I was just wondering if this was possible in PvE, mostly out of curiosity and boredom.

I know this isn't effective for PvP, I already have my PvP setup. This is just to try something different for a fleet team in PvE.

I thought of this after picking up a Fleet Defiant yesterday. A full beamscort, with emphasis on constantly being on the move as fast as possible, using the defensive bonus to tank. I have no intention of topping the dps charts with this build, just doing enough dps to pull aggro and have high enough defense from speed to shrug off most enemy attacks.

Elusive
3 x Purp EM (Conn) DOffs
Aegis

and double up on APO.

that's a part of what I was thinking shimmerless.

Has anyone ever tried it?

You should read some of the escort build forums in the PvP section. I think it's maybe Husanak that goes into detail on how to properly speed-tank an escort.

Defense passive trait
Deuterium
APO
3xpurple evasive DOffs

Is how I do it.

There's only one problem for PvE Escort-tanks:
One-shot torpedoes.
Well, make it two, Isometric charges.
Oh, three, killer-cannons on gates ...
You get the drift: in eSTFs, and even in the Fleet thingies, there's stuff that can simply one-shot you, while Cruisers and Carriers can take one and heal up, more often than not. Unless they get hit by one of the real mean 350k+ ones.
And yes, they will still hit you.
There's a minimum chance to hit of 25%, you can't become totally invincible.

The other side of the coin:
Since you're not THAT much more tanky than a regular Escort, who can already tank until it gets oneshot if it gets crosshealed ... people might argue that you're actually wasting your potential in a beam'scort.
... and have a bit of a point there.

Especially since you'll lack Engineering BOff slots, which means you'll probably end up with a lower effective weapon power than a Cruiser (at least: a well-build P2W Cruiser) - and at that point, you're not even tanking anymore.

It's not a terribad idea, but ... not really optimal either.

Good point Fleckh.

I've always used a cannon build sometimes with a torp, lately and a lot of times without, using 4 dhcs and 3 turrets.


But I figured it would be something different and interesting to break up regular gameplay.

I thought maybe if I ran two copies of FAW and rotated, at least the slow moving HYTs could be shot down before they hit me.

@rooster, thanks I'll check those forums out.

you can do evasive tanking, but then you cut your dmg basically in half and you still got the chance to get hit real bad from time to time (torpedo etc.)

so basically you get down to the dmg potential of a cruiser and still get blown up by "lucky" shots from time to time.

And considereing that the % def escorts have more than cruisers is only about 16% at same powerlevel and throttle, you don't have that much of an advantage anyway.

and as flekh said: "It's not a terribad idea, but ... not really optimal either. "