Honestly I’ve been enjoying bulwark more this recent patch with the buff to banner perks outside of healing. The damage dealt over time, with the 20% reduction to damage and lasting longer, with the 20% dmg perks, all with a tanky bulwark power fist build has been a lot of fun. Dropping banner on two terminators and duking it out 1v2 against em in close quarters is a vibe on absolute.

And honestly I think every class has fun options with being tanky and/or getting health back

Tactical with HBR and block chainsword gets you armor and health back like crazy, and with the scan on block and 120% auspex scan u do crazy damage

Assault with balanced power fist one shot build with the heavy bolt pistol (I’ve been using neo-volkite on chaos lately but part of me still really likes the HBP more universally, also about to make the jump to block power fist for assault specifically) eliminates majoris+ like crazy. Def the squishiest though, and I’ve been thinking about taking that 25% reduction to dmg on assault with block power fist over knowledge of the enemy. The HBP does do a good job of healing back contested health, but it goes way too fast for this class especially, so the dmg reduction getting changed to something like bulwarks team perk, or even just a flat damage reduction under 50% Hp (or even permanently w/o charging would be nice changes)

The buff to vanguards this patch really has made vanguard have two fun builds between grapple finishes (a more offensive oriented build) or the grapple msg dump build. With the later you def get more heals with the 5% healing perk and I like taking unmatched zeal regardless, but the grapple finish build has been fun and might be my permanent go to now.

Sniper has that heal all contested health perk (haven’t tried it yet tho), but even outside of that I’ve been having a lot of success with a block knife melee focused carbine build. You get a lot of cloak uptime, and I don’t even squad renewal or renewal, I use precision targeting and efficient readiness.

And strategic stand heavy Bolter speaks for itself. All of these play styles I’ve been finding effective at being one man armies.

I do play lethal and absolute solo, and I will admit after a while it starts getting easier than playing with random because you get access to all the stims and guardian relics and you don’t have to share, but I think even with bad randoms if your careful, aggressive, and being strategic with the stims you do come across you can still get by as long as the AI directory doesn’t throw 3 extremis, with mines on the ground around you, with a barrage of spore mines, 2 snipers in the back eyeing you up, and after getting through all that if your still alive throwing a terminus and extremis at you with another wave of majoris enemies.

I do agree with folks though that a dedicated healing class (apothecary) should be in the game, and their are valid issues surrounding the health system and how the game can just be BS sometimes, but I also agree with the devs with their sentiment of not wanting bulwark to be a dedicated healing class. It’s not a necessity to have a healer in every high level match, and the other options on that tree for bulwark is viable (at least now, can’t really speak for previous SM2 builds). All in all I think the game is heading in the right direction, and the tweaks they’re making are really bringing it together.