Protection bar & Defense Up Leadership abilities
Chewbacca is often considered a lesser Tank, not able to compete with greater Tanks.
Also, although subconsciously we know that the +Defense is doing something in the calculation of damage, it's invisible to the player and thus is less likely to **feel** important the way we it does when we see a bonus assist attack happen with Phasma lead, etc.
I think that you need to put in the upgrade path of Chewie's Taunt a "Protection Up" that grants a small protection bar to characters that don't normally get one, and partially refills the protection bars of characters that do normally get one (this effect would be better than the bar granted to blue- and green- gear toons).
ALSO I think you need to put in the upgrade path of Chewie's Leadership ability "grants X Protection" so that blue- & green-gear toons led by Chewie get small protection bars & purple-gear toons get enhanced protection bars (return 35% of the protection bar, maybe?). This would interact with Chewie's Taunt, because if Chewie is the leader, then those blue- & green-gear toons ARE now toons that "normally" get a protection bar and can have that bar refilled with more points than the minimal bar that would be granted by a Taunt to blue- & green-gear toons when Chewie is not the leader.
Putting special effort into Chewie's leadership and taunt abilities would have a visible reward and also make Chewie a valuable character for the first 5-10 nodes of GW.
...this doesn't have to be only about Chewie, however. Other toons that currently give +X to armor can and should now grant a small protection bar at a certain ability level.
In particular, Fives should grant a protection bar to all clones, no matter their gear level, and to enhance the protection bar of clones that already get a protection bar. Fives' protection-bar power should have no effect on non-clones, even though his +Defense power would still affect non-clones at half, as it does now.
Finally, for any toon with a leadership power that currently grants +X defense, all allies affected by that leadership power should get a protection bar refill that is 2x to 5x the normal protection bar refill. I don't have enough info about the numbers behind Health & Protection (and the between-encounters regeneration of those 2 stats) to say where in the 2x to 5x zone it should be, but definitely if your leadership is a defense buff, you should be making use of the most obvious and visible defense mechanic in the game.
Also, although subconsciously we know that the +Defense is doing something in the calculation of damage, it's invisible to the player and thus is less likely to **feel** important the way we it does when we see a bonus assist attack happen with Phasma lead, etc.
I think that you need to put in the upgrade path of Chewie's Taunt a "Protection Up" that grants a small protection bar to characters that don't normally get one, and partially refills the protection bars of characters that do normally get one (this effect would be better than the bar granted to blue- and green- gear toons).
ALSO I think you need to put in the upgrade path of Chewie's Leadership ability "grants X Protection" so that blue- & green-gear toons led by Chewie get small protection bars & purple-gear toons get enhanced protection bars (return 35% of the protection bar, maybe?). This would interact with Chewie's Taunt, because if Chewie is the leader, then those blue- & green-gear toons ARE now toons that "normally" get a protection bar and can have that bar refilled with more points than the minimal bar that would be granted by a Taunt to blue- & green-gear toons when Chewie is not the leader.
Putting special effort into Chewie's leadership and taunt abilities would have a visible reward and also make Chewie a valuable character for the first 5-10 nodes of GW.
...this doesn't have to be only about Chewie, however. Other toons that currently give +X to armor can and should now grant a small protection bar at a certain ability level.
In particular, Fives should grant a protection bar to all clones, no matter their gear level, and to enhance the protection bar of clones that already get a protection bar. Fives' protection-bar power should have no effect on non-clones, even though his +Defense power would still affect non-clones at half, as it does now.
Finally, for any toon with a leadership power that currently grants +X defense, all allies affected by that leadership power should get a protection bar refill that is 2x to 5x the normal protection bar refill. I don't have enough info about the numbers behind Health & Protection (and the between-encounters regeneration of those 2 stats) to say where in the 2x to 5x zone it should be, but definitely if your leadership is a defense buff, you should be making use of the most obvious and visible defense mechanic in the game.
