Addicted to Shield Defense -- Halp!

So, I need a new tanker project to work on. I've levelled the following "tanks" to 50:

SS/WP Brute
Electric/EA brute
SD/DM tanker
SD/SS tanker

I haven't hit the point yet where I want to spend time purpling/endgaming any of my toons, as I'm still exploring different archtypes and powersets.

Anyway, I'm hopelessly addicted to Shield Defense. Easy to softcap position defense. resists to fall back on and a -sweet- built-in PBAOE.

The other tanker sets don't seem nearly as appealing, but I would love it if YOU guys would make an argument for some of the others. There are three I'm not interested in:

Dark Armor (Cloak of Darkness hides my character, bleh)
Ice Armor (lolblockman -- no)
Stone Armor (Slow =/= fun)

Electric armor looks swank, and I haven't tried it since before i16, but it's all resistance, and I've not had good experiences with that in the past.

Talk to me!

Don't force yourself into a character for the sake of it.

I'm...not.

I'm saying I want to roll another tank, but I don't want a third shield tanker, and would like to hear from tankers who love some of the other primaries.

My DA scrap uses CJ and two KB protect IO's instead of CoD; I can see them just fine; you might consider doing the same if CoD is your turn-off.
Have you looked at Invuln? While you aren't big on resist sets, the ability to cap S/L without a single IO is pretty extreme, and it has a decent amount of defense too. Lately, Invuln is also the king of not concealing your character; most of the effects can be turned off. Good at aggro management, too, Invincibility pulls pretty strongly.

OK, I'll throw in my two bits for what they are worth...

Ice Armor with the new power customization options for colors can be much more subtle than you are used to. Consider it, as it has similar survivability (perhaps better) than Shield Defense when built properly. It has a self-heal/HP boost and a phase/heal Tier 9. It lacks the PbAoE attack (Shield Charge) but makes up for it with a damage aura. The set is also exceptionally good with aggro management with two potential taunt auras. On top of that, you have a great endurance recovery tool in Energy Absorption. That power alone takes some of the pressure off your endurance management, allowing more aggressive slotting for powers and attacks.

Since Ice Armor is most effective at the center of a spawn (where you will be most of the time anyway), AoE heavy secondaries such as Fire Melee, Warmace, and Battleaxe are a good choice.

Ice/ + (AoE Secondary) will be an absolute aggro magnet on teams, which is where I tend to operate most of the time. If you are a proficient Tanker, it can be somewhat easy mode for that, but still satisfying.

The other end of the spectrum is to look into Willpower. While WP lacks a damage aura and has an anemic Taunt aura, it offers some fantastic survivability and will essentially eliminate any endurance woes with Quick Recovery and Stamina (if you go that route). I recently leveled a Willpower/Dual Blades Tank on Triumph named Grognar to 50 and it was a bit of a challenge. Dual Blades offers good AoE potential and fast activating attacks, but aggro management took a lot of attention. Lots of tactical positioning and being VERY aggressive moving ahead of the team to be the first one diving into spawns to collect them within the RttC aura and establish aggro. Flip side is that he was very fun to play, a great challenge, and offered some impressive damage in the mid-late game once the combos got going. At the end, his build was soft-capped to Energy/Negative Energy, close to the HP cap for Tanks, and was pushing some impressive damage.

That would be a different route, but not one I would advocate to someone with modest Tanking skills. On the other hand, it was an excellent challenge and really allowed me to re-hone some of my methods for aggro control.

I don't recommend Dark Armor. Love it as a Scrapper, just cannot get into it for Tanks.. I've tried. Stone Armor is another I passionately dislike. My Tanking style is very dynamic and Granite just kills that. Even with Teleport, it's less responsive than I want and the slow/damage reduction goes against the grain for me. I don't want a meatshield, I want a durable hero that deals back his measure of hurt to the bad guys.

Invulnerability is a solid alternative to Willpower. Less diverse, perhaps, but has a good Taunt aura and matures relatively early. That Psi hole hurts later on though, so look at IO sets to either offset or mitigate if you want to be versatile in the late game.

Electric Armor/Melee are a wild-card for me. I'm in a leveling pact with a good player right now and he's running a EA/EM Tank with good results. Overall, though, my first impressions match yours for Electric Armor. Pure-resistance sets like Fire Armor and Electric Armor can be very strong, but they get hit with just about every debuff that gets aimed at them. That alone can be a bit of a hassle with stacking holds breaking through your mez protection, etc. Death Mages always stacked Immobilize on me with my Fire Tank, not for long but enough to be a pain.

