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Ice Tanks do it best
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Untill they meet a 4 stacked venguance nemesis +3 spawn, there goes your def 
There is no best, too much depending on melee set, epic and playstyle.
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I cant recall the current to hit formula. I seem to recollect that "To hit buffs" still scale with defence but I cant be sure on that. Any source on this?
DOes Vengeance still stack from Nemesis? Or is it the same effect as non-stacking on players. I dont know the answer but I am finding Veng'd Nemesis less of pain these days (may be my imagination)/.
That tohit vs defence scaling was a idea of some guy on the US boards iirc. The so called 'tohit resist'. Currently it still is hit vs defence, kinda like blasters can hit through elude fairly easy (aim/bu).
It was more of a joke, dont know the actualy effect of those nemesis also, but just pointing out there is no best or worse. (as taking agro not always is the issue, but staying alive is).
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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).
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Oh another prototype armor of Crey? Knightly Defender thinks he has the only one.
Maybe our tank-fault because of this story. Damn Crey. 
Interesting point tho.
And fair point. Let me clarify,
Ice Tanks grab aggro best
Stone [Granite] Tanks survive aggro best
Fire tanks kill em all best
Invun tanks dont do anything best but are still rather splendid.
Id recomend sticking with Inuv, mine can crash mid fight hit dull pain and start swinging again without much trouble. If its boring try and get a full team (with no other tanks) highest dif and go find some crey, its a blast! 
Dull pain is, of course, a carbon copy of hoarfrost and earths embrace respectively. A slightly less interesting animation but thats about it.
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Ice Tanks do it best
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I disagree. I'm not sure it is that simple. I have 3 tanks at reasonable level. Ice/SS, Inv/Fire and Fire/Fire. I play all differently, partly because of the secondary. I do agree that Ice has the best aura in Chilling Embrace but that isn't the be all and end all of aggro.
Of the 3, the Inv/Fire is the probably the toughest, but has to worry a little about certain mobs ( ranged energy/elemntal ), but once they are close he is safe. Against S/L enemies he just laughs.. He is also the best aggro magnet, mainly because of Combustion and well slotted taunt. He works best at herding spawns.
The Ice/SS is the most scranky, mainly because I run perma-Rage and the SS powerset is so fun. He puts out the most damage ( even AoE I think, thanks to Icicles ). Still, I have not compromised on slotting shields to be offensive, just on getting powerpools. Because of Rage crashes, timing is important. This can cause some problems, but usually I have enough notice to taunt prior to the crash. One thing I have noticed is that Ice is a very balanced set, only really having to worry about fire damage.
The Fire/Fire is the least effective. This is for a number of reasons, partly because his build is not 'complete' ( he's in his early 30s ) and partly because of some power choices based around looks. I'm sure if I respecced him I could make a much more reliable tanker, I just don't want to.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Mepardon. Ice Tanks are best at grabbing aggro.
They do, of course, suffer in other ways. No set is better than another. They may be better than others under certain circumstances of course.
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Mepardon. Ice Tanks are best at grabbing aggro.
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I'd say Ice/Fire tanks are best at grabbing aggro. Ice/ and /Fire seem about the same to me, with enough recharge in the 2 /Fire PbAoEs.
Edit: Or at least Ice/SS and Inv/Fire seem similar if the Ice/SS didn't use Perma-Rage.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
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Ice Tanks do it best
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Untill they meet a 4 stacked venguance nemesis +3 spawn, there goes your def
[/ QUOTE ]Or a single DE Quartz 
I really appreciate all the info about which tanks sets are best to manage aggro, but the fact is I have an Invulnerability/Energy Melee and I am not rolling another tank... mainly because I do not have unlimited time to play CoX
What I would like is some tip that makes playing THAT particular tank a fun experience.
Then concentrate on clustering the enemies into a nice shiny bundle for your team mates to decimate.
Id say it would be a lot more fun with a Rad defender (or controller) or AoE blaster (Fire/Fire preferably) who will really appreciate your magnetic powers in keeping all those baddies into a tight bundle of debuff goodness or AoE damage.
Use terrain to your advantage, under platforms, around corners, etc.
Above all, team.
