Attack Power! (or stuff I think about when bored)

Sad? Probably.

Anyway, Attack Power is a numeric value attributed to a combination of things, building onto weapon dps. Basically, the more you have, the more damage per hit you do. For every 14 attack power you have, your damage per second is increased by 1.

280 attack power? 20 dps.

As such, it is one of the stats in high demand for physical dps characters. Largely because it is one of the most easily scaled attributes for many classes.

Why is that? There are a number of reasons.

First and foremost, any buff to your character’s stats is a buff to attack power. Attack power is a stat that is at least partially derived from stats. For warriors, paladins, shaman, and druids, 1 strength is 2 attack power (it’s actually more complicated for druids, as it can be dependent on form). For rogues, 1 strength is 1 attack power, and 1 agility is 1 attack power. For hunters, 1 agility is 1 ranged attack power (and 1 strength is 1 melee attack power, but lets pretend that doesn’t exist).

Increase your warrior’s strength by 10% through Blessing of Kings, and you’ve effectively increased the toon’s attack power by 10% as well.

500 str = 1000 ap
550 str (500 + 10%) = 1100 ap

For this reason alone, strength is a powerful stat for those classes that benefit so heavily from it. If they possess a lot of gear that buffs attack power but not strength, Blessing of Kings gives them less than it normally would, because it only buffs attack power by buffing your base stats.

So for warriors, paladins, shaman, and druids, when you’re looking at gear upgrades, you need to factor strength more heavily than it looks. This is especially true when socketing gems. Always go for strength over attack power if you can.

For instance, if a potential gear upgrade looks like this:

Old
36 Strength
34 Stamina
24 crit rating

New
30 Stamina
25 crit rating
74 attack power

74 attack power sounds like a lot, but remember that 36 strength by itself is 72. So the new item is an upgrade right?

Well if attack power is the only consideration, remember that with Kings, your strength is increased by 10%. That 36 strength on the old item becomes 39.6, and thus rounded out at somewhere between 79 and 80 attack power, while the new item’s 72 will remain unchanged.

Of course this all relies on Blessing of Kings, but every raid should have it, if not for this than to also increase all the other stats for more hit points, mana, and mana regeneration!

However, and I’m starting to ramble a bit, but on the subject of blessings, Might is in general a more powerful blessing than Kings, considering attack power alone. You would need something in the range of 1000 strength to come remotely close to getting the same amount of attack power from Kings as you would Might. However, the increased hit points from the increased stamina (and even increased crit chance from increased agility) may let Kings win out, but that decision is, in my experience, up to the paladins.

This is a long way to say to warriors, paladins, and shaman in particular: strength > attack power in gem sockets!