Heavy is usually better. Especially when doing mobs of equal or higher level than you.
While dwarves have ok DEX, they won't evade as much as rogues as they don't get passive evade skills.
It's still viable in certain situations. If you're fighting mobs of lower level than you, if you have an EE to give you agility, and so on. I use light on my warlord if I'm fighting greens/light blue mobs as I usually party with an EE buddy, but if we're fighting pinks/reds, I won't evade them at all even with buffs.
Your chance to evade a blow is based on the difference between your evade value and the attacker's accuracy value. If these two are equal (doesn't matter if it's 1:1 or 200:200), the chance to hit is about 90%. It really doesn't start to pay off until you have 10-15 more evade than your attacker's accuracy, which is pretty awkward to achieve without passives.
I would strongly reccommend always having a heavy set. Even in situations where light is better, heavy is still plenty fine.
(slight thread gank: warriors should get some kind of bonus while wearing light imo, like faster runspeed or cheaper MP usage or something)
I wouldn't think light armor would be better for poling on a dwarf for the reasons tarun said. The one exception could possibly be NM light armor for the added VR, but I wouldnt even try it without an EE and even then i'd imagine the evasion would only become noticable on light blue/green mobs. Rule of thumb is white or red mobs will definatly hit you most of the time.
On the other hand, I know a few BH's who have a set of tallum light armor for hunting. They aren't the tank, so they take no damage, and it's extra mp and mp regen means much more spoils. It even looks kinda cool :p.
All the dwarves that i know of that had Light armour, quickly switched it for Heavy - 5 ppl who i know.
I know of a dwarf who had +5 DEX -5 CON and was wearing NM Light, even with the VR bonus he didnt evade as much as he wanted too. The damage he received outweighed the evasion bonus. Even if your taking on Green mobs, don't think you will like it vs Heavy.
Like Tarun says your not a rouge, so evasion isn't all its cracked up to be. Sure if you received a Bonus on atk spd AND evasion more dwarves would be wearing light amour.
Check it out on l2clac you will be taking more damage wearing light vs heavy.
Person i was referring to didnt use a shield at first, and then he used a shield because the damage was just too great. And Song of Water only adds like 2 to the evasion, on me anyways.
I have a D grade scav that use Manticore set for the extra MP. I have no probs hunting with that set and find it pretty good. Keep in mind though that at that level it's not much of a drama. My A grade WS uses Heavy. Also the scav using Manticore is not poling but killing mobs selectively for spoils and seeds. When I have had D grade dwarf academy alts poling they have used heavy instead of light.
I LOVE light armor, but only nm la, no shield. With a sheild you need heavy, so do a 2 handed blunt or pole with your la. Before A grade do heavy for sure. I have as high evasion (with +dex tats for sure) at even lvls as my LE dagger friend. I do however keep maj heavy for pvp. Pvp in la for a dwarf is bad, but xping it's better. If you can only afford one probably go heavy.