WotLK Classic Fury Warrior Stat Priority

1. Hit Rating
2. Expertise Rating
3. Armor Penetration
4. Strength
5. Critical Strike Rating
6. Haste Rating

Armor Penetration bypasses Strength when you can soft or hard cap your Armor Pen. Critical Strike Rating bypasses Armor Penetration if you cannot at least soft cap on ArP.

As with most damage dealers, increasing your chance to Hit your attacks is the largest damage increase you can get. Hit Rating reduces the chance that your attacks will miss, providing you with an overall damage increase that is higher than any other stat.

As a Fury Warrior, you will need to aim for at least 8% Hit Chance, or 263 Hit Rating to reach the soft hit cap. With the Fury specialization comes access to the Precision talent, granting you an additional 3% Hit Chance. Lastly, if you are Alliance with a Draenei in your party, this will give you the Heroic Presence buff, granting you another 1% Hit Chance.

At Level 80:

• 32.8 Hit Rating = 1% Hit Chance

Expertise reduces the chance that your attacks will be dodged or parried. Much like Hit Rating, this will increase your odds of landing attacks on your target. Fury Warrior does not benefit from any talent that increases your Expertise, so you must find all of it through gear, gems, enchants, and racial abilities.

A boss-level mob will have 14% chance to parry attacks as well as a 6.5% chance to dodge attacks. Remember that mobs cannot parry from behind, so be sure to always be attacking them behind and you will only need to worry about the 6.5% chance for them to dodge.

An additional source of Expertise outside of gear will come from your racial abilities depending on what you picked. Humans get both Sword Specialization and Mace Specialization. Dwarves get Mace Specialization, and Orcs get Axe Specialization. Remember that these bonuses are only active while you are wearing the specific weapon type.

While Expertise is a powerful stat, it is limited on gear early on, making it slightly lower on your priority as your do not want to sacrifice better stats to gain a small amount of Expertise.

The most Expertise your will go for is 26 Expertise, or 214 Expertise Rating. This ensures that your attacks can not be dodged when attacking a target from behind. Be sure to calculate your racial abilities when determining how much Expertise you need.

At Level 80:

• 8.2 Expertise Rating = 1 Expertise Skill
• Sword Specialization or Mace Specialization = 23 Expertise Skill
• Mace Specialization or Axe Specialization = 21 Expertise Skill

Armor Penetration is one of the most desired stats for Physical damage dealers. Armor Pen causes your attacks to ignore a portion of the target's Armor depending on how much Armor Penetration you have. As you only deal Physical damage, this makes Armor Penetration one of the best stats you can aim for as a Fury Warrior.

Early on Armor Penetration will be hard to come by even harder to stack and should not be a focus when gearing. If you are able to reach either the soft or hard cap for ArP, it surpasses Strength in terms of stat priority. Critical Strike Rating surpasses Armor Penetration in value when you cannot reach either the soft or hard cap for ArP.

Armor Penetration has 2 different breakpoints you need to worry about. The first breakpoint is the soft cap. This is when you can reach 100% ArP through procs and certain buffs or debuffs, such as Mjolnir Runestone. In this soft cap gearing, you will aim for 1,400 ArP while you have your procs active. The second breakpoint is the hard cap. This is when you can reach 1,400 ArP passively at all times through buffs, gems, and enchants without relying on any procs at all. Note that any Armor Penetration past 1,400 does nothing at all and is completely wasted.

At Level 80:

• 13.99 ArP Rating = 1% Armor Penetration
• 1400 ArP Rating = 100% Armor Penetration

Strength is a straightforward stat, increasing your Attack Power by 2 for each point of Strength. Your Strength is further increased by the talent Improved Berserker Stance, and in a raiding environment you will likely be buffed with Blessing of Kings, even further boosting your Strength.

At Level 80:

• 1 Strength = 2 Attack Power

Crit Chance has always been a strong stat for Warriors. Crit acts as an accelerant to you damage, as Critting with an auto attack generates more Rage, which you can then in turn use to deal more damage with your abilities. Critting also applies Deep Wounds to the target, which is one of your highest-damaging attacks in WotLK.

You have a few vital talents and skills that rely on Crit Chance, such as the previously mentioned Deep Wounds. Impale is a great boost to the damage you deal with Crits. Flurry requires a Crit to activate and provides you with a large amount of Attack Speed. Lastly, Glyph of Heroic Strike is a crucial glyph to help you maintain your Rage and requires a Critical Strike with Heroic Strike to proc.

While Critical Strike Rating is listed below Armor Penetration here, it is a better stat to get if you cannot at least soft cap on Armor Penetration (see above). This will be the case early on in gearing, lasting until the end of Phase 2.

At Level 80:

• 45.91 Crit Rating = 1% Crit Chance

Haste Rating will increase the rate at which you deal auto attacks, giving you a slight boost to your Rage generation and auto attack damage. Seeing as that is the only benefit the stat provides, it is easily outperformed by your other major stats, making it your lowest stat priority.

At Level 80:

• 25.21 Haste Rating = 1% Attack Speed

While Armor is not a main stat you are seeking out, it is worth mentioning as the talent Armored to the Teeth grants you 3 Attack Power for every 108 Armor. Remember to keep this in mind when comparing gear pieces.