"Building a Template"
A brief look at the reality of game mechanics in SWGEmu

Character builds are unique and diverse in SWG. Almost no two characters have the same exact set of skills and if they do, give it a week. People shape their characters in a number of different ways. Roleplayers typically build a character around a profession and an identity they want to portray. Dabblers typically build characters for skills they want to experiment with or those they want to for convenience or preference. Min/Maxers typically build a character to maximize certain skills and minimize skill point waste to optimize their character for a certain purpose. Then lastly we have the Hologrinders that are just chasing little cubes in hopes of becoming a Jedi (Sorry, had to poke fun there).

While I have stereo-typed players, in truth most of us are a mix of all of these stereotypes to a certain degree. What I am concentrating in this post is Min/Maxing and understanding game mechanics and skills, and how they will play into building a template. This is combat oriented.

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Skills, Mechanics and Definitions

Defenses
There are 3 types of defenses in SWG. Primary, Secondary and State defenses. Primary and Secondary defenses max/cap at 125 when skills are combined with SEAs. State defenses such as Dizzy, etc have no cap.

The cap that applies to Primary and Secondary defenses (125) is not applied until after pre-ceeding combat calculations such as states and associated defenses take place, vs before where it was applied much earlier in previous publishes. For example, if you have Melee Defense of 155 through template skills and +25 from SEA max, and the combat minus on your primary defense is -20 from Intimidate, the number comes out to 180-20=160. This is then capped to 125 as the max. Before, the 125 max was applied before the calculation, greatly reducing the effect. Its much more intricate than that, but you get the idea.

Primary Defenses
Melee and Ranged Defenses are primary defenses. These defenses work regardless of what weapon a character is wielding. These defenses are rolled against accuracy to see if an attack is successful. They fall under the cap as listed above ^^ Only Chef food, Squad Leader, and City bonuses can take these over the 125 final cap, and are temporary mods.

Secondary Defenses
Dodge, Counter Attack, Block, and Defensive Acuity are secondary defenses. These defenses are weapon dependant. Pistols and 1-handed melee weapons use dodge. Carbines and 2-handed melee weapons use counter attack. Rifles and Polearms use Block. Defensive Acuity is for Unarmed with or without a VK in hand. These defenses come into play if and only if the proper weapon is equipped and a hit is successful against the primary defenses. These defenses will negate bleeds/DoTs just as any other damage. Since block halves damage, the same effect will be applied to the follow on bleed/DoT. Secondary Defenses are subject to the 125 cap. Only Chef food, Squad Leader, and City bonuses can take these over the 125 final cap, and are temporary mods.

Defense Acuity is a Teras Kasi skill. Defense Accuity has a random chance to either Block, Dodge or Counterattack. It works just as the other Secondaries above.

Center of Being is a different type of skill. CoB efficay is added to the secondary defense success roll as a bonus when judging secondary defense success. CoB skill must be active by the player for the bonus to be added. (Significant bonus)

State Defenses
Defense vs. xxx are state defenses. State defenses are a roll against accuracy to see if a state is applied. Each state skill then has an inherent chance to succeed upon a successful roll. When a successful 'state hit' is applied, there is then a percent chance based on the skill for it to work. There is NO cap on state defenses. While its not hard science, 70+ in any of these skills are recommended for a noticeable difference. More the better.

Defense vs. Knockdown - Just as it sounds like. Knocked on your butt. Thakitillo Chef food provides extra bonus for KD defense.

Defense vs. Posture Change - It is more difficult to achieve high defense in this skill. No Chef food exsists.

Defense vs. Dizzy - Dizzy is what makes Knockdown and Posture Down so dangerous. Any attempt to change posture, even if you are currently in that posture (i.e. hitting stand while standing) results in a chance for a person to fall down.

Defense vs. Blind - Blind lowers an attackers accuracy by -60. It also effects "dodge" similar to the food bonus. Its a different sort of "dodge" built in to the combat equation. That takes a -60 hit as well, and it effectively equals a reduction to the primary defenses when all is said and done.

Defense vs. Stun - Stun reduces the attackers total damage by 20%, and also lowers primary defenses by -50.

Defense vs. Intimidate - Intimidate has three effects. Only one of them stacks between Intim 1 and Intim 2.
1) It reduces primary defenses by -20 (this stays the same when stacked)
2) It completely nullifies secondary defenses (this stays the same when stacked)
3) It reduces attacker damage by 50%. 30 seconds for Intim 1, and 2 minutes for Intim 2. Re-application of either will simply reset the 30 sec or 2 minutes, but never exceed the 2 min total.

It is also important to note that because accuracy plays a role in determining the success of a defense it is much better to have 100+ in one defense than 50 in two defenses. A player with 75 melee, ranged and secondary defenses will be hit significantly more than a person with 0 melee and ranged defense but 125 secondary defense. A person with 50 def vs. knockdown and 50 def vs. dizzy will be much easier to apply kd/dizzy to than a person with 0 defense vs. knockdown and 100 defense vs. dizzy. Min/Maxing of skills is just that. Maxing what skills you choose to and minimizing wasted skill points.

