A Brief History of WoW Stats And Attributes

In this history of WoW video, we’ll be looking at how various player attributes have changed and developed over the years. This video is only going to focus on the more major changes
Video edited by Sam
Managed by Lotthbrook
intro: (0:00)
Agility: (0:16)
Intellect: (0:37)
Spirit: (1:04)
Mana per 5: (1:42)
HP5: (2:14)
Stamina: (2:18)
Strength: (2:36)
Block: (2:58)
Critical Strike: (3:39)
Spell Critical Strike Chance: (3:41)
Parry: (4:00)
Dodge: (4:18)
Armor: (4:29)
Defense Rating: (4:41)
Spell Resistances: (5:00)
Spell Penetration: (5:50)
Spell Damage: (6:29)
Spell Healing: (6:42)
Spell Damage of x School: (6:50)
Spell Power: (6:57)
Haste: (7:16)
Hit: (8:19)
Spell Hit: (8:44)
Weapon skill: (9:00)
Armor Penetration: (9:51)
The Burning Crusade Changes: (11:11)
Expertise: (13:12)
Resilience: (13:35)
Spirit & Intellect: (13:58)
Spell Haste: (14:12)
Wrath of the Lich King Changes: (14:30)
Spell Power: (14:55)
Intellect & Spirit: (15:34)
(Wrath) Armor Penetration: (15:52)
Cataclysm Changes & Mastery: (18:11)
Hit & Resilience: (20:14)
Mists of Pandaria Changes & PvP Power: (20:32)
Expertise: (22:00)
WoD Changes: (22:18)
Removal of Dodge, Hit, Parry, & Expertise: (23:40)
Multistrike: (24:14)
Avoidance, Indestructible, Leech & Speed: (24:32)
Legion changes: (25:37)
Battle for Azeroth changes: (26:19)
Corruption: (26:40)
Shadowlands changes: (26:59)
Dragonflight changes: (27:16)
- #WoW #WorldofWarcraft #warcraft

[@hirumaredx]

This video topic was originally uploaded back in august. This is the re-make to fix the massive amount of missing information.

[@MattDamon69]

No one’s perfect. Not even me.

[@KalinPopov]

Gotta do it again. You forgot timestrike.

[@Spunky.Streams]

Thank you!

[@bladelores666]

barely 30 seconds in and there's already misinformation about agility giving attack power to all classes in vanilla

[@user-xb2vl3sg8m]

@@KalinPopov ⁰

[@TheOlioster]

You forgot to mention how for a period in BC, anything that had healing power on it also gave like 33% in spell damage.

[@godlygamer911]

He isn't very knowledgeable about WoW, he's doing his best.

[@Murks33]

You'd be hard pressed to find a hiru vid that doesn't contain missing tidbits or just total mistakes.

[@jotarofatso5743]

@@godlygamer911this is so passive-aggressive it made me laugh

[@Meowvela]

So I DIDN'T imagine Multistrike existing during WoD. I honestly thought I was just remembering that wrong until now

[@josejuanandrade4439]

1 trinket from SoO was literaly "Multistrike, the trinket"

[@Brutetank]

WoD is the definition of Mandela effect

[@badass6300]

@@Brutetank And ironically it had the least amount of content(Although the little it had was excellent).

[@Spike-xv1ts]

I was SOOOO sure it was from Pandaria XD

[@niki75]

I kind if miss Multistrike. I mean they werent wrong with it being Crit 2.0 but c'mon, I thought it was a fun stat

[@tableslam]

For resistance specifically, you needed an extra 15 against raid bosses because they count as 3 levels higher, not because they "ignore" 15 points. It's 5 points per level, so 300 resist for a level 60 target, 315 for a raid boss

[@MJHazel]

You mentioned rogues using spell hit meaning they were the only class using both hit stats, but - and I may be misremembering this - but I think warriors Taunt was also classified as a "spell" meaning they could benefit from both too.

[@TOXINZ2]

This is true, I remember stacking spell hit on my warrior for one specific boss fight, 4 horsemen in Classic to reach garruanteed Taunt hit without a miss that could cause a tank to die with too many stacks of a specific horseman.

