A gem by any other name...

...is probably useless to me.

Subtitle: what stats do I choose?

Welcome to one of the most confusing topics in WoW: stats. I also call it those pesky numbers that show up on your character sheet. To be honest, I didn't understand them at all when I started playing. To be even more honest, I really can't say I understand them much better now.

One thing I do know for certain, though...as soon as I get to understanding them fairly well, Blizz will most likely change them again. Though...honestly, it's less a problem that they'll change the stats themselves (though I have read they're making significant changes to all in the next expansion) and more that they keep "tweaking" the abilities that rely on those stats.

The basic stats...the ones on the left side of the character sheet, by default...are fairly easy to understand. Strength makes physical attacks hit harder. Agility makes ranged attacks hit harder, though I haven't quite figured out why yet, and increases armor. Intellect increases the mana pool. All these, of course, may be appended with, "and other stuff"...int, for example, also increases the chance to crit with spells, and if you're a mage it might increase your spell power too. With the right Talents, anyway...but more on Talents sometime in a later post.

The web gets...tangleder...with the consideration of secondary stats. For example, there's spell power, which affects the amount of damage each spell cast will do, spell penetration, crit chance, defense, dodge, parry, shield block...the list goes on. Blizz has promised to simplify these in the upcoming expansion, and that sounds nice, but it really means that what you read here and on other sites will become fairly useless when that expansion comes out, just the same as what you read on some sites is already useless.

Nice tangled web there, indeed, with many stats affecting one or more other stats, talents that increase or decrease the effect of certain stats, and the effectiveness of stats being dependent not only on level but also on class. For example, we know that each point in Agility converts to 1 points in Attack power. For, um, druids. For hunters, it's 1 for 2. Or at least it used to be. I think.

So...I wasn't a math major. Physics, yes, so I can tell you all about how fast a ball is going to smack you in the face when thrown at a certain angle and velocity. Yes, physics uses a lot of math, but it's not because it's particularly fun; it's just that's how the real world is described. The fact that it's also how the world of Warcraft is described doesn't make doing the math any more enticing to me either...nor, for that matter, does the fact that I have a job and a fiancee and still need time to shower, eat, use the toilet, etc., and I refuse to do all those at the same time. Let's face it, you could make an entire high school level math class out of the math required to figure WoW out.

Ultimately, what you're trying to do with stats is get "bang" for your "buck"...for lack of any better terms, anyway. On my mage, ferinstance, I really couldn't care less whether I'm getting a Sparkling, a Balanced, an Opaque, or a Fritzing cut of a gem, bearing more attack power, crit, agility, or ice cream. What I care about is which gem will increase the damage I do...specifically, the DPS number that shows up in the logs...the most. Which talent? Which gear? God Bless the folks with the time, the math skillz, and/or the single character focus to actually calculate and understand this stuff. I don't have any of the three.

Which brings me to my main point...learn to enjoy reading. Much of the stuff out there is absolutely full of wisdom. I learned this early on, when I discovered BigRedKitty, before there was a BigRedKitty.com, and started reading his stuff and srsly improved my huntard's DPS. With my mage, I was doing everything I knew and still holding a solid 7/10 spot on raid DPS meters till I read a bit and learned a couple of things: "Oh, Icy Veins! And...what do you mean spirit is good for arcane mages?"

With EVERY alt, in EVERY role, it takes time to gear up and gem up and enchant up and basically get everything working the way it should. You've got the talents and gear you use to get to max level...and, frankly, for the past several trips to 80 I've adopted a "get there as fast as I can" mantra. But as soon as that Level 80 achievement dings, I stop playing that character for a day or two, long enough to go out and read up on how to do what I want to do.

That said, be careful. There's a lot of bad/old information out there, and there are a lot of people whose opinions are so strong they sound like facts. Ferinstance, I started at 80 DK'ing by reading a site that told me all about how to tank with my death knight. I did what it was saying, and...failed, in quite an epic manner. So I read more, and found out that the info on the first site was there from before Blizz "fixed" the death knight tanking.

Once you read up, gear up, gem up, drink up, etc., go do it. One caveat...no matter what you do, you're going to suck at it at first. Take slow(ish) steps. For instance, I was sorely tempted to go tank the weekly raid quest into Ulduar with my newly minted death knight tank...it was, after all, just the second boss in Ulduar, and quite easy, right? But I didn't have the experience, or the health, or the overall gear score to have made it a good experience. Remember, it takes time to learn to play your character, which is probably the most valid argument against the extreme altism I've been practicing. Ah, well...I get bored easily, and it's my $15 a month so I'll play it how I wanna. So there!

*ahem* Tantrum over.

Continue learning, too. Going back to my death knight tank, I was doing OK with tanking groups, but when it came to single targets like bosses I was failing miserably by losing aggro every single time. Started looking at why, and realized that my AoE attacks were doing OK, but when I started doing single target stuff...you know, whackety whackety...it was more a case of whiffity whiffity. Meanwhile, the noble DPS in the party, knowing what they were doing, was solidly smacking the boss around, causing me to lose aggro. Thus, my revelation...it's not enough as a tank to be defense capped! You must also be hit capped! And THEN, and only then, you can work on health! Seems pretty obvious now when I say it like that...even to me. You didn't see me smack my own forehead when I re-read this paragraph, in fact, but I did. However, I have to admit that it really didn't occur to me at first.

So...what IS the hit cap for a death knight, I asked? Depends, was the answer I got. Lots of stuff out there...I'm not going to pretend to answer this question authoritatively. Like I said, lots of people out there smarter than me on numbers. But I got it up to 280-ish, and all seems much hunkier-dorier. I'm still not going to tank the Lich King anytime soon on this alt, but I'm much more comfortable going into random heroics.

I guess, if I had to sum up today's blog, it would be that it's OK to be a n00b if you're an altoholic. Accept that fact, shake hands with it, lrn2Google, and start learning. Then keep learning. That really, to me, is why I'm an altoholic in the first place.

Oh, and I'll take that pretty blue gem over there. Yes, the one that's Sparkling. I guess.