He never "negates" damage. The healing he provides is always *after* all of the damage is dealt. That means if you put him up against, say, Trunda, and her double-hit A3 kills him, he will not heal *anything*.

The only reason it "looks" like he negates the damage is because if he survives, then everyone else will essentially heal back to full, since he usually takes more damage than them.

And that latter part is key - remember that he heals the rest of your team based on the damage he takes. That means the more DEF he has, the less he'll heal for.

tl;dr - put as little DEF on him as possible. I mean, don't just start scrapping DEF for meager amounts of extra HP, but you should basically be putting HP% gloves, chest, boot, and HP ring, amulet, and banner on him. He literally doesn't need any other stat than HP.

As for sets, personally, I have mine in Curing, though there's certainly an argument to be made for him being in Shield, Bolster, Guardian, or Deflection sets.

Also, as an aside - don't use him in Twins or Hydra. The healing he brings pales in comparison to the absolute worthlessness aside from healing. The only two places I'd use him are CB and DTH bosses. Even FW, I'd try to avoid using him if I could, again, because he truly brings zero value outside of his healing.

I know he doesn't actually negate it, that's why I said "it looked like". The entire team, including himself, were back to full health. 

I mean his heals is all I really need from him, for the most part. Just wondering how to make them enough. That and his A1 for FK.

I use against trunda in tag. I would not ignore defense entirely. But tbh I have no clue what correct ratio is... lol 

i

Pretty average gear 

EXCUSE ME??? PRETTY AVERAGE GEAR? This is some of the best gear I have. My gear should be pretty average gear, you should have god gear.

i

... You're running level 12 items, and 4-5* gear. I'm sorry to say, your gear is not average, it's pretty sub-par.

The gear that Trips linked is literally just material you can forge and roll to level 16. It requires very little randomness, and next to no farming. I think it's pretty safe to call it average. Judging by the HP, and, especially, judging by how much +ATK and +CDMG it has, I'm guessing there are quite a few wasted rolls on substats in his gearset. It is *far* from "god" gear.

THIS ^^^. As the game evolves, the standards shift. Mid-game now is farming top-level dungeons, which means Average gear is 5*-6* gear with ok rolls (double roll on desired stat, for example). 

reasonable argument. over time as i get better gear i will work on vogoth. i need a bit more hp, def, spd, acc, res.

You don't. As I said earlier - Vogoth's job is to be hit, and heal your team as a consequece.

You need zero speed and acc.  You do want *some* DEF, since you don't want him to just flat-out die, but the vast majority of his stats should be going into HP. The only two stats which matter for Vogoth are HP and DEF. If you have the luxury of being able to pick-and-choose your substats, the other substat you'd want to prioritize would be RES.

But, especially for you, where you don't have that luxury - focus 100% of your effort on HP.

i

i

Here is a decent shield set build, obviously no good against buff strippers.  A bolster set makes this team much more broadly viable. 

2 vogoth 😆 

i

So you don't need marty, mith or Lydia for viable go 2nd teams.

Teams like this are nice for tag, because it allows you to use 4 champs probably not on your A/B team to take out their Arbiter team (usually their A or B).

Now you have your best arena champs to mix and match for a sweep.

I wonder if I can cheese UH FW with 5 Vogoths lol

given that they finish off with the red boss, i'm gonna go with no.

i

Here is that last vogoth doing pretty well in a not speed tuned CB team.