WotLK Classic Balance Druid Stat Priority

The stat priority for Balance Druid is as follows:

1. Need 17% Hit before talents / Draenei to cap Spell Hit;
2. Spell Power;
3. Haste;
4. Critical Strike;
5. Intellect;
6. Spirit;
7. Mp5.

Although you will generally want to hit the Spell Hit cap, and prioritize gemming / enchanting stats in the listed order, the real stat weights for your character depend heavily on your current gear.

Take note that Haste and Critical Strike both have a soft cap where they lose some of their power. Haste's soft cap is when Wrath casts in 1 second at 401 Haste rating with Wrath of Air Totem, as the global cooldown cannot go any further down.

Crit's soft cap is when Starfire's chance to crit hits 100% under Lunar Eclipse, as any extra crit will not improve its damage at that point. Hitting these soft caps does not mean the stat is useless, just less effective at increasing your damage per rating than it was before hitting the cap.

We recommend using the Wowsims Balance Druid module, for personalized stats if you are interested in min-maxing your character.

Spell Hit allows your spells to land more often, which is a huge DPS increase, and Spell Hit is generally plentiful on the caster gear you will be chasing. Depending on the level of your enemy, you might need more, or less Spell Hit to reach the 17% cap:

• For an enemy of the same level as you, 4% Spell Hit is needed to cap.
• For an enemy 1 level higher than you, 5% Spell Hit is needed to cap.
• For an enemy 2 levels higher than you, 6% Spell Hit is needed to cap.
• For an enemy 3 levels higher than you, such as raid bosses, 17% Spell Hit is needed to cap.

With Improved Faerie Fire and Balance of Power you only need 10% Hit to cap, which translates into roughly 262 Hit Rating.

Spell Power is applied to each spell based on their casting time.

The coefficient is calculated by dividing the cast time of a spell by 3.5. This is because a 3.5 second cast benefits from 100% of your gear's Spell Power. For example, if you have 20 additional Spell Power from gear, then this will simply affect your spells as follows:

• Damage Increase per spell cast = n * 20
• n = spell's coefficient

Instant single-target spells typically only get around 43% of the benefit, with area-of-effect spells having an even greater penalty.

Haste decreases your cast times, allowing you to cast more abilities and deal more damage in a fight. While its exact value fluctuates with your gear, and is diminished once the Wrath 1-second soft cap is reached, Haste is a very strong stat that is worth gearing for.

Critical Strike allows your spells to occasionally deal extra damage. Due to Vengeance, Balance Druid spell Critical Strikes deal 200% damage instead of the normal 150% value. While a generally strong stat, there is a soft cap where its value diminishes, once Starfire has 100% Critical Strike chance under Lunar Eclipse.

Intellect increases total Mana pool, Critical Strike chance, and gives you some Spell Power with Lunar Guidance and Mp5 if you talented Dreamstate, but is usually of slightly lower value than extra Haste or Crit.

For Balance Druids, Spirit provides Spell Power through Improved Moonkin Form and extra Mana regeneration, but only when you have not cast a spell for 5 seconds or more, which will rarely be the case outside of leveling or soloing. Sitting (through the /sit command, or when eating or drinking) increases Spirit regeneration by 33%.

Mana every 5 seconds, or simply Mp5, is a common stat found on healing gear and, while generally not recommended, can help you sustain your Mana over a long fight.

Spell Penetration allows your spells to deal more damage or hit more often against enemies with Magical Resistances by lowering their resistance by the Spell Penetration value on the item. This is mostly useful in PvP, as PvE enemies usually have fixed resistance values that cannot be lowered with this stat.

Stamina is the only stat that will help you survive any type of attack and as such should always be valued.

Resilience is a stat that is only found on PvP gear. It reduces your chance to suffer a Critical Strike, as well as the damage you take from those, the Mana burned by effects such as Mana Burn, and the damage taken from damage-over-time effects such as Corruption. This is a great stat in PvP as it makes you a lot more durable, increasing the value of your healing in the process.

Resistance, while inherently niche due to different bosses dealing different magical damage types, can be very useful while progressing specific bosses. Wearing resistance gear of a type makes you take less damage or even completely avoid damage when hit by that type of magical damage.