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The main thing that worries me is he doesn't have an affects resist toggle and I don't know how long it would be before I could get the active defense perma.
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Actually, Deflection and True Grit both grant resistance (the latter is not a toggle, of course, but it's not as though that's a bad thing). 15% resistance each unenhanced (23.4% enhanced), more when you enhance it. On top of that, True Grit also provides 10% extra health (about 20% enhanced). Combined, this is roughly the same as having 38.7% resistance against alphas (20% more health isn't exactly the same as having 20% more resists, but it allows you to take 20% more damage before you go down and also enhances regeneration by 20%). Combined with the fact that you're playing with an empath who can put Fortitude on you, you should be pretty good against alpha strikes. That's not even counting taking Tough yet.
As to Active Defense, a simple solution is to put four slots into it. That will waste a slot, but if you're primarily interested in teaming, that's not a killer. With four level 15 common IOs in it, that should make it permanent (barely, so -recharge debuffs can still leave you vulnerable for a few seconds). Once you get to level 17, you can put level 20 common IOs in and will be at the ED soft cap. Also, if you're always playing with an Empath, Clear Mind can pretty much fix any vulnerabilities.
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stone/
invul/ss
seem to be the cookie-cutter tanks, can anyone else suggest something outside of that (generally don't like SS for some reason for melee either) that will be able to take large party alphas out of the box (and hopefully not too late in the game either), or am I asking for too much?
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Well, Ice Melee and Stone Melee both are considered to provide pretty nice mitigation; Dark Melee is also interesting in that it provides a self heal. As to primaries, Ice Armor is also very popular among team tankers (the primary weakness is that sometimes the random number generator can really hate you). Some people also like Dark Armor because of the high resists and the control effects, especially when combined with a secondary that has synergy with them, but the lack of innate knockback protection is something that I personally don't like (IOs or Acrobatics can fix that for 90% of PvE, of course).
Shield will be good fun for you... (caveat) If you are comfortable with IO sets particularly.
I have been helping a Shield/Fire Tank I play with regularly, suggesting build advice, etc. She soft-capped her positional Defenses in her late 30's and was hell on wheels after that. She was Tanking +5's last night with little issue on a buff/debuff light team and was having a ball.
Shield can be a bit late-blooming, but it has some great things going for it. Read my guide in my signature, it may give some insight.
Cheers,
Garth
Shield/Axe is fine ... go out and have a good time.
Except for maybe Stone, every other tanking primary (including Inv) has to work their build to take very large alphas and few other tanker primaries have such a cool attack. 
Yeah, Shields should be a reasonable medium-strength team Tanker by itself -- with a capable Empath, it should be more than strong enough for your needs, and you can eventually get some IO sets to help out even more.
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We want to be grouping with 6+ at all times if we can help it.
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At the risk of stating the obvious, I would caution you that the quality of the people you group with is more important than the quantity. A few solid, entertaining teammates will be more fun for you AND faster leveling than a full team of whiners, slackers, or idiots.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
Oh I dunno ... some of my best experiences in the game are watching that idiot Scrapper constantly trying to prove that he's a tank, die repeatedly and finally rage-quit.
If your gf has an emp, your sd/axe will be just fine. Super strength is the current fotm paired with sd/, but axe is pretty solid.
Be sure to say please while spamming 'is your AB up yet', it's sure to contribute to a happier gaming, and home life experience. ;]
Cool thanks a lot for all the help.
Garthalus thanks a lot for the cool guide. I was actually thinking about doing SD/WM, but I can't really tell the difference between axe and mace.
Do they both compare equally on end usage? It seemed like Axe had better AoE, but WM had an advantage in being smash and not letahl.
Thanks a lot for the help!! Can't wait to get shield charge. I Just wanted to make sure I wasn't stressing my gf out for no reason by opting not tog o Inv or Stone.
With her playing Emp/Energy, you certainly don't want to play INV or WP, since both need clumps of bad guys around them to do be at their best. Since you already ruled out WP, you should rule out INV too.
Looks like you are going Shield. I plan to try it out soon enough myself, it's the last one left for me to try.
Axe vs Mace? The main difference is in type of mitigation. Axe is Knockdown/Knockback, Mace has Disorients.
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
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Axe vs Mace? The main difference is in type of mitigation. Axe is Knockdown/Knockback, Mace has Disorients.
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Not exactly--Mace has one attack that does knockup, and its tier 8 & 9 attacks both do knockdown. The rest are disorients.
EDIT: Maelific, Mace actually has a bit of an edge over Axe in AoE. Both have one PBAoE and two cone attacks, but Mace's narrow cone is considerably wider than Axe's narrow cone. (45 degrees vs 20 degrees)
My Characters
Knight Court--A CoH Story Complete 2/3/2012
I wonder how that slipped my mind .. must not have played Mace recently. That's it. That's what I'm sticking with.
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
Hello there. I know these posts come around a good 10x a day but I could really use some help picking my skill sets for a tanker.
I used to play with my gf a year ago and we've only played on CoV so we decided to comeback and give this a shot again, this time playing Hero side.
She's making an emp/energy defender (not sure why energy but oh well)
At first I thought I would play an earth/rad troller, but I played it a min and it reminded me of the Dom how you do your thing in the beginning of each pull then can twiddle your thumbs.
I thought about a scrapper for a little, but settled on a tanker thinking it would increase our ability to form large groups. We want to be grouping with 6+ at all times if we can help it.
Because of this, I need someone that can take a mean large group alpha.
I played brutes on CoX, so I have no desire to play WP or Stone again. I know these are regarded as some of the better tankers.
From my understanding this leaves Invul and SD in that order of survivability. The tanker I made is SD/Axe atm. The main thing that worries me is he doesn't have an affects resist toggle and I don't know how long it would be before I could get the active defense perma.
I take it people don't take axe because of the weapon unsheath thing, but I think it looks absolutely brutal with the shield lol. I thought the 2 potential AoE knockdowns would help alleviate some of the res lacking on the SD.
I'm also really curious about shield charge. I remember in CoV, EM brutes could eat huge alphas by using the lightning rod to knock most of them down from the start. Does it work the same or am I giving this skill too much credit?
stone/
invul/ss
seem to be the cookie-cutter tanks, can anyone else suggest something outside of that (generally don't like SS for some reason for melee either) that will be able to take large party alphas out of the box (and hopefully not too late in the game either), or am I asking for too much?
Thanks a lot in advance for any and all help!!