PvE Priest Stats
Stats
SURVIVABILITY STATS
Stamina is the primary survivability stat. Works on all damage types! Each point of Stamina is worth 10 more hitpoints.
Magical Resistances are secondary survivability stats. They're only worthwhile in certain encounters, so don't bothering wearing resistance until required.
For those interested in mechanics details, two separate rolls are involved when a spell is cast at a target and both rolls again for any periodic checks.
<Hit roll>
The first roll is based on relative level between caster and target. Casting at a higher level target is much more likely to miss than casting at a lower level target. The attacking caster can stack Hit to reduce her chance of missing the initial cast or experiencing an early break. Resistance stats on the defender do not counter the attacker's Hit stat. See the section on Hit stat below.
<Resistance roll>
The second roll is based on the attacker's level versus the target's adjusted resistance stat for that school of magic. The maximum effect of resistance gear is to reduce incoming damage by an average of 75%. This cap occurs when resistance is five times higher than the attacker's level: 400 resistance against level 80 casters and 415 against level 83 casters, including raid bosses.
AveragePercentResisted = 0.75 * AdjustedResist / (AttackerLevel*5)
where
AdjustedResist = TargetResist - AttackerSpellPenetration
Average percent can be anything from 0% to 75%. Most spells are 'binary': they either fully fail or fully hit, so average is frequency of failure. Other spells are 'direct damage' and can fully fail or partially resist at multiples of 10%. Resistance is still useful in any amount because the probability of those 10% multiples adjusts for every point.
Note: there's no such thing as Holy Resistance. Higher level mobs do have a school-agnostic resist mechanic which can't be countered by Spell Penetration. If you see a Smite resist, that's why.
Resilience is a PvP-oriented mitigation stat with several effects: reduces your chance to be crit (1% per 81.97 Resilience at level 80) and overall damage taken from successful crits and DoTs (1% per 40.98 Resilience at level 80).
Fortunately, Resilience does not lower the effectiveness of on-crit procs like Blessed Recovery. You gain an independent chance of each proc on normal hits to match what you would lose by not being crit.
MANA STATS
Intellect does three things.
* Increases maximum mana by 15 mana per additional 1 Intellect.
* Increases the effectiveness of Spirit-based regen. See the Spirit section for details.
* Increases spell crit chance by 1% per 130 Intellect at level 80.
Note: The first 20 Intellect on your character only grants 20 mana total.
MP5, 'restores X mana per 5 sec', is an always-on source of mana regeneration. It adds directly to the 'every 5 seconds while casting' number shown by hovering your mouse over 'Mana Regen' on the Character sheet.
Spirit increases the portion of mana regeneration subject to the Five Second Rule, i.e. 'every 5 seconds while not casting'. See the FAQ entry on the Five Second Rule for a detailed explanation. At level 80:
SpiritRegen = sqrt(Intellect) * Spirit * 0.02787
This is the number seen when you hover your mouse over Spirit on the Character sheet. Meditation allows 30% of it to work while in the Five Second Rule. So, in total:
RegenOutsideFSR = SpiritRegen + MP5
RegenInsideFSR = SpiritRegen*0.30 + MP5
THROUGHPUT AND EFFICIENCY STATS
Spell power increases spell damage or healing per cast. Every spell has its own 'spellpower coefficient' which is the percent of spell power added to the base damage or healing. Flash Heal has an 80.7% coefficient. If you have 100 spell power, Flash Heal will restore 81 more Health than at 0 spell power. See the FAQ entry for a list of coefficients.
Healing spells use Bonus Healing as total Spellpower. Damage spells will use Bonus Damage, unless school-specific spell power is higher. Hover your mouse over 'Bonus Damage' on the Character sheet to see total bonus damage for Shadow spells, etc.
Critical strike increases the chance of a crit, but not the damage done when you do crit. Gear comes with 'critical strike rating' which translates into additional crit percentage based on your current level. This is to prevent a 3% crit item at level 60 from still being a 3% crit item at level 80. At level 80, every 45.90 critical strike rating grants 1% crit chance.
Hit decreases the chance of a spell miss. Oddly enough, Hit still matters on periodic checks such as those made by Mind Control and Shackle Undead.
Chance to miss goes up according to your target's level advantage. To stop missing, simply stack enough Hit to match:
4% Hit against same level
5% Hit against +1
6% Hit against +2
13% Hit against +3 players
17% Hit against +3 mobs (raid bosses go here)
Hit comes as 'hit rating' on gear. At level 80, every 26.24 hit rating grants 1% hit. Add any Hit from talents and effects to the gear total showing on the Character sheet.
Spell Penetration effectively removes an equal amount of magical resistances from your targets. Since Holy Resistance does not exist, Priests only need to worry about canceling out Shadow Resistance. Very few mobs have Shadow Resistance; don't wear spell penetration in PvE unless you are dealing with a known exception.
See the Magical Resistances section above for mechanics.
Haste reduces cast time. Haste does not affect HoT/DoT durations, but does help channeled spells such as Mind Flay and Penance. Gear comes with 'haste rating.' At level 80, every 32.80 haste rating grants 1% Haste.
Different sources of haste are multiplied together, however everything from 'haste rating' counts as a single source. Total Haste from 200 haste rating (6.10% Haste), 5% Haste from Enlightenment, and 30% Haste from Heroism would be:
1.0610 * 1.05 * 1.30 = 1.448 or a 44.8% Haste bonus
Greater Heal is usually 2.5 sec before Haste for Discipline Priests. After all of the above it would be:
2.5 / 1.448 = 1.73 sec cast time
Haste effects can reduce the 1.5 sec global cooldown to a minimum of 1.0 sec. Finally, note that every additional one-percent Haste will add the same healing or damage per second to the unhasted spell as previous one-percents, which means that it scales linearly.
