(This is prob'ly going to be real, REAL boring, but it's intended to help those folks leveling a druid solo to have some concept of how good their current stats are by comparison to "the norm". Also, I'm pretty good at math, but haven't been playing WoW for too incredibly long, so my methods described here might be inaccurate. Criticism welcome!)

When I started playing as a Night Elf Druid, I realized immediately that I had NO bearing on how my character's stats were measuring up as I leveled. I started asking myself these kinds of questions:

If Spirit and Intellect are crucial to a successful druid, what are "good" values for these stats as I level (NOT just for level 60)? In other words, if I have some really nice rings and trinkets which improve these stats, how do I compare my "new and improved" stats with a "normal" druid?

What about the other stuff, how does it measure up? Is there a way to compare them to what I "should" have at my current level?

What about my current armor? Just how good is it, really? Is the armor I'm making via leatherworking/skinning better or worse than the "best" stuff I could be buying&using at my current level?

What are my extended stats, like my attack power in bear or cat form, my percent reduction due to my armor, or my "mana per tick"?



So, I did some research, and created a file, DruidCalc.xls, to help answer just that. It calculates the type of comparison stats I was interested in at any given level, and also displays them graphically. This is very much a work-in-progress, and as I learn more about the rules and trends of druid leveling, I'll make adjustments to my file.

There are three parts to this excel file:

1. CHARACTER STATS

After you enter in your own current stats, the excel file calculates PREDICTED stats, based on your current level, and compares your real stats from what it predicted, in the form of a percentage. It then displays this information in the form of a bar graph.

How does it do this? I did some research (still very much ongoing), and found base stats (no buffs, armor, etc.) for a level 1 druid, and for a level 60. The excel file assumes a linear relationship as you progress (meaning, for example, your SPIRIT stat is increased by 0.4 every time you level, or something like that). This may not be "correct", but it's a good ballpark way to compare where you are with where you probably should be, and as I get more info., I'll adjust the predictions accordingly.

For example, if due to your equipment, buffs, and other things, your Spirit is at 35, and the excel file estimates that at your current level, your Spirit should only be at 21 (since it doesn't take into account buffs and equipment), then your Spirit is 67% above where a "normal" druid's would be at that level.

2. ARMOR STATS

This was the toughie. I looked up the best Hand, Wrist, Feet, legs, Waist, and Chest armor available for druids from Thottbot at levels 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60. I then interpolated this data any best way I could. These calculations came out pretty good, too, assuming Thottbot's info. can be trusted. For example, my R-squared value is lowest for my "Hand armor" interpolation, at 91%. Still pretty good.

And so here in this section, the user enters in their armor values, and the excel file calculates the theoretical "best" armor you should have at this level, and compares your real druid armor stats with what it calculated (again, in the form of a percentage). I say "best", because it assumes max armor and level stats from Thottbot, so again, it's a good ballpark estimate to see where you "should be".

For example, if your Chest armor's AC is 100, and the excel file estimates that the best chest armor around for your level is 50, then you are 100% above the estimated value for chest armor. Pretty good!

This information is also summarized in a bar graph within the excel file.

(You may note that I don't have neck, back, or other armor listed. That's because when you start a druid, you don't have any of this type of armor equipped. That means I consider these items "extras" for now, and so if you do have any of these items, the way to incorporate them is to add up their total armor value, and put add this into an "other" column.)

3. EXPANDED STATS

This is the extra stuff you may want to know about your character. All the formulas came from WoWwiki (and from what I read in the discussions, they're all assumed to be accurate). The definitions are as follows:

AP (Bear form) - your attack power in bear form
AP (Cat form) - your attack power in cat form
% Reduction - the amt. of damage reduction your armor has for each attack by a mob OF YOUR LEVEL, in the form of a percent. % Reduction can only be 75% or lower.
MaxofArmor - the armor level you would need to have a % Reduction value of 75%
% of Max - how far your armor is away from the MaxofArmor value. If your armor is one half that of MaxofArmor, then this value would be "50%".
ManaPerTick - amt. of mana you receive per "tick" of time, which is about 2 seconds.

Anyway, I know this is pretty boring to most, but the intent is to help others, so if you want to take a look, I can e-mail the file to you.

I would love to have this file. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into it.

Btw:

Right now the file only makes calculations for NIGHT ELF Druids; I'll be adding a Tauren equivalent in the next couple of days, along with a section for weapon comparisons. I'll keep everybody posted.

Would you please email me your spread sheet
Deffa lvl 13

Great job. Sounds good.

That's a good bit of work but I'm missing the result. What are you trying to find out?

I basically want to compare my current stats to, well, something, to get a frame of reference for how my character's doing (what I should be improving on, what's going good, etc.)