[@gaunterodimm8764]

Ahhh, good old days of TBC. I still remember having a Druid tank with full Agility enchants, gear and sockets. And having nearly 100 dodge to the point bosses almost never even hit me. Or SL/SL warlock in pvp gear with full stamina enchants and sockets that could go 3v1 and still make it out alive cause they dotted everyone and anyone and then just drained life. Or a shokadin pala with full spell power sockets/enchants/oil/herb that gave extra SP or crit (don’t even ask me I don’t remember the name) that could easily onebrust even the fattest of the opponents with Avenging Wrath + Judgement/Holy Shock combo while in shaman mail gear from sunwell plateau. Or the warriors who wielded Stormherald (a mace with a 4 second stun proc) while having Mace Specialization and basically being a stun machine (it was before the deminishing was introduced). Fun times 😂 Balanced? Not really, but fun nonetheless cause we had freedom to experiment and come up with hybrid specs instead of being constrained to 2-3 strictly identified specs with certain features and talents that have a small margin for change but everyone just minmaxes everything to shit to be the big duck (put I instead of U) daddy pump master. Don’t get me wrong I still enjoy playing, DF brought me back to WoW after almost 5 yrs of not playing but I still remember these times with nostalgia and warmth.

[@hkviper6566]

i love how in wow a "brief history" video is 30 min long

[@professionalhater3929]

It is when every other channel would make a 8 hour long video on it repeating the same thing the whole time

[@R0m0n3]

Years of changes.

[@SkagulTV]

I've played this game 2/3 of my life, so you could say its been here a while, therefore there is a lot of things that has changed in the game! Kinda wild when you think about it

[@tenkowal]

9:24 If I recall correctly - the table of possible outcomes of a melee swing contained separate crit and glance chances, so by default glancing blows couldn't crit - because they *weren't* crit. With poor gear choices (or extremely good gear, maybe) it was possible to become crit capped, meaning that the chances to crit, glance, miss, get dodged and get parried summed to 100% and standard hit was pushed out of the table completely. Any increase in crit chance would become useless as chances to miss, get dodged, get parried or glance were of higher priority in the table. A minor inconsistency but I used to theorycraft warriors a lot during BC and even though I haven't raided in many years this knowledge has stuck to me. BTW some interactions were borderline useless, like block value increase from Strength in vanilla nad TBC. Even trash mob damage scaled much faster than amount of Strength on gear, so it was ignorable. In Wrath it was changed from 1 block value per 20 Strength to 1 block value per 2 Strength. This still didn't make block a significant damage reducer in boss fights (just blocking at all really mattered), but was noticeable on Heroic dungeons or trash pulls.

[@amethonys2798]

Worth noting for Spirit is it is moreso 5 seconds after not spending mana. Using spells that don't cost mana (Life Tap) do not reset the timer.

[@kungfudragon321]

I’m honestly kind of sad at all of the little secondary effects getting removed from the main stats over time, to the point where your character info will straight up gray out stats and say “your class doesn’t benefit from this”. Like, sure, a death knight isn’t really built to have a lot of agility, but having the extra little bit of armor and dodge chance from it just feels neat, especially so that effects that give a buff to all stats can still contribute at least a little bit. Not to mention it can open up for some fun wonky builds now and then, Y’know, contribute to that rpg feel a little bit

[@123Cheezus]

Small inconsistency: you mention at 21:27 during the MOP section that demonbane and scourgebane were stats from prior expansions, but both were introduced in Dragonflight.

[@hirumaredx]

woops

[@Stopbeingcringe3]

And i OOP

[@josejuanandrade4439]

The stats existed in a way. Items that increased your dmg against undead and demons were common. Examples were the Argent Avenger (quest 1 h sword that looks like a blue lightsaber) that increased your attack power against undead. And the illidari-bane weapons, weapons from a quest in Terokkar that increased your attackpower or spell dmg against demons.

[@dudecickle]

Spirit was a secondary stat in Cataclysm as it was a reforgable stat.

