Aurelia is so fragile, though. But she’s the queen of second winds. I must have gotten several dozen of those in my TVHM battles with Shadowtrap through EOS (at Level 50). Sometimes I went down and back up multiple times without even knowing how it happened. I only died fully once, against Eclipse. It’s a very chaotic way to accomplish the goals. Maybe I still need to learn more about how to spec her. As a solo player, there’s not much point in the right-hand tree except for accuracy stacks and boosting the deadliness of rare guns (Lv-45 Celestial Baroness COM). I’m deep into the middle tree, and about halfway down the left tree. We’ll see how I fare in UVHM. I’m not too confident at this point.
Fragility doesn’t matter when you can’t get it. It was the same reason why Maya was so hard to kill, she could toss enemies around and stun them so much that they didn’t get a chance to shoot her. The same applies to nova spam Jacks. Things that aren’t shooting you can’t kill you.
Athena, by contrast, has PFG, Bloodrush, and Epicenter for CC, two of which actually stun enemies. Athena is better at powering through hits but to get the most survivability out of her you’ll need conduit, which requires a shock weapon or grenade, leaving you devoid of cryo. So while she can take more hits, she has less means of preventing enemies from hitting her.
Have you tried going to the Aurelia sub-forum? They’re pretty good about helping people through that TVHM-UVHM transition.
She can be fairly tanky, but it is a bit gear dependent. You can go with a Naught if you have it. There’s also low recharge delay turtle shields and adaptives, transfusions, moxxi, rerouter. And then there are different options depending on your play style. For you, life leeching with cryo weapons is a good move at the moment, and works especially well with shotguns or other high powered weapons in a close range, high octane style. Or you can you transfusion cryo grenades and cryo snipers to disable enemies from a distance and snipe them that way so you avoid danger.
Experiment a bit with some different approaches in TVHM so that you know which will suit you better before you go to UVHM. It gets tough to experiment once you get there.
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I think the word ‘tanky’ is being used differently these days. To me, it speaks directly to being able to stand in and live through direct, constant damage. This links to MMO roles of ‘tank’, ‘dpa’, ‘controller’, ‘healer’, and differentiates from basic survivability.
Athena and Jack are ‘tanky’, while Nisha, Wilhelm, and Aurelia can be built for decent survivability, but aren’t likely to truly tank bosses.
I agree with your definitions. I just don’t think an aggressive play style is necessarily indicative of tanking. Zero could be played extremely aggressively, but he was anything but a tank.
I agree with that, as well. I tend to think of ‘aggression’ as a statement of pace. Understandably, some may read it as a statement of up close and personal play.
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I’m using a Lv-50 Shield of Ages right now in conjunction with a Lv-25 Eddie (which I wish I could find again) for bosses and vacuum, and a Lv-44 Voltaic Systems Purge for mobbing in atmo. The recharge delay is long on the SoA, but that’s seldom an issue.
Adaptives are a very poor fit for Aurelia because healthgate. Since regaining health is an active process for her, it’s much easier to keep her health above the HG threshold by cutting her max health rather than expanding it. I will look into Turtle shields, see if I can find something I like better than the SoA. I’m using a cryo transfusion already (Lv 47, purple, low fuse time). Thanks for the info.
I use a cryo and a shock sniper extensively. Too bad I can’t find a cryo or shock version of my Lv-46 incendiary Vladof Droog. Fire is the worst element for her, but it’s still ridiculously effective. A sniper machine gun, with her sniper perks. Purple Mali Snider works very well in shock, though, and my glitch Dahl (ugh!) cryo sniper does a great job of immobilizing targets. Too bad that swap speeds suck so bad.
I’ve got Athena, Aurelia, Claptrap and Jack at 70, and I play dirty. I’d recommend Athena and Aurelia, though Claptrap is a lot of fun if you can handle the madness.
