WoW Forever keeps the stats Classic players know, but several of them now work differently. Spell, melee and ranged hit are one stat, and so is critical strike chance. A brand-new stat, Expertise, lowers the chance that enemies dodge or parry your attacks. Caster weapons now carry spell damage and healing, like the Coldflame Saber a level 21 Mage can wield with up to 32 spell power, while the base damage of many spells went down to make that gear matter. Bonus healing also adds one third as much spell damage, weapon skill comes in smaller amounts, and the racial weapon specializations are gone.
All of this changes what you roll on from the first dungeons and which pieces you keep for level 60. The beta stopped at level 30, so endgame caps like the Expertise target against raid bosses are community figures based on Classic attack tables, and the numbers below are current as of the October 26 development notes and the class tuning ahead of the November 4 launch.
Below you will find what changed for every stat, the Expertise cap and how it differs from Hit, how spell power on weapons and lower base damage play together, the talents that turn Intellect into spell power or attack power, the new situational trinkets, and practical stat tips for launch.
Blizzard's goal was to make gearing choices depend more on your role and playstyle. In Classic, a melee player and a caster rarely wanted the same item, and casters often kept a low-level weapon for half the leveling journey because only its stats mattered. WoW Forever merges stats that hybrids used to split, adds a new melee stat and moves a large share of caster power onto weapons.
The table sums up how each stat compares with Classic.
| Stat | Classic | WoW Forever |
|---|---|---|
| Hit chance | Separate spell hit and melee or ranged hit | One Hit stat for spells, melee and ranged attacks |
| Critical strike chance | Separate spell crit and melee crit on gear | One Critical Strike Chance stat on almost all gear |
| Expertise | Did not exist | Reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried |
| Spell damage on weapons | Rare before the endgame | Caster weapons carry spell damage and healing from around level 10 |
| Bonus healing | Increased healing only | Increases healing and adds one third as much spell damage |
| Weapon skill | Large bonuses on some items and racial weapon specializations | Smaller bonuses per item, racial weapon specializations removed |
| Haste | A few enchants, trinkets and racials | Still rare on gear, mostly from racials, enchants and on-use effects |
| Trinkets | Mostly flat stats or generic on-use effects | More situational effects tied to creature types and regions |
The rest of the familiar stats did not change their role. Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intellect and Spirit still do what they did in Classic, although some talents now convert Intellect into other stats.
Expertise is the only stat that is new to Classic-style gear. Its name comes from The Burning Crusade, and it works much like it did there, but on WoW Forever items it is written out as an effect instead of a rating.
Every melee attack you make against an enemy in front of you can be dodged, parried or missed. Hit chance only removes misses. Expertise removes dodges and parries, and its tooltip on gear reads "Reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried by X%". The value is a flat percentage, so 1% Expertise means 1% fewer dodges and parries, with no conversion from a rating.
In Classic, weapon skill lowered the dodge chance a little, but nothing reduced parries. Expertise gives melee players a way to deal with both, which matters most for tanks and for anyone who cannot stand behind the target.
Ranged attacks cannot be dodged or parried, so Expertise does nothing for a Hunter's shots. Hunter pets are a different story: the October 15 beta build made pets correctly benefit from Expertise, so a Hunter's melee pet gains from it too.
A raid boss counts as three levels above a level 60 player, and its dodge and parry chances are higher than a normal mob's. Attacks from behind cannot be parried at all, so a melee DPS player standing behind the boss only needs to remove the dodge chance. A tank facing the boss has to deal with both.
These targets come from Classic attack tables and level 60 theorycrafting, because the beta only went to level 30.
| Role | Where you stand | Expertise target against level 63 bosses |
|---|---|---|
| Melee DPS | Behind the boss | 6.5% removes all dodges, more gives nothing |
| Tank | In front of the boss | 6.5% removes dodges, about 14% also removes parries |
| Melee DPS on fights where you cannot reach the back | In front or to the side | 6.5% for dodges, Expertise past that keeps lowering parries |
Community estimates of the parry figure range from 14% to 16.5%, so treat the tank number as a direction rather than an exact cap. Parries also matter for survival, because a boss that parries a tank's attack swings sooner, so fewer parries mean fewer spikes of damage.
Hit and Expertise solve different problems, so reaching one target does not remove the need for the other. Hit lowers misses on every attack and spell, and Expertise lowers dodges and parries on melee attacks only. For a melee DPS player behind a boss, both are worth about the same until their caps, and some theorycrafters put Expertise first for Combat Rogues, because it is just as strong from behind and twice as strong from the front.
Hybrids that mix spells and melee, like Enhancement Shamans and Retribution Paladins, usually value Hit higher, because one point of Hit also covers their spells while Expertise helps only their melee swings and strikes.
Miss chances, hit caps for melee, ranged and spells, and the talents that help each class reach them are covered in our WoW Forever hit cap guide.