[@Menolith]

I think it would've been interesting to talk about the rationale for adding many of the new stats. Mastery, for example, was pegged as an easy "balancing knob" where the devs could easily tune specific specs up or down by just adjusting the mastery benefit, and resilience was made to tackle the issues that came with PvP and PvE both having to be accessible and balanced with the same item pool.

[@beepbeeplettuce5890]

Why do you want him to talk about it if you already know?

[@Menolith]

@@beepbeeplettuce5890 Due to reasons such as other people not knowing or myself not being omniscient.

[@ljfuentes7590]

So intereting video! thanks for the info! love it!

[@wardenm]

I kinda miss the various damage types and associated resistances. Felt a bit more... Rpg? Fantasy? Just more immersive.

[@CHRSS111]

This is true, but at the same time isn't it pretty much just a big ballache?

[@robrr2000]

I remember trying to reach the hit cap as a fury warrior in classic.. lol brutal

[@user-ji9nb8bx3n]

an important part of Hit % in vanilla is that it also increases your crit cap by the same amount.

[@EggsAreGood55]

Would love to see a hunter pets video of any kind. Maybe the rarest or hardest to get pets. Something about pet abilities. Keep up the good videos man 🖤

[@hirumaredx]

Theres one in the works

[@twaggoner2008]

ty for the help info

[@jfbaraky]

I love your Yu-Gi-Oh! videos, even though I don't play the game myself. I'm really happy to discover that you also have a WoW channel, a game I actually play :D

[@fonandoozmando5961]

Im not sure if the mega dungeon in DF was out when you were making this video, but it drops some new and/or returning stats such as spirit

[@Themagnificent1997]

I IMMEDIATELY said in my head “ multi strike…” when I saw this video

[@kurisu100]

Dumbest Stat ever

[@Themagnificent1997]

@@kurisu100 I’d say versatility, literally the dumbest, just flat more damage and damage resist, very original lol

[@argenis9518]

What's the addon you're using to choose your mount at 27:16?

[@Pwnage-Variety]

agility in vanilla wow did not give enhance shaman dps attack power.

[@georgegladding8257]

I always thought for a time in wrath that armor pen could push armor into the negative but I had no idea for sure.

[@JayJay-ex6yo]

ah man i wish you gave an honorable mention to Amplification. even though it was only in game for the 5.4 patch, it was so op, especially for healers that could use the dps and healer trinkets and stack the stat.

[@semiramisubw4864]

multistrike in wod on MW monk was bonkers, made he healing hc raids alone literally

[@pahhw1533]

i realy liked multistrike in wod, also my friend played a warrior tank, and he was so after a shield with indestructible, i found a green one during hellfire lfr and gave it to him as a joke

[@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf]

I'm still pissed Blizz removed Gladiator Stance. Being a DPS, and a good one, with sword&board was awesome.

[@josejuanandrade4439]

There existed these items called Librams. You could turn them along other materials at an NPC in DireMaul to create : Arcanum of Focus and Arcanum of Rapidity. They where enchants that could go into the helm and pants. The 1st gave 1% crit with spells and the 2nd 1% attack speed.

[@rettbull9100]

In vanilla wow I use to pvp in fire resist armour. Fire mages hated it, as did destruction locks.

[@jpfischer6003]

I remember fury warriors spamming their gear score and armor pen rating in chat lfg lol. I'm old

[@hory121]

Agility did not give attack power to warrior's etc during classic, only crit armor and dodge.

[@GrzegorzCzikitaNajtBanach]

hi @hirumaredx great vid as always can you tell me name of addon from dragonflight part of wiv 27:16 that one from middle of the screen which shows ur speed and vigor?

[@petrsebik]

That is a dragonflying weak aura.

