WoW Forever itemization: combined hit and crit, new stats

WoW Forever keeps Classic's stats but reworks several of them, adds new ones and goes over every dungeon drop, with one goal in Blizzard's words: keep the gameplay of Classic while "unsolving" the path through it. Hit and critical strike chance are now single stats across spells, melee and ranged, hybrids get gear made for them, and quests reward more classes. Here is what Blizzard announced at its Deep Dive panel, checked against the beta client's item data (build 1.60.1.70009).

Stats: what merges, what changes

• Hit and crit are combined. Spell, melee and ranged hit chance are one stat, and so are spell, melee and ranged critical strike chance. Blizzard's examples: it helps Retribution Paladins and Enhancement Shamans, and it lets Warriors, Hunters and Rogues make Taunts, Poisons and Traps more reliable.
• Weapon skill works as before, but items give less of it, so a weapon-skill item is no longer the obvious pick.
• Bonus healing also counts for damage, at one third of its value, which helps healers while questing.
• Caster weapons grant spell damage and healing, so casters get level-up weapons the way Warriors, Rogues and Hunters do. In the beta client, caster gear reads "Increases spell power", a line already on 1,015 items.
• New stats include one that reduces the chance for your attacks to be parried or dodged. The beta client already has its tooltip, "Reduces chance to be Dodged or Parried", though no item in this build uses it yet.

Situational effects

Trinkets are moving toward varied, situational effects; Blizzard's example is the Worgenbane Talisman, which isn't in the beta client yet. New effects also tie gear to environments, such as Woodlands, Mountains or Deserts, and to creature types, with X'caliboar among Blizzard's examples. The beta client has one such effect so far, an item that increases damage against Undead by 1%.