intellect
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Warlords of Draenor: Attack and Spell power changes
One of the changes the Warlords of Draenor alpha patch notes mentions is a pretty large change to how our primary stats work and interact with critical strike and attack or spell power (depending on which you care about). It can be broken down as follows - first, agility and intellect no longer increase physical and spell critical strike chances respectively. In addition, there no longer is any such thing as spell critical strike chance, ranged chance, or melee chance, merely critical strike chance that applies to all three. Since this is no longer affected by primary stats, it's set at a base 5% chance before gear. (Among other things this removes the last tiny vestiges of any use for agility for strength classes.) Next, agility based class gain a new passive ability called Critical Strikes which increases base critical strike chance by 10%, likely to compensate for all the crit they lose from agility. Those of us who never got crit from our primary stat (strength DPS) are left wondering where our free 10% crit is. Next, how primary stats react with attack or spell power has also been changed. Attack power from Agility or Strength has been halved - each point of Agi or Str only gives 1 AP, down from the 2 it gains currently. In addition, weapon damage has been reduced by 20% across the board. This is because Attack Power now contributes more significantly to weapon damage - 1 DPS per 3.5 AP, which is a pretty significant increase from the current 1 DPS per 14 AP. Finally, weapon damage and attack and/or spell power now contributes to the entire throughput of player spells - if you're a healer, your weapon damage and spell power will much more directly contribute to the strength of your heals, and casters will see a similar benefit from their weapons. Weapons have just become far more important for many players, if not all. To read this section of the patch notes in their entirety, just click on through to the other side.
Stats 101: Your character's resources and attributes
If you've been around the game for a while, you know World of Warcraft's system of resources and attributes so well that it seems like it needs no explanation. However, for players diving into their first MMO or even just switching classes, the basics of WoW's resources and stats -- otherwise known as the jumble of numbers listed on your character sheet (just hit "c" to see what we're talking about) -- may as well be a foreign language. So if you're trying to get started and you're a little lost as to what all of these numbers mean, how they affect your game, and the kind of gear you should equip to play your best, this guide is for you. Read on and we'll walk you through the numbers in plain English.
Blood Pact: Catching up on Patch 5.3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is free to pet battle all day, e'ry day. I tried to gauge when Patch 5.3 would hit so that I'd end the series on World of Logs just in time, but unfortunately I overestimated and the new patch has cut me off. With my original plan of posts, I'd be a week short, but now...uhhhh it might be a halftime break. In case you've missed the World of Logs posts so far, here's a recap: A brief overview of ranking and the combo of how to tell what warlock or pet you would or should be looking at, Looking closer at some of the graphs on World of Logs, and How to use the buffs and debuffs graph to gauge proper cooldown or proc usage, as well as a basic understanding of what stats (for trinket procs) do for each spec. I intend to explore some warlock-specific examples using the expression editor to dive deep into the combat log, but I'm not sure I can fit it all into one post. I'll finish the series off with a deeper look at the damage done tables and how the spells spread for each spec in general raid encounter styles. But this week? This week is a little shorter and lighter while we go over what Patch 5.3 means for warlocks.
Blood Pact: Buffs and debuffs for warlocks and logs
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is almost free for summer. Almost. The last two weeks have been on simple topics like glancing at a raid parse on World of Logs (WoL) or looking at the various graphs WoL has. Before we dive into the actual combat log itself with the expression editor, I'm going to take a stop at what buffs and debuffs are going on in the fight. This information is still broad in scope and can apply to almost anyone, but it's still important foundation knowledge for warlocks and logs.
Arcane Brilliance: Mists of Pandaria mage guide to stats and reforging
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we talk about how awesome mages are. But did you know that you can make your mage even better? I know! It's like chocolate-covered chocolate. Or a cheesecake that also grants you three wishes. Or an Avengers movie that is also directed by Joss Whedon. Or a warlock that is also dead. With just over a week of this pre-expansion/post-patch limbo to go, it's high time we covered one last piece of patch 5.0.4 mage business before we turn our eyes almost exclusively toward the impending influx of pandaren and monks and ... pandaren monks. But good news! Most, if not all, of what we discuss here today will also apply in Mists. Though there are always small shifts in stat weight at endgame, we're still quite far removed from knowing exactly how things will shake out when we're all doing hard mode raiding. This expansion brings some major changes to our stats, radically altering the benefits they do and don't provide. Before we get to each spec and its stat weights, let's look at each stat and familiarize ourselves with its Mists of Pandaria version.