All I said about stone and invul tankers is not about effectiveness, every tanker can. But Stone is slooooow and nearly immortal, invul is tough but... that's all, nothing very special about him no debuff, no damage, nothing except a small "to hit" bonus. That's why I found them to be boring, with Ice and Fire you have plenty of cool things to deal with. And you are not immortal, and it is very important in fact if you don't want to fall asleep by waiting after your team to finish the monsters.
yeah.. i went from an ice/fire to an inv/nrg and dear god is it dull!
personally, i think it's the secondary. The tank can take any damage you throw at it, and i love unstoppable dearly... but energy melee is booooring. to be honest, i need a pet fireblaster to enjoy the tank at all.. i'm too used to being able to deal damage.
soloing with it is a joke, and on big teams all you do is herd them up and take the alpha.. then stand there being bored whilst the team holds and slaughters them.
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All I said about stone and invul tankers is not about effectiveness, every tanker can. But Stone is slooooow and nearly immortal, invul is tough but... that's all, nothing very special about him no debuff, no damage, nothing except a small "to hit" bonus. That's why I found them to be boring, with Ice and Fire you have plenty of cool things to deal with. And you are not immortal, and it is very important in fact if you don't want to fall asleep by waiting after your team to finish the monsters.
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Invul still has one redeeming feature, this button called 'god-mode'.. Maybe its not much from spreadsheet point of view, but it sure is fun to play with. All the qualities of granite and none of the drawbacks..for 3 minutes.
edit: im not trying to fool myself.. I still havent liked tanks past ED.
Well i totally get the inv/nrg or inv/ss being boring in comparison to others and even with inv/stone id get it. Inv has no dam aura so lower xp rate but has better acc but that makes m00t difference when ya doing so little damage with a poo pbaoe or no pbaoe cos it comes so late. Secondaries make a huge huge difference imo to levels of fun.
From 101 Ways to spice up ya tanklife:
#56 Go do mother mayhem with a team that has just a sonic/ or /sonic for a defence set
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.
Your fire blaster not dying, and even more importanty, feeling completely free to let rip with AoE is going to contribute a lot more to damage than any tank.
When I tank, the way I increase damage is to team with people who have shed loads of AoE and let them frolic on my nice clustered enemies, not slot my attacks with damage and recharge, miss taunt, and think rage is great because it increases my damage (Hint: It WILL drop, and your team mates will stop doing damage).
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with a team that has just a sonic/ or /sonic for a defence set
[/ QUOTE ]do not underestimate the sonic defender, if you have ever tried a fire tanker you know that he turns you into a real monster: very high resistances and high damage (thanks to Disruption Field).
People herd, keep aggro and still find it boring.
Anyway damage is an important part of tanking. You as a tank need to survive long enough and in some teams that means you need to be a contributing part of the reduction of fight time to below your tankers life expectancy. The one that really is reducing your life expectancy could be a +3 dark ring mistress boss or a +3 sapper. These are the guys i like to knock off for myself.
I enjoy tanking from an experimentalist point of view. "OMG we got a ftl make up of a team but everyone is in it to win it so what can we do in terms of survival that must come from outside of our builds as a team?". So many people resort to saying "i couldnt do it cos i didnt take or we didnt have a" but as a tanker you help create the dynamics by offering players what they need. What you do, can either keep them at maximum effect or reduce it but yet despite some doing or knowing all this they can be still bored or not having as much fun as they would with another build/AT.
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.
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with a team that has just a sonic/ or /sonic for a defence set
[/ QUOTE ]do not underestimate the sonic defender, if you have ever tried a fire tanker you know that he turns you into a real monster: very high resistances and high damage (thanks to Disruption Field).
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I have a sonic corrupter and have found that versus psionic damage its interesting. Hence Mother Mayhem suggested. A sonic caps a firetanks res to all but psionic and untyped.
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.
I am kinda amazed so many say /fire is the way for dealing damage. My currently Granite came to a point that he is able to kill things quite fast now, using perma rage and fire epic. I wonder how i do versus a fire/fire and going 4 group spawns in a row (BU vs rage).
I'm fully focused on +recharge bonus, currently at 47,5% and the magic 65% (as stated by nofuture) penalty is within reach.
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(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
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A sonic caps a firetanks res to all but psionic and untyped.
[/ QUOTE ]And cold, and possibly toxic.
Fire they cap themself, S/L hits 70ish% iirc with tough, toxic is like stacked 4 times healing flames (impossible) and dont see ice hitting cap with just sonic (base 27%?)
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(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
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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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THe challenge with a tank is not to keep routine spawns taunted. Its to keep the patrol / accidentally aggrod second spawn / knockbacked / wormholed / flying cabal / teleporting skyraider (or Rikti) taunted aswell.
Ice Tanks do it best