Agility, Strength, Defense and Attack Power

We asked the devs for a short explanation of Attack Power and Defense in relation to Agility and Strength. The following should be of some help to those wondering e.g. whether their new +x Attack Power weapon is better than their old +y Strength / +z Agility one. :)

Agility
- Increases Armor Class by 2 for every point of AGI.
- Increases the chance of a critical hit with melee and ranged attacks. The amount of the increase is dependant on both class and level. For most level 60 character classes, approximately 20 points of AGI will increase your critical hit chance by approximately 1%. Rogues require 29 AGI for an additional 1% critical hit chance, and Hunters require 53 AGI for an additional 1% critical hit chance, but both of these classes also gain attack power from agility and the items available to them typically have much higher amounts of AGI.
- Increases the chance to dodge an attack. The amount increased is dependant on both class and level. For most level 60 character classes, approximately 20 points of AGI will increase your chance to dodge by approximately 1%. Rogues only require 14.5 AGI for an additional 1% dodge chance. Hunters require 26.5 AGI for an additional 1% dodge chance, but Hunters typically have a high amount of agility, as well as an Aspect spell that further increases their chance to dodge attacks.

Defense
- Increases the chance of being missed by an attack.
- Increases the chance to dodge, parry, and block.
- Decreases the chance of being affected by a critical hit.
- Decreases the chance of being affected by a "crushing blow". Creatures that are higher level than your character can land crushing blows that deal increased melee damage. The chance of a crushing blow increases as the level difference between you and the opposing creature increases. Players never deal "crushing blows", only creatures.

Attack Power
- Attack power increases your base melee DPS by 1 for every 14 attack power.
- Strength increases your melee attack power by 2, except for rogues and Hunters. Rogues and Hunters gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, and 1 per point of Agility.
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Very interesting if you really want some hard figures to back up that choice of item :)

TiG

Thats taken from the WoW EU forums? I did have a quick read before.

Nice to know all that, but with druids as with all classes I'm sure there is more to factor in...for example Druid Bear takes 360% armour from items, so increasing AGI does not increase armour in the same way for Mr. Bear!

But it does illustrate nicely why something with 100 armour flat vs something with 90 armour +10 agi is worse (all other things excluded)!

so attack bower increases base mellee dps?, but what about range ?

Ranged attack power works in exactly the same way as attack power.

Bet mads blows a sigh of relief when he reads this now :)

Does shooting with a wand count as a ranged attack?

No, there is nothing that affects the wands apart from your wand level (that effects the miss rates only)