Cataclysm Classic Destruction Warlock Stat Priority

The stat priority for Destruction Warlock is as follows:

1. Intellect
2. Hit Rating (17% - 1742 rating is Hit Cap)
3. Haste Rating
4. Critical Strike Rating
5. Mastery Rating

Intellect is the #1 stat that you want more than any other stat. In Cataclysm, Intellect converts to Spell Power, meaning the more Intellect you have, the more spell power you'll have, the more damage you will be doing. It also gives you some crit and mana. You should never give up Intellect for any of the other stats. Spell power is no longer found on any items besides the weapon, so just worry about stacking as much Intellect as you possibly can. 1 Intellect provides 1 Spell Power before any buffs and bonuses as well as a very minor amount of Crit and about 17 mana.

Hit rating is the next most important stat and is vital to doing damage because you must hit the boss in order to deal damage. Hit is very easy to obtain since it not only comes from many pieces of gear, but you can also reforge and gem hit in your gear. 17% is the hit cap, which is 1742 hit rating and is crucial to obtain. Once you hit the cap, you can never miss. However once you hit the cap, hit is useless, so try not to go much higher than the cap, with the aim to be right at the sweet spot of 1742 Hit rating.

Haste is the stat that you want to stack after you've obtained your Hit cap. Haste makes you cast your spells faster, as well as Haste reduces the time between your DoT ticks, giving you extra ticks of damage if you have enough Haste. It will only reduce the duration once an extra tick of the DoT is received. Below is a table showing how much Haste is needed for an extra tick of the listed DoT. It's also worth mentioning that DoTs no longer update dynamically and instead have to be snapshotted upon refreshing the DoT. Meaning if you already have a Immolate on the target and you get a Haste proc from your Trinket, that Immolate will not benefit from the Haste until you refresh your Immolate.

Note that these values are including being Raid buffed. So do not worry about calculating raid buffs like Dark Intent, or any other Haste buffs.

• Extra ticks of Immolate:
  1. 9.9% Haste (218 rating) is 1 extra tick.
  2. 30% Haste (2589 rating) is 2 extra ticks.
  3. 49.9% Haste (4951 rating) is 3 extra ticks.
  4. 70%% Haste (7326 rating) is 4 extra ticks.

• Extra ticks of Corruption:
  1. 8.3% Haste (21 rating) is 1 extra tick.
  2. 25% Haste (1993 rating) is 2 extra ticks.
  3. 41.7% Haste (3970 rating) is 3 extra ticks.
  4. 58.4% Haste (5945 rating) is 4 extra ticks.

• Extra ticks of Shadowflame:
  1. 16.7%% Haste (1007 rating) is 1 extra tick.
  2. 50% Haste (4954 rating) is 2 extra ticks.
  3. 83.4% Haste (8911 rating) is 3 extra ticks.
  4. 116.6% Haste (12838 rating) is 4 extra ticks.

Critical strike makes you crit more, meaning you deal more damage. As long as you have your meta gem in that increases your crit damage, crits deal roughly twice the damage of normal hits. Your DoTs can crit as well.

Mastery is the new stat introduced in Cataclysm that does something different for each specialization. For Destruction it increases all Fire damage you deal. Each point of Mastery increases the Fire damage that you deal by an additional 1.35%. That sounds great, however due to how little we gain per point of Mastery, it will be the least prioritized stat.