Energy was said the most damaging set out there (ET and TF) but i got fed up at 38 because i dont like it at all. Pre-35 is a true nightmare, puny damage doesnt make you happy. I asume you have bonesmasher, whirling and energy punch?
TF itself i hardly like also, the animation (jump up etc) is imho too long for a damage (compared to blaster) it gives. My only favo is ET, awsome damage, fast and often 1 shot killing.
Ranged come with time. The fire epic has very nice ranged powers with actualy a very good recharge, giving you finaly the feeling of range again. Perhaps this set isnt your 'fun style', as it has no damage aura, nrg is low dmg pre-35.
Personal i really enjoy my inv/axe, already from start you get very decent damage powers (unless against high resist SL mbos) making solo a way more enjoyable set. SS and stone also are quite high dmg, but bitty more end-heavy. I didnt took tough/weave however, as im more focused solo thus being able to get more attacks and even buildup.
Perhaps you should go with the more smaller teams, specialy with a kin defender or sortlike it will help your damage greatly and you have the feeling you are 'more active'. I wouldnt suggest to redo an entire tanker, if u fed up already you only getting it worse. It is getting through the hard parts, reaching the ET moment and you feel doing damage again.
Luckely, double exp is comming this weekend, you dont need big teams to get fast exp. I teamed alot with my regen scrapper with a inv/em tanker, we could kill things actualy really fast.
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I hate to be frank, but if you feel that playing a tanker is boring, then maybe its not the AT for you. You usually don't play melee toons you say, so I believe it was to much of a transition to play one. I still respect your attempt of giving it a go though, its a pity you didnt find it as challenging as you thought it would be (have you tried increasing the mission difficulty?)
As can be seen from my sig, my first 50 was a inv/em and i loved it, even though i soloed quite a bit.
This was because i didnt want to miss out on the story arcs. After awhile it stopped being grinding levels, but grinding story arc/missions.
When a /em hits 35, it all changes as from night to day.
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"When I say interview, I mean engage in combat and defeat..." -Laura Brunetti, on how to deal with Warriors.
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I hate to be frank, but if you feel that playing a tanker is boring, then maybe its not the AT for you. You usually don't play melee toons you say, so I believe it was to much of a transition to play one. I still respect your attempt of giving it a go though, its a pity you didnt find it as challenging as you thought it would be (have you tried increasing the mission difficulty?)
As can be seen from my sig, my first 50 was a inv/em and i loved it, even though i soloed quite a bit.
This was because i didnt want to miss out on the story arcs. After awhile it stopped being grinding levels, but grinding story arc/missions.
When a /em hits 35, it all changes as from night to day.
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I have played a bit of everything: 2 blasters (deleted one), several defenders (dark/dark is my favorite, deleted a rad/rad at 22), one controller, a robots/traps mastermind, a warshade (which is the coolest thing around), two scrappers, one brute and one tanker...
I usually play on unyielding or invincible with my melee characters... which I cant do with squishies due to their lack of status protection (nearly all bosses have one or other mezz power).
Yeah, maybe playing a melee character is not for me, but I think that if I dont try it I am giving up and not enjoying half the options the game has to offer.
I do not care specially for exp, I rather see content. But exp brings new powers... and that is content! 
Go make a fire/fire tank, a damaging one, one that blitzes mobs rather than has extra shields to take the damage that wouldnt be there had ya blitzed them. What grind?
/energy melee is a late bloomer in fun stakes imo like hell late you could keep going but i think its actually a grind.
/superstrength is almost as bad when ya get footstomp as an invuln is when ya start to be more competitive in the xp/time rates.
Most of your gametime on the toon could be post 40, I have played a couple of my for 50s double the amount of time it took to get them there. My mate on his stonetank loves his stonetank now but it took till 45+ when he woke up to certain things (late developer 
) and now there is almost any excuse to get him on it.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Well, when I play my tank I set myself a totally arbitary task. Only my hit point bar should even move. If anyone elses does a will scream and rant at them for dissing my rep! 
Its not the most efficient way of play but it does add a bit of spice. "I saw that! your HP bar blipped!"
Anyhoo...
It sounds that you will never get a real kick out of tanking. Possible things to think about, however, are: GO COLD!
Ice armour: More danger in that your HP can suddenly plummet. Whilst on average no more (or even more?) resilient than other armours you face the randomness of defence. This makes things less predictable, more interesting. In addition, you have a funky damage aura, and enregy absorbtion is a more complex power (you could try a stamina free model if you are feeling brave). Chilling embrace is so wonderful you may (like me) be loathe to play any other tank afterwards, so good is its aggro gathering capability.
Ice Melee: Ok, its the lowest damage. But I never find button mashing for damage particularly interesting anyway. This turns you into a tankroller. Ice Slick is a fun power. Freezing touch is a nice hold. Frost is an intrestin cone with more slow effects.
Just a suggestion. But I think you may have chosen one of the least interesting tanks sets. Invun is a few toggles, and the only interesting things are the need for herding and when to hit dull pain / unstoppable. Resistance based, so incoming damage is fairly predictable. Energy melee is largely cyclical button mashing.
