PvE Affliction Warlock Stat Priority & Reforging

Affliction Warlocks in Mists of Pandaria are primarily interested in Intellect, with their secondary stat priority depending on whether they have reached the Hit cap and how close they are to a Haste breakpoint. You’ll need to know how to prioritize these stats so you can select the appropriate gear, gems, enchants, and consumables as well as for reforging, which is also covered in this guide.

Stat Priority

Here is your general stat priority as an Affliction Warlock:

1. Hit Chance (until Hit capped)
   • Hit = Expertise
2. Intellect
3. Spell Power
4. Haste (to reach a breakpoint)
5. Mastery
6. Haste (beyond breakpoints)
7. Critical Strike

Hit Chance

Hit Chance will be your first consideration when playing any damage dealer at endgame. Every caster DPS needs 15% Hit Chance to ensure that their spells always land. A miss does no damage at all, so reaching the Hit cap is crucial. In Mists of Pandaria, Hit rating and Expertise both contribute to your total Hit Chance as a Warlock. Once you have reached the cap, however, every point of these stats you gain above the cap is completely useless.

Hit rating on gear is directly converted to Hit Chance and is fairly straightforward.

Expertise is not just for melee characters anymore: it can now contribute to your Hit Chance as a caster. You won’t see too much Expertise on caster gear, however, and it doesn’t offer any benefits that Hit doesn’t. It’s mainly worth noting due to racial passives. Some races have abilities that will give you a free 1% Expertise, but only if you’re using the appropriate weapon type in your Main Hand slot. You may also find that Expertise gems are cheaper than Hit gems.

Spirit does not provide Hit Chance or anything else useful to Warlocks and should be completely avoided in favor of more useful stats.

• You need 15% Hit Chance to ensure that your spells never miss.
  • You don’t want any more Hit Chance beyond that, as it serves no further purpose.

• Every 340 Hit/Expertise rating you gain increases your total Hit Chance by 1%.

• You will need 5100 total Hit Chance from Hit rating or Expertise to reach the cap, or 4760 if you are benefitting from one of the following racial abilities:
  • Human characters gain 1% Expertise through Sword Specialization, but only if you have a Sword weapon equipped in your Main Hand slot.
  • Gnome characters get 1% Expertise via Shortblade Specialization, but only if you have a Dagger or Sword weapon equipped in your Main Hand slot.

Throughput Stats

Intellect is your primary stat as a Warlock, and you’ll want as much of it as you can get once you have reached your Hit cap. Intellect is the main source of your Spell Power and also increases your Critical Strike. (Note that in Mists of Pandaria, it no longer increases your mana pool.) Your Nethermancy passive effect increases your Intellect by 5%, adding further value to every point you acquire. You can’t reforge other stats to Intellect, so you’ll want to get as much as you can from your gear.

Spell Power directly increases the damage and healing of your spells. Most of your Spell Power will come from your Intellect at a 1:1 ratio, but you will occasionally see it as a secondary stat on certain items such as weapons and trinkets. Each of your spells has its own coefficient that determines how much its effect is multiplied by your Spell Power.

Haste is similar to Hit for Affliction Warlocks in that you will be aiming for specific caps, but unlike Hit, Haste keeps some of its value even after a cap is reached. These caps are based on breakpoints at which you will gain additional ticks from your DoTs: Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction. In between these breakpoints, Haste can still speed up your spell casts and global cooldown, but it falls behind Mastery. Prioritize Haste if there’s a breakpoint within reach, but don’t go reforging or regemming large amounts of Mastery to make it happen.

• Every 425 points of Haste is equal to 1% increased casting speed.
• The Haste cap for the global cooldown is 18,215 Haste Rating (17,614 for Goblins). At that point you will not be able to reduce the GCD any further.
• Your goal early on will be to reach the breakpoint for 2 extra ticks of Unstable Affliction, which is 21.40%. With the 5% raid buff, that’s 6647 Haste Rating (6151 for Goblins).
• The next significant breakpoint comes when you can get 4 extra ticks of Agony, which requires 29.16%. That’s 9778 Haste Rating (9261 for Goblins).
• The last important breakpoint is at 4 extra ticks of Corruption, which you can get at 38.94%. That requires 13,737 Haste Rating (13,180 for Goblins).
• Below are all of the notable Haste breakpoints for your spells:

Mastery increases the damage of your three important DoTs – Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction – via your Mastery: Potent Afflictions passive effect. Mastery is very close in value to Haste and pulls ahead once you have reached the nearest Haste breakpoint. Although Intellect is more valuable point-for-point, secondary stat gems provide twice as much stat as Intellect gems, so Mastery will be your priority for gemming.

• Every 302 points of Mastery increases Mastery: Potent Afflictions by 1%.

Critical Strike increases your chance of getting a critical hit with your spells, doubling their damage or healing. It’s not a bad stat, but it isn’t as valuable for you as Haste or Mastery.

• Every 600 points of Critical Strike is equal to 1% increased crit chance.

Reforging

Reforging can only be done for secondary stats, so you won’t be able to alter the Intellect or Stamina on your gear. Affliction Warlocks will want to reforge less valuable stats to Hit until they cap their Hit Chance. After that, Hit/Expertise and other less valuable stats can be reforged into Haste in order to reach a breakpoint, or Mastery if you are between breakpoints. If a piece already has Mastery on it and you have already reached your caps, you can reforge it to Haste.

1. Hit (until Hit capped)
2. Haste (to reach a breakpoint)
3. Mastery