Raid Rx: The outlook for holy paladins in Mists of Pandaria
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. You know, after reading through and playing around with a holy paladin on the Mists of Pandaria beta, it looks like paladins didn't get a ton groundbreaking class changes. In a way, though, that's a good thing! You still get to keep the same style of play, except you have a few new spells and abilities to really augment your healing even further. You don't even have to learn any new playstyles. If you're an awesome healer now, then you should have no problems moving into the next expansion at all. The additional AoE helpers are a bonus. Even though Holy Radiance is awesome, it'd be nice to have a few other AoE healing spells for a change.
The Light and How to Swing It: How to compare intellect and spirit in Mists of Pandaria
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome. With Mists of Pandaria coming up on the horizon, many holy paladins are looking ahead to the changes that the expansion will bring. Most of the talent and ability info is still very malleable at this point, and as such, I haven't begun to worry or get excited just yet. One thing that we do know is that in Mists, intellect will finish the transformation that it started in Cataclysm. Intellect is going to become a throughput-only stat, as it will stop increasing our maximum mana. Today, intellect and longevity are nearly synonymous. Replenishment and Divine Plea are two of our largest mana sources, and they both scale off of our intellect. Most paladins are sporting intellect gems and trinkets, and intellect flasks and food fill up our bags. Holy paladins have been leaning on intellect for a long time due to its versatility, and it seemed like the decision to roll spell power into intellect would permanently ensure intellect's role as our best stat. By decoupling intellect and mana, the developers are changing everything we know about gearing a healer.
Raid Rx: A new balance for intellect and spirit in Mists of Pandaria
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. One of the proposed revamps coming in Mists of Pandaria is the way intellect and spirit interact with each other in regards to healers. For the new healer, understanding the current formula for mana regen can be a little daunting. To make it really easy, let's just say that it plays off both your spirit and your intellect. However, your intellect has a gradually increasing impact on how much mana you gain back in combat situations as your gear improves. It appears that will no longer be the case heading into the next expansion. Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) helped shed some light on the issue in a blue post earlier in the week. The highlights? Intellect becomes a sheer throughput stat Spirit controls the rate of mana regen Mana pools will remain fixed
Arcane Brilliance: Do mages need to be hit-capped?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we're discussing a topic near and dear to a caster's heart: the problems associated with reaching the hit cap. Because when you conjure a flaming boulder from the ether and hurl it toward the hideous walking nest of claws and teeth that's currently eating your tank, you don't want to miss. We've discussed this before. But this is a new expansion, and a new crop of players seems to be playing it, and I just had to berate a holy pally in Zul'Gurub for like 15 minutes about how he doesn't want the Hakkari Loa Drape that just dropped because he doesn't need the hit rating on it and he should give it to the elemental shaman instead -- and did I mention it took 15 minutes to convince him of this? Needless to say, the run was long, yeah, and lo, it was also full of wiping. So the facts are these: The game has been out a long time, but the playerbase is constantly rotating. It may be hard for old-timers to accept, but even the most basic of gameplay concepts still need to be explained, and ignorance of a thing doesn't constitute a bad player, necessarily -- just a new one or one who is returning after an extended absence. All of this is the long way of answering the many emails and comments I've gotten lately about hit rating, its importance, and whether or not mages still need to worry about capping it. The short way? Cap hit.
The Light and How to Swing It: Illuminating holy paladin stats
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome. Intellect has been our best stat for quite some time, and Cataclysm has only reinforced that. We get spellpower, mana, and critical strike chance from every point of intellect, which makes it valuable for every aspect of holy paladin play. We want to gem for intellect, enchant for intellect, use intellect consumables like Severed Sagefish Head and the Flask of the Draconic Mind. All of our spells scale off of spellpower, which makes it an amazing throughput stat. The fact that it gives us critical strike rating is just icing on the cake. Divine Plea's mana regeneration scales off of our maximum mana, and so stacking intellect gives us both mana at the start of the fight and then additional mana every time we use Divine Plea. My only advice is to be sure to use all plate gear, as we receive a 5% intellect bonus when wearing all plate. Mail caster gear may seem attractive, but the intellect loss isn't worth it. Intellect is designed to be our best stat, and that's why we can find it on all of our gear. Even if you hated intellect, you can't get rid of it. The real gearing decisions come down to choices between the secondary stats.
