste. However in a case where you need to chose between spirit and crit, grab spirit for PvE and Crit for PvP. I hate spirit but it holds more weight in PvE than crit, as it boosts your Fel Armor, Glyph of Lifetap (A must have for PvE) and your over all spell power and mana regen

Another good tip is using trinkets to make up for stats that you need, for instance maybe you are lacking spellpower due to all the stacking of hit and spell pen. That means you should try and find a trinket that boosts your spellpower either temporarily or passively etc.

So in summary, Get your hit capped, its the most important thing, 11%+ for PvE 6%+ for PvP. Haste is a powerful tool, don’t neglect it. Spell Power is important, fill it everywhere you can as it comes in as the third most important stat. Spell Pen is PvP only, get as much as you can, but trust me its a gem slot whore. Don’t worry about stamina too much, upgrade it when you have nothing else better to upgrade. Use crit only if you know how to use it. Resilience usually work is synergy with all of your other stats, it comes in time, don’t stress about it. Ignore Intellect. Spirit Trumps Crit in PvE but Haste Trumps Spirit. Trinkets act as band-aids.

Again this post was way too long and took much more work than I expected… at this point I might just dip my hands in acid to give myself a real excuse to hold off on all the typing. If you haven’t already, check out my 3.3 gear guide here. Hope you guys enjoyed the post, and I sincerely hope that players of all /played time took something away from this post. If I have written anything in error, missed something or if you know something I don’t, please let me know and I will add it to the guide. Love the comments guys keep em up, and let me know what you think.

Peace
~Aphroditi