I've been wanting a melee support role. I've messed around with some ideas, here's what I've come up with.
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Warden
Primary-Defensive armors
Invulnerability, Regeneration, ETC. These would be modified, however, as I'll show later.
Secondary-Melee
Martial Arts, Titan Weapons, ETC.. Their taunt would not be a full taunt, but a provoke.
Inherent-Protective Aura
This aura extends your active defenses into an aura that affects teammates within X feet/meters, at a Y% strength. In the case of multiple wardens, only the strongest of these auras is taken into account. (These would need to be heavily tweaked for balance).
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Example concepts:
Warden Regeneration
Reconstruction (Becomes a faster to recharge, weaker AoE heal, closer to thermal radiation)
Fast Healing (doesn't extend, isn't active)
Quick Recovery (doesn't extend, isn't active)
Dull Pain (performs heal, grants % HP boost per character when it pops off for duration)
Integration (extends regen bonus (!) + hold power resistance to all in range)
Resilience (extends regen bonus (!!) + more hold resistance to all in range)
Instant Healing (extends resistance shield/regen bonus (!!!) to all in range)
Revive (may be triggered now when not dead, but revives others if done so and blows the cooldown. If reviving multiple people, divides the replenished HP by the number of people revived. If done while dead, only revives the user.)
Moment of Glory (Two options for these "super buffs." One- they don't extend to others. Balance issue solved. Two- They extend to others, much balance tweaking required.)
Other example:
Charged Armor (extends damage resistance)
Lightning Field (Does nothing. If allowed, it would basically mean wardens would just become mega-farms extending damage shields.)
Static Shield (extends resistance)
Conductive Shield (extends Damage Resistance for energies)
Grounded (does nothing, not active)
Lightning Reflexes (does nothing, not active)
Conserve Power (extends reduced benefit to teammates in range)
Power Sink (spreads the endurance siphoned among the teammates in range)
Power Surge (same as above w/ regen).
As a side note I would also say the Warden's provoke should have a secondary effect, like a short-lived application of the shields or passives in a small AoE around the enemy hit.
You can see how this could get absolutely freeming redonkulous if the numbers for the inherent power were allowed to be high and stacked Per Warden, which is why I'm presenting something in the very low ranges and non-stacking. I would also suggest a pretty low range for this extension, like 15 feet instead of 30.
A single warden that defense caps, extending to everyone else in full, would just be plain broken with dark attack users. A Super Reflexes user, extending just 10-20% of their ability to the squishies that pulled aggro, would really help. So while I introduce the idea, I suggest extending a fairly low% of their abilities and range, making them have to prioritize who they protect and being supplemental to a team, rather than simply overpowering that team. It's not meant to replace tankers, scrappers, or brutes, nor defenders or corruptors, but meant for support melee. So I would also suggest scrapper level HP at best, so they'd have to know how to take care of themselves, while still having the defensive abilities and support in the front lines. I would also juggle the idea that some passive skills meant more for soloing could be replaced with direct heals.
I would also very strongly suggest that the extension of these shields be relegated to a singular "ping" style particle acknowledging you're being affected, like what happens with a sentinal's inherent power, as the particle effect explosion from these would be utterly insane otherwise.
