Ensign

Chanter is probably the 'strongest' option - you don't need DEX at all, and just enough CON to stay up - which leaves a lot of discretionary points for MIG and even more points in the big 3. Paladin would be a good option as well - not DEX dependent, and a 13/10/10/15/15/15 spread would be reasonable for a pretty wide variety of builds.

Which is absolutely true. If you had two otherwise identical clones beating on each other, with the only difference being one pumping perception at the cost of resolve, the high perception clone has the advantage - since all of their non-deflection targeting abilities would be more likely to land. We can have a lively debate on the relative merits of the different pieces of defense - maybe +1 deflection is 90% as valuable as +1 accuracy in the clone war, maybe it's only 50% as valuable - but it's less valuable, in a vacuum, without question. That doesn't necessarily translate to the rest of the game, where your fights are decidedly *not* otherwise mirror matches, and situational factors dominate. In a more general context, resolve is interesting in that it has both increasing returns and discontinuous jumps in effectiveness, giving you three clear optimal points to hit - maximum possible to get full increasing returns benefits, just enough to avoid incoming crits, and full dump.

It's not that it's a bad stat as much as it's a defensive stat, and one that is substitutable as well. Defenses, even those that scale linearly on the sheet, end up being pretty binary in practice - either you have 'enough' to take what's coming in (and going far above doesn't add much) or you don't have 'enough' and your strategy falls apart. The amount of defense you can get away with also tends to drop with experience as well (though I feel this often turns into a chest beating ritual, aka, 'I can get away with 3 con and res but you might need more if you suck') - so there are limits to how much you'd want even under the best of circumstances. The real issue is that it's a really easy stat to substitute for late in the game. Crowns for the Faithful is the most extreme example, but even earlier in the game Holy Meditation or Holy Power provide big chunks of resolve (or pseudo-resolve) to shore up concentration and deflection when needed. The difference between 3 and 10 resolve is actually kind of a big deal (interrupts matter yo), but the difference between 28 and 35 just isn't. As such it's a stat that matters a lot more for trash fights (presuming you aren't walking back to town to rest after every trash fight) where unbuffed stats have a bigger impact. When you're resting and saving before fighting dragons, with a plan to blow every per-rest cooldown possible, resolve just isn't going to matter much.

Did some digging, and think I can provide a 'legit' way to produce the outcome you want. The trick is actually to choose your words carefully during the animancy hearing. The Duc's ruling at the end of the hearing depends on arguments made throughout - on the events at the Sanitarium (Azo), research at Heritage Hill, and your closing argument and advice on what to do about animancy. All three have equal weight. On the other hand, the Eyeless only call you out on being hypocritical if your advice on animancy was that it should be studied (either of the positive lines). If you want the Duc to rule in support of animancy, but still have the option to temper the Eyeless by arguing against it, support animancy in the first two arguments (defend Azo, blame the events at Heritage Hill on the Leaden Key), then, in the final argument, defer - argue that animancy has been given too long a leash and needs oversight. Pair that with freeing the souls from Durgan's Battery (and not encouraging the Crucible Knights to continue researching the Forge Knights) and you should be able to win this line of questioning.