Returning Tanker looking for advice

Hey gang. I recently decided to try out COH again and wanted some tips on building a solid tanker. I would like to know what are the best soloing builds and what are the best team builds. I do not plan to pvp so you can ignore that aspect of the game.

I like the idea of shields, but are they solid? I recently made a shields/war mace tanker just for looks but I don't want to invest too much time without some advice first.

Thanks in advance.

I actually don't have much experience, but I'm finding myself pretty happy with invul/energy, since the attack has so many possible stuns to keep them from hitting back, and invulnerability helps with damaging auras as well as any straight damage. I've actually been soloing missions on "invincible" challenge level, but I feel just a tad rickety on certain teams. however, I've also found myself UTTERLY INVINCIBLE when paired with a ff controller, stacking damage resistance to nigh biblical heights.

I just took s Shield/warmace to 50 in record time (for me) and loved every minute of it. It's very Scrappery feeling, but dang near impossible to kill at times. I even avoided taking the fighting pool completely, and basicly used IO set bonuses to help buff my defense.

Kinetic Combats for Melee at lower lvls then Touch of Death ank Mako's higher up.

For my many PBAoEs Multistikes are cheap and help some with defense (and is a pretty nice Acc, damage, end and recharge mix to in my opinion) and moved to Scirro's Devestation and Obliterations later.

Defense go Red fortune in Battle Agility and Deflection (and Manuvers which helps quite a bit and is one power instead of three for more D) and two LotGs in Phalanx and Grant Cover for that super regn bonus.

I actually have spent a good bit of cash (maybe 200 Mill ) on this toon, but can run the Wall herding 2 groups at a time and gather huge herds in missions to use all those nice PBAoEs on.

So in my opinion Shield/War Mace not only looks cool, but it can be an awesomely powerful and fun tank.

There's lots of combos that are solid performers, it depends on what you're looking for. I haven't yet played a Shield tank far enough to have an opinion, but I DO have a Broadsword/Shield scrapper at 48... once the build matured it was awesome... but it was quite squishy until the defenses matured. I would expect similar performance out of the tanker version... slow starting but quite tough once it matures.

As an interesting sidenote, I was running a few missions with a Willpower tanker and my (soft capped) BS/Shield scrapper... we ended up facing several AV's and the WP tanker dropped very quickly. I ended up tanking the AV with my scrapper; even after the tank rez'd she wasn't able to regain aggro from me. I ended up tanking the rest of the night... my Shield scrapper was considerably more durable and a better aggro magnet than the Willpower tanker.

I had so much fun with that BS/Shield scrapper I've rolled up a Shield/Dark tanker; he's still a baby but I'm looking forward to the matured build.

I know my scrapper started to really take off defensively about the time my defenses got above 30%... prior to that he was quite squishy and had to be cautious. Now that my defenses are over the 45% soft cap he's become an unstoppable juggernaut.

I'd say Willpower is one of those sets that requires very careful slotting and a good player behind the wheel to do well. I think one of the best tanks I've ever run with was Willpower (granted, he was a Brute, though still nearly invincible thanks to some good IO slotting and careful play).