Just my 2 inf anyway.
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Playing the tanker, on the other side, reduces to toggle on the resistance powers (unyielding, temporary invulnerability, Tough, etc.), run to the enemy, taunt a little and let them try to scratch my metallic armor while the rest of the team obliterate them. Yay. Not a very "active" role. I taunt left and right and AoE attack all that I can, but my attacks do a very low amount of damage... to the point that I think I only use them to taunt the enemy a little more.
[/ QUOTE ]Instead of just aggroing everything, make an effort to group the mobs (by breaking LoS) as well. That'll make your role much more active.
Or you could invest heavier into your seconary, but with /NRG you can't really get damage output before the late levels.
Good point. One of the core functions is to cluster everything together for AoE hell.
Ice tanks do it best!
He just need to get lvl35, things will change.. oh they will change. Actualy 36, then you can slot that ET.
I reached 35 with my inv/axe now, he's kinda like BS/inv scrapper but does bitty less dmg 
My fire/EM is 38, but with hasten up (wich you can get closer to perma with IO setbonus and LotG), ET is up very fast, bonesmasher does still ok damage with BU. Having the Sand of Mu of veteran powers help alot too.
Then finaly, sounds stupid, the recipe temp powers. They actualy do very nice damage (more then haymaker) and have 30 rounds before they deplete. You can consider that to add to your attacks.
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I left my Inv/EM at lvl 20. But not because of boredom because of i can't handle the tanking. Thanks to Rain of Fire, kb powers and other funky stuff i ended up running around like a hysterical dog. So my tanker adventure ended relatively quick.
But on the other hand i like Scrappers. Try one maybe you like it. MA is a good starting point, also hard to get along but Broad Sword is cool too.
I loved nothing more than lvling my tank was very fun for me as i have a tanker mindset when it comes to MMO's so a tank was a natural choice, even in other games like FFXI my elite job was paladin and in SWG i was a Teras Kasi/Swordsman
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Back when I leveled my tank (hit 50 during Issue 3 iirc) I had quite some fun with it, this is because I could do actual damage. After I5 I never wanted to roll another tank alt, and I never did. I have played all other archetypes as alts though. Not tanks. Ever. Well, I can still solo missions on heroic for a tiny little bit of nostalgy (I can solo them with invincible but anything other than heroic takes too long time :/)
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Teras Kasi
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This always makes me laugh, you know what it is? ^^
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Instead of just aggroing everything, make an effort to group the mobs (by breaking LoS) as well. That'll make your role much more active.
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Doesnt make it any less automatic though.
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Instead of just aggroing everything, make an effort to group the mobs (by breaking LoS) as well. That'll make your role much more active.
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Doesnt make it any less automatic though.
[/ QUOTE ]Needs more adapting to the enviroment, so it's not the exact same tactics for every single group in the mission.
I like what tanks are actually about and thats preventing the more vulnerable from getting hit. Its not just about taking damage off of the team its about taking the debuffs and controls off of them as well leaving the rest of the team to be at their strongest...in theory!
Cos sadly often in many teams alot of people wont stand far back when ya need to give a herdpoint and will attack before any tank may of possibly been ready and would of planted very fast as a result that could of been simply from being in the line of cone attack fire and in the area of aoe fire upon tank and that very nice tight herd that makes the team at the most efficient is blown to pieces by a aoe knockback opener leaving other people either singletargetting or hitting less than they should be with their aoes or debuffs.
As my trick archer i have seen some tanks fighting "what they thought they could merely handle" cos i dont heal leaving me the AoE debuffer to pick up the rest of the aggro..unlike most tanks, controllers if there is one can more easily miss so tanks with bottle would add something.
Tanking for some people can be very annoying. If ya know as a tank that you and your team are in a tight/bad situation that can be quickly and easily rendered safer from people falling back or standing back one thing ya dont have time to tell people is why your asking them to get back. A possible situation is say pulling all the inner circle at once with everyone being stupid standing in the most dangerous of players with you say unprotected enough from GWs hold and your all just waiting for all the best effects from all the AVs to be stacked. If ya lucky you look cool and have fun but if ya think like me then you dont want to risk the team for a chance to "look" good and tell them all to bugger off. Tanks with bottle but more common sense than bottle and lack of showmanship work well for me.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
well tbh your job is to stop everyone else getting killed!! and you have to do this while being the least appriecaited member on the team....everyone thanks the healer or blaster who has just fired hs nuke but no on ever says thank you for taking the alpha strike cos its your job. A great tank can not only herd the mobs into a tight group but can also kill the boss and have the rest of the mob down to half health before moving on to the next mob, but this is hard to do with most of the combination of tanker sets, choose carefully and even though you will find it a bit boring at lower lvls you will be in high demand in the high game.
That I find tanking boring is only my fault, not the games, that is the first thing I want to say.
I chose Invulnerability simply for the looks, cos I didnt want to be sorrounded by flames or covered in ice or rock. It was as simple as that.
