New to 50 Tanking.

[MidnightsRequiem]

So I hit 50 a few days ago, doing a few FP, and I'm wondering about my stats, what I should build on, and advice in general. Here are stats, as follows:'

HP 16725 unbuffed 1422 Endurance

7508 armor with Ion Cell. 1030 Aim.

50.01% Damage Reduction, 12.47% Defense Chance

32.69% Shield Chance, 36.82% shield absorb. 99.60^ Accuracy.

All these stats are unbuffed, minus the Ion Cell boosts.

 

I currently have a Battlemaster SuperCommando Blaster, a Tionese Chest piece, a Columni bracer and a Relic of Imperiling Serenity, which is defense chance. The rest of my gear is mostly the Recruit PVP Armor. I'm trying to work on my dailies to upgrade some of my modsables for more tanky based. Should I be focusing on shielding chance and absorbtion? Or more defense chance? I know Powertech is Shieldtech, however, I wanted to hear from veterans and get some aditional advice. Thanks for the help!

[Agooz]

Get your shield up first, then try to level absorption to it, then again push shield up etc...

[Crixaliss]

For now you should definately try to favour absorb over defense on your gear. The good supercommando PvE gear will pretty much always come with shield on it and a smaller amount of defense or absorb, where possible you want to itemize so that you can get the mods and enhancements with absorb on them

 

Do some more of the easier HM flashpoints - boarding party and foundry for the columi gloves and boots would be a good start, and just keep doing as you're doing with replacing that recruit gear with tionese alternatives when you get the commendations/crystals. It will definately be worth picking up duplicates of some of the pieces so you can rip out any accuracy-full enhancements from your gear and swap them for the Shield+absorb/defense ones.

 

If you're an armormech, you could get the rakata belt/bracers schematics from the trainer and craft those two yourself to give your gear an added boost. If you're into doing the dailies, they're definately worthwhile for the rakata implants (though personally I don't like the rakata earpiece, it has too much accuracy instead of defensive stats), and also the campaign relics - will take a lot of dailes to get all of them though.

 

If you have a guild doing ops, your stats certainly aren't far off those needed for tanking EV story mode (most important is learning how to do the fights, rather than gear), and you could certainly go in first as the 'off-tank' with someone else main tanking it for your first time so you understand the fights when you try to do it yourself later. Story mode ops are a good option to get lots of columi gear in one go

 

I think as a guide, you want to try to get in the direction of 50%/50% shield/absorb though 40% on both would be a good start, with defense less important to worry about.