[@GrzegorzCzikitaNajtBanach]

thank you @@petrsebik

[@beloslavbelchev8062]

Stats where u deal more dmg to certain type of monsters are amazing

[@emmanuel_40]

4:58 Tanks couldn't even hit +140 defense in vanilla prior to Naxx40 drops so that is not what made a real tank in vanilla/classic. Don't forget that an attack that is blocked cannot crit or crush, which is how tanks dealt with both mechanics besides maxing stamina and armor. Even in TBC (paladins/warriors) you would still focus on 102.4 avoidance (block/dodge/parry/miss) to avoid crushing blows from bosses(or any +3 higher level mobs) despite being crit capped from +140 defense (135 against +2 higher level mobs). Illidan required a tank to have 101.8 avoidance from just (block/dodge/parry) to avoid the health debuff strike which cannot be affected by miss chance. Druids ended up out scaling other tanks despite getting crushed because of stats double dipping on threat and mitigation, which got exacerbated on certain Sunwell bosses that couldn't cause a crushing blow.

[@Altoroc]

10:21 Swampguard 😮

[@danielhultgren6721]

First stat is STR in vanilla. Agi never gave AP to warriors in Vanilla. Still a bunch of errors sadly. But those two were just within the first 10sec or so.

[@theSDRgaming]

Im surprised you didn't mention form the mega dungeon certain items giving timestrike etc but tbf it is only one dungeon and its not a common stat.

[@TheKobasen]

I still remember that in cata all caster DPS main stat is int, but in wrath spell power is their main stat instead. I'm first confused when a gear that has spirit on it was given to DPS instead of healer because what healer need in wrath was MP5

[@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf]

Depends. If you were a Holy Paladin and weren't a spambot, you needed Intellect, and MP5 was your worst stat. Here's the catch: If you went for Int, you had almost double the manapool of an mp5, your healings were stronger and you crit'ed more often, but you had to engage in melee combat with Seal of Wisdom to recharge your mana, this was awesome for most fights... except Valithria Dreamwalker IF you were the dedicated Raid Healer, you simply ran out of mana as everyone would be spread all over the place and mobs died too fast for you to charge your mana. In that particular scenario an mp5 holy pal was better simply because you didn't need to melee. For casters in wrath first you stacked Haste until the softcap, then dump into Spell Pow. Also, Demo Warlocks benefited from Spirit as they gained a lot of Spell Pow from it.

[@onisekai547]

Multi strike best stat!! when WoD classic 👀

[@EdyGlockenspiel]

I unironically actually liked WoD. It had the best class design the game has seen to date. I had 16 max level toons in WoD all with over 700 ilvl by the time it ended, and played literally none of them in legion as all the class and spec revamps made them super unfun. For example, I never even had a warrior really until 7.1 and that warrior is what I ended up maining in legion, as Arms.

[@weisshxc]

@@EdyGlockenspiel I feel the opposite, almost quit in WoD though I enjoyed the raids. And in Legion I had like 12 alts with their artifacts completed by the end.

[@haldir108]

I'm pretty sure that lots of classic had very real tanks running around without any defense on their gear. You simply buffed enough to have the Health to soak all the crits, and get healed up before the next one.

[@Saturni88]

I don't know if it's in of importance but didn't the new dungeon Don of the infinite have new stats on gear

[@EVE_STNB]

Thanks for those videos, very nice clean script and speech! Help me distract and relax! You should try voice acting for serious! :3 (if not already)

[@adamdobry5517]

plz make a video with all attributes for sleepy times :D

[@JediMIndaugas]

I am not sure about the armor pen working better on lower armor, if it worked with effective HP (EHP). If you look at HP and armor as an increase to effective HP, 100 life and 100 armor gives a 100% increase in your effective HP, so - 200 EHP. Thus, a 100 HP strike would only reduce your effective HP to half of it, giving a 50% DMG reduction. With 200 armor, it gives 200% increase in effective HP, so - 300 EHP. A 100 DMG strike would reduce the effective HP to 2/3 of it's original, giving a 66.6% DMG reduction. The increase of % is much lower, but the efficiency would be the same.

[@randomrandom7208]

It is, the EHP reduction from the armor pen will be linear, but damage per second will scale non-linearly.

[@SpookyAzzHero]

Agility only gives AP for rogues and cat form druids in vanilla (melee AP)

[@cristhianmlr]

Best hunter pet abilities though the history of WoW when?

