New game, new stats, new numbers to stack – isn’t that how the story always goes?SWTOR’s no different, fundamentally, from many other MMOs. Plus, to make things a little simple for the new player, each class basically has its own stat, so you won’t spend a lot of time fighting with people who share your armor type – just people who share your class.

SWTOR actually does a lot better of a job recently as far as getting you used to seeing a certain stat on your gear. Early on in beta, quest rewards would sometimes offer you one stat or another, and unless you really enjoyed reading tooltips, it was kind of hard to tell what each stat actually did - so as a fledgling adventurer, you’re left wondering, what stat do I want? I’m wielding a dual-bladed lightsaber – do I want Willpower or Strength? Troopers and Smugglers both use guns – but do I want Cunning or Aim? Or both? Those kind of questions naturally arose early on, but a lot of the gear from quests now passively points you in the right direction.

Here’s a short rundown of what each of the stats you’ll see means – most of them should look pretty familiar if you’ve got any MMO experience (and if you don’t… welcome!).

(Reminder: this is beta, this is technically still subject to change, yadda yadda. Also my familiarity with the tank stats is pretty low; it’s been my least-played role in the beta.)
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