SF "gear tank" build

About the res sig : I dunno about you but in many PUGs I join things go terribly wrong sometimes (monks that rush in front to use channeling for energy management, necros with touch skills,... ) That's why I don't use total PUGs. At the very least, you should have a couple of friends on your team. I usually know half my team already, after they're assembled I recruit the others. If they're dumb and decide they must go in before you, well, they aren't worth the res sig

I've mainly been doing Orozar runs lately, farming runs either turning out bad or not being worth it for me, so I speak more from that perspective. I don't find melee attacks to be a problem at all, being a Warrior; but, 3 sources of damage are still pretty important: Surveyors, with Melandru's Arrows (I usually have Enchants stacked on me), Dark Binders/Taskmasters (Enchant removal and degen), and Wardens (Stoning and Obsidian Flame can spike you to death.)

With the 75% block/evade stances plus "Shields Up!", I can ignore the Surveyors. For Dark Binders and Taskmasters, I either have Obsidian Flesh or Spell Breaker on me, so they are reduced to occasionally hexing others and then attempting to wand me to death. Wardens are also disabled by Ob Flesh/Spell Breaker. So long as the Taskmasters are eliminated first, before Ob Flesh wears off, I'm barely touched at all, even though I'm /dancing with the gear in my hands.

However, even though I'm the tank the team build I have relies more on the Monks to keep me alive than myself. Some fast healing would be better to keep you alive than relying on being hexed/conditioned and Troll Unguent. In fact, I'd almost be willing to say a R/Mo would be better for the job, were there a way to add more armor to them.

An idea to deal with the downtime of Melandru's Resilience: throw in another stance or two to cover the downtime. Chances are most battles won't last mroe than a minute, so having a couple more should cover you with some defense against something throughout the battle.

All you need is shield stance/gladiator's defense + aegis ^.^ Except when you're holding a gear, you aren't holding a shield
I used Disciplined/Defensive Stance because there isn't really anything I need to do while the stances are up.

Anything with a cast time of more than 1 second is very likely to fail like i already stated for the troll unguent. All the mesmers and rangers targeting YOU
Besides Obsidian Flesh it is probably also hard to keep your own enchants on you unless you have your monks spamming echants on you all the time. most skills I use are stances and shouts with 0 cast time so they cannot be interrupted.
Dolyak Signet and "Watch Yourself!" boost your armor by 58 points, so any damage not ignoring armor isn't a too big issue. The only things that really hurt you are the health deregeneration (wells,hexes,conditions), shatter enchants, obsidian flame and direct damage from the necros.

EDIT : If you keep getting enchanted by a monk you could also use Holy Veil for slowing down the hexes and Balthasars Spirit to gain adrenaline. That way you probly could run Defy Pain {elite} all the time, which would give you another 20 armor and more hp. Actually, the way Mesmer AI works is that they attack any potential target in range. If you have Obsidian Flesh/Spell Breaker up and are holding the gear, they'll just hex or interrupt someone else. I think the Dark Binders might Strip Enchant other people too. Other than that, the Wardens and Surveyors won't Ob Flame or interrupt anyone else. I usually can get Ob Flesh off unless I'm being careless and there are a bunch of Taskmasters standing around. The rest of my skills are stances/shouts.

The problem I have with Dolyak Signet is that it slows me down even further, which doesn't help during Orozar when I'm trying to aggro everyone and avoid dying at the same time. Since the stances I throw up already add a decent +24 armor plus 75% chance for the enemies' attacks to miss, I'm not worried about anyone but the Taskmasters. Wardens are manageable enough though.

Defy Pain would be a waste of an Elite IMO. Melandru's Resilience or Ob Flesh would work better as they deal with the degen.

About the res sig : I dunno about you but in many PUGs I join things go terribly wrong sometimes (monks that rush in front to use channeling for energy management, necros with touch skills,... ) Necros with touch skills are likely dark bombers which are incredibly good tanks - aura of the lich makes you recieve double healing + they heal themselves decently with consume and blood renewal

Ok, well, lets do some fun math. Healing breeze: +9. Crippling Anguish: -3. Conjure Phantasm: -5. Bleeding: -3. Well of Suffering(since they are computer AI, for some reason they have superpowers and get it off faster): -4. That adds up to 9-3-5-3-4=-6 even with healing breeze. Now, I'm not saying its impossible, but whenever heal breeze is down, you will be at -10, during the middle of the battle after the melee around you is dead (for the wells). W/E is just plain easier. Especially for those times when you get 5 taskmasters in the final attack on Orozar. You don't think this whole time that the monk/s are going to be putting on stuff like healing seed, life bond, mark of protection, reversal of fortune, spell breaker...etc. Meanwhile you are using skills like dolyak, endure pain, or shield of Judgement. After the first round of casting, your Ele would have meteor shower cast and each hit would disrupt any remaining spell casting.

It sounds like you are assuming that you are the only one doing anything or that you are soloing which is not the case. Your with a 5-6 person group here. Ohh, and if you bring a necro with you as a battery, they can also bring a very low attribute putrid explosion with them. This spell is faster than well of suffering, so they can get rid of any dead bodies before they can be used.