Wizardry

"You're a wizard 'Arry."

With Cata came the encouragement for classes to wear the armor that was intended for their class. After a long time of Warriors rolling on leather, Moonkins rolling on cloth and paladin healers rolling on just about anything with intellect, the Armor Specializations were introduced.

Whenever a character's gear is made up entirely of their proper armor class (between plate, mail, leather and cloth) they will receive a 5% stat bonus to their primary stat, dependant on what talent tree they are specialising in.

Tanks = 5% stamina
Str melee dps = 5% strength
Agi melee dps/ hunters = 5% agility
Casters/ healers = 5% intellect

Plate Specializations:
Paladin / Warrior / Death Knight

Mail Specializations:
Shaman / Hunter

Leather Specializations:
Rogue / Druid

Cloth "Specializations":
Warlock / Mage / Priest

Note that there's actually no such thing as cloth specialization. This is because clothies can't wear anything besides cloth, so their specialization would always be active. Why tell them they will get intellect when only wearing cloth when they can't wear anything else?

In general while gearing up the question of "Should I get item level upgrades, or stick with my full armor set and keep the specialization, even though I will have worse quality items?". This usually comes down to the level of your other items and just how many items are going to be low item level if you get the bonus?

Fresh to level 85, in full 333s and 346s, I was better off equipping all mail as a shaman caster to get the bonus - I lost a good few item levels because of it but the intellect actually balanced out. If you're wearing a LOT of <333 armor set items, it may be worth swapping in some non-armor set pieces short-term but hold onto the set pieces for when you replace the non-set ones to correct items.

When the only thing between you and a nice 5% stat boost is one single item, you will be happy you held onto the 'bad' piece which matches the set.

Wondering how you can replace that last damn peice of non-set armor? Use Wowhead's Item Browser to find upgrades and go hunt those heroics/ reputation factions.
Here's a ready made cloth chestpiece search if you're not familiar with it. Just swap to the armor type and equipment slot you want, check the 346s and now you know where to go :)

Happy gear hunting.

This is analogous to the armor proficiencies of other classes, but since Mages can only wear cloth anyway, Blizzard gave us Wizardry so we wouldn't feel left out. How sweet.

You'll might notice that all the specializations have "Apply Aura: Mod Stat - % (Strength)" instead of their appropriate stat, but they work correctly in-game.