Vanguard tank , elite armor and beyond , but where is the defence ?

[BadOrb]

So I'm slightly puzzled here about my Vanguard's gearing up. I was led to believe that a vanguard should have a lot of defence in all possible mods ( which I did well in basic gear , augmented ) and they only need a little absorption say in 3 of the 14 augments. i read about it here on the forums some months back post 2.0.

 

So after that bit of background I am about to trade elite comms for gloves , chest and boots. the problem is all 3 of those and most other elite armor pieces have shield and absorption , no defence ? Somehow I have managed to keep a lot of defence on my 69 modded helm , but with a little less endurance. So shall I just go for absorption in these 3 pieces and obviously keep my 28 def and 18 power augments ? My ear piece even has defence and is equivalent to a 69 purple. Is there a way to take out defence and shiled mods and enhancements from another classes armor ? I even looked at the ultimate armors for my class and only an earpiece and maybe a shield had defence and shield rather than absorption.

 

So any help will be most welcomed.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

[TACeMossie]

While defense is good early on to middle ground, as you get better and better gear you won't want more then 20% defense as a vanguard tank (11% of this comes from talents and the set bonus). This is because a majority of the skills in the Vanguard tree rely on shielding attacks, and so if you defend an attack you can't actually shield it.

 

According to this thread (figured out optimal stat distribution for Tanks right now in Kell Dragon): http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=645948

 

You want:

 

Defense: 132

Shield: 1400

Absorb: 1005

 

The alternative provided by the same guy is found here:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/609191ab-1314-4b70-8c72-9753abb213b2

 

Its probably better there, but then again its up to you what you want.

 

I'd personally go for 18% defense (b4 set bonus), 40% absorb, and then as much shield as possible.

Edited September 20, 2013 by TACeMossie

[BadOrb]

While defense is good early on to middle ground, as you get better and better gear you won't want more then 20% defense as a vanguard tank (11% of this comes from talents and the set bonus). This is because a majority of the skills in the Vanguard tree rely on shielding attacks, and so if you defend an attack you can't actually shield it.

 

According to this thread (figured out optimal stat distribution for Tanks right now in Kell Dragon): http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=645948

 

You want:

 

Defense: 132

Shield: 1400

Absorb: 1005

 

The alternative provided by the same guy is found here:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/609191ab-1314-4b70-8c72-9753abb213b2

 

Its probably better there, but then again its up to you what you want.

 

I'd personally go for 18% defense (b4 set bonus), 40% absorb, and then as much shield as possible.

 

That's really great information there , I thought something wasn't right. Thank you , I will study this and base my stats around it. Yeah I never thought that if you defend too much then you can't shield. Anyway all this explains why most elite and above armor has mostly Absorption and shield , rather than defence and shield. Happy days.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.