For example, if there's a VERY expensive leather belt offered, but it only adds 2 armor extra in exchange for +3 intellect, is it worth it? Or, just how good IS my armor, anyway? How about my stat increases from my items, are they doing any good at all? This kind of stuff.

While i applaud your efforts, I am having a hard time finding meaningful statistics in your description. ;)

By pulling the best items from Thottbot, you end up comparing yourself to the best geared twinks.

Also, the model you use to predict the ac and expanded stats a character is likely to have seems flawed. Your ac and stats will be dictated by your equipment choice and will be biased towards whatever "role" you intend to play at any specific time. There is no possible way to have the best of everything all the time.

Also, i think you might want to expand more on what "normal" means for a druid. Using stats, you should be able to determine whether your data is normal or not and what ranges each category is likely to produce. It might make for a better approximation, but requires quite a bit of data to be researched.

Can you post the document so we can all take a look?

Sure, I'd be happy to post it, but not sure how to go about it. Is there a way to post attachments on the forum? In the meantime, I can try to explain this thing a little better.

By pulling the best items from Thottbot, you end up comparing yourself to the best geared twinks.

Yep, exactly. How far are you away from the "best" gear (says Thottbot)? That's something I care about, but I realize this may not be high on everyone else's priority list.

To walk through this, I used the Thottbot search engine to look for all leather chest armor between levels 1 and 10, then sorted by AC to find out the best listed chest armor for levels 1-10. Then I did the same for levels 11-20, and so on, until I recieved 6 data points. I then interpolated between these points so I could calculate what would be the "theoretical best chest armor" for, say, level 36. So then, the excel file will compare your chest armor to this "theoretical best".

My interpolations went great, so (and I'm sure this is the case somewhere,) the only errors would come from my methods.

Also, i think you might want to expand more on what "normal" means for a druid.

Sure. Normal means no buffs, no add-ons from gear, nothing. It's the bare bones stats you have at any given level.

Why does this matter? Well, say you have a piece of armor that gives you +4 INT. If your INT is only at 12, this means it'll change your INT level significantly. If it's at 52, though, not so much. Does that make sense? +4 INT is a 33% increase when your INT is at level 12, but only 8% when it's at 52.
This is a way of comparing your current stats at your level (INT, STR, AGI, etc.) to what they would be without any buffs or add-ons, to see just how much of a change it is.

And as for the "Extended Stats", well... these don't have any comparisons; they just get calculated, using formulas from Wowwiki. I realize the content of that site is highly debated, so I just stuck to what was the least controversial. For example, it states that your attack power in bear form is
((STR*2) - 20) + lvl*3. With these kinds of formulas, you can easily compare your attack power in normal form, bear form, and cat form, without going into WoW and manually switching between forms.

I think he meant normal under what conditions.

I have very different stats at 52 as a moonkin, than a feral druid would. Does your chart show my str as well below normal and the feral's as well above, or do youjust show how far we each are from the highest possible.

If you've looked for the best for each single stat isn't that a little unrealistic? You're not going to carry around a str set and an agi set as well as spi, int, and sta, and another disregarding all these and only looking at AC.

As an intellectual exercise it might be interesting to know what the absolute max is for a stat at any particular level, but it surely has no relation as to whether your stats are normal for a particular level.

I think he meant normal under what conditions.

I have very different stats at 52 as a moonkin, than a feral druid would. Does your chart show my str as well below normal and the feral's as well above, or do youjust show how far we each are from the highest possible.

Ahh, okay. Well, under normal conditions. I mean, normal druid form (not cat form or bear form or anything like that).

I consider these forms "additions", since you don't get them as you start out.

Now what I'm doing is, I'm starting to find calculations for spec changes within each form (for example, showing how your attack power will be increased in bear and cat form, things like that).

In a nutshell, it compares your current "normal form" stats to the lowest "normal form" stats you could have, to see just how much of an increase you have. (For example, say your intelligence is 30. Well okay, what is that? Is that good? For a level 5, very. For a level 60, not at all. What about in between?)

But, armor is different. It compares your current armor with the proposed best armor you could have at your level, to show how far you are from "the max".

Does this make sense? I've been playing wow for only a few months, and I've been a druid for about 4 weeks now, so you all know a lot more than I, and I might not understand fully what you're trying to point to.

That's a very good idea Create. Given enough data points with that type of comparison, one could also, derive where one would most likely be at any certain level as well as deriving an equation that interpolates any point between level 1 and 60.

I'd suggest Minitab if have acces to it for that. Set the confidence level to 95% or higher and you should have a rather decent idea of how you compare to what the statistics say you should be able to accomplish.

I'd be fascinated to run my character through this spreadsheet, as the type of info you're talking about is constantly on my mind as I level my druid.

This thread is about 7 months old...do you still have the file available and have you made any interesting changes? I'd love to check it out.