What stats are best for you?

Part of the problem that most people have when they are looking for upgrades, is they don't know what they are looking for. For example, as a priest, there are so many stats that I could be looking for. Spirit, Intellect, Stamina, +healing, mp5, +crit, armor....which ones are what I need?

A lot of it depends on the situation. Some fights require more stamina than others. If I'm not getting hit, then I don't need stamina. So should I get gear that has stamina or not?

If you think about it, each item that you have chance of getting has an item level associated with it. This item level dictates a limit as to how many stats it can have on it. Items from Karazhan have a higher item level than items from 5 mans. So what does this mean? It means that based on what instances you are running, there is a limited number of stats that you can have at any given time. This means that you need to pick and choose your stats wisely.

So what gear is best for you? The first thing that you need to realize is that there are several variables that come into play. First is talents. Everyone who's a feral druid knows that cat druids should stack strength. Why? Because they get 2.2 AP for every 1 strength that they have. This means that if Item X has 50 Strength, and Item Y has 50 Agility, the cat druids should go for Item X. Rogues should go for Item Y. So a lot of it is figuring out what stats do what for you. Arcane mages should go for Intellect. Survival hunters should go for Agility. Holy priests should go for spirit. Holy paladins should go for +crit on spells. Every talent spec has one or two stats that affect them more than it affects their counterparts. This helps to dictate what gear to wear.

Another thing to take into consideration is the encounter itself. Some fights have AOE damage. In these fights, having stamina is crucial. I have an entire stamina healing set for these kinds of fights. I have a low stamina set as well that focuses on spirit, +healing, and regen. It doesn't hurt to have multiple sets...only on the bag space.

Finally, there is a piece that comes into play beyond anything a formula can give you. Playstyle does dictate some itemization. If you like to stack +crit, then there may be certain gear that would be better for you. If you feel that you don't want to crit and would like your white damage to hit for a lot, then go for AP or spell damage. Sometimes your playstyle should affect your talent tree, so I always recommend to every DPS class to actually figure out the theme of a talent tree and decide based on that what is right for them. For example, warlock trees are very specialized. Afflication is based on DOT damage, which means +damage is perfect for them. Demonology is a survival build, and stamina and int are the way to go for these. Destruction is a crit based build, so stacking +crit is huge for destruction. Try them all out to see which one fits your style best.

Then use Kaliban's loot list to find gear that's right for you. Give it a shot...you won't be disappointed when you end up being extremely high on the damage charts because you've itemized and specced correctly.