Hi, Please let me know if I have the following right:

Defense Chance = % chance to reduce damage taken when attacked?

Damage Reduction = % of incoming damage avoided when defense chance is successful?

Shield Chance = % chance to absorb incoming damage on shield, either with or without defense success?

Shield Absorption = % of incoming damage avoided when shield is successful?

Presence = What is it? Why is it important to tanks? How do I increase it?

Thanks,

Bueller

Hi, Please let me know if I have the following right:

 

Defense Chance = % chance to reduce damage taken when attacked?

Chance to ignore/avoid damage.

Damage Reduction = % of incoming damage avoided when defense chance is successful?

Shield Chance = % chance to absorb incoming damage on shield, either with or without defense success?

Damage Reduction is by how much the incoming damage is reduced, if you didn't defend against it (but it applies after shield. Defense Chance -> Shield chance/Absorb -> Damage Reduction -> your health pool). Shield Chance is a chance to make an attack meet the absorb percentage. So, in general, any incoming attacks first go into Defense Chance. If an attack isn't completely avoided, it then goes into your Shield Chance. Then, if it is shielded, it gets reduced by your absorb percentage and goes to meet the Damage Reduction. If it isn't shielded, it just goes to meet the Damage Reduction right away. Then absorb shields (don't confuse them with the absorb rating stats, it's different) like sorc's Static barrier or jugg tank's Sonic Barrier absorb the damage. Those aren't really a part of mitigation but it's still worth mentioning them. They have fixed values and basically work as temporary extra health. And then, if there is no absorb shield on you or it absorbed all it could, you take the damage.

 

Shield Absorption = % of incoming damage avoided when shield is successful?

Yep, and I think I covered it in the last paragraph. One thing to note is that Absorb is worth nothing unless you actually shield the attack. So generally, when gearing we try to balance those out to be close to each other with shield a bit ahead. It will depend on each tank class, of course, as they have different DCDs and passives. Usually PT tanks need more shield rating as they have Heat Blast giving them a lot of Absorb. Other 2 tanks should have absorb and shield ratings close to each other, just to maximize the value from each of them (the higher the stats go, the more Diminishing Returns you get, so just simply stacking one or the other is bad. Especially absorb, as it won't be very useful with low shield chance).

Presence = What is it? Why is it important to tanks? How do I increase it?

It is a neutral stat useful to everyone. It increases your companion's effectiveness in combat. Most of Presence comes from companion influence level. If you summon different companions with different influence levels, you will notice that presence stats changes. It also says how much presence you get from companion's influence level near the influence level bar (in companion menu). Presence does not really interfere with actual personal combat stats. You can't really have Presence on your gear except with Amplifiers on mods (which won't lower your combat stats) or using old augments with presence (don't do it ) or using an old presence stim (also, don't do it unless you are for some reason messing around with companions in combat.) I know some people do companion battles for fun, so I guess you could get a whole maximum presence gear setup made if you got money to throw out. But again, it does not interfere with actual tank gearing.

Thanks,

Bueller

Here is a post that it a bit older but goes really into detail on all the stats. https://www.rambol.net/home/2018/3/13/stats-and-damage-calculation-in-swtor

So I will just add some comments to your questions, if you want to read it in detail, check out that article.

Check out the Roll System section, specifically, to understand how these stats interact with each other. I think I covered it, mostly.

And ignore the "How to Gear" section, it's outdated. All the calculations are done for lvl70, so those are outdated, too. But all the generic descriptions of stats are great.

Incoming damage rolls in a certain order, dependent on what type of damage it is. I'll be running through the stats in a specific order so it will just add a new part to the equation with each added stat.

Damage Reduction (from your Armor or from Passive sources) is always one of the last things factored, and is simply a % of the remaining damage that is shaved off before the attack is actually applied to you.

- If you have 40% DR, something was going to hit you for 100, it would hit you for only 60. (100 - (100 * 0.4))

Defense plays against *only* Ranged/Melee attacks, and is your % chance to completely ignore the damage.

