Evening all.
For me, what set COH apart from other MMO's was the overall feel of combat. Heavy attacks FELT heavy, fast attacks were just quick little jabs of time. But what really made me feel better after a bad day? It certainly wasn't being invulnerable. I liked that you'd still take damage, still have to move, fight, move, fight and so on.
After a bad day though, for my personal preference was loading up my elec melee/shield brute, and throwing myself into mobs. There was a really satisfying impression of movement, impact, and damage. So... for my ultimate request? Some form of shield defense, with some form of shield charge. What can I say, I'm easily pleased.

Being invulnerable is fun too. There should be room for all playstyles. If someone has fun being invulnerable let them make a tanky invulnerable character (who still does enough damage to get through content without it being painful) hard hitting tanky invulnerable types are the best.

Aye that's true. I did make a few tanky characters, but for sheer enjoyment there was nothing quite as fun as watching that windup and slam. Least for me!

Tanky characters can pack a big punch too! not quite as devastating as the damage optimized characters, but it can still knock back far and do good damage.

This reminds me of my tanky build on Fallout, back in the day. One of the armors had this thing where they'd go invulnerable for a few seconds, and then reflect all the damage they took as a massive AOE. It eventually got nerfed, because I once dropped into at least 40 mobs, popped the shield, and then wrecked the room, including two that were "Lieutenant" types

Good times, good times.

Storing then reflecting damage is always a hard mechanic to balance unless theres a maximum amount of damage which can be reflected.

Oh, agreed. Like I said, it was incredibly broken initially. The % that it reflected was actually extremely low. I don't think they expected anyone to jump into the type of area I did. It was a group 'dungeon' type thing, and I went in full YOLO, totally expecting to die. My buddy on Skype was like, "Woah, hey what are you....... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

It was awesome.