The amount of enemies that can healthgate you in TPS is so tiny this isn’t even worth considering IMO. 2 out of her 3 healing skills are percentage based on your max health, making them less effective with a lower health pool. Then there is the fact that she has no shield cap or recharge rate increases, she can only fix delay. This makes most turtle shields a gamble unless they have low enough delays, or you have gear to alleviate the recharge rates (the Eridian Vanquisher being one such piece of gear). And then considering that most enemies will be frozen or not focused on you, a higher health pool will be of greater benefit than a lower one since you’ll have a bigger health buffer for taking enemy attacks before you go down. Also consider that Frigid Touch, her only non-passive healing (a kill skill no less), is also the the healing skill she has that benefits the most from healthgate mechanics. So when you come up against those enemies that can healthgate you, mostly a few bosses, it will not be as useful as Magic Bullet for straight up solo healing it will be difficult to keep uptime on the skill.
I suggest looking up some gameplay of Aurelia in the holodome (don’t know if there are any for the mutator arena) and see how often it is that Magic Bullet saves the day. You don’t neccessarily need to build a massive health pool, but cutting into it too much doesn’t do you any favors either.
BTW, Apologies for the Off topic posts. I’ll shut up after this one, I promise 
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I feel like Wilhelm has been overlooked in this topic.
If you want to play aggressive, being able to tank is a plus, and unlike others I think Wilhelm can tank as well as pretty much anyone else with the right gear. He also has crowd control abilities in the way of Cold War and Meteor Slam, as well as his pets for distraction.
Shock Absorbers allows for some super aggressive playing, but he also performs great at medium and long ranges.
I personally find Tanking in games in general to be a bit more defensive than offensive. You play semi conservatively and whittle away at your opponents and you’ll avoid getting too low on health in many games.
I think the definition of tanking isn’t ambiguous at all. Looking up “tank” in Wikipedia might be an interesting exercise. 
Salvador, properly specced and outfitted, is the greatest tank in all of Borderlands. We don’t have a character like that in TPS, but some are closer to him than others. Athena can tank very well with her Aspis. Wilhelm is very hard to kill with his toys and cyber-implants. Jack is spectacular at it more because of misdirection than personal damage-sponging. The other TPS characters, not nearly so much in my experience. Nisha I never learned to play right, I concede. I could not get into her at all. Clappy is a lot of fun, but too chaotic to rely upon when the chips are down. Aurelia is like the perfect glass cannon, the very opposite of a tank. Hang back, snipe. When mobbed, out comes the cold. Second winds are a breeze for her–thank the gods.
@Cobra951, I have to politely disagree that Jack doesn’t have considerable, personal damage sponge ability. The following example isn’t even wearing a tank focused COM.
Yeah Jack can tank like crazy in this game if you build him to it, even not building him to it he is pretty durable
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I decided to go with the baroness 
many people made good arguments for her that struck a nerve in me. Loved the deputy aurelia video too. I’m sure she’ll kick ass. I am about Level 15 and i’m enjoying the gameplay so far going down the cryo tree first. I love elemental skills
If anyone wants to play with me my PSN is: thehorror13
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I would probably just say any of them except claptrap. 
Are you a ps3 player?
I went as far as creating the baroness, just haven’t started yet. I like cyro damage, reminds me of the ice sorc I would make in diablo
I’m not disagreeing that he can take a lot more hits that Aurelia, and come back to full health in a hurry. But I still think the misdirection is a big part of his awesome survivability. Most dramatically, I’ve brought down Zarpedon’s ascended form without taking a single hit from her. She gets completely sidetracked by my digi-Jacks.
That build is close to mine, though I’m far from Lv 70. It may not be a tank-focused COM, but it’s a freaking Celestial COM. LOL! I made do with a Lv-33 Celestial till I was well into the 50s. Then farming Lv-50 gear with a high-level Wilhelm netted me a Lv-50 Celestial for Jack. Yes! (Which brings up a complaint: why do I get so many wrong COMs out of vendors? If I’m playing Jack, I’m not usually looking for Gladiator or Enforcer COMs. GRR!)
Misdirection can be big for him, but it’s also true that he can flat out face tank raid bosses. With Resolute and Delegation maxed, there is a lot of damage that he simply doesn’t take. Boost either of those with a COM, and he’s basically unkillable. With a Superstar Role Model (+6 Resolute, +5 Persistence), he can be effectively unkillable whether his AS is active or cooling, without bothering to use cover. When I use those types of builds, I generally make sure I’m being hit so Resolute stays up for extra damage.
I’ll have to give that a try. I’ve been happy with the Celestial buffs, and haven’t looked into other COMs since.