Do I need heavy armour to tank or is it just the stats the matter ie absorb, shield etc? Thanks.

If you can wear heavy armour yes get it beacuse heavy armour will have a higher armour value stat for the same level item when compared to a medium armour part , It's not like heavy armour restricts you in other ways or makes you move slower.

 

The armour stat gives you basic damage reduction against kenetic and energy damge(Although not internal), Check your Defense stat of your character window to see this as armour value goes up your base damage reduction percentage goes up.

 

Also if your serious about tanking you should also go for defense and absorption rating stats on your gear, mods and enhancments, before buying gear with attacking stats like power,surge and crit.

 

Defence rating increses the chance you will dodge or parry an attack and absorption rating again increses the damage reduction percentage when you do get hit. If you have equipped a sheild you will also have a shield chance stat and shield absorption stat which can redecue damage taken even more if the shield takes the hit. Even without shield chance and shield absorption boosts all shields give a 5% chance of shield absorption and 20% damage reducution when the shield does absorb. It surpriseing how much you can increse the base sheild stats by a fair amount with just a few stat boosts.

 

Also focus on high endurance aswell for max helth. Tanking is all about being hard to kill taking a beating for your team taking the majority threat and staying alive.

awesome, thanks for the advice!

Note that the current top theorycrafting (and top-tier raiding proofing) has shown that you shouldn't really worry about your endurance. You should focus solely on mitigation stats, because you'll have enough endurance just by getting the best mitigation pieces you can. When the most powerful attack in the game in nightmare mode hits for 60% of a tanks health, more endurance is typically viewed as wasted over more mitigation. I think the bare minimum suggestion is 2.5:1 being a good tradeoff. (So don't give up 10 defense unless you gain at least 25 endurance. I think most of the top tanking mathematicians would even say no then.)

If your a Jugg/guardian or Vanguard/Power tech... Please Please Please do not use the Shadow/Assassin light armor pieces with WILLPOWER even if the stats look beter than what you are currently wearing. The only thing that might be useful to you would be the Enhancement. Both the Armoring and Mod will have willpower which would then be completely useless to you.

 

On that same note:

Use only Strength based gear if your a Guardian/Jugg

Use only Aim based gear if your a Vanguard/Power Tech

Use only Willpower based gear if your a Shadow/Assassin

 

Way way way too many times have i seen tanks of one type using other class armor pieces just because they saw that the defensive stats were beter than what they had before

If your a Jugg/guardian or Vanguard/Power tech... Please Please Please do not use the Shadow/Assassin light armor pieces with WILLPOWER even if the stats look beter than what you are currently wearing. The only thing that might be useful to you would be the Enhancement. Both the Armoring and Mod will have willpower which would then be completely useless to you.

 

On that same note:

Use only Strength based gear if your a Guardian/Jugg

Use only Aim based gear if your a Vanguard/Power Tech

Use only Willpower based gear if your a Shadow/Assassin

 

Way way way too many times have i seen tanks of one type using other class armor pieces just because they saw that the defensive stats were beter than what they had before

 

Like to add onto that what they are normally using more of.....

Guardian/Jugg = Defence Rating

Vanguard/ Powertech = Shield Rating

Shadow/ Assassin = Absorb Rating

Though they are primarily using these in their tanking gear it's usually best to have all 3 depending on your class

Heavy Armor is not required to Tank (see Shadow Tanks); however, if you can wear Heavy Armor, then there is literally no reason to wear anything except Heavy Armor. Heavy armor has higher Armor Rating, which means more damage reduction. The more damage reduction you have, the longer you live. This is true for any class and role, not just Tanks.