I'm a new player and I'm looking at the wiki but most of the items are not the same as they are in game.

I noticed in a few cases that certain items follow the same line in their upgrade path. For example a specific armor (1-5 stars) might have the same bonuses from 1 star all the way to 5 stars and the only difference is the bonuses are higher. Does this happen with every item or was that specific to the armor I happened to check at the NPC?

I ask because I have no idea what I want to get for armors and after you reach 2 star items, the jump to 3 star is pretty expensive so it would make a lot of sense to figure out what you're doing before you start experimenting with items.

The wiki says the vog cub armor and cap gives elemental defense. Do they still give this? I noticed the wolver set gives piercing in game atm and I think the 2nd tier of it (dusker) also did too.

Basically I'm trying to figure out what the ideal top, chest, shield is for a good overall set to get from 2 star to 5 star without a big problem. I've narrowed my weapons down to cutter, and the poison/crystal bombs but I don't know about armors at all other than elemental resists are good but since the wiki armor is out dated I have no idea which armors scale elemental resists from 2 star to 5 star.

I'm already having difficulties trying to solo tier 2 with the wolver cap/armor and skelly shield with a cutter blade (default gun, no bombs tho).