[@EggsAreGood55]

Would love to see this. Dang I miss when pets were all unique and had their own abilities and talents

[@yskeed]

i love hirumaredx

[@jackhalus6137]

You foolishly thought we WOULDNT enjoy a 4 hour long stat change patch per patch video

[@Rob-147]

AYAYA

[@XimmatreehuggerX]

Start of video is very slightly wrong as AGI doesn't equal melee attk power for all classes, Warriors and casters receive no melee attk power from AGI. Warriors however do get Ranged attk power along with rogues ofc and Druids, Paladins, Shaman and Warriors receive 1% Critical Strike Chance for every 20 points of AGI while for Rogues and Hunters it's 29 AGI (Rogues) and 53 AGI (Hunters) then similar formula with Dodge where most classes gain 1% dodge for every 20AGI and Rogues/Hunters are 1% for every 14.5AGI(Rogues) and 26AGI(Hunters) :P

[@DJClearMusic]

Paladins got more than just 2 AP per STR too... should be 2.2 per STR and also increased Ret spell power

[@xebenatrosxeracroft5178]

So this must be stupidly rare, or I got incredibly lucky, I have a piece of gear on one of my alts, it has 2 Tertiary stats on the piece, which I didn't think were possible but, I guess it is. I forget what the stats were, but still getting 2 extra stats besides the usual 1, is pretty cool. I honestly cannot recall ever seeing this happen, even when these Tertiary stats were added to the game.

[@665oolb]

Some pieces of gear always have a certain tertiary on it whenever it drops, and those pieces still have a chance to proc a tertiary, giving a chance to have two tertiaries on one piece

[@studiosraufncingr6965]

Hiru, why dont you stream anymore???

[@lucassloan1960]

timestrike is one of the" newer stat"

[@gensoBouken]

addons that got the game changed/most influential,

[@badass6300]

TBC, Cata and WoD had the best changes, but I think stats were the best from TBC to Cata(except armor pen in WotLK), with Cata being the best and most sound implementation.

[@ROSS219PRODUCTIONS]

i miss armor pen

[@atrisify]

There was a time when you could go under 0 agility and it would roll over to like 9999 and give you max crit and dodge.

[@mattalan6618]

i remember that. to bad at the time people complained and they hot fixed it

[@Jayykob]

Not the Swampguard 🤣

[@banditologic6168]

Missed a chance to talk about timestrike, spirit, and demonbane in the dawn of the infinite dungeon

[@semiramisubw4864]

do anyone even what this does ?

[@banditologic6168]

Spirit was the OG spirit, Timestrike would give you a chance to duplicate on hit damage, and demonbane was like extra attack power versus demons.@@semiramisubw4864

[@noahsmith6401]

Here before an hour gang

[@michaelmischko847]

Agility only contributes to rogues, hunters and druid in catforms melee attack power in classic wow. Shamans, warriors, druids in bear form and other non physical classes do not get any attackpower from it.

[@huberteichson8304]

I miss spirit.

[@ThwartedWaffles]

beans

[@Hurtydwarf]

17:30 Exactly why Diminishing Returns are a dumb mechanic. I understand why they exist but the more proficient I get at something the better it should be, it shouldnt get increasingly mediocre. If I can stack to max haste I should be hitting as fast as the Flash.

[@pahhw1533]

the strongest stat on my sheat isinsomnia

[@natecw4164]

Stacking spell penetration on a Frost DK was SOOOOO broken until they quickly patched it. Other players would practically evaporate 😂

[@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf]

Wanna hear a fun story about DK? I once played a Wrath Priv Server that was so bugged DKs were wearing cloth. Turns out the Impurity talend in Unholy, which gave your spells SpellPow equal to 20% of your AtkPow, was bugged in a wierd way. If you added AtkPow, you gained the normal SpellPow. But if you had SpellPow on your gear, it gave you more SpellPow... which then looped back into more SpellPow. This happened once, but the more SpellPow you had the more broken it got. This, however, only affected the Death Coil for some reason. This of course led to a period before they fixed it in which you will see UDKs in full SpellPow Cloth doing wierd "rotations" to spam Death Coils of 300k damage. That Priv Serv was wild. Rogues were some of the best tanks, Warlocks were wearing healer paladin plate and BDK dancing blade could "crit" spawning a second dancing blade that lasted forever.

