What is the primary stat for each class?

[ArmageddalCake]

So lately, especially on the very interesting thread about what is and isn't ninja looting there has been a lot of talk about the primary stats for each class. Now, I'm not a particularly hardcore player, but I still think it would be good to know which stats are more important for which class, I mean, obviously warrior is strength and what not, but some specifics would be nice, especially since I'm moving into higher level instances and don't want to get confused and roll on the wrong things and get stoned. So if someone could post something definitive, that'd be wonderful.
Thanks
Rinomil, 47 Tauren Shaman

[Web Blaster]

Rouge: Agility

Mage: Inteligence

Warrior: Stamina or Strengh

Warlock: Inteligence

Paladin: Stamina

Druid: Any stat

Shaman: Stamina or Inteligence

Sorry my English is not so good.

[Gaza0469]

Rouge: Agility

Mage: Inteligence

Warrior: Stamina or Strengh

Warlock: Inteligence

Paladin: Stamina

Druid: Any stat

Shaman: Stamina or Inteligence

Sorry my English is not so good.



Priest - Spirit ( although most of us go Int all the way)

Druid - Agility ( for tanking ) or Int / Spirit ( for restoration)

Hunter - Agility

Crit Warriors - Agility / Strength / Stamina

Def Warriors - Stamina / Strength

Some warlock builds favour stamina ( hence dreadmist being high in stamina)

[Aknotica]

First i have to say I havent played all classes yet, but it seems these are the mostly used stats.. Also this depends alot on player style.. example: Druids can choose to focus on melee talents, and theirfore need other stats than a caster druid. But here is my view on things.

Mage: INT/SPI/STA - Default mage -

Warrior: STR/STA/AGI - Default warrior -

Warlock: STA/INT/SPI - Default Warlock -

Paladin: STA/STR/INT - Default Pally -

Druid: INT/STA/AGI - Restoration/Caster Druid -

Shaman: AGI/INT/STA - Enchantment/Melee Shammy -

Hunter: AGI/STR/INT - Default Hunter -

Priest: INT/SPI/STA - Default Priest -

Rogue: AGI/STR/STA - Default Rogue -

[Havoc Jack]

If you're a druid, I wouldn't suggest putting much into agility. At least until 1.7 hits us, Agility doesn't affect damage at all, just crit chance, dodge chance.

In general I go Intellect Spirit Stamina with my druid, mostly for casting. For feral forms, I go Stamina then Strength, with an eye out for high armor leather items.

[EdvinMedvind]

Hunter: AGI/STR/INT - Default Hunter -

Strenght is a pretty useless stat for hunters. It only adds to melee AP whereas agi adds to both ranged and melee AP. Whether to go for int, spi or sta after agility can be debated.

[Trooogdooor]

so true and I think shaman can do quite well with + to str items cuz unless windfury procs you've got really crappy base dmg.... like my 42 troll shaman has 212 attack power but she's got 160 agil and 152 spi and 149 stamina....int is at like 80.. so yeah unless your getting mad crits and windfury procs you will always be out-damaged by a shock shaman

[TragicMagic]

Just thought I would add something, for my warrior's tanking gear the stat priority goes like this:

DEF 1st, most important stat for a tank.
STA 2nd, more life = no brainer.
STR/AGI I give equal consideration 3rd, and try to keep a good amount of both when I can. STR = more DMG blocked when I block, and more DPS which helps hold aggro. AGI = more chance to dodge, and more chance to crit. which helps hold aggro.

Finally, if you have your eyes on the end game content, you will want to collect +Fire Resist gear, you will be running into a lot of fire.

[Tunga]

As a Paladin I try to keep my Intelligence high and consider it almost as important as Stamina. If I have half a bar of mana left then there's a good chance I can heal / shield / survive in some way. Since mana is worth approx. twice as many hitpoints in heals, I'd rather take 300 extra mana than 300 extra hitpoints. By the same principle, I often drink a Mana Pot when I'm about to die and not a Heal Pot. If i'm about to die then that measn I haven't been able to heal, and that means I have no mana. A Mana pot can give me a better chance to survive since it has multiple uses, whereas a Heal Pot is just another few seconds of life before you die and you have no mana to do anything about it.

Of course there are exceptions to this, but it's a general idea.

