The armor set you should be using is dependent on what weapons you're using. For swords, you'll want to follow this:

Wolver set is as good as it gets when it comes to having what you want; keep in mind that defense isn't some single universal stat that goes up equipping any set of armor like in a casual RPG, your defenses are normal, piercing, elemental, and shadow. If your armor doesn't have the defense of a certain type, it won't protect you against the enemy that deals that type whatsoever. 2* Wolver > 3* Dusker > 4* Ash Tail give Piercing and Normal and DMG bonus Medium for swords all the way through. Freeze resist is there too, but it doesn't do much.

One of the final sets of the Wolver line is 5* Vog, which is close to what you're asking for since it provides good Normal and Elemental defense (Which replaces your Piercing defense) as well as ASI (Attack Speed Increase) Very High to make your swords attack much faster (ASI VH will replace you DMG Medium as well). As another bonus, you get Fire resistance rather than Freeze, which will help you at end game where fire is commonplace and very dangerous.

In the extremely scenario dependent example, DMG MAX bltz > CTR MAX Blitz..

Cause you cant keep releasing charges or youll get reamed by vas mace.

Idk if this applies elsewhere, but I have found consistently better survival rates (using swords or guns), with DMG instead of ASI.

Rxample:
16k lockdown (Supernova, Callahan, Storm driver, shadowsun set, elite trueshot).

8k max (Justiier set, Nova driver, Supernova).

For both? Just get a Vog cub/Skolver hybrid set (youll look as ugly as vanaduke-'s mom's backside, but it will get the job done), or just get full skolvedr and blend in with the crowd.

Or get snarb and look BA. Or cha and die from a T1 oiler.

Options...

ASI is attack speed increase, which makes your regular attacks hit faster. If you want to avoid running around charging a sword all of the time you want sword CTR. ASI is not that effective at speeding up charge attacks. And, since you are using a couple of "medium" swords (brandish nightblade and flourish), ASI isn't quite as important as it would be with a heavy sword like a DA, GF, or troika. To max out CTR, you can use your sprite's sword focus, natural medium CTR from heating, plus another +2 CTR (medium) such as a piece of chaos (combined with another type of armor like skolver or vog cub), a med CTR UV, or a sword focus trinket.

Also, if you are relying on charge attacks, a Snarble Barb might be more to your liking than a Flourish, the charge attack is easier, although it's harder to get the recipes for that line since it's a boss token weapon.

I'd suggest you make a full set, so you can at least take advantages of the resistances (and immunities) that each set can give. If you make full Vog, you reap immunity to minor fire (haze bombs, some fire effects in pve); if you make full Skolver, you get immunity to minor freeze. If you combine both, you get nothing.

After having a set, you can invest in trinket slots and build two 5* trinkets towards the stat that your gear didn't provide for you:

For Vog, two elite sword damage trinkets; for Skolver, two elite sword speed trinkets will work.

At the end, you can use a shield (Barbarous Thorn Shield, Swiftstrike) to push either sword damage or attack speed up to max, and eventually a pet perk to push the other stat to max as well.

In PVE, damage bonus tends to be more of a priority because monsters rarely move quick enough that you'd really need ASI for the safety of being able to get out of your attack ASAP. ASI tends to be more important in PVP, where quickly performing your attack means you can be more mobile, and mobility carries a much larger importance in its faster pace.

I'd also like to note that if you go with Chaos instead of Skolver and still follow along with trinkets/shield/perk combinations, you can get max CTR/ASI/DMG for any single weapon type (in your case, swords). At that point, you'd need to rely on your own skill (attack, movement, shield pushes) to avoid getting hit by status attacks.

@Rezzler:
To each his own. I noticed I hit higher damage and can handle tougher opponents using max ASI and VH damage in Lockdown than the other way (max dmg/VH asi). Then again, there are many other factors to your own damage, but following my own anecdotal experience and stats, I went to the other solution ;P