Expertise is scarce for now. Blizzard has only said that "some items" reduce the chance for attacks to be dodged or parried, and very little of that gear dropped during the level 30 beta, so most sources still cannot rate it from real gear.
The one confirmed talent belongs to Rogues. Weapon Expertise in the Combat tree no longer adds weapon skill and instead reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried by 2% at 2 ranks. No other class has an Expertise talent in the current trees, so Warriors, Paladins, Shamans and Feral Druids will rely on gear for it.
The biggest itemization change for casters is where their power comes from. In Classic, a Mage's weapon mattered only for its Intellect and Stamina, and the spells themselves did most of the work. In WoW Forever, spells hit softer on their own and the gear, weapons above all, makes up the difference.
Blizzard wants spellcasters to look forward to level-up weapons the way Warriors, Rogues and Hunters do, so caster-oriented weapons now grant spell damage and healing, starting around level 10. On item tooltips this shows up as "Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to X".
A few examples show how much a weapon can carry now:
School-specific items such as Frost or Fire damage gear also return, and they have a higher stat budget than generic spell damage at the same level. If your main spells deal that school's damage, value them at least as high as plain spell damage.
To make room for spell power on gear, Blizzard lowered the base damage of many spells. The max ranks show it clearly: Shadow Bolt at level 60 deals 263 to 292 damage before gear, where the Classic top rank dealt 455 to 507, and Fireball dropped from 596 to 760 in Classic to 437 to 553. Shaman and Priest nukes like Lightning Bolt and Smite lost even more.
The result is that a caster with no spell power gear hits noticeably weaker than in Classic, and each point of spell damage counts for more. How much of it reaches a spell still depends on the spell's coefficient. A spell with a cast time of 3.5 seconds or longer gets the full bonus, and faster spells get a share equal to their cast time divided by 3.5. A 1.5-second Flash of Light gets about 43%, so a weapon with 50 spell power adds roughly 21 healing to each cast. Instant and area spells get much less.
Healing gear in WoW Forever also increases spell damage by one third of its healing value. The tooltip reads "Increases healing done by up to X and damage done by up to Y", as on the Silvered Gauntlets with 9 healing and 3 damage. Small values round, so the Garrison Cuffs give 2 healing and 1 damage.
That makes questing easier for healers, who now get some damage out of their gear while leveling. It does not make healing gear good for damage casters: one third of the value is a poor trade against a piece with full spell damage.
Casting a spell rank far below your level now has two penalties. The character sheet explains that such ranks receive less benefit from your spell damage and healing, and they also have a lower chance to trigger class abilities and talents. Blizzard's own example: a Rank 1 Frostbolt cast at level 60 has no chance to trigger the Frost talent that freezes the target.
To replace the cheap slow that Mages used to get from Rank 1 Frostbolt, the October 15 build added Frost Blast, a fast, weak Frost spell learned at level 24. The October 8 build also smoothed the rank growth of Frostbolt, Fireball, Wrath, Lightning Bolt, Smite and Shadow Bolt, so every new rank is an upgrade. In practice, cast your highest rank unless you are short on mana.
Several effects started or stopped scaling with spell power during the beta. These are the changes that affect gearing decisions.
| Effect | Change in WoW Forever |
|---|---|
| Wands such as the Lesser Magic Wand | No longer gain damage from your spell damage |
| Minor Wizard Oil, Lesser Wizard Oil, Wizard Oil | Back to Classic values of 8, 16 and 24 spell power, Brilliant Wizard Oil unchanged at 36 plus 1% spell crit |
| Firestone and Spellstone | Weapon imbues that add Fire or Shadow damage plus 1% spell crit or 1% spell haste |
| Thorns and Retribution Aura | Scale with the caster's spell power at a 6% ratio, base damage back to Classic values |
| Consecration | Spell power coefficient per tick lowered to 0.042 |
| Fire Nova | Spell power coefficient lowered to 0.143 |
| Voidwalker Sacrifice | Scales with 10% of the Warlock's spell healing |
Several talents in the new trees turn Intellect into spell damage, attack power or healing. For these specs, Intellect is no longer a filler stat, and some plate and mail players will now roll on caster pieces.
The table lists the conversions in the trees at launch.
| Class | Talent | What it converts |
|---|---|---|
| Paladin | Champion of the Light | Part of your Intellect into spell damage, and 1 sec off the cast time of Hammer of Wrath |
| Shaman | Mental Dexterity | Attack power equal to 100% of your Intellect |
| Shaman | Mental Quickness | Spell damage and healing equal to up to 30% of your Intellect |
| Hunter | Careful Aim | Attack power equal to 100% of your Intellect |
| Druid | Natural Instinct | Spell healing equal to 25% of your Intellect, plus 20% more melee critical strike damage |
| Mage | Arcane Blast | 12% of your Intellect as spell damage with each cast, stacking |
| Mage | Arcane Wrath | Extra spell damage equal to 5% of your maximum mana |
| Mage | Arcane Resilience | Armor equal to a share of your Intellect |
| Warlock | Demonic Knowledge | Spell damage for you and your demon based on your level while the demon is out |
Champion of the Light changed more often than any other talent in the beta. Its ratio started at 100% of Intellect at max rank, dropped to 60% on October 1 and to 30% on October 15, and the launch tuning spread it over five ranks with the same total, so check the tooltip in game before you plan a Retribution set around it.
