Darth Hater

By the point that you're at, you should start seeing gear with 2 types of rewards, one which is going to have significantly more Willpower than Endurance, and another that is more equally balanced.  The one with more endurance/balanced is what you are going to want to use as a tank.  I noticed that the game doesn't itemize much for secondary stats, especially defense, shield, and absorbtion, until you get up near endgame.

I levelled the entire way using my tank spec (consular) and kept myself geared using mostly commendation/quest rewards.  If a planet had a good orange tank item, I would save my commendations for that.  I think it was usually about 12 coms for an armor piece.  Then I filled out the rest of my orange gear with mods that I bought using planet coms.  I also used my healing companion almost exclusively.  I had 0 downtime, but it did take a while to kill things eventually.  I don't think the ability to kill things slighty faster by keeping a dps set of gear warrants the extra cost you are going to incur by keeping both sets up to date.  I didn't use credits to buy any gear while leveling up.

Just my 2 cents.

The reason you're not seeing much tanking gear is that you are level 31.  In a couple levels you're going to start seeing +def, +shield and +absorb gear from quests and planetary commendations.  Crafting professions also start to make tanking gear around level 33.

My advice to you, as someone that leveled as a tank, is to go get the level 40 pvp gear, you should be able to aquire it all in a day if you farm warzones.  After that you'll have no problem keeping it up to date with mods from planetary vendors.  Before level 40 your survival increases from talents should be more than enough to allow you to quest and do flashpoints without much issue.

Quote from balgoth »

The reason you're not seeing much tanking gear is that you are level 31.  In a couple levels you're going to start seeing +def, +shield and +absorb gear from quests and planetary commendations.  Crafting professions also start to make tanking gear around level 33.

My advice to you, as someone that leveled as a tank, is to go get the level 40 pvp gear, you should be able to aquire it all in a day if you farm warzones.  After that you'll have no problem keeping it up to date with mods from planetary vendors.  Before level 40 your survival increases from talents should be more than enough to allow you to quest and do flashpoints without much issue.

 

 

Can I really farm the level 40 pvp gear in a day? I thought I needed like 2000 commendations to get the level 40 PvP gear.

Which ones are you talking about, if you don't mind me asking?

And until I farm the PvP gear, if I stack up my mods/enchants with end/def in my current DPS gear, would that be enough for me to tank FPs?

I farmed mine up by doing warzones a couple hours a day over several days, all 10 pieces and about 20 ranks of valor.  It's much faster than it sounds, just make sure to Guard the ball carrier in Huttball or someone near you in Civil War and Voidstar and taunt players whenever you can to earn your 3-4 guardian medals, then blow up anyone you see for the rest.  I average 7 medals a game (10 in huttball) which means greatly increased commendation gain regardless of the outcome.

For the low level flashpoints your dps gear without +def mods is perfectly fine, especially since you're an assassin and get a good amount of shield chance just from Dark Ward as well as damage reduction from Dark Charge.  Low level tanking is more about holding threat, bosses don't hit that hard and healers should have no problem keeping you alive during trash.  Some defense/shield/absorbtion rating on your gear is still a good thing but isn't really required.

I only noticed mods that have +def in them...so, how do you modify/improve your tanking gear?

Which armoring/mods/enchants should I put into them?

Armoring: You'll see armoring modifications with more endurance than willpower, take these.

Mod: Starting around Taris (36) you'll start seeing mods with a third stat, for these you want to take
shield > defense > absorb > accuracy > power > surge > crit > alacrity.

Enhancement: You'll also see more of these around 36-40, these will come with 2 stats on them.  Try to prioritize shield and defense rating over absorb until you get a good amount of shield chance.

To add a modification to your orange gear just ctrl + right click on the item you wish to modify.  This brings up another window displaying the current modifications present in it.  From there you can drag and drop modifications from your inventory into the slots, then press apply.

If you want more detailed information about how much of what stat to try for there's a good theorycrafting forum on sithwarrior.com that'll answer all of your questions.