PvE Destruction Warlock Stat Priority & Reforging

As a Destruction Warlock in Mists of Pandaria Classic, you will aim to reach the Hit cap and then stack as much Intellect and Mastery as you can get. This stat priority will help you select the appropriate gear, gems, enchants, and consumables for success. You’ll also use this priority for reforging your gear, which is also covered at the end of this guide.

Stat Priority

Here is your general stat priority as a Destruction Warlock:

1. Hit Chance (until Hit capped)
   • Hit = Expertise
2. Intellect
3. Spell Power
4. Mastery
5. Critical Strike
6. Haste

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, though, and it doesn’t offer any benefits that Hit doesn’t. It’s mainly worth noting due to racial passives. Gnome and Human characters each have racial 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.

Mastery empowers your spells that consume Burning Embers via your Mastery: Emberstorm passive effect. It will be close in value to Critical Strike and Haste for single-target damage, but it explodes in value when there are multiple targets thanks to all of the Burning Embers you generate with Rain of Fire. 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 200 points of Mastery increases Mastery: Emberstorm by 1%.

Critical Strike increases your chance of getting a critical hit with your spells, doubling their damage or healing. Some of your spells only have a chance to generate Burning Embers on critical hits, or they will generate extra on a crit. This stat falls just behind Mastery in terms of its benefits.

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

Haste is useful for speeding up your spell casts and global cooldown. Unlike Affliction and Demonology, Destruction does not have any meaningful Haste breakpoints to aim for. Haste can add ticks to your Immolate DoT, but this is not significant for your damage. Haste will increase your DPS, but not as much as other stats.

• 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.
• Immolate gains ticks at 9.99%, 30.01%, and 49.96% Haste. You don’t need to worry about these breakpoints, however.

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 Mastery, or to Critical Strike if the piece already has Mastery on it.

1. Hit (until Hit capped)
2. Mastery
3. Critical Strike (if the piece already has Mastery on it)