Strength (STR)
- Increases your Attack Power with melee and ranged weapons.
- Increases the amount of damage you can block with a shield.
Agility (AGI)
- Increases your Attack Power with ranged weapons.
- Increases your Armor.
- Increases your chance to score a critical hit with a weapon.
- Increases your chance to dodge attacks.
- Increases your Attack Power with melee weapons (rogue, hunter, and druids in cat form only).
Stamina (STA)
- Increases Health.
- Increases your pet's Stamina.
Intellect (INT)
- Increases Mana.
- Increases your chance to score a critical hit with spells.
- Increases the rate at which you learn weapon skills.
- Increase your pet's Intellect.
Spirit (SPR)
- Increases Health regeneration rates out of combat and Mana regeneration rates when not casting spells.
- Combat-related Attributes
Melee Attributes
- Weapon Skill - The current skill level in the weapon type of your currently equipped weapon.
- Damage (DMG) - The damage range (min-max) of your currently equipped weapon.
- Speed - Weapon speed; the lower the value, the faster the weapon.
- Power (AP) - Attack Power; increases damage with your equipped weapon.
- Hit Rating - Your chance to hit your target with your equipped weapon.
- Crit Chance - Your chance to critically hit with your equipped weapon.
- Weapon Expertise Rating - Each point of Weapon Expertise reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried by 0.25%.
Defense Attributes
- Armor (AC) - Reduces physical damage taken. Increases your pet's Armor.
- Defense - Increases your chance to Dodge, Block, and Parry. Decreases chance to be hit and critically hit.
- Dodge - Your chance to dodge.
- Parry - Your chance to parry with a weapon.
- Block - Your chance to block with a shield.
- Resilience - Decreases the chance to be critically hit. Decreases damage sustained from critical hits. The reduction to the percent chance to get a critical strike also reduces the damage dealt by damage over time effects by the same percentage.
Spell Attributes
- Bonus Damage - Increases damage done with spells.
- Bonus Healing - Increases healing done with spells.
- Hit Rating - Your chance to hit with spells.
- Crit Chance - Your chance to critically hit with spells.
- Penetration - Reduces your target's resistance to your spells.
- Mana Regen - Your Mana regeneration rates in and out of combat.
Other Information
Combat-related
Pets: Hunter and warlock pets gain benefits from certain attributes of their masters. The master's Stamina, Intellect, and Armor will increase her pet's Stamina, Intellect, and Armor respectively. In addition, a player's Attack Power increases the Attack Power and Spell Damage of hunter pets and shaman earth elementals, while a player's Spell Damage increases the Attack Power and Spell Damage of all other pets.
Critical Hits: Critical hits do significantly more damage than a normal hit. A critical hit will appear as an extra-large number over the target's head. For all classes, Agility will enhance the chance to critically hit with weapons, while Intellect will increase the chance to critically hit with spells.
Mana Regeneration: You will gain the full benefit of your Spirit bonus to Mana regeneration beginning five seconds after your last spellcast, both in and out of combat. Your Mana will normally not regenerate for the first five seconds after casting a spell, unless you have a talent, ability, or item bonus that does so. Items that grant Mana regeneration per 5 seconds work at all times, even within the five second rule.
Dual-wielding weapons: Your total damage output when fighting with two weapons should be higher than fighting with one weapon and a shield, but roughly equal to fighting with a two-handed weapon. Off-hand attacks deal 50% of the weapon's designated damage. Therefore, it's wise to put your hardest-hitting weapon in your main hand.
Raising attributes and skills
Character attributes are raised automatically when leveling. Attributes rise by fixed values depending on your character's race and class. Skills are raised by performing the skill in question. For example, by attacking with a type of weapon, you will gradually increase that weapon's skill until it reaches its current cap. The same applies to professions and secondary skills. The skill cap for combat skills goes up by 5 per level to a max of 350 at level 70. Profession and secondary skill caps are raised by receiving training from special NPCs.