[Kashin]

Playing a tauren shaman, lvl 42 atm, and have something to add here I believe. Noone of you have mentioned Spirit as a shaman attribute, which I believe to be one of the shamans best adds. As we cannot create water as the mage, we ofter burn alot mana refilling items if heavily using magic. Some might argue that shamans are not suppose to be focused totally on magic, but I tend to use magic to much extent i every fight, be it to heal, shock or use totems even though I go into melee... so intelligence is the way to go, ya say? Sure, intel is good to get up the magic part and increase your learning of skills, but still it just increasing the mana pool and thus ya require even more to refill it without other than the potions/items ya can find or buy (Never do)... Anyway, this is how I would rank the shamans abilities:

1) Stamina: Health is always the primary thing to survive whether your tanking or supporting, though shamans are not suppose to be main tank...
2) Spirit: The faster ya regain mana/health, the faster you can proceed with yer questing/lvling/killing...
3) Intel: Big mana pool combined with fast regain -> lesser resting required...
4) Str/Agi: Good for damage/surviving...

I put stamina first, but could have just as well put Spirit first. I have been tanking, support casting and major healing in parties without much trouble... gotta love the shaman class... :happy14:

[rubbrhead]

I'd just like to point out that warlocks favour stamina over any other stat, and speaking from personal experience, that applies over all 3 builds.
I have yet to meet a warlock who favours int in any way.
We will gimp our stats in favour if +dmg items, but anything without
stamina is usually passed off to mages or priests.
Warlocks have life-tap, that drains our life, and replaces mana, so int
is virtually useless (well, a high int pool anyway, you need 'some' int)
I agree with this order...
1 Stam, 2 Int, 3 Spirit
I did however once meet a warlock who had collected lots of +healing items
under the assumption that his Drain Life spell would give him more life back.
Wrong.
He changed his gear soon after

[Valsheru]

If this is in regards to loot, it really depends on how the person specced their class. I'll give an example.

Warrior (the class I mainly play)

MS war
Crit>AGI>STR=AP>Stam

Fury dw war
Hit>Crit>Agi>AP=Str>Stam

Prot War
Defense>Armor=Stam>Str>Parry=Block=Dodge>Agility

As you can tell, the stats a person looks for on gear depends on his spec. You won't find an MS war looking for defense, or a prot war looking for critical. It's counter productive to your spec. Same thing applies for priests(holy,shadow), Druids (feral, Heal), Paladin (Retribution, holy), etc...

(importance of stats is obviously ranked based upon opinion)

[chelate]

Here's how I do my chars and maybe a quick explanation if necessary

Rogue: Agility primary, stamina secondary
Agi is of course our damage, stamina is to make up for the lack of armor

Mage: Intelligence primary, stamina secondary
Mages burn mana like no other class, int gives more crit, stam is in case a frost nova fails

Priest: Spirit primary, stamina secondary
Simply its a grinder build. Spirit reduces downtime between kills, stamina reduces any need to really heal myself

Warrior: Stam/Agility primary, strength secondary
If possible I would have an absolute ton of agility, nearly as much agility, and as much strength on that, that i can stack. My warrior is 1x2h build and agility is absolutly necessary to hit more and most of all, get more crits. The more crits I get, the more damage I do, and when I can do 150% the damage, that's a lot of other strength I'd have to go with instead, and even then, I get bonuses from crits happening (flurry, deep wounds, etc). For 2h I can see agi becoming secondary.

Paladin: Strength/Stamina primary, agility secondary
Sort of the opposite here I guess. My paladin is 1h + shield, he's pretty much a rock. I can equip a 2h and cause all kinds of problems for an enemy yet still be very hard to kill. Agility is still worth mentioning because crits just rule, IMO. Intelligence is pretty much ignored, because while I do have to usually stop and get mana much more often than my health, it's not worth losing a slot. Guess I could try for a bit more spirit through enchants, but I've only recently started playing my paladin after ignoring him for over a month.


/edit: it's worth noting that on my paladin or warrior, i will NEVER accept a hunter getting a good melee weapon over me. Ever. If I dont need it, then they can have it, but if a hunter ever hit Need on a weapon I did too, I would either kick him out of the group myself, or I would leave myself. Hunters have extremly usable ranged attacks and neither of those classes do, hell paladins have NO ranged at all :p Melee is moot to them. And if you're a hunter and you disagree, would you like a warrior to hit Need on a ranged you were Needing on?