Accuracy
Accuracy is very simple. The higher your accuracy the better chance you have to hit something and applying a desired effect/state. Accuracy should be maxed if possible, especially against targets with high defense. It is important to understand that your posture, the target's posture, yours and your targets movement, the target's defenses, intimidate on the target, stun on the target, blind state on the attacker, aim, range modifiers on the weapon and rate of movement of both you and the target severly affect accuracy. Use all these to your advantage whether you are the attacker or the defender. There is NO cap on accuracy. Get as much as you can. As always, SEAs max at +25.

Speed
Speed works on an exponential scale in SWG. It is a continous curve that is near constant at lower speed and then rises sharply as speed approaches 100. Speed is capped at 1 second in SWG. Any attacks that appear faster are due to lag. Due to SWG's speed formula any weapon can be used at 1 attack per second at 100 speed. Due to inherent weapon speed and special attack delay modifiers, all weapon have a different cap which is below 100. What is most important to note is that as you approach 100 speed, each bit of weapon speed significantly increases attack speed until you hit the one second cap (i.e. the difference between 75 speed and 85 speed is significantly lower than the difference between 85 speed and 95 speed when using a 5.4 speed Power Hammer with Head Hit 3 in 2-handed melee). Delay between attacks is computed by the following..... Weapon Delay = (1 - Speed/100) x Weapon x Ability Mod(Body Shot 1, etc. have their own modifiers)

Damage
Random HAM vs. Targeted HAM- Random HAM attacks are typically higher damaging attacks. Targeted HAM attacks are typically lower damage but only hit one pool. Your target, your special attack and the group you are attacking with all determine what is the best type of damage to deal when comparing Random HAM vs. Target HAM attacks.

Money tip... "If you are trying to bring down a powerful mob quickly then it's best to go for targeted attacks (i.e. it is usually quicker for all group members to attack one pool, rather than use random attacks). If you are trying to outdamage another group then it is better to use random attacks as they will do the most raw damage." - Zaddok

Mind Damage vs. Health/Action Damage- Mind Damage is unhealable in SWG except via Combat Medic player characters, and to their significant detriment. Ents can bring you back around after the fight...after. The Mind stats are also the most difficult to buff time wise. In PvE, the difference between attacking a targets mind vs attacking health or action is not real significant. The only exception is against certain NPCs that can heal themselves. In PvP, mind damage is king. Health and Action stats are often higher than mind stats. Given the reduced pool size, reduced regeneration and healability of mind, mind attacks are far more effective than health/action attacks in PvP.

Mitigation
Ranged and Melee Mitigation- Mitigation reduces the difference between max and min damage on an attackers weapon. Mitigation 1 is 20% reduction, Mitigation 2 is 40% reduction and Mitigation 3 is 60% reduction. Example: An attacker is using a weapon with 50-150 damage against a Mitigation 3 target. The attackers damage spread is 100. Mitigation reduces this by 60% making it a 40 damage spread. Effectively, the attacker's weapon now is a 50-90 damage weapon.

Mitigation cannot be stacked. Mitigation is always in effect regardless of the weapon you are using. Your highest level of mitigation will always be used. A person with Ranged Mitigation 1 from Carbine, Ranged Mitigation 3 from Rifle, Melee Mitigation 2 from TK and Melee Mitigation 3 from Fencer will always have Ranged Mitigation 3 and Melee Mitigation 3.

Armor
Tailor the armor you wear towards what you are fighting. If you are hunting standard creatures that will only be doing kinetic damage, you could utilize a nice set of Ubese for usually less money and good protection. For more complex hunting, or versus creatures with varied damage types, a good set of composite is more recommended. It has a larger HAM penalty, but makes up for it in versatility vs. damage types.

Try to get a Composite Helm with Stun layers crafted in. Mind HAM damage is very popular in PvP, especially utilizing stun weapons due to the lack of protections available in game, so a good Stun Helm will assist with this.

Armor Piercing/Armor Rating

AP/AR levels are degrees of armor peircing or defense greater than standard (AP0). AP/AR ratings work in degrees of 25%. AP1 weapons do 25% greater base damage, whereas AR1(light) armor mitigates a 25% base damage reduction from a AP0 weapon/attack. If an AP3 weapon(heavy) attacked light(AR1) armor, it would equal an AP2 attack(medium). AP3Weapon-AP1Armor=AP2Attack....as well as AP1Attack-AR3Armor=AP-2Attack(-medium)...the second example would equal a 50% reduction in weapon damage


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Thank you to the following personnel for helping work out the bugs and ensure the accuracy of the info above:

Dannuic, Dedaskalion, Hellaz, mijom, Zaddok, Sumane,BigEvil