With WildStar’s early access weekend only a few days away, I thought now would be a good time to go over something that I’ve seen a lot of new players struggle with during beta—which stats you should be getting on your gear and how they affect your character.

To the veteran who’s been following WildStar from the get go and dissecting every bit of purposefully—and accidentally—leaked information floating around the internet, this may be something that you no longer struggle with. However, to the new player just jumping in, how stats affect your character isn’t always the most obvious thing in the game. In fact, in some cases there is almost no in-game explanation at all, hence why it’s been quite common for me to join a dungeon with a tank in full DPS gear, convinced that “it’s definitely the healers fault he keeps getting three-shotted by the boss.” Or the DPS who doesn’t realize that stacking support power is the reason why they aren’t getting the “Mad Deeps” they’d expect with their Assault abilities. If you’ve been running any dungeons in beta, I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences with any early dungeon PUG groups that have graced you with their presence.

While it’s quite possible that those players just didn’t take the time to open up their character sheet and hover over their individual stats, the convoluted nature of how abilities and character stats tie together in WildStar can make understanding the system a bit tricky at first. With that in mind, hopefully after you—or your buddy who swears Brutality is the main stat for Tanks—finishes reading this, you’ll be well on your way to kicking butt, taking names and collecting the gear you need on Nexus!

Let’s dive in!