Resistance based Primaries?

I'm toying with the idea of making a resistance tank, I've only done defense and regen thusfar and just wanted to change things up.

I'm going for something that will probably get hit often but takes little damage, is it possible?

As CMA has already said, there are really only 2 "true" (i.e. I am about to explain why they're not) Resistance sets in the game: Fire and Electric. The rest use some kind of combination of resistance, defence, heals, and/or regen.

Of the two, Fire gets its survivability out of having one of the best self-heals in the game, but otherwise is better left as either for "Scranker" builds (worrying less about tanking classically and more about causing as much mayhem as possible before using your...ahem...tier 9) or IO building for as much defence as you can squeeze out.

Electric, on the other hand, is at its most effective on a) high recharge and b) end draining. Against tougher opponents (Bosses or higher, aka enemies that will last long enough for you to care), Electric draws much of its survivability from draining enemy endurance as much as possible as fast as possible, and using your aura to keep them there. It also now has Energize, which is a solid heal with perks--just on a long-ish timer, thus half the reason for wanting to build for high recharge (the other half is to get Power Sink up as fast as possible for end drain).

So as you can see, even the so-called Resistance powersets don't really rely on their resistance. Mainly because resistance alone doesn't cut it unless you're near or at cap.

However, ask anyone who's played a Warshade who has saturated Eclipse and they'll tell you life is good at resistance cap. Just too bad for Tankers, that option doesn't come along often, and usually comes with a major crash after.

I don't really see too much difference in the different kinds of tankers. When you need the most protection, namely when on a large team, there is almost always defenders and controllers to buff and/or debuff. A little more resistance or defense basically makes any tank playable against any foes you might encounter.

I think I've chosen Electric. Gonna go read guides,

I think something to keep in mind is that resistance pairs well with some defense (it doesn't have to be capped, around 30% does wonders), but it does very well with +HP as well.

A little math to show my point:

Tank A
1000 HP
No Res
No +HP

If a foe hits him for 100 damage, that's 10% of the green bar.

Tank B
1000 HP
50% Res
No +HP

If a foe hits him for 100 damage that is resisted, that's 50 damage, or 5% of the green bar.

Tank C
1000 HP
50% Res
+500 HP

As before, that's no only 50 damage. This becomes 3.33% of your health.

Since you're going to go Elec/, I would suggest picking up Tough, picking up at least 500-700 HP (not that hard with IOs and accolades) and throw one what Def you can for S/L. You'll be very durable to the most common damage types out there.

Fire, both by experience and on paper, is the squishiest armor. Elec, also by experience (duoing with one in this case), can tank very well:

• Elec has much higher numbers than Fire in everything but fire resistance, especially psi (as it has no psi hole).
• Elec gives you a huge +Regen for a while after your heal.
• Elec doesn't have so many big status holes, and Lightning Reflexes is so much better for Slow resistance than Temperature Protection.
• Energy is a far more useful thing to cap than fire, at all levels. (My friend was hard capped on energy resist at level 10, which made for a hilarious situation when he discovered that he could afk-tank the Paladin and let his aura kill summoned dudes indefinitely.)
• Power Sink works very well as an AoE Taunt and Taunt IO mule
• You never run out of endurance spamming attacks while running 3 armors, a damage aura, Tough, Weave, and even (once you're slotted up) Focused Accuracy and sprint. Fire Armor can have trouble with 2 armors and an aura.
• Elec can play Sapper, if that's your thing.

Silly people. Dark isn't a resist/heal set, it's a resist/mez/heal set. Turning everybody near you into drunk cowards that don't hit anybody is a mitigation not to be overlooked.

Heck, a third of dark armor's powers are mez.

One note where Fire beats Elec: Toxic resists. Toxic hurts Elec bad outside of its T9.