[Post 2 of 3]

Still, gear cannot be said to be inconsequential, since some of our abilities rely on it, and the stats we get. Gear should focus, then, on putting out enough damage to keep threat, and on having enough mitigation to survive. Your biggest contributor to DPS and threat is going to be your weapon, so that should be the first piece upgraded. Tanks should then focus on shoring up their passive mitigation. But by far, the largest gain we see in passive mitigation comes from our Defense and Magic Defense stats, which are mostly given us by our armor.