Speaking of which, Fire Armor could also be an option if you are looking for a change of pace. Personally, if I were going to take Fire Armor again or try Electric Armor, I would pair it with a high mitigation Secondary such as Warmace or BattleAxe that offered knockdown/knockup. Super Strength I would pass on just because of the Def debuff from Rage. I have a Inv/SS Tank and I can see the effect in survivability when it drops. Also, I like consistent performance, so the up/down nature of Rage is less appealing to me now than it used to be.

So yeah, if I were going to suggest something different..? WP/DB. Nice challenge, great survivability, solid soloing potential if needed, and it will shine on teams if you play it right. And, it's different. Sure, when Issue 9 came out, WP/DB Tanks were a dime a dozen, but now...? Hardly ever see them. Dare to be different.

Thanks a ton for the input so far, guys.

Hmm...

*scratches chin*

I like ice armor and by suppressing close effects, you don't have to look through it.

Ice/elec is a very easy tank to play on SOs or a small budget, I had one in the beta that was soloing +1x8 CoT (not the easiest for ice with the fire damage mixed in) with reasonable speed on SOs only.

Don't mock electric armor, I did a mids exercise and managed to IO a WM/elec out with capped melee, smashing and lethal defence without any real compromises, so if you're prepared to spend some cash, you can potentially do some silly things with it.

Roll a Firetank and tank the entire inner circle together for just a trick archer later to make people go "Ain't seen that before!". That's the type of reason I'd make one.

Going with DA/SS for my next tanker. I can already feel the endurance frustration beginning. If anyone has any leveling/build advice for this combo, feel free to throw it my way.

Theft of Essence: Chance for +End in Dark Regen. It will often repay the cost of Dark Regen, if you're hitting enough targets. It makes things a lot more tolerable.

All the more reason to be audacious and do it!

By the way, he's level 7 right now. Dark Armor with Super Strength set to the Dark theme is sexy. The particle effects mingle in cool ways.

One of my favorite tankers is a Fire/SuperStrength, INSANE damage, and if you build for a bit of defense it becomes nearly unstoppable. Think about this, 3xrage + fiery embrace= damage cap, + Blazing Aura, Burn, Foot Stomp. Thats just instant win, and I threw in Fireball , lots of fun but be careful to watch out for a rage+hasten crash those can be deadly but with consume you dont have much to worry about .

I've been thinking about a Fire/Dark "toolbox" concept. Seems different.

Wow a lot of posts. Okay, I just want to say that I love my Fire Fire tank!!! had him since October and he is still the first character to be logged on!!! They may have nerf'd the fire fire tank so much that you practically need either Acrobatics or Tough +weave( I run both, why the heck not ) but I find it to be the most unique tank out of all the other tanks.

-It's takes Strategy to play, probably more than any other tank.
-It's takes some skill to play
-Does massive amounts of PBAoE damage and almost everything it does is a DoT!!!
-Great for holding aggro
-Great for herding!!!
-Over all the most fun I will ever have playing a tank.
-Fast Heal
-Fast recharge

The reason I bring all this up about the Fire Fire tank is because, YOU! You have a shield tank, Very similar to the fire fire tank but also very different!!! It's a great change of pace, does damage like no other(besides shield) and you will find your self always learning more and more about your tank every time you play it for about the first few months you play it.

Now If that doesn't give you a new addiction I don't know what quite well but I have another build that you may find interest in.

Fire/Ice, The difference between this tank, is it holds aggro a lot better and it may not be the healthiest combo of fire, but it can go a long way. The ice patch+ burn is amazing. Most people find themselves using that combo for everything, but like every class in the game there is not just one way to play the toon and this toon has a lot of exploration and creativity to it.

Overall both are about the same survival rate, not to far off from the survival rate of a shield, They do great damage, and overall great tanks.

If you find yourself playing one of these builds around lvl 35 and still saying to yourself, man... I miss my shield tanker!!! I suggest just sticking with your shield tanker as your main tanker, possibly your main toon because it is a game and you are here to have fun! PLAY the toon that makes you happy.

LOL oops double posted sorry, bad internet!

Guess you decided too lol, glad that you came up with a new project.