In some games holding a defense button really makes a difference in most situations. Assassin's Creed block functions are god tier compared to blocking in DDO. Wondering if it would help and be somewhat fun to really up the defensive boosts from blocking, like a bunch of PRR/MRR, MRR cap boost, or something. Maybe works really good on PRR/MRR depending on the shield but anything bigger than buckler cancel's your dodge bonus or something. Seems like giving melees something skill based and situational to do to make melees more defensible could be a fun solution for melee survivability. My idea to bring dodge into could be terrible since clothy monks would benefit most from the MRR cap increase but IDK.

Current top tier tanks would have folks catching up to them but they could possibly use the extra defense to allow them to spend on something else, or perhaps our best tanks could push skulls a bit more.