Warlocks get one more Spirit-based conversion: Life Tap now adds your Spirit to the health it turns into mana. Every class's new talents are summed up in our WoW Forever class changes overview.
Gear in WoW Forever lists one "Critical Strike Chance" stat that raises the crit chance of both spells and attacks. That is why hybrids like Retribution Paladins and Enhancement Shamans benefit most: in Classic, half of their crit gear helped only half of their damage.
Primary stats still split as before. Agility gives melee and ranged crit, and Intellect gives spell crit. A melee or ranged crit deals 100% extra damage, and a spell crit deals 50% extra unless a talent such as Shadowform or the Druid's Vengeance raises it.
Crit also does more than before:
Racial crit, on the other hand, nearly disappeared. The Human Ruthless racial still gives 1% critical strike chance, but the Orc and Dwarf crit racials and the Tauren crit damage bonus were removed on October 26. Our WoW Forever race tier list breaks down every racial after that final pass.
Haste increases attack and casting speed. It is the stat players ask about most after Expertise, but in WoW Forever it barely appears on gear: almost no item with haste dropped during the beta. Its sources are mostly racials, enchants and on-use effects.
For melee classes, haste means more swings, and each swing still generates Rage, so it adds Rage over time even though Rage per hit is tied to weapon speed. Theorycrafters value it about as high as crit for Warriors. Enchant options are covered in our WoW Forever enchanting guide.
Weapon skill still works the way it always has: when it is below the target's defense, more of your auto-attacks become glancing blows that deal reduced damage. What changed is how much of it you can get. Items with weapon skill now offer less of it, so they are no longer the automatic best choice, and leveling your weapon skill still matters. Intellect speeds up how fast your weapon skill rises.
The racial weapon specializations that gave Humans, Orcs and Dwarves extra weapon skill are gone for good. Blizzard explained that "it is not healthy in the long run for future raid and dungeon loot tables to be evaluated through the lens of 'required' weapon types." The replacements are small: Humans have Ruthless for 1% crit, and Dwarves have Artisan's Precision for 1% hit chance.
Weapon-type bonuses now come from talents instead. The Warrior's Weaponmaster and the Rogue's Hack and Slash give extra attacks with swords, more crit with axes, polearms, daggers or fist weapons, and armor ignore with maces, depending on what you hold.
A few stats that later expansions made common are still missing or limited. Knowing which ones exist saves you from chasing gear that will not drop.
Trinkets in WoW Forever lean toward effects that are great in one place and useless in another. Blizzard described the new design as tying items to specific creature types and environments such as woodlands, mountains and deserts, so a player can carry a small kit of trinkets for different jobs.
The first examples are already in the game:
Beyond trinkets, every dungeon drop was reviewed, unique boss items in dungeons are now blue, set bonuses were improved and hundreds of new drops were added, including items from rare creatures. How these pieces fit into the road to raid gear is covered in our WoW Forever gearing and progression guide.
These tips come from the beta notes, the stat priorities that theorycrafters published at the end of the beta and players' own tests. They apply from the first levels to the first raids.
Several things are still unknown: the exact parry cap for tanks, how much Expertise endgame gear will carry and how many haste items raids will drop. All of them depend on level 60 gear that nobody has seen yet.
These guides cover hit caps, gearing, racials and the class changes that shape your stat choices.
These are the questions players ask most about stats and gear in WoW Forever.
Expertise reduces the chance that enemies dodge or parry your melee attacks. Gear shows it as a percentage, so 1% Expertise removes 1% of dodges and parries.
Against level 63 raid bosses, 6.5% Expertise removes all dodges. Melee DPS behind the boss gains nothing past that. Tanks facing the boss also need about 14% to remove parries, though estimates vary.
No. Hit only lowers misses, and Expertise only lowers dodges and parries, so a melee player wants both.
Only Rogues so far. Weapon Expertise in the Combat tree gives 2% at max rank. Other classes get Expertise from gear, and Hunter pets benefit from it too.
Blizzard lowered the base damage of many spells and moved that power onto gear, especially caster weapons. With spell power gear, casters catch up, and each point of spell damage is worth more than before.
Yes. Healing gear adds one third of its healing value as spell damage, for example 9 healing and 3 damage on the Silvered Gauntlets.
No. Since the September 24 beta build, wands no longer gain any damage from your spell damage.
Very little. Haste comes mostly from the Skyborne Wind Blessed racial, Troll Berserking, the Enchant Gloves - Minor Haste enchant and on-use effects.
Yes. It still reduces glancing blows, but items give less of it and the racial weapon specializations were removed.
No. Blizzard said at BlizzCon that Resilience is not being added.
