This post is going to be the first in a short series on how to choose upgrades for your character. Hopefully, it will be helpful to players of all classes. Your class may change, but the basics are consistent.
Let’s talk briefly about upgrading.
The goal of gear upgrading is to increase the effectiveness of your character in your chosen role.
Therefore, the first step is to define what your focus is. You decide this yourself as soon as you start putting points into a Talent Tree. You are making a choice as to what aspect of your character you are going to focus on.
As an example, if I am leveling my Priest character, choosing to put my Talent points into Holy will yield vastly different results than in Shadow. One shows a focus on my part to improve my ability to Heal, the other shows a focus on my ability to inflict ranged DPS. And different gear stats are important, depending on what Talent tree, what focus, I am going to concentrate on.
Because of the way World of Warcraft gear itemization works, your choice of Talent Specialization, your ‘Spec’, will determine what stats you want on your gear. You will want to choose gear that maximizes the stats or abilities that directly affect your Spec, without having points ‘wasted’ on items that do not help you.
Gear itemization and Item Level are the phrases we use when we are talking about the ‘point value’ of equipment, and how those points are distributed among ability modifiers.
The fact is, each point of Armor value, each point of Agility, Stamina, Intellect, and Spell Damage or Hit Rating comes from a set amount of potential points that can be distributed on a piece of equipment. How many points are available to ’spend’ are based on;
- Item Level of the gear
- Rarity
- Minimum level needed to equip it
Also, it has been determined that the amount of points spent on pure ability bonuses {Stamina, Agility, Intellect, Strength, and Spirit} are more beneficial when split up amongst more than one stat.
An example of what I mean in regards to split up stat points; the Splintering Greatstaff. It is Item Level 117, equippable at level 69, and is Green rarity. It comes with it’s points distributed in one of five configurations;
- …of Stamina (+82 Stamina)
- …of Strength (+55 Strength)
- …of the Bear (+55 Stamina, +36 Strength)
- …of the Beast (+28 Strength, +28 Agility, +43 Stamina)
- …of the Tiger (+36 Agility, +36 Strength)
You can see that, if it has only +Strength, it is +55. But if the points are spread among two stats, such as Agility and Strength, then Strength is lowered by 19, but you get +36 Agility. You get more bang for your buck on items with the points distributed amongst more abilities.
You can also see that Stamina is considered less valuable, points-wise, than Strength or Agility, so you get more of it. My math says that 1 point of Strength or Agility is being treated, roughly, as being equal to 1.5 points of Stamina.
Note: the Item Level of a piece of gear is not the same as what level you need to reach to be able to equip it. You can find the Item Level listed in most database sites such as Wowhead.
Let’s compare some close examples. Each is Rare (Blue), Item Level 115, equippable at 70, and a Drop instead of a quest reward.
Dreamer’s Dragonstaff
Greatstaff of the Leviathon
Draenic Wildstaff
You can see that each one is base 63 DPS, and has the same amount of points spent in Attack Power for shifted forms. When comparing them to the Green rarity Splintering Greatstaff above, they are actually 2 Item Levels lower, but because of their increased Rarity, they have more points to spend on higher base DPS and Attack Power in shifted forms.
The differences between each lie in where the rest of the points are spent. The Dreamers Dragonstaff has straight +Strength, +Agility and +Stamina. The Draenic Wildstaff sacrifices Strength to boost Agility and add + Hit Rating. The Greatstaff of the Leviathan eliminates Agility entirely to add Armor (which is multiplied in Dire Bear form, of course).
Initial impressions to me say that, instead of the random splitting of point distribution found in the different varieties of Splintered Greatstaff, these have intelligent design behind them. Each one makes you choose from what you want the most, but none give you everything you might want.
You have to make a personal judgment; Do I want to use it for tanking or DPS? Is the armor buff worth losing the Agility for Dodge? Is an increased Strength more important to my build than Hit Rating?
You have to be able to make an informed decision, based entirely on your Talent Spec and what abilties are most important for you. If you don’t know what Strength, Agility, or Hit Rating do exactly, you aren’t likely to choose exactly what’s right for you.
Let’s build on our previous examples by looking at another Druid staff that is also Item Level 115, equippable at level 70 and a drop. The only difference? It is an Epic Purple instead of a Blue.
Terestian’s Stranglestaff
As you can see, even though it is the same Item Level as the other staves, the Purple has a higher base DPS, much higher Attack Power increase in shifted forms, and when we compare it to it’s closest match, the Draenic Wildstaff, it has higher bonuses in every stat.
The lesson here? There are two of them.
First, Rarity has a direct impact on the potential amount of points that can be distributed amongst the abilties of an item. Even if they are the same Item Level, a Green has a higher potential than a White, a Blue higher than a Green, and a Purple higher than the rest.
Second, there are only so many points that can be potentially distributed amongst the item stats. If the item has points in a stat you do not need to achieve your character goals, than those points are wasted. You are advised to search for a piece of gear that most closely matches your real in game needs.
Knowing this, you can see where I’m going to go with this series. You need to know exactly what stats do for your Spec, so you can choose wisely. We’ll talk about that more next time.
Also, If you are at the level cap, and you intend to change your Spec when your goals change, then your gear needs to change too. Most Druids are already familiar with the concept. If you’re Feral, and you both cat DPS and tank Bear seriously, then you need one set of gear that optimizes your melee DPS damage output, and one set of gear that maximizes your Survivability and Damage Mitigation.
Likewise, if you like to respec to Balance, Resto, or a hybrid for PvP, and you are serious about it, you should build a set of gear that boosts your new spec.
I’m curious; how many raiding Feral Druids carry with them not only a full set of Bear Tank and Cat DPS gear, but also a set of Resto gear in their bags for fights where they might be expected to offheal/spotheal?
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