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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shin Okada" data-source="post: 5311962" data-attributes="member: 1956">It is somewhat hard to guess what type of defender will work best in your party, as the 4th PC is totally unknown. But I will try.I tend to think like this, defenders can be divided into 2 categories,Type 1) Heavy TankOne who can stand between enemy melee combatants and party controllers and leaders. Who may be slow and not good at athletics skill or other movement-helping abilities. Better to have abilities to mark multiple opponents at a time.Type 2) Light TankOne who can penetrate enemy front-line and mark enemy artilleries or ranged controllers. Better to have good speed, good athletics skill or other movement-helping abilities, and some force-move powers to set some enemy melee combatant aside from your path to reach the target.In my experience, basically, a swordmage makes a fine type 2 tank. They are lightly armored and tend to have some good powers to teleport and such.On the other hand, Charisma-Din tend to be better classified as a Type 1 Heavy Tank. They are wearing plate and often using a heavy shield. And they tend to have sub-per strength. So, while tough and very good at stopping multiple opponents at once, a Charisma-din is slow and not good at athletics (-4 skill penalty is a burden, especially at heroic tier).Though the 4th-member is still unknown, your party already has good number or tough melee combatants. So, maybe your party is not in serious need for a heavy tank. Thus, a swordmage light tank will work fine I guess. In my experience, shielding swordmage works very well. They are good at blasting multiple minions either, as they have some good close powers.You can build some good light tank from Str-based defender class. High strength give them good athletics skill. A warden, though seems not to be a choice of yours, is a good one. But there are ways to make a Str-based defender faster. Eladrin can use Fey Step and thus can easily penetrate enemy front-line regardless of their class and build. Elf has speed of 7 and thus still not so slow even with -1 speed from wearing heavy armor. Some Str/Dex fighter can live without heavy armor. And if you can count on some magic items, there even be some magical heavy armors without speed penalty (Eladrin Armor, Mithral Plating and such).I guess a party should better have someone with at least descent Nature and Dungeoneering skills for monster knowledge checks. But this aspect could be compensated later. You still don't know what the 4th member is. And you or other members can use either background rule or multiclass feat to take those skills.</blockquote>

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