Advertisement

WoW Rookie: All you needed to know about stats, part 4

Elizabeth Harper
Updated ·9 min read


In the conclusion to this series of posts, we're going to be discussing the game's defensive stats -- which are probably only of minor importance unless you're interested in tanking. Though if you're one of those people (like me!) who has to know everything about the game, this is interesting information which will explain a lot of things about how damage is handled in World of Warcraft. If you're tuning in to all you needed to know about stats for the first time, it may be worthwhile to go back and read part 1 (covering the five basic attributes), part 2 (covering physical damage stats), and part 3 (covering spell damage stats) first -- but if you can't wait to know all there is to know about defense, resilience, spell resistance, dodge, parry, and block, keep reading!



Defense: Defense is a key stat for tanks, as it provides mitigation to all types of physical damage -- but it's most important for its ability to completely prevent you from being crit by physical attacks. Unpredictable spikes in damage (crits) are what tend to kill tanks -- standard melee strikes can be planned for and healed through. Anyone interesting in seriously tanking instances or raids should attempt to get their defense skill high enough to completely prevent crits.

  • For an attack from a monster of equal level, each point in defense:

  • So for every 25 points of defense, you're 1% more likely to be missed, 1% more likely to dodge, 1% more likely to parry, 1% more likely to block, and 1% less likely to be crit.

  • Defense rating gives you differing amounts of defense skill depending on your level:

  • To prevent any crits, players of different levels need different amounts of defense skill:

  • Several classes have talents that increase their defense:


Resilience: Like defense, resilience reduces your chance to be crit. Unlike defense, resilience also reduces the damage taken by crits. However, since your goal is usually to prevent crits from occurring at all, this latter part seems less important.

  • Each point of resilience reduces your chance to be crit by 1% and reduces crit damage by 2%.

  • So, for damage mitigation why would you ever be interested in resilience over defense (which, you have to admit, with its bonuses to dodge, parry, and block seems the far superior stat!)? For one reason: defense completely prevents you from being crit. With a high enough defense, you can't be crit. With a high enough resilience you can't be crit, either -- however, with resilience, on crit abilities have a small chance to activate on non-crit abilities. Your on-crit abilities will never activate with a high enough defense to prevent crits. (This is not a bug, as recently confirmed by Drysc.)

  • Resilience rating gives you differing amounts of resilience depending on level:


Armor: Armor reduces the amount of all incoming physical damage by a percentage based on the level of the target that's hitting you.

  • The amount of armor you have is calculated based on the following formula:

  • Damage reduction from armor caps out at 75% -- so no matter how high your armor rating is, you'll never mitigate more than 75% of incoming damage.

  • From Satrina on Stormrage, we have this table of how much armor gives you how much mitigation from various level attackers. (Check out Satrina's mitigation page for specific formulas on calculating armor mitigation.)

  • For level 70 attackers...

  • For level 73 attackers...

  • Several classes have talents that increase their armor:


Arcane/fire/frost/nature/shadow resistance: This is your chance to completely resist (i.e. take no damage from) or take less damage from spells of specific schools of magic.

  • As with armor damage mitigation, the maximum damage you can mitigate via resistance is 75%.

  • The maximum magical resistance you need against a monster can be determined by its level x 5.


Dodge: Another method of avoiding damage -- your chance to dodge an attack.

  • Ranged physical attacks cannot be dodged.

  • At level 70, 18.9 dodge rating grants 1% dodge.

  • Night Elves get a racial bonus of +1% dodge.

  • Several classes have talents that increase their dodge chance:


Parry: Another method of avoiding damage -- your chance to parry an attack.

  • Not all classes can parry, only Warriors, Paladins, Hunters, Rogues, and Shamans (with talents).

  • Your chance to parry can be calculated as follows:

  • You get differing amounts of parry per parry rating depending on your level:

  • A successful parry turns your next normal attack into a counterattack that is sped up by as much as 50%. However, testing has determined no discernable pattern to the exact speed increase. (More data can be found on WoWWiki.)

  • Several classes have talents that increase their parry chance:


Block: If you have a shield equipped, you have a chance to block attacks with it.

  • Your chance to block attacks can be calculated as follows (I know, it looks suspiciously similar to the way parry is calculated, doesn't it?):

  • A blocked attack doesn't mean you take zero damage! Instead, you take full attack damage minus the amount you're able to block, as determined by the following calculation:

  • You get differing amounts of block per block rating depending on your level:

  • Several classes have talents that increase their chance to block:

  • Several classes have talents that increase the amount of damage blocked by a shield: