Note: All credit for the original thread goes to Daellia; I will simply be maintaining it subsequent to his departure. If you have any questions, though, don't hesitate to ask.

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I've seen a lot of questions and false information about character stats thrown around on these boards, so I'm making this post to provide a resource for everyone for how exactly all of the stats work. Note that this guide is sorcerer-specific, I won't be covering Assassin benefits here (the only real differences, for those wondering, are that Willpower also affects their melee attacks, they need Accuracy rating, and for tanking, Defense, Shield, and Absorption).

First, some background. Nearly every stat in the game follows a diminishing returns curve. For those mathematically-oriented, these curves asymptotically approach a certain limiting value.

For those not so mathematically inclined, that basically means that the benefit you gain from adding a certain amount more of that stat gets smaller and smaller the more of it you have, with a certain "ceiling" it can never exceed. For example, crit rating limits to 30%. Thus the more and more crit rating you add to your character, the closer and closer you get to that 30% bonus, but you can never actually reach it.

Also, note that the benefit from each stat is on a separate DR curve, and raw percentage benefits (such as from abilities) have no effect on any DR curves (they are additive on top of them instead). Thus how much Willpower you have, for example, has no bearing on how much benefit you get from X crit rating, and vice versa. This doesn't imply that the DPS value of the stats are independent, but that's another discussion entirely.

Willpower vs Power

5 + 30 * ( 1 - ( 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.3 ) )^( ( PrimaryStat / max(Level,20) ) / 2.5 ) ) + 30 * ( 1 - ( 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.3 ) )^( ( CritRating / max(Level,20) ) / 0.45 ) )

Willpower

Increases force damage, healing, and critical effect chance. Each points provides 0.20 Force Bonus Damage and 0.14 Force Bonus Healing. Critical effect chance benefit scales slowly and limits to 30%.

Force Power

Increases force damage and healing at a slightly higher rate than Willpower. Each point provides 0.23 Force Bonus Damage and 0.17 Force Bonus Healing.

Power

Identical to Force Power for Sorcerers. Each point provides 0.23 Force Bonus Damage and 0.17 Force Bonus Healing. Also increases melee, ranged, and tech at the same rate.

Critical Rating

Increases critical effect chance with all damage and healing abilities. Benefit scales moderately and limits to 30%.

Surge Rating

Increases the bonus damage or healing from a critical effect. Additive with the base 50% critical multiplier. Benefit scales rapidly and limits to 30%.

Alacrity Rating

Reduces the cast time of casted and channeled abilities. Additionally reduces the length of the global cooldown for those abilities if their cast or channel time drops below 1.5 seconds. Does not reduce the GCD for instant abilities, nor for cast/channeled ones if their final cast time remains above 1.5 seconds. Additive with multiple Alacrity sources. New Cast Time = Original Cast Time * (1 - Alacrity%). Scales moderately and limits to 30%

Accuracy Rating*

Reduces chance to miss against a target, and once miss chance is 0%, begins to negate the target's Defense or Resistance. Boss targets are believed at this time to have zero innate force resistance, and force attacks have a base accuracy of 100% against all targets. Thus, this stat is worthless for Sorcerers in PvE. In PvP, no gear stat gives resistance, and only limited abilities do. Thus it is generally worthless against most targets and not worth gearing for. Scales moderately and limits to 30%.

Shield Rating*

Increases your chances of "blocking" and attack with your shield generator. Referred to as Glance Rating on TORhead. Requires a shield generator in offhand, and thus is useless to Sorcerers. Scales moderately quickly and limits to 50%.

Absorption Rating*

Increases the damage absorbed by a successful shield "block". Does not increase the damage absorbed by Static Barrier or similar absorption buffs/abilities. Requires a shield generator in offhand, and thus is useless to Sorcerers. Scales rapidly and limits to 50%.

Defense Rating*

Increases your chance to avoid melee and ranged attacks. Dodge, parry, and a few other terms are all manifestations of this stat. Sorcerer base defense is 10%. Has no effect on Force or Tech attacks. Generally useless to Sorcerers. Scales moderately and limits to 30%.

Expertise Rating

PvP-only stat. Increases your damage and healing done to other players and decreases the damage you take from other players. Healing is increased by "ignoring" part of the Trauma buff that is automatically applied when you enter PvP combat, and thus scales somewhat better in actual effect than the percentage displayed on the character sheet. The damage bonus scale moderately and limits to 50%, while the trauma ignore scales slowly and limits to 30%.

The DR portion is now (as of 1.2) calculated directly off of the damage portion, and is equal to 1 - 1 / (1 + DamageBoost%). The net effect of this change to DR is that any character attacking another character with the same amount of expertise will deal the same amount of damage they would deal if both they and the target were at 0 expertise. Previously, the DR portion scaled somewhat better, so, for example, a 1000 Expertise character attacking another 1000 expertise character would deal noticeably less damage than if both characters were at 0 expertise.

*NOTE: Gear with these stats, while worthless to Sorcerers directly, may be of some benefit if equipped to certain of your companions instead.

I've also made this handy graph showing the scaling of all of the stats. Left graph shows the total benefit of the stat based on how much you have, while the right graph shows the benefit of the next 10% of that stat based on how much you already have. Remember, separate stats have no effect on the benefits each grants, even if they give the same bonus (such as Crit and Willpower), and percentage benefits from skills and abilities are applied additively after the rating conversion is applied.

The first graph shows scaling from 0 to 1000 rating, the second from 0 to 2500. The third graph shows the percentage of the limiting cap obtained at each rating level. This is important, since the benefit rating gives you is proportional to how much of the cap you have remaining. ie. if you are at 60% of the cap, the rating will be providing you with 40% of the benefit it did when you had 0 of that rating). The fourth graph is simply a comparison of 1.1.5 to 1.2 values for Expertise.

0-1000 Rating Graph

0-2500 Rating Graph

Percentage of Cap Graph

1.1.5 to 1.2 Expertise Comparison Graph

If you're interested in more specifics on how the stats work, what the formulas look like, and how we came up with them, check out this post over on mmo-mechanics.com (warning: it's a bit mathy):

http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/Thread-SWTOR-formula-list

And sticky request made =)

Thanks for taking over the reins, Aurojiin.

Augmenting PvP gear for Healing Sorc any recommendations? You talk about diminishing returns. What stats have diminishing returns? All? Can you have too much expertise or willpower to have a diminising return? I know it sounds silly I heard some bad rumors, like Santa Claus doesn't exist. Just seeing what augments are recommended to have a good balance.

Augments should pretty much universally be Resolve (Willpower). The only stat in the game without any form of DR is Power, but Willpower (and all other primary stats) have only minor DR, compared to the magnitudes available in-game. Due to the boost from Will of the Sith and Mark of Power, no other stat can touch Willpower (for raw output) on a point-for-point basis, in any gear. Willpower is about 10% better than Power for Hybrid specs, and about 15% better than Power for 31-point Lightning and Madness specs (I've not investigated healing, but I suspect it's about 5-8% better for them, based on the conversation ratios).

Where you keep your balance of Expertise is largely personal preference. More expertise will make you harder to kill, but in basically all higher-end gear sets, Expertise is going to be far enough along the DR curve that other stats are almost guaranteed to provide more DPS and healing output, point-for-point. Thus stacking expertise in effect raises your defensive capabilities in exchange for reducing your damage capabilities (compared to stacking more non-expertise stats). Where that point is is up to you, depending on your playstyle, spec, team choice (for RWZs), etc. I would, however, recommend staying over at least 1000.

More expertise will make you harder to kill, but in basically all higher-end gear sets, Expertise is going to be far enough along the DR curve that other stats are almost guaranteed to provide more DPS and healing output, point-for-point. Thus stacking expertise in effect raises your defensive capabilities in exchange for reducing your damage capabilities (compared to stacking more non-expertise stats). .

Any recommendable number for expertise? 1000 seems to low. But thanks, I will continue to augment willpower. Can I talk about augmenting PT Tank? Or is that another thread?

Any recommendable number for expertise? 1000 seems to low. But thanks, I will continue to augment willpower. Can I talk about augmenting PT Tank? Or is that another thread?

I've done effectively zero research on PT tanks, so I would not be the one to ask about that. You can probably find some good information in the BH section at MMO-mechanics.com/swtor/forums.

As for Expertise, that's all the advice I have. I never really PvPed regularly, so I don't really have a basis to even guess at what would be an optimal amount. All I have to go on is the math, and what I've garnered from speaking to my more PvP-oriented friends.

ZOMG I spent so much money (credits) on buying accuracy rating enhancements (lvl 56,58 & 61) and now I find out they are totally useless!

Now I have to spend even more credits swapping them out with something useful like critical rating T.T