Cataclysm: Stat and system changes for mages
I have to say, there's an awful lot in the just-announced Cataclysm stat and system changes to take in. But if you're anything like me, you're able to cope with that dense heap of information by narrowing your focus to what's really important: what does all this mean for mages? Here's the short list of specific things we need to be aware of: Stamina - Like all clothies, we'll be seeing a bunch more of it on our gear. The aim is to have our max health be similar to that of plate-wearing classes. Spirit - We won't need it anymore. It'll be a healer-only stat, and we'll be getting our mana regen some other way. In other news, there is a God. Intellect - Now grants spellpower, but will provide less mana than it does now. I assume this is to balance out our mana pools with all that extra intellect we'll be seeing on all our gear. Spellpower - Gone from most gear, the only place we'll now be seing straight-up spellpower that isn't tied directly to intellect will be on weapons, and only to distinguish caster weapons from melee weapons. Haste - Still around. Critical Strike Rating - Still around. MP5 - Gone. Spell Ranks - Gone. Every spell will now have only one rank and will scale with level. The levels at which we learn many of them will change, to fill in the gaps. Mastery - New stat that will be tied directly to your talents. Supposedly, no matter your spec or class, getting more of this will always, always make you better at whatever it is that you're best at. For me, this means getting more mastery will make my mage incrementally better at making fun of warlocks. Existing gear - All of it will change to reflect this new statistical system, but we're being assured that the gear we have now will still be good for us. I have concerns about this, though. Brief (as brief as you're going to get with me, anyway) analysis after the break.
Found Footage: Woz on coloring computers
This video of Woz talking about the "revolutionary" idea of putting color into computers is amazing. It sounds like an LSD trip -- he says he was awake for four days in a row, plunged into some sort of television screenglow madness, and somehow emerged from this zeroes-and-ones induced frenzy with a cheap way to create color screens (which we presume eventually found its way in the Apple II). This is why Woz is really the preeminent geek for our times -- he's done some brilliant things with computers, really helped revolutionize the industry, and invented from scratch some of the most amazing things in this already amazing age, and when asked how he did it, he doesn't credit his own intellect or any personal insight. He says he stayed up for four days, and "sometimes, you're not sure if it's going to work because it didn't follow all of the methodology, all of the science that's in the books... but in this case it did." That is quintessential Woz -- way before marketing types put together the "Think Different" slogan, this guy was living it. [via Cult of Mac]
Phat Loot Phriday: Clemency
Umm, drool. This staff is so awesome it makes me want to go back to playing a caster. Name: Clemency (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Two-hand Staff Damage/Speed: 280-518 / 2.10 (190.1 DPS) Attributes: +153 Stamina, +153 Intellect. Yes, that much. +86 Spirit, too. A Blue and a Red socket, with a +7 spell power bonus if you match both up. Remember, you don't have to if you don't want to, and this is certainly a socket bonus that's probably not worth going for. If you need an extra gem for your meta, this is probably the place to put it. %Gallery-33600%
WoW Rookie: Primary stats for beginners
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's. Theorycrafters and experienced players, go away – no really, /shoo! Today's WoW Rookie is for brand new players or players who are embarking on a new alt with absolutely no idea which end is up. The topic: what stats should you look for on gear as you level up? With XP and levels moving so quickly these days, it's not a topic that bears deep reflection or rooting through gear lists online in search of exceptional pieces. Any time you devote to researching and going after specific gear will be rendered moot by equal time spent questing – ding, better gear at your disposal! Still, concentrating on the right set of primary stats gives you a solid foundation for steady, predictable game play and supports experimentation with different spells, specs and tactics. The early levels (and by that, we mean "vanilla" WoW up through level 60) are all about basic stats (also known as "attributes"): agility, intelligence, spirit, stamina and strength. As you level, you may run across the occasional piece of gear that boasts a fancy attribute like spellpower or attack power. Consider it extra flavoring; you'll meet veteran players who swear by the stuff, but it's not mandatory. Equip the piece if the basic stats are also solid, and carry on. Most early pieces that boast more interesting stats were added later in the game's evolution. The basics remain the fuel for your pre-60 leveling fire.
