WoW Classic: How is Attack Power calculated?

Modified Mar 14, 2025 18:10 IST

WoW Classic Attack Power — It's pretty easy to see what your Attack Power is in WoW Classic — here's how it's calculated (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Attack Power is an important stat for most classes in WoW Classic, but not all of them. While Mages, Priests, and other spellcasters can and will have Attack Power, it’s not something that they truly benefit from. Attack Power, both ranged and melee, primarily affects physical damage dealers: Warriors, Paladins, Rogues, Hunters, Shaman (Enhancement), and Druid (Melee forms).

Typically, your Strength increases Attack Power for Melee, and Ranged Attack power is calculated by Agility. The actual numbers will vary from class to class, since some are primarily Melee by nature, like Warriors, and others are primarily Ranged, like Hunters. Here’s what you need to know as you progress into new content on the Classic servers.

How does Attack Power work in WoW Classic?

Attack Power is calculated in WoW Classic, depending on a few things. Each class calculates Melee and Ranged Attack Power with different ratios, with consideration to what their primary form of damage is. The standard is 2 <Stat> = 1 AP. So in the screenshot below, you see my dead Hardcore Paladin has 41 Strength, which is then converted into 82 Melee Attack.

Though dead, you can see how Ragadont's Attack Power was calculated (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

As it’s not a class that uses any form of real ranged attack, their Ranged Attack stats are N/A in the screenshot. Were I on a Warrior, I would also have Ranged Attack, since they do deal damage with a Bow or a Rifle. However, it’s not a primary form of damage, so they would gain 1 <Stat> = 1 AP.

For a more specific breakdown, you can see below how Strength/Melee Attack Power works for the WoW Classic classes:

Druids, Paladins, Shaman, and Warriors all gain 2 melee Attack Power per point of Strength.
Hunters, Mages, Priests, Rogues, and Warlocks gain 1 melee Attack Power per point of Strength.

With this in mind, if you have gear that has a lot of your primary Stat on it (Strength), spells like Blessing of Kings become invaluable in terms of increasing your Attack Power. Blessing of Kings increases your overall stats, so having big stat sticks with lots of Strength on them can be a real blessing.

Then, you have Agility, which is the primary stat for Ranged Attack Power. Agility, like Strength, also increases other things, but we’re focused solely on dealing damage in this case.

It works the exact same way as it does with Strength — if it’s your primary method of dealing damage, you gain 2 <Stat> = 1 AP. Certain classes also benefit from melee Attack Power for Agility, too. We’ll cover exactly who gets what below.

Hunters gain 2 ranged Attack Power per point of Agility.
Rogues and Warriors gain 1 Ranged Attack Power per point of Agility.
Druids (Cat Form), Hunters, and Rogues gain 1 Melee Attack Power per point of Agility.

If you want to determine damage from this point, it’s 14 Attack Power = 1 DPS in WoW Classic. Then, you multiply your weapon’s Attack Time to get the amount of damage added. It’s worth noting the same amount is added to the Minimum and Maximum damage.

With this information, it’s fairly easy to see which gear is and isn’t useful to you while exploring WoW Classic. Unfortunately, this doesn't help spellcasters. They use Spell Power, and their casting stat does not increase their damage at all. Felt unfair then, feels unfair now.

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Edited by Ritoban "Veloxi" Paul