- Incoming Ranged/Melee attack rolls against your Defense Chance

-- If you win - no damage

-- If you lose - goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

Shield Chance is your % chance to Shield (redundant, sorry) an incoming attack and reduce that damage by your Absorb %. This is effective against Melee/Ranged and Tech/Force attacks.

- Incoming Ranged/Melee attack rolls against your Defense Chance

-- If you win - no damage

-- If you lose - goes against your Shield Chance

-- If you win Shield - reduced by your Absorb %, then goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

-- If you lose Shield - goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

- Incoming Tech/Force attack rolls against your Shield Chance

-- If you win Shield - reduced by your Absorb %, then goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

-- If you lose Shield - goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

The third type(s) of damage is Internal/Elemental, and this is not able to be mitigated - it can be negated by Barriers though (i.e. from Sorcerers/Sages or Juggernauts/Guardians).

Presence -- increases your Companion Health/Damage/Healing. Not something to stack, as it is useless in Flashpoints, Raids, and PvP.

There are two types of damage and two attack types. Melee/ranged is one attack type, the other is force/tech. The two damage types are kinetic/energy and internal/elemental.

Melee/ranged can be defended

Force/tech can be resisted

Kinetic/energy can be shielded.

There is damage reduction for everything but the damage reduction from armor only counts for kinetic/energy

The four combinations are melee/ranged+kinetic/energy, melee/ranged+internal/elemental, force/tech+kinetic/energy, force/tech+internal/elemental

There are no known instances of melee/ranged+internal/elemental .

Weapon damage is melee/ranged, and uses your weapon and hence a weapon damage modifier for damage calculations.

Bosses have attacks called melee or ranged damage and those have 90% accuracy, whereas their named abilities have 100% accuracy, unless it pertains to a phase of the fight where they wants a certain amount of damage going out.

My thanks to the OP for posting this question, and to all who took time to post answers.

Incoming damage rolls in a certain order, dependent on what type of damage it is. I'll be running through the stats in a specific order so it will just add a new part to the equation with each added stat.

 

Damage Reduction (from your Armor or from Passive sources) is always one of the last things factored, and is simply a % of the remaining damage that is shaved off before the attack is actually applied to you.

 

- If you have 40% DR, something was going to hit you for 100, it would hit you for only 60. (100 - (100 * 0.4))

 

Defense plays against *only* Ranged/Melee attacks, and is your % chance to completely ignore the damage.

 

- Incoming Ranged/Melee attack rolls against your Defense Chance

-- If you win - no damage

-- If you lose - goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

 

Shield Chance is your % chance to Shield (redundant, sorry) an incoming attack and reduce that damage by your Absorb %. This is effective against Melee/Ranged and Tech/Force attacks.

 

- Incoming Ranged/Melee attack rolls against your Defense Chance

-- If you win - no damage

-- If you lose - goes against your Shield Chance

-- If you win Shield - reduced by your Absorb %, then goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

-- If you lose Shield - goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

 

- Incoming Tech/Force attack rolls against your Shield Chance

-- If you win Shield - reduced by your Absorb %, then goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

-- If you lose Shield - goes against your Damage Reduction and remaining damage is applied.

 

The third type(s) of damage is Internal/Elemental, and this is not able to be mitigated - it can be negated by Barriers though (i.e. from Sorcerers/Sages or Juggernauts/Guardians).

 

Presence -- increases your Companion Health/Damage/Healing. Not something to stack, as it is useless in Flashpoints, Raids, and PvP.

I've played SWTOR for a few years, primarily as DPS. I'm new to tanking. Your post is wonderful. Informative and understandable to this tanking newbie. Before, I did not grasp some of the "what and why" of tanking stats, just that they are necessary because that's what I read in tanking guides. Your post explains things in a way that is very clear to me.

Thank you. I'm keeping your post for future reference.

Thank you. I'm keeping your post for future reference.

The short one from dipstik is the correct one, though :-)