Star Wars: The Old Republic will begin early access next week (woo!), and as people begin to roll new characters in a new game they’ll be wondering exactly how they should be gearing up. This guide will explain the functions of all of the different stats in TOR (and there are a lot.) As far as what specs want what, that’s a bit murkier, but by reading through today’s post you should be able to get a basic handle on things. I’m not going to get too heavy into what the stats are, take this as a quick reference sheet.
Primary Stats
There are six primary stats that you’ll find on gear and weaponry which affect your characters the most. These stats provide multiple bonuses instead of a single increase, and (depending on spec) may have up to 5 different effects for a single point. To sum it up, each stat has multiple effects, and certain ACs and classes get additional bonus effects.
- Strength – Increases Melee Damage + Melee Crit
- Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior Bonus – Force Damage + Force Crit
- Willpower – Increases Force Damage + Force Crit
- Jedi Shadow/Sith Assassin Bonus – Melee Damage + Melee Crit
- Jedi Sage/Sith Sorcerer Bonus – Healing Power
- Aim – Increases Ranged Damage + Ranged Crit
- Vanguard/Powertech Bonus – Tech Damage + Tech Crit
- Commando/Mercenary Bonus – Tech Damage + Tech Crit + Healing Power
- Cunning – Increases Tech Damage + Tech Crit
- Gunslinger/Sniper Bonus – Ranged Damage + Ranged Crit
- Scoundrel/Operative Bonus – Ranged Damage + Ranged Crit + Healing Power
- Endurance – Increases health
- Presence – Increases companion damage, companion health, and companion healing
Power Stats
When you see those primary stats above increasing damage or healing, they’re not actually directly affecting your abilities. Rather, these stats bump up your character’s power stats, of which there are three. In addition to being modified by primary stats, tech/force/power can be found on gear such as weapons and foci/shields.
- Power – Generic stat that increases the damage (and healing!) of all of your abilities, regardless of type.
- Tech Power – Increases only damage abilities considered “tech,” such as grenades or flamethrowers.
- Force Power – Increases only damage abilities considered “force,” such as Telekinetic Throw or Shock.
- Healing Power (Tech and Force) – This is actually split up into Healing Power: Tech and Healing Power: Force, but for all intents and purposes they’re the same. Increases the amount healed by all of your healing abilities.
Secondary Stats
A staple of any MMO’s gearing process is having big powerful primary stats followed by the less powerful but more varied secondary stats, and Star Wars: The Old Republic is no exception.
- Accuracy Rating – Increases your chance to hit with all attacks. Keep in mind there are separate caps for different types of attacks. If you go over 100% hit, the additional percentage is converted into defense penetration!
- Critical Rating – Increases your chance to score a critical hit with all heals and attacks.
- Surge Rating – Increases critical bonus damage with all heals and attacks. The default bonus is 50% extra damage/heals on a crit, which this rating improves.
- Alacrity Rating – Decreases activation time for all abilities. This does NOT affect the global cooldown, and only reduces the time on casted abilities.
Gear-Defining Stats
Due to the extreme amount of gear customization in TOR, developers want you to be able to take any orange item (orange = fully moddable) and use it all the way to max level if you prefer. In order to achieve this, weapons and armor both have a dynamic stat on them which changes based on the level of the mods you have placed inside the item.
- Rating – Increases the damage done on a weapon. You’ll see this listed at the very top of a lightsaber or blaster’s tooltip. The stat itself does absolutely nothing except increase the damage done — think of it as the ‘item level’ stat you’re used to seeing in games like World of Warcraft.
- Armor – Armor, which you should be more familiar with, increases Energy and Kinetic resistances (more on that later), is the dynamic stat increased on pieces of equipped gear.
So, for an example, if you take an orange lightsaber with all level 1 mods in it, compared to the same lightsaber with all level 10 mods in it, the Rating stat will be much higher, and thus so will it’s damage. Same goes for Armor on those pieces with Armor on them.
PvP Stat
Conveniently enough, BioWare has condensed all the necessary PvP stats into one gigantic unit.
- Expertise – Increases damage/healing done and decreases damage taken in PvP situations.
I’m not entirely sure what’s defined as a PvP situation, but I would imagine it’s damage done/taken to/from other characters, or healing someone who has recently taken damage from another player. Expertise is a jack-of-all-trades stat, it helps everything a little bit.
Defensive Stats
Just in case some of you care about survivability…
- Resistance – There are 4 types of resistance in the game. Energy and Kinetic Resistance are affected by Armor as well as specific resistance stats, whereas Internal and Elemental resistance are only affected by their stats.
- Defense Rating – Increases chance to parry melee attacks and deflect ranged attacks.
- Shield Chance – For those who equip a shield in their offhand slot, increases the chance for an attack to be partially absorbed by your shield.
- Absorption Rating – Increases the amount of damage reduced when an attack is shielded.
Phew – I think that just about covers everything. Most of these stats should be pretty familiar, specifically things like armor and crit, but it’s good to take a look over everything to help out your gearing needs. Keep an eye out soon for my mega-gigantor-uber post detailing the playstyles and general rotations of each of the DPS specs available to us at launch. Until next time, stay frosty!
See also: SWTOR attributes and other strategies