Spiritual Guidance: What the future holds for Priests
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a UI and addons blog for WoW. What will Cataclysm hold for Priests? I'm back from Blizzcon! There's been a ton of big announcements which will mean future impacts for Priests whether you heal or dish out damage. Let's take a quick look at what we know.
Raid Rx: Cataclysmic stat changes for healers
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Welcome to the special Blizzcon edition! I was on the floor listening into the first set of changes being announced and I managed to catch all the healing changes. Here's what we got! Whew! What an exciting day at the convention for healers! This is just day one! Okay, let's break down all the major changes that will be affecting healers.
Phat Loot Phriday: Wisdom's Hold
Not all shields are for blocking. If you're a Shaman or a Pally, this caster shield is probably droolworthy.Name: Wisdom's Hold (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDB)Type: Epic ShieldArmor: 8130, 227 BlockAttributes: +70 Stamina, +48 Intellect, which means lots of HP and Mana for you. Improves crit strike by 40, haste by 47, and spell power by 75. Nice set of bonuses there, too. And a blue socket, with a socket bonus of +5 spell power. It's a slight upgrade over Voice of Reason, the other big caster shield near endgame, but enough of an upgrade that you want this one if you can get it. %Gallery-33600%
Phat Loot Phriday: Constellus
Not all of us get to run around with Val'aynr. But for you mace casters out there who aren't first on your guild's Legendary list, here's another sweet mace to hunt down.Name: Constellus (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)Type: Epic Main Hand MaceDamage/Speed: 93-298 / 1.80 (108.8 DPS)Attributes: +55 Stamina, +54 Intellect Blue socket with a +5 Spell Power bonus Improves crit strike rating by 29, restores 19 mana per five seconds, and improves spell power by 587 %Gallery-33600%
Insider Trader: Profession-specific buffs part 2
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Last week, Insider Trader discussed the profession-only bonuses associated with Inscription, Jewelcrafting and Enchanting. This week, I'm going to walk you through the rest of them, and include a final summary and comparison at the end. Tailoring Perks Tailors have the ability to enchant their own cloaks. Other players can get cloak enchants from Enchanters, although the Tailoring ones are superior in many cases. Darkglow Embroidery: Chance to restore 300 mana on spell cast. There seems to be a 60 second internal cooldown, with a proc rate of 35%, which is equal to 25 mp5. Lightweave Embroidery: Chance on spell cast to increase your spellpower by 250 for 15 seconds. Swordguard Embroidery: Chance for melee and ranged attacks to sometimes increase your attack power by 300 for 15 seconds. There seems to be a 45 second internal cooldown on Lightweave and Swordguard, meaning that for 15 seconds out of every 45 seconds (+, if you don't proc it on the next hit, but they do seem to proc within a hit or three), you have the effect. This averages out to 83 SP, and 100 AP respectively, in ideal conditions. Depending on your luck with procs, the average decreases the longer it takes you to proc it again.For example, after 45 seconds, each spell has a chance to proc the effect. If you managed it at the 50 second mark, the average becomes +75 SP. Casters who are not Tailors can currently choose between Enchant Cloak - Wisdom and Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed. Wisdom grants you a measly 10 spirit, as well as a now obsolete 2% threat reduction. The +23 haste rating is nice, but provides neither mana nor spellpower. Enchant Cloak - Major Agility grants you +22 agility to cloak. Agility is inefficient to everyone except rogues, hunters, shamans and druid cats, who would get +22 AP from it as well as the crit/dodge/armor. In terms of attack power alone, the Swordguard enchant is the clear winner.
Phat Loot Phriday: Cowl of Sheet Lightning
Lots of the endgame cloth headpieces look the same actually, but it's a good look -- the pointy head, the glowing eyes. And nothing says power than a name like "sheet lightning."Name: Cowl of Sheet Lightning (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDigger)Type: Epic Cloth HeadArmor: 244Attributes: +67 Stamina, +68 Intellect Meta and a Yellow socket, with a socket bonus of +9 spell power Improves Haste rating by 48, and spellpower by 85 %Gallery-33600%