[@natecw4164]

@@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf that's wild lol 😜

[@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf]

@@natecw4164 You would think raids would be easier with such op stuff... except not. Dreamwalker didn't create portals and 1min into the encounter 10 waves spawned at once. But the mobs were bugged, the two skeleton casters didn't cast spells and the geists could be aggro'ed to stop them from channeling the -heal debuff on Vali. In 10 mode it was impossible, but in 25 you could make it by going 4 tanks and 21 healers. The plan was simple: brute force the dragon back to full hp before the tanks were overwhelmed. Deathbringer was like doing Mythic plus because whenever they fixed a bug another one popped up. One week his Blood Beasts had as much as hp as the boss, meaning they would have to be kited by a hunter the whole fight. The next week they were normal... but now DB would oneshot you with the mark of the champion. Then that was fixed but now DB gained runic power 3 times faster than intended, so you would quickly have all the raid taking damage from mark of the champion. LK worked fine for the most part, except Valkyr were inmune to CCs, meaning you needed absurd burst and Defile was even more powerful, dealing damage twice per second instead of every 2 seconds, growing twice as intended whenenver someone got hit and growing PER PERSON HIT, meaning a single second of Defile was enough to flood the world with it. How it was dealt with? Well Ele Shamans could push bosses with Thunderstorm, interrupting spellcasting, and LK was vulnerable to Curse of Tongues for some reason, so whenever LK began to cast Defile a shaman would knock him back to interrupt and he would continue the fight as normal. And if it did go off there was hope. Combat Rogue's Killing Spree would often target stuff it shouldn't, like Triggers. So if a Defile went off the rogue would pop Cloak of Shadows, sprint into the core of the Defile and activate Killing Spree, killing the invibile totem of defile and the cloud of miasma would simply dissapear. Halion worked fine... except the meteors oneshoted you, the elementals spawned even on Normal and you only had 1 try a week. If you wiped the dragon would evade bug permanently, and doing a soft reset would just despawn the dragon until week's reset. Professor Putricide spawned both slimes on normal, and spawned 4 slimes on heroic. And Syndragosa didn't create the ice tombs meaning you couldn't hide from her bombs... but Frost Resist was bugged and wearing the lvl 80 Frost Resist gear to mitigate 90% of the bomb's damage.

[@fuzzyface4515]

I'm used to there being mistakes in your videos, but usually towards the middle. The very first thing being incorrect is wild though. In classic, agility only gives melee attack power to rogues and hunters. (And cat form for druids, but that's granted by the actual ability itself as they do not get attack power from agility in bear form)

[@JSIguess]

surely its not that much effort to screenshot items from their actual expansions db/wowhead....

[@huntersmith9344]

The game would be a lot better if spells and stats did what they said, period. Who enjoys memorizing spell coefficients when you could spend that time casting giant fireballs like the badass you are? If it were up to me, though, gearing would only be cosmetic. Get rid of this convoluted shit that serves no purpose. Nobody's life is better due to Sinister Strike doing 3.87698% more damage on Tuesdays the hours between 3:12 and 4:57 AM, unless the boss has 4,623.217 armor. In which case............

[@lucafrix66]

Incorrect... My strongest attribute is depression.

[@easycake3251]

PvP power was easily the best stat for pvp. I was 100% sure it would stay. Players that abused PvE gear ended up getting trucked since they did a lot less dmg to players.

[@DankquanDarkfist]

second

[@Bliss467]

I legit don’t get the point of differentiating strength, agility, and intellect now that they are mutually exclusive usefulness for each spec, yet all do the same thing for that spec. Just merge them and call it power. Or remove all three of them altogether because the secondary stats are the interesting ones.

[@Mexican00b]

throwing weapons! throwing weapons! throwing weapons! throwing weapons! throwing weapons! ????

[@GiotarRS]

So many ads I just tryna sleep in peace :(

[@ppstorm_]

These videos are so cringe