This is a major turndown for us tanks, but also depressive for our "brothers" (and sisters), swinging their dual lightsabers to do damage.

Basically, in PvP, the tanking stats (defense and shield chance) works against lightsaber attacks and pretty much nothing else! (A slight exageration, but you get the point.) Just to mention 1 example, the Bounty Hunter's Rocket Punch circumvents both defense and shield chance!

But don't take my word for it - check out the original thread in the Powertech forum yourselves:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=156809

This is a major turndown for us tanks, but also depressive for our "brothers" (and sisters), swinging their dual lightsabers to do damage.

 

Basically, in PvP, the tanking stats (defense and shield chance) works against lightsaber attacks and pretty much nothing else! (A slight exageration, but you get the point.) Just to mention 1 example, the Bounty Hunter's Rocket Punch circumvents both defense and shield chance!

 

But don't take my word for it - check out the original thread in the Powertech forum yourselves:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=156809

X_X

I was reading that thread earlier, this is pretty massive oversight on the devs part. The tank pvp gear is worthless right now, you're better of getting a dps set and speccing out of anything talent that doesn't offer hard mitigation.

W. T. F. BIOWARE

NOTE: This is a sum-up by me, of work done by ChainsawSamurai, Taugrim, Kollbjorn and others (in the original thread, linked in my first post). The only thing I've tested myself is that mobs (at least "gold" ones) have the same variety of attack types, and thus some of them bypass shield entirely). The rest of this is based on the works of other people, I'm just trying to put it in a easy-to-read format.

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DEFENSE, SHIELD and ARMOR - short version

* All three work in any direction.

* At least Shield and Armor work while stunned (has been tested). I'm not sure about defense(?).

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There are 4 different attack types and 4 different damage types in the game (afaik).

Attack types:

* Force

* Melee

* Ranged

* Tech

Damage types:

* Elemental

* Energy

* Internal

* Kinetic

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Different attack types and damage types bypass different parts of Defense, Shield and Armor. Putting these in a "table" with Defense, Shield and Armor notes, we get the following:

					[color="Cyan"]Force or Tech[/color] attack				[color="Cyan"]Melee or Ranged[/color] attack
[color="Yellow"]Elemental or Internal[/color] damage	[color="Red"]No armor[/color] + [color="Red"]No defense & shield[/color]		[color="Red"]No armor[/color] + [color="Lime"]Full defense & shield[/color]
[color="Yellow"]Energy or Kinetic[/color] damage		[color="Lime"]Full armor[/color] + [color="Red"]No defense & shield[/color]		[color="Lime"]Full armor[/color] + [color="Lime"]Full defense & shield[/color]

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NOTE: These mechanics are true for both PvP and PvE. (But in PvE the majority of mobs do melee or ranged attacks, with kinetic damage, so all three of Defense, Armor and Shield remain very useful.)