How do I increase my defenses without AC?

[Hireling]

How do I increase my defenses without relying on AC?

Back in the day I just used DR and Torc and Concord Opp to self heal through my bad playstyle.

Last few lives, I have been a Sacred Fist with good 1-28 defenses. High AC, great Saves, workable dodge.

I am soon going to do my Half Orc Racials, and may mix a couple Scourge Tempest Ranger lives in.

For my Horc lives, I was mainly thinking a pure Barb, a Pure War chanter Bard, and a Pure Bear Druid. All of these builds, I planned on focusing STR and using STR Crowd Control abilities. Spinning Ice now can use STR mod.

Thinking Bard gets Blur and Displacement and Uncanny Dodge. Barb gets the uncanny dodge. And druid gets its druid spell buffs.

Is stunning blow worth trying to fit in on these builds or something else?

I've played with Barbs who seem to rarely need healing (maybe they kill so fast, they don't take damage?) Long time ago I duoed Stealer of Souls and an Elite Heroic Shroud with a Barb who really only needed healing on boss fights.

Everything I've played a "real melee", I've hated the life and just get roughed up so bad (I think I have improved as a player though)

Are things like Feeding/body feeder or Life Shield worth working in?

Or just kill fast, and then call my Hireling to heal me?

All info is appreciated ?

 

[Thwart]

Tumble ... oh wait.

 

[Vox]

Defenses just need to be layered, but there's more to it than that.

You can stack up on direct mitigations, AC, concealment, incorporeality, dodge - each with a separate roll to determine a hit or miss.
There's enhancements & items that can magnifiy these, uncanny dodge etc which you already know about.

There's using the environment to block attacks like arrows & spells, or even just moving out of the way of attacks.

You can use damage soak/minimization such as elemental absorption, PRR/MRR, & ablative effects like stoneskin & protection from energy.
Even better can be leveraging additional layers of damage soak, such as radiant forcefield, dark discorporation & half elf diplomatic immunity.

Certain items can entirely negate spells via spell (whole or level) absorption, items like pale lavender ioun stone & two headed platinum piece

Temporary hit points are another layer of protection, and come from many different sources.

Yes there is kill stuff first, ultimately that is the nature of this game.

Knowledge is probably the most important layer. Knowledge of the environment & the enemies you'll face. Knowledge of what to do when things turn ugly, being able to survive and come back on top.

Edit

Is stunning blow worth trying to fit in on these builds or something else?

Kinda, but I think you should play dragonlord instead. It has super CC, self healing via second wind, very good tactics DC's, and if you go capstone ravager ezgame r10 aoe instakills with unlimited uses.

Are things like Feeding/body feeder or Life Shield worth working in?

In low level heroics, sure. The incoming damage outweighs the usefulness in mid heroics onwards, but it might suffice with further layers of soak & mitigations.

 

[J1NG]

If you can, you probably want to land yourself a Demonheart Emerald Augment and slot it in, it procs quite often and gives Temp HP that can help absorb some hits (depending on content) during Heroics. Grab a Legendary version when at cap. The 10% chance is constant, and so every possible hit could trigger it. And it has not cooldown between each proc, so you could have it proc constantly if RNG is with you. This is viable for use on any toon other than one that is missed most of the time (as it won't proc when missed).

As for defence, I'm afraid unless if you can grab 200+ AC for cap, there's little point investing into it for use at cap. Concealment, Incorporeal and Dodge are your best bet for defence throughtout all levels, but once you step into Reaper, Concealment and Incorporeal effectiveness gets debuffed, so it's less effective the higher the Skull difficulty you go in (and what enemies you run into). Dodge might not get debuffed (at this time), but getting significant amounts of functional Dodge is not as simple as it seems.

The rest @Vox already has answered you with good information.

J1NG

 

[Hobgoblin]

Also barbarians have dr% and can go ravager/os for heals and have bt

 

[droid327]

AC, PRR, Dodge, Incorp, Conceal are the five main channels of physical defense. You'll want to invest in them all together, though some builds focus more on one than the others

 

[droid327]

As for defence, I'm afraid unless if you can grab 200+ AC for cap, there's little point investing into it for use at cap.

I dont think the bar is quite that high...I usually say 3x level for Heroic, 4x level for Epic. Maybe Legendary becomes 5x level as the cap goes up, but still that's only 200 by L40.

At L30 that's 120 AC, which against non-raid bosses gives at least 25% miss chance all the way up to CR68 mobs. Its not the only line of defense you'll need, but its a meaningful component

 

[Hobgoblin]

I get hit a lot at 120. 150 I see some misses