First off, Adrenaline Tree.
Adrenaline has a hidden recast timer of 30 seconds. The 1st modifier to Adrenaline, Resilience, is an absolute must. At level 6 Resilience, Adrenaline’s cooldown drops down to 10.8 seconds.
A lot of people put the HPS (Health Per Second) skills down. But, as a Defender, you will always be getting hit, a -lot-. Having Adrenaline with Rally makes for a very effective combo. 1 pt in Adrenaline and 1 pt Rally. When Adrenaline procs, you cast Rally and your HPS jumps to 15 HPS. ( 6 * ( 1 + 1.5) ). Max’ing out Adrenaline, while not as much needed in Normal, will definitely be a must in Epic. With a lv 10 Adrenaline and Rally your HPS becomes 62.5. All of this is not including gear, which can add extra HP Regen% and HPS.
Once Resilience is max’d out, and you can keep Adrenaline on constanly, max out that Defensive Reaction! It will add 50% damage and 20% Total Speed (effects running, casting, and attack speeds!)
Second, Battle Awareness Tree.
Battle Awareness, I have seen several people say they max this out. I am unsure if Marine O’Keefe, or the other successful Defenders have this max’d out, personally, I don’t see its worth. At lv 10 Battle Awareness, it adds 12 Armor, and 64 DA. My own character, using lv 1 Battle Awareness at lv 30 has over 500 DA. Which so far has been more than overkill (haven’t seen a crit land on me in ten levels). The +12 Armor, without Armor Handling will reduce all ‘Physical’ damage (this does not include Piercing damage!) by 8 damage. I personally can not justify spending 9 points more than is needed. 1 point however is required for Focus.
Focus, is a modifier to Battle Awareness, it increases your block rate, substantially. At lv 6 Focus, your block rate is increase by 18%. If you get +Defense skills bonuses, at lv 8 Focus, that block rate is increased by 24%! Unlike Armor, a shields block will block 100% of the damage inflicted. However, it only effects Physical damage again. With this skill combined with Quick Recovery, a Defender can ignore Axe and Mace users completely while taking out Bow, Spear, and Mages. Mages first, then Bow/Spear. Sword users generally have a significantly lower pierce damage ratio compared to bow/spear.
Iron Will is the last modifier to Battle Awareness. On normal, through Greece and Egpyt, I found little to no use of having Iron Will. However, once you’re in the Orient, there are many enemies that will have ensnares, stuns, and skill disruptions. This is to prepare you for Epic! By the Orient, you absolutely must have atleast 1 point in this skill. Your mileage may vary, and you may need to put additional points in here before hitting Epic even.
Shield Proc Line ( Shield Smash, Disable, and Pulverize, yes I know they’re not actually linked).
This series is a very YMMV line. Absolute minimum is 1 pt in each of these. They will all strike with both Weapon and Shield! (But the damage is added seperately).
All of these start at a 6% chance to proc and increase to 16% chance. With all three max’d, your Defender will have a 48% chance to strike with shield and weapon. The damage bonus listed in each skill is added to BOTH the shield and weapon.
Pulverize, is the only shield proc which has an increasing damage%, and it is capable of striking multiple foes. If your Defender is more defense based than Offensive, Pulverize should be the first to max out (or only if you’re that tight on skills). At lv 6, its a 25% damage boost, at lv 8 its a 30% damage boost.
(With +2 all defense skills, and all shield procs max’d, you have an 18% chance for each proc to trigger, which leads to a 36% to strike a single boss for +30% damage.)
Shield Batter line.
Just like the shield procs, Shield Batter strikes with both weapon and shield. The % damage bonus definitely effects both weapon and shield, but it is unclear if the +Absolute Damage (i.e. +3 damage at lv 1 and +29 damage at lv 12) effects both, or only one, and if only one which one it effects. My gut says it effects both, but don’t quote me on that.
At lv 1, it has an 18% slower attack to the foe (or foes) you strike with it, at lv 12 it has a 50% slower attack. This will increase your ability to tank substantially, however through out Normal I have found enemies to die too quick for the lowered attack speed to be worthwhile (I can see it in epic however).
The modifier to Shield Batter, is Rend Armor. At lv 1, it gives you a 3 target maximum! 90 degree arc (which I call shenanigans on, I have struck enemies behind me with Shield Batter’s AoE on many occasions), and a 5 reduced armor. When max’d at lv 8, it will reduced enemy armor by 46. Which will increase your damage by 30pts per strike, nothing to sneeze at if you have high aspd, however, again, this is something to wait for Epic to increase in my opinion. When enemies become harder to kill, Rend Armor will bring them back to the mortal realm.
Shield Charge line.
Ahh, Shield Charge. Can make some pure Warfare Warriors /drool and curse you when you go charging head long into a pack of enemies. Definitely 1 pt is required in here, if not for the coolness factor, but for the ability to bypass a pack of meleers and quickly nuetralize the real threat. Mages. Which, Shield Charge is so aptly designed to do! Its given a large range damage bonus, so sometimes, you will do very little damage (comparitively since you strike with melee and shield, again), and other times you’ll do massive damage and take out your foe. Just like Shield Batter, I am unsure if the +Absolute damage is added to both weapon and shield, if it is, at lv 12 Shield Charge, which gives 31-102 bonus damage that means you can strike for 62-204 bonus damage -before- adding any +% damage from say, Adrenaline/Equipment.
Disruption is the modifier to Shield Charge, in Normal, for the way I use shield charge for the most part I don’t aim for maximal AoE use. YMMV, and if you’re planning to use this for the AoE, by all means max it in Normal, its incredible doing a Shield Charge -> Shield Batter and dropping 2-4 Foes before they can react (This may change in Epic). However, once you’re in Epic, maxing Disruption is a must. At lv 6 Disruption, it will block skill usage for 4.0 seconds. (Unsure if this skill disruption is added with or after the Stun). That's 4.0 seconds of one, or more casters not being able to use their high damage nukes on you and your party (Though they can still use their staves, but not Ternion Attack if they have that).
-Guide by Xaece
https://www.kirmiziperfect.com/titan-quest-defender-guide/