When you start building your Feral Druid, the question of strength or agility comes up pretty quickly. This simple question has sparked huge threads all over the web, hurt feelings, a few tears, and generally a lot of discussion. As a relatively young druid, reading some of these threads and forums seems to require a Masters in Advanced Mathematics. On top of that, there is very often talk of very high level, late game raid druid builds, which can also be confusing. Here’s a very simple breakdown of the two stats and how they compare. Consider this a 101 course. You have more to learn, but this will at least get you going.
Trying to make decisions about stats can be maddening. As soon as you think you have an answer, you’ll find someone else saying something totally different. The first step is simply trying to get a feel for the numbers. Remember that you can always get different gear and you can always rebuild your talent trees. Experiment and see what works best for you and your style of play. Let’s take a look at the very basic definitions of these stats and how they affect your druid.
Strength: The Strength attribute increases your druid’s attack power on a scale of 1 strength equal to 2 attack power. For every 14 points of attack power, your damage per second (DPS) for melee attacks increases by 1. For example, if you have an attack power of 140, you’ll have a DPS increase of 10. It might be easier to think of 1 force point is equal to .14 DPS.
Agility: This stat does a lot for us. First, when a druid is in cat form, he gains 1 attack power for each point of agility. Second, 1 point of Agility increases your armor by 2 points. This attribute also increases critical hit chance with weapons and increases chance to dodge. Again, in a different expression, 1 agility point is equal to 0.07 DPS.
So what should you equip your wild druid with? Looking at attack power alone, it would seem that increasing strength is the way to go. The more attack power, the more damage you will deal, right? Well, that’s true, however, what do you give up by ignoring agility? You will miss the dodge by one. (Your dodge chance is just what it sounds like; it gives you a chance to dodge a melee attack.)
The basic deal is that, at lower levels, the best investment you can make as a wild druid is the Strength stat. The harder you hit at low levels, basically the better off you are. However, this does not mean completely ignoring agility. When the decision arises to use equipment with strength or agility, lean towards the strength increase. At some point, at much higher levels, the favor leans towards agility, but don’t worry too much about that just yet.
Is there anything else to discuss on this topic? Absolutely. This doesn’t even scratch the surface of the problem, but it should get you going in the right direction as a low level wild druid.