WotLK Classic Enhancement Shaman Stat Priority

The best gear available is usually the gear with the highest amount of useful stats, rather than gear that has the highest rated stats and little else. Expertise and Hit caps exist to remind you to avoid stacking those stats above them, not as a goal to hit while downgrading the rest of your stats.

1. Need 8% Hit before talents / Draenei to cap Ability (for ex Stormstrike) Hit;
2. Need 17% Hit before talents / Draenei to cap Spell Hit;
3. Need 26 Expertise Points to reduce Boss Dodge % to 0;
4. Attack Power (as you get 2 on gear for each 1 of any combat rating plus it converts to Spell Power with Mental Quickness);
5. Haste;
6. Agility (1 Atk Power and a bit of Crit);
7. Intellect (1 to 1 Atk Power conversion with Mental Dexterity);
8. Spell Power;
9. Critical Strike;
10. Strength (1 Atk Power);
11. Armor Penetration.

For actual EP values, try out the Enhancement DPS Wrath Simulator. Input your gear, buffs, talents, and glyphs, hit the Stat Weights button and it will give you the exact value of each stat for your current gear profile! The stat priority above is a rough ordering of the EP values coming out for the preset profiles.

Your weapons are the largest contributors to your damage, and you should always aim to upgrade them first, if possible. There are two types of weapons you will be looking for: high DPS slow weapons and high Spell Power slow weapons.

High DPS on a slow weapon will make your Stormstrikes and Windfury Weapon procs hit harder, as well as making it easier to weave spells with Maelstrom Weapon in your rotation, as you need to cast them before your swing finishes.

Spell Power weapons are typically fast and exclusive to the main-hand, but there are some exceptions such as Wraith Strike, which is the Phase 1 best in slot weapon. Due to the extremely high amount of Spell Power present, you can scale your spells very well, more than compensating for the DPS lost.

The main way you will obtain Spell Power is from Attack Power conversion through Mental Quickness, but you can occasionally get even more from a caster main-hand weapon or a particularly good gear piece such as the Wyrmrest Necklace of Power.

Expertise reduces the chance of your attacks being parried or dodged. It takes 8.196 expertise rating to gain 1 expertise skill. Each point of Expertise skill will reduce the target's chance to dodge and parry your attacks by 0.25% each.

Expertise is a strong stat, increasing the odds of your attacks hitting their target. While enemies cannot parry from behind, they can still dodge your attacks. For Level 83 mobs (bosses) the Expertise cap is 6.5% dodge or 26 Expertise skill / around 213 Expertise rating.

Hit rating improves your chance to land most of your abilities. It takes 32.78 hit rating to get 1% hit chance, and the yellow damage hit cap, used for Stormstrike and Windfury Weapon, is 8%, totaling around 262 Hit rating.

Spell Hit allows your spells to land more often, which is very important for Enhancement as Spells such as Fire Nova and Lightning Bolt are a huge part of the damage breakdown. You need 26.23 Hit to have a 1% increased chance to hit with Spells and the cap before external buffs is 17% Spell Hit, although you should be aiming for 14% due to Misery / Improved Faerie Fire, which translates to roughly 367 rating. Note that in PvP you are facing equal level enemies, meaning you only need 4% Hit, which is much easier to obtain.

Attack Power on items and enchants is deceptively powerful for Enhancement because it usually comes in large quantities, as the gear budget of 1 Agility is equivalent to that of 2 Attack Power, but the 2 Attack Power is stronger, for example. Thus this is the main primary stat to stack.

As a Shaman, Agility increases your Attack Power by 1, Armor by 2, and your Dodge and Critical Strike chance by a small amount. As it scales with raid buffs such as Blessing of Kings and provides multiple benefits, Agility is a good stat to have.

Haste increases your attack speed, allowing you to get more auto attacks off in a given period of time and thus more Maelstrom Weapon procs and casts.

Critical Strike allows you to have higher uptime on Flurry, as well as higher burst potential in PvP, and as such is a highly valuable stat.

The current phase has gear so powerful, that it allows you to hit the soft critical strike cap, where you will always land a critical strike or a glancing blow with your white auto-attacks. Hitting this cap is even easier when you consider strong critical strike increasing effects, such as the ones on Death's Choice. Thus, you will never want to gem Crit, and some Crit-heavy pieces will be skipped on the BiS gear setup to avoid going over the cap.

Intellect is a decent stat for Enhancement Shamans, as it converts to 1 Attack Power with Mental Dexterity and increases your Mana pool, improving Mana sustain and making Replenishment more effective.

1 Strength gives 1 Attack Power which means it is similar, but inferior, to Agility. It also scales with Blessing of Kings but due to its lack of bonuses, is a relatively poor stat for Enhancement.

Armor Penetration is quite bad for Enhancement as it does not affect Spell damage at all.

Stamina is the only stat that will help you survive any type of attack and as such holds decent value, although you will never be aiming specifically for it.

Resilience 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.