Update Discussion: November 6, 2020

[Yaffy]

On that note I want to mention another reason why I am against the armor chipping idea. Largely speaking armor doesn't matter. People value cheese so highly because it adds health. Armor is in theory an approximation of the same idea but generally speaking in principle it is worth far less.

Unless if I'm mistaken, when Citan mentioned the armor chipping mechanic, he really meant that mobs would just do unmitigated damage, not that it would specifically damage armor. You could argue that it would lower the value of the flat mitigation armor gives, but that would make a very small difference in his example outside of very early game characters stacking armor.

That said, I disagree with what you say about armor. Armor is valuable because it increases your maximum effective life. The issue is that it's not worth trying to specifically build lots of armor as possible as opposed to increasing mitigation. I would say 500 armor at end game is really at the minimum end, but getting 800-900 is excellent if you're a tank to avoid getting gibbed by sudden burst damage. More than 1000 and you're most likely wasting your time and mod slots on things that would be better spent elsewhere. If you're a tank, it's still useful to have more armor than life because healers have an easier time recovering your HP on armor, so that extra buffer on armor can help them heal you through a tight spot.

PG is incredibly mod centric and I don't think it is fair to say well this one new skill gets a pass. You either have the mods or you do not and there are tons of classes that are gimped to the nth degree without 1 specific mod on a certain piece of gear.

The issue with tanking though is that you need a RIDICULOUS number of mods and amazing gear to even be functional. As a DPS/Healer you can still hurt things or heal people just fine even with junky gear, you'll just be weaker. A tank on the other hand is worthless if you can't get aggro so you need to build lots of taunt, and even if you have aggro you're useless if you don't have mitigation to live noticeably longer than other people. Unarmed is a perfect example of this, because you need to dedicate so many mods just to make sure you have some defense against all sorts of different damage types (Don't have the X resist mod? You're useless vs X damage dealing monsters). You aren't just weak, you're useless.

Stuff like Bulwark mode in this case is very welcome because it takes away some of that heavy gear reliance. There is no way that someone is going to be an excellent tank just because they slap on Bulwark mode and nothing else, but it significantly tones down the barrier to entry to becoming a tank. That's why both Celerity and I are reluctant to nerf it too much. It's something that tanking desperately needed to not be limited to only people in perfect gear and it means Shield actually has a good way to reduce damage that isn't just elemental.

As for the balance on Bulwark it seems messed up to me that shield gets -50% damage dealt for -27% resistance. What does unarmed lose to get 38% resistance?

Bulwark mode gives you 27% resistance to every damage type. Unarmed gets those resistances to specific damage types. Shield gets Bulwark mode's resistance for no mods, Unarmed has to spend many mod slots for its resistance. The way Bulwark mode works in the formula is highly favorable compared to Unarmed's mods.
That -50% damage is VERY well deserved.

Ranperre had a really nice mention of unarmed in that you can just stack attacks/taunts. You cannot do that for shield and this is another +1 reason why Bulwark should probably be a side skill.

I don't understand why this is mentioned as if it's a disadvantage for shield and an advantage for unarmed. The reason why you don't stack attacks on your bar as shield is because shield has a ton of useful utility skills for tanking AND taunts, so you would rather use those than shield attacks. Unarmed has only attacks, so you aren't doing it because you want to, you're doing it because it's literally all you can do. Shield has 7 incredibly useful skills that directly benefit tanking and 3 others that can be useful in certain situations, Unarmed has two good skills (A taunt and headbutt which gives you 15% physical mitigation with a mod) and 1-2 that are ok in certain situations.
Shield has WAY better abilities than Unarmed for tanking and it would definitely be wrong to say it's a bad thing that shield isn't filling its bar with attacking skills or that it's a good thing that Unarmed's bar is only attacks.