When it comes to the attacks, I doubted between super strenght and Energy Melee for concept reasons (my tank is an ex-Crey engineer with a prototype armor).
I was absolutely sure I didnt want Mace or Axe (too much medieval feeling for me, and I wanted something absolutely different to my pen-and-paper roleplaying sessions).
And then the build came to complicate things even more: Barrage I was forced to take, Air superiority because I wanted Fly and Kick because I wanted Though.
So I have an über powerful attack chain: brawl-barrage-kick-air superiority... At least Bone Smasher and the AoE (cant remember the name) are quite good.
But yes, I herd and I take care that my team is not hurt. I even turn my character around and do the tanking facing my own team so I can be sure nobody gets hurt and I can taunt any foe attacking a squishy... anyway... I find it boring. No danger, no rush, too automatic, no cool utilities...
As someone has said, probably tanking is not for me. So far the Brute thing is quite funnier.
You took the most boring primary power pool for tankers (with stone armor): Invulnerability. I totally let down my invul/SS tanker (he was lvl 45) after starting a fire/SS. Invulnerability is boring, there are no special powers it's just a plain armor, no drain, no damaging aura, no damage boost etc... Now my fire/ss tanker is 50 and my invul/ss still 45.
The ice armor is funny too, I've just started an ice/fire tanker and I like it. Fire and Ice are the most interesting armors for tankers.
Energy melee is for pvp, versus monsters it's awfully boring until the lvl 35. And even after that lvl you're still the less AOE damaging tanker (with ice melee).
Invul/EM= poor aggro management, very low damage until lvl 35, laugthable AOE damage. The first 35 lvl are boring, after that you become a kind of scrapper (with no critical) that taunts... You said it => boring. The real purpose of that kind of tanker is pvp.
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Invul/EM= poor aggro management
[/ QUOTE ]Not had any problems with managing aggro on mine.
Try an ice tanker you'll see what I mean.
I have an ice tank. Sure it has a bit better aggro control options, but the invul can still keep the entire spawn taunted most of the time.
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Invul/EM= poor aggro management
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On what basis?
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You took the most boring primary power pool for tankers (with stone armor): Invulnerability. I totally let down my invul/SS tanker (he was lvl 45) after starting a fire/SS. Invulnerability is boring, there are no special powers it's just a plain armor, no drain, no damaging aura, no damage boost etc... Now my fire/ss tanker is 50 and my invul/ss still 45.
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Yeah great help for the TS, drilling their entire set down the drain.
What you see as boring, can be awsome for another. I have 5 tankers, each armor and except mace all attacksets. From all, my Granite is most fun to play with. Boring? Nah, since agro-cap it did became somewhat annoying. Outside that Inv has 2 great things, Unstoppable and a massive tohit buff when more mobs come in melee. Unstoppable beats Hibernate any time (u loos agro, unstoppable makes u even better - capresist, great end-regen).
I dont see the point where it should be lousy agro management, it all depend on your playstyle and Inv aura is auto hit. As for AoE, Mace and Axe do less damage then Whirling hands, added that WH does stun (axe knockdown - 50%). EM is great (after ET/TF) for small spawns, even invincible setting goes rather fast (BU->ET often instant kills).
Traxous has a inv/EM, he seem to enjoy it quite alot. He's reaching end 30s atm, thus having ET and TF already. It really makes the difference.
So to talk in your style, ice/fire.. now thats boring.
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Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
Invulns get more challenging 40+ with all the end drains and psionics but then people go and do somit stupid and get weave to make it less challenging and back to being boring
But as my invuln i pretty much 8 man teamed it all the way till then anyway and after. Solo was a no no.
I will admit the lack of an AoE till 38 for an inv/SS made thing comparatively grindy to my other tanks and energy melee AoE comes early but is pants damage wise to make up for the fact its a heavy single targetter so would still be more grindy.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Hiya!
Maybe this is not the right board to post this, but there I go anyway.
I have a tanker. He is level 28 Invulnerability / Energy Melee.
Playing him is boring like hell.
I come from background of playing mostly non-melee characters. My 50 is a blaster and now I currently enjoy a lot playing my Mind controller, my Warshade and my dark/dark defender. All of them are loaded with utility powers and you have to do a lot of clicking during combat, not only to attack, but to do a lot other things.
Playing the tanker, on the other side, reduces to toggle on the resistance powers (unyielding, temporary invulnerability, Tough, etc.), run to the enemy, taunt a little and let them try to scratch my metallic armor while the rest of the team obliterate them. Yay. Not a very "active" role. I taunt left and right and AoE attack all that I can, but my attacks do a very low amount of damage... to the point that I think I only use them to taunt the enemy a little more.
Soloing is automatically discarded as an option: it is sooooooooo slow... and also... where is the danger?
I have been told that at level 35 and 38 I will get the good attacks. But I don't think I can stand 10 levels more of boredom with my tanker.
Is there any way to make playing a tanker a more interesting, fast-paced and active experience? Is it worth it?