SWTOR Tank School: Damage

Chapter 3: Damage

Before we can go any further with this discussion about tanking, we need to talk about how damage works in SWTOR, because it's not as simple as you might first expect.  There are actually different types of attacks and different types of damage, and these things combine in ways that change how the damage is applied to you--and how you mitigate it--depending on the particular combination.

But the good news is that it really just breaks down into four broad categories, and understanding those four categories and what makes them different from each other is essential.

Attack Types:

There are four (well, really five, but we'll get there) types of attacks:
Melee: Ordinary attacks that must be initiated from close range (usually within 10m)
Ranged: Ordinary attacks that can be initiated from a distance (more than 10m)
Force: Specialty attacks specifically associated with Jedi and Sith
Tech: Specialty attacks grounded in real-word science (or, at least, galaxy-far-far-away science)

Melee vs. Ranged:
In general, all attacks have a maximum range that varies individually by attack, where Melee attacks have a maximum range that is no more than 10m.  The vast majority of attack have no minimum range, so while you can prevent being hit by Melee attacks by staying out of range, trying to avoid being hit by Ranged attacks by staying within Melee range of the attack will not work.  It is normal for enemies to have some abilities that are Melee and others that are Ranged, although it is also normal for a given enemy to be greatly skewed one way or the other.  Other than range, these abilities are functionally equivalent and are referred to as "MR" attacks.

Force vs. Tech:
As far as I'm aware, any enemy you encounter is going to be limited to either Force or Tech, and never both.  For that reason, these two attack types are treated by the game as also being functionally equivalent and are referred to as "FT" attacks.

MR vs. FT:
Most bosses will use a mix of the two, and the attack profile of what percent of their damage is which varies by boss.  Most are close to a 50/50 split, but there are also some bosses (Nefra, Eyeless) who are mostly MR while there are others (Zorn, Revan) who are mostly FT.

Finally, there is--rarely--such a thing as an attack which has no associated attack type.  This is a special situation which we'll cover below.

Damage Types:

Again, there are four types of damage that can be applied by each attack type:
Kinetic: Damage caused by the physical impact of objects (such as rocks or ammunition)
Energy: Damage caused by various forms of energy (such as heat or electricity)
Internal: Damage caused by a condition applied directly to the target (such as poison or illness)
Elemental: Damage caused by an external source in the environment (such as standing in fire or acid)

Note that in some descriptions you'll see references to "Weapon" damage.  Weapon damage is a synonym for Kinetic damage--they are one and the same.

Much like the Attack types above, the Damage types group up functionally into two sets: "KE" and "IE" damage.

Combining the types:

While this has the potential to become extremely complicated with sixteen different combinations of Attack and Damage types, in practice it simplifies into just three broad categories of damage because functionally there are really only two types of each and beause some combinations (MR+IE) simply don't exist in the game.  Here are those three types.


MR+KE : This is also commonly called "white damage" due to the color of the flytext numbers that appear when the damage is applied to a target.  Since the combination of MR+IE does not exist in the game, we can use the simpler abbreviation "MR" to refer to this damage category.  This is the easiest damage to mitigate because it is affected by your Armor, Defense, Shield, and Absorb stats.
FT+KE : This is also commonly called "yellow damage", again due to the color of the associated flytext numbers.  We can use the simpler abbreviation "FT" to refer to this category.  This damage is still fairly easy to mitigate because it is affected by your Shield and Absorb stats (but not Defense).
(NOTE: I'm pretty sure that armor affects FT damage but not 100% sure.)
FT+IE : This, because it is still based on a Force/Tech attack, is still seen as "yellow damage", however most people will refer to it as "bleed" damage since it is common for these types of attacks to do repeated periodic damage.  Since all FT+IE damage is FT, we can use the simplier abbreviation "IE" with the understanding that it IS still FT, but the "FT" abbreviation itself refers to FT+KE.  This damage is difficult to mitigate since it ignores all your defensive stats (Armor/Defense/Shield/Absorb) and is only affected by active defensive abilities that also apply to FT attacks or which add/regnerate HP.

Didn't you originally say FOUR broad categories of damage?

Yes, and the fourth one is the rare situation where the damage has no attack type.  In fact, it has no damage type associated with it either.
The damage from these untyped attacks is generally called "God Damage" and it is the hardest in the game to mitigate, since it acts like IE damage but is only affected by active defensive abilities which apply damage reduction without any regard for the Attack type.

In summary:

Here is a quick summary chart of the damage categories in SWTOR, and the essential info on the differences between them.