[hintsofhints]

I don't understand how you can consider STA to be the most important stat for a paladin. How can it be most important to have a lot of HP when you can heal yourself ??
So 50 sta is 500hp. But 50 agi is 100 AC, and increased dodge ! Not to mention increased chance to crit... I'm sure that comes close to preventing the loss of 500 hp in a fight, and if not, that's just one heal, and it is that much easier to cast if you get hit less often. I get full use from my healing potions, they'll let me take on that extra add !
What I am trying to determine, is what is most useful between AGI, INT, and STR. Do I want STR, to crit harder, and do more damage overall, or do I want AGI, to crit more often, and in general be harder to hit ? What about INT, do I want my nukes to be less resisted and crit more often, do I want to be able to heal more often while solo and in a group ?
Lately I've been going STR/INT, but I keep forgetting about the +AC thing from AGI, so maybe I'll switch to AGI/INT instead...
Or do I want AGI/STR ? Arg...
But definitely not STA !

[hintsofhints]

By the way, when I got the buff from the seer of the Darkmoon Faire, and she improved my "primary stat", it was AGI which got raised 10%...

[hintsofhints]

By the way, when I got the buff from the seer of the Darkmoon Faire, and she improved my "primary stat", it was AGI which got raised 10%...
Never mind, I guess it depends on what questions you answer.

[CreslinHellscream]

Spirit isnt all that great for Shamans because we dont have any mana regen talents/gear abilities to give us a bonus to regen while casting. So.. Mp per 5 sec is nicer than spirit for Shamans imo, at least it seems to have more effect for longer fights. Probably not so good for grinding, but then for grinding as a shaman its always going to be pants. I would stock up on as much agi/str/int as possible for a leveling shaman and just melee stuff down and heal as needed, not using your mana for fighting cuz it will slow you down. Thats how I got to 60 anyway.

[Rami]

Stamina for warlock, definitely...life tap, so life = mana literally. After that maybe int for the mana pool, then +dmg.

[Hot Rats]

I am less sure about a Warlock's STA needing to be greater than INT.

Consider that Life Tap (LT) is just one choice of many available to you via your Action bar (e.g., another choice would be to attack). Consider that LT has a global cooldown. Consider that if you must convert STA to INT (via LT), then perhaps it would have been better to have that INT in the first place.

For Warlocks who favor the use of a Voidwalker (VW) to tank, perhaps more INT would be best (overall). For Warlocks who favor the use of a Succubus (or other DPS-centric minions, such as the Imp, which cannot tank), perhaps more STA is best. Whenver I hit LT (and this happens frequently:), I know that I am thinking "I don't have enough INT and this LT will make me more vulnerable to Adds".

There was a time when of of my Warlocks (at level ~20+) picked up its first Blue/rare itme, an Arcane damage wand. That wand caused more damage per second per mob than my afflication spells (more accurately, this is hard to quantify, because the rate of damage increases over time for some afflictions). I thus (at that time) frequently tanked with the VW, wore a lower-than-normal lvl bracer with a +5 Arcane Damage, and I rarely used LT or even that much INT, in which case INT + SPI (the "of the Owl" series of armor) worked best for me (at that time).

I think identifying the "primary" stat must depend upon what you discover is lacking (in your opinion) when grinding through levels (if that is your style of play), going through Dungeons in a group (if that is your style of play), or any other way you choose to play.

Chosen Talents also impact a need for any given "primary" stat. While I am sure there are some "complex" formulas that could matematically prove which "primary" stat would be best for a given set of Talents, I think the better response to the INT versus STA debate (for a Warlock) is "whatever trips your trigger" :).

[mtgap]

Hunters. People say hunters need stamina. They dont. In tier 5 or something Blizzard finally came to their senses and gave it more intellect than stamina.

Hunters agility 35% stamina 20% intellect 25% spirit 10 to 15%strength 5%

[mtgap]

/edit: it's worth noting that on my paladin or warrior, i will NEVER accept a hunter getting a good melee weapon over me. Ever. If I dont need it, then they can have it, but if a hunter ever hit Need on a weapon I did too, I would either kick him out of the group myself, or I would leave myself. Hunters have extremly usable ranged attacks and neither of those classes do, hell paladins have NO ranged at all :p Melee is moot to them. And if you're a hunter and you disagree, would you like a warrior to hit Need on a ranged you were Needing on?

Thats funny, because just yesterday I was in an instance with some friends when a great gun dropped. The warrior said (sorry, quotes dont work on this computer) Thats way better than the gun I have! (we were on Vent)

So I just shouted at him
DONT GET IT IM A HUNTER ITS MY !@#$ING WEAPON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!