Heraclea

Judy Henske and Jerry Yester - Farewell Aldebaran

I have a SR/katana tanker that I abandoned in favor of a Shield/Fire tanker that is my main defense based tanker. As a tanker set SR is handicapped with a much weaker than normal taunt aura. In that it's similar to Willpower, without Willpower's compensations of more recovery and regeneration. I had a DM/SR scrapper in the old game, that was my AE baby and goto character for running AE missions. That scrapper was adequately tough when tricked out with +recovery powers and IOs. But expensive to build that way also. And as a scrapper no one expected the character to hold aggro. Reflexes simply lacks advantages like Shield or Ice do as defense based set. I would go with one of those to create a defense based character, at least if you are making a tanker.

Hawkwind - Psychosonia RIP Martin Griffin.

Helen Reddy - I Am Woman

A lot depends on what kind if content you run, and whether you are solo or teamed. Granite has the highest resist and defense numbers, but will be a pain to solo and may not be all that tough in practice because of taking damage for much longer. Invuln and Shield are easy to build to comparable levels of defense and resistance. Seondaries like Dark and Radiation definitely help also. Dark's self heal is more reliable than Rad, but Rad has more AoE potential.

FWIW my understanding is that *Fir Bolg* meant 'big bellied men', They were giants in some versions and Eochaidh was their king.

Martin Mull - Men Men Men

Grateful Dead - The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion

My beasts/time MM (whom I have finally decided to finish levelling after making her in May) is an ancient Cretan goddess of birth, love, and death. Her critters are an extension of her deity rather than ordinary dogs and cats. And at any rate, she's older than that upstart Zeus, and socially outranks you so far that she owes no one an explanation.

I avoid playing like that when I am on a tanker. I prefer to wait until one spawn is down before aggroing the next. Rushing forward into the next prematurely means that there are bosses wandering around in the backfield. I want to make sure they're dealt with before aggroing more. Ambushes are another matter entirely of course: they must be intercepted, and on an ITF they may come from either direction.

KMFDM - Brute

Caltrops gives you a possibility of survival when everything goes south, your pets are three quarters dead, and the mobs target you. Its chief virtue is that it distracts melee mobs, and the best place to cast it is at your own feet. You will want to use a macro that targets yourself as the place to put them. And it takes all sorts of procs from the slow sets, and takes the Pacing of the Turtle -recharge proc.

The Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman

The Walker Brothers - Deadlier than the Male

Arthur Brown - Fire

The T-Bones - No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In

John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band - Give Peace a Chance

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention - Trouble Comin' Every Day

Water/WP sentinel may be within your comfort zone but different enough that it will interest you. You don't have the squishiness problem of a blaster, or the mez issues of a support class. I ordinarily take tough and weave on armored classes; did not bother with this character because of the many tools available to stay out of melee: big, targeted AoE movement slows filled with procs, and ninja caltrops if they still manage to close. Satisfying splash effects, too.

Brute or Scrapper will definitely do more damage than a Tanker will. You will have a somewhat harder time reaching the several softcaps if that's what you're looking for. But the Tanker will be a much more leisurely ride. If this is a solo character I would build for some recharge and mostly recovery. This is how I built Heraclea as a tanker then and now; then again, as a tanker the several softcaps are much easier to reach. Practical immunity to the endurance mechanic is what I aimed for. Tanker defenses are overkill except in the most extreme situations, even on redside. The brute that clicked with me is radiation melee/electric armor. I skipped the electric t9, like I always do with such powers; they get 'saved for special cases' and as such never used anyways, unless the trays swap on me unnoticed and I click it by mistake. Radiation melee is like the red-headed stepchild of Dark Melee. It has a self-heal that doesn't always work, and much better AoE; this combination has two PBAoE damage auras, and just standing there builds fury and mobs die as the damage ratchets up. The character resists endurance drain at 95%, which is adequate, and has a recovery AoE that's much faster than the one in Dark Melee. I did stuff like World Wide Red as the character's finishing lap. The thing is, while leveling the character really struggled with endurance, so I fitted her with all the recovery uniques very early on: at level 50 the combo is golden.

I am often on a tanker. I am used to seeing entire spawns getting immobilized on a control heavy team. My answer is to assume that the other players know what their characters' powers can do and what they're doing with them. There is probably some advantage to the immobilize, some attached damage or debuff. So I let them play the way they think best. Not much different from knockback anyways, which I mind less than some as well.

Joy Division - New Dawn Fades

Royal Scots Dragoon Guards - Auld Lang Syne

The Cruxshadows - Birthday

Natalie Cole - No Plans for the Future