The Right Tool: proposed guide

I thought about this myself. The only TF content where I thought that the easy softcapping and damage buff were really vital advantages was on Kahn. Shields doesn't really have a self heal or panic button like you'd want on Statesman.

There is plenty of game content where the important thing is not to be hit at all; like for instance any Carnie content, or the Gaussian arc. These things, though, are not task forces. Like most defense sets, it only really comes into its own once you have Weave. Exemping out of set bonuses leaves you with holes; exemping below level 32 leaves even larger holes. This doesn't leave many task forces where Shields are the clear first choice.

Much as I love my Shield scrapper and have been enjoying my Shield/Fire tanker leveling up I have to agree... in the low levels it's very weak in mitigation and once it comes into it's own in the 30's and beyond it's competent in a wide variety of content but it's biggest bonus, the AAO damage buff and shield charge, generally aren't what teams look for when they want a tank for a task force.

I've also run one STF with a friend tanking with his Shield tanker... he's a competent tanker and a good player but LR just took him apart three times in a row before we got it handled. He had his def up above 75% for the towers but LR still two or three shotted him with depressing regularity. High defense alone wasn't cutting it, and he didn't have the resistance or heals to fall back on when it failed. He's since respec'd to boost his resistance and overall survivability and that did make a difference; still both he and I decided that Invuln was a better choice. Both of us also have soft capped Invulns we've used in that TF.

I'd say that Shield certainly is capable of handling any TF in the game; there's just no TF I can think of where it's the optimal choice. On the other hand, once it's into the late 20's or beyond assuming a competent build I wouldn't say it's necessarily a bad choice... there's just others that would be better for a specific purpose. Call Shield a "generalist" tanker... good for a lot of things that more specialized builds might have trouble with but overshadowed by those specialists in their strong points.

While I agree with this (I have strong builds for both SD/SS and Invuln/EM) in principle, not every Task Force features a tower-buffed Lord Recluse. And in the absence of tower-buffed Lord Recluses and Reichsmen and such, true max survivability isn't needed. Most competently built and played tankers can handle lesser foes.

And wherever absolute maximum durability isn't really necessary, the big damage boost and AoE attack that Shield Defense brings to the table will help a tanker contribute much more meaningfully to team damage output, which can speed TFs along nicely. For ITFs, for instance, I much prefer my SD/SS tank to my Invuln/EM, just because once I've jumped in with Shield Charge and Foot Stomp (powered by stacked Rage and saturated AAO), there really isn't much left for the rest of the team to do--except help finish off mauled lieuts and sick bosses. Also, my SD/SS has better defense debuff resistance than my Invuln/EM, which helps on that TF, and if incoming lethal damage becomes an issue, hitting One with the Shield puts me at 80% smash/lethal resistance, which is up there in the ballpark of S/L resistance that Invuln's famous for.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that although there are clearly sturdier sets than Shield Defense in an absolute sense, often the survivability of Shield Defense is adequate to the task at hand (i.e. you don't die or shed aggro because you're afraid you'll die), and then, having extra damage is better than having superfluous survivability.

It is true that damage is the best mitigation. Still, given the ubiquity of -defense in the ITF, a shield tanker would not be my first choice to bring to a master's run.

On the other hand, my shield/electric scrapper has tanked an ITF master run successfully; but the TF was only run as a master's run as a whim. The scrapper had team buffs, of course. And frankly, in Caltrops the scrapper has a better panic button than any tanker tier 9, and also routinely uses the power to deflect and distract ambushes.

(If Burn were a persistent field that also had a slow component, Fiery Aura would be a lot more useful; and Fire tankers could control aggro above the cap the way my tanking scrappers with Caltrops do. This would give Fire tankers their niche back, in a way that would reward skill and teamwork as well: you can control more than 17 mobs at once so long as your team is keeping you standing, which they already have to do anyways.)