Yesterday, Carbine released their “Deep Dive” (can we have ‘Dev Speaks’ back? it sounds way cooler!) into the upcoming stat revamp that is going to be part of the F2P conversion.

The main reason Carbine has given for this stat revamp, is to help reduce player confusion over the old stats (Moxie, Finesse, Brutality… what do these do?)

So.. all those old secondary Core stats?  They’re outta here!

Now, instead of multiple secondary Core stats that did different things depending on the class…. we have more multiple secondary stats, without the cool names… but, at least these do the same thing on each class (mostly)!

Here’s the new primary Core stats:

Assault/Support Power

This is given out via Assault or Support Rating and is then converted into Power. Almost all damage in the game scales off of either Assault or Support Power.

Armor

Armor determines the player’s base ability to reduce incoming damage of all damage types.

Health

This value determines the amount of damage the player can receive before death.

Shield Max

This value determines amount of damage a player’s shield can absorb (extending health).

For those more interested in PvP, check out the core stats:

PvP Power

This is derived from the PvP Power Rating and is converted into PvP Power or PvP Healing. All damage and healing in PvP combat is scaled by this stat.

PvP Defense

This is derived from the PvP Defense Rating and converted into PvP Defense. All defense in PvP is scaled by this stat.

All of these exist in one form or another currently.. post Drop 6.. they’ll just be there in bigger quantities (since, you’ll no longer be getting AP from Finesse – for example).  So, no changes there (I’d love for them to Combine AP/SP, and just make a passive ability/AMP that converted it to the appropriate one for DPS vs Tank/Healing – So get on that Carbine… okay?).

There are some secondary stats currently in the game, that will remain post Drop 6… and most without any changes..

These stats aren’t changing:

Critical Hit Chance	Critical Hit Severity
Armor Pierce	Deflect Chance
Deflect Critical Hit Chance	Physical Resistance
Technology Resistance	Magic Resistance
Cooldown Reduction	Focus Cost Reduction

Lifesteal (which as far as I know, is currently only to be able to be increased via AMP points) will now be found on gear.. so keep an eye out for that.

 

Now.. on to the new, less fun named, secondary stats.  These are all new, and for the most part, there doesn’t seem to be any ‘must have’ stat (with the possible exception of Vigor… I foresee this stat causing some issues in the future).

Strikethrough

This stat will directly counter an opponent’s deflect rate just as it would in the Live game. The improvement to function is that if a player’s Strikethrough exceeds their opponent’s Deflect rate, it is then converted into Armor Piercing.

Multi-Hit Chance

This is a new stat for all roles. Each time players deal damage or heal an ally, they have a chance to apply it an additional time. The value of the additional hit is determined by the effect that triggered it multiplied by the Multi-Hit Severity percentage.

Multi-Hit Severity

This is a new stat for all roles. This stat determines the magnitude of Multi-Hits.

Vigor

This is a new stat for DPS roles. Player damage is increased by this percentage, which is based on the player’s current health. It is optimal at 100% health and as health goes down, so does the bonus.

Critical Mitigation

This stat will directly counter an opponent’s Critical Hit Severity.

Intensity

This is a new stat for healing classes and it is targeted for end-game players. This will increase outgoing healing, while also increasing the Focus cost of heals.

Glance Chance

This is a new stat for tanks. This stat grants a chance to reduce an incoming damage attack by the percentage defined by Glance Mitigation.

Glance Mitigation

This is a new stat for tanks. Each time players trigger a Glance, the incoming damage is reduced by this percentage.

Reflect Chance

This is a new stat for all roles. Each time players receive damage, they have a chance to deal a percentage of that damage back to the attacker. The damage dealt is determined by the Reflect Damage stat.

Reflect Damage

This is a new stat for all roles. Each time players trigger a Reflect, it deals this percentage of the damage received back to that attacker.

Focus Recovery Rate

The functionality of this stat has changed. Players now recover a percentage of their Focus Pool every second while in combat. This stat can now be attained through gear as a Rating.

Focus Pool

The functionality did not change for Focus Pool. The change is that it is no longer a stat with a set amount. Players can now add to their Focus Pool with gear.

Good additions (IMO, obviously):

Focus Pool, Focus Recovery Rate, Reflect Rate, and Reflect Damage.

These 3 I think will encourage some differences in build/gearing versus the MMO standard “Cookie Cutter” gearing, especially if there is an AMP revamp that provides some bonuses to these.

Mediocre additions:

Strikethrough, and Critical Mitigation.

These two are ‘meh’.. they provide a little benefit for armor piercing, and avoiding crit damage, but I feel a higher Focus recovery rate, will probably be a higher benefit than either of these.

Bad additions:

Vigor, Intensity, Glance Chance, Glance Mitigation, Intensity, Multi-Hit Chance, and Multi-Hit Severity.

I think dropping Glance Chance/Glance Mitigation, and just providing an increased dodge rate would be less confusing than people trying to gear to reduce damage – when avoiding damage is always better.  Multi-Hit seems..odd.. it’s not a chance to hit multi-targets (for example, an attack that hits 3 people having a chance to hit 4 people).. it’s jut a RNG for DoTs to possibly tick an extra time (essentially).  Again, this is something that I think will be outmatched by a higher focus pool/faster focus regen (allowing an extra full attack, as opposed to just a single tick). Vigor seems like a setup for DPS to blame healers for lower damage output (XXX wouldn’t keep me topped off, so I didn’t get my Vigor boost for that fight!), and Intensity seems like a response to try and address Vigor’s design (“Oh man..healers need to be able to heal more, to keep DPS topped off all the time… let’s give them a secondary to make their heals a little stronger!”).  This one it seems would be easier served by giving everyone 1% more DPS/HPS, and calling it done (or, better yet.. leaving those numbers where they currently are)..

Overall, I’m glad to see Carbine addressing what is currently a more confusing than necessary stat system (though, I will miss the stat names).  However, at this point, it feels like we’re exchanging one confusing system, for another confusing system – that just doesn’t have confusing names.  Hopefully, the new stat system will get a good shakedown in the F2P/Drop 6 beta (don’t forget to sign up for the beta here).  I trust Carbine, so I’m hoping that beta also proves my initial reaction to some of these new stats is wrong.. guess we’ll see.