Well i had great fun with my fire /fire tank but this was before they changed burn, saying that i still find even without burn and ED in place my fire tank is still a joy to play, and against some other tanks hes still powerfull.
Fire/Fire is indeed more damaging(Fiery Embrace+BU+Fire Sword Circle+Combustion are a lot of damage)but Fire/Ice is a better tanker, due to the defensive nature of Ice Melee.
You can stand far more aggro with a fire/ice due to the Ice Patch that will stop any foe that tries to melee you, leaving you free to taunt those outside the patch and the taunt aura and lay down a burn patch to clear those in melee range, plus with Freezing Touch you'll help holding the pesky boss and locking down dangerous foes.
It's a matter of taste and play stile, fire/fire is the most damaging tanker around, fire/ice is the most resilient fire tanker build around. 
Hell yeah, took Sulphur out of retirement a few days ago to run the Kronos Titan mission, and with a ood defender by your side, Fire is unstoppable. Give him Speed Boost coupled with Hasten and a controller makes Burn the most damaging thing around still 
Yup, think that with Ice Patch you can make that without a controller and you'll still have a good damage output and more survivability!
Plus with the next change to buffs Burn will be buffable by both Fiery Embrace and Build Up! O_O
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Yup, think that with Ice Patch you can make that without a controller and you'll still have a good damage output and more survivability!
Plus with the next change to buffs Burn will be buffable by both Fiery Embrace and Build Up! O_O
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*look at his fire/ice tanker* O.o
ooooooooooooooooooooo might be interesting this...
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...fire/ice is the most resilient fire tanker build around.
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=) Proven that a few times myself.. even now
/Fire is a very nice offensive secondary, it is also great for controlling aggro as Combustion ( now available at level 4!!! ) is great for grabbing aggro and is suitable as a 2nd attack until level 28. However it has no mezzing effects so your damage mitigation from your secondary is low. As well as having good AoEs, the top tier attacks both put out decent damage, enough to make taking out bosses not a chore if you are unfortunately enough to be soloing. Combustion is also great fun in the roads around Perez park.
/Ice is AFAIK a controllery one, which means you take less damage because of the -recharge, holds and knockdowns from various powers. I suspect it would be a tougher build ( in that you can survive better ). I have never taken Ice.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
burn still works OK with the Ice patch but it is a little boring tbh. only at lvl 24 with my fire/ice tank and it goes something like: run into mob, drop ice patch, burn, hit the boss's and lt's, drop ice patch, burn ...... it will get better I hope as the lvl's and powers progress.
I think though with ice not doing much damage and burn being nerfed to what it is now it is a good team build. not like before the burn nerf where the rest of the team were just there to make the spawn bigger for you to kill ahh them were the days ;-)
the good old days
I have played fire/fire to the mid 20s and fire/ice to the mid 40s, and I have to agree with the other posters: the /ice secondary enables you to tank tougher mobs than /fire. I find that these days fire/fire plays more like a slightly wonky scrapper, which is fun and all but it's not a proper tank (<---flamebait)
With the changes to Burn I have also found that in the right circumstances the damage output of fire/ice is actually no worse overall than fire/fire if you use the right tactics: For example, you can taunt 1-2 spawns worth of bad guys (or more if you're feeling frisky), jump around a corner to bunch them up then, after a bit of positional jiggling, drop icepatch and then burn. The mobs are too busy flopping around to run which effectively makes burn for fire/ice almost as good as it ever was. This is more tricky to pull off on outdoor maps, and requires that your team know what you are trying to do, but it's very effective.
The main drawbacks with /ice are lower single target damage, especially at low level, and the crappy top tier power: a pbaoe sleep is completely useless on a fire tank, the only real use is to make the screen look pretty for a second, maybe two, before Blazing Aura or your team mates break the sleep.
To summarise: /ice if you want to tank and use burn, /fire if you are happy to take more incoming damage, want better single target damage at the expense of burn, or if you just like the concept, of course.
Hope this helps
Thanks a lot guys for the advice and information.
The general opinion seems to suggest what I thought, a fire/fire is a good offensive unit with less crowd control options, sort of like a tough scrapper.
Whereas a fire/ice has less offensive options, but still able to deal damage, whilst having reasonable crowd control options like a very tough, damage dealing controller.
My preference is for the latter option because i think it offers a slightly more varied approach and has a more team orientated flavour.
Once again thanks for the info. 
well fire/fire is a good tank but not at lvl 20...
cos you need too much aucillary power to work, it becomes really good at lvl 32 (35 with hasten)
cos i'ts impossible at lvl 20 to have though/weave/acrobatic/stamina and all good attack and defensee of primary and secondary.
my fire/fire is a tank not a freaky scrapper
it's nt like the stone one, it's a real different play, but the work is the same, and i think taht i do it quite well.
yes i've got less defense, but i've an heal every 30s(20 with haste), no problem with endurance.
In fact with 20 mobs a a fire/fire could tank, but not like a stone one, this mean that it will took more damage, but will do more damage, finally the result is the same, more damage but less time.
and i'm not right with "crowd control"
with blazing aura/consume, you've got a mass taunt area effect which is enough for taking aggro. So about aggro, fire is one of the best, for the other part of crowd control, you're right
With fire/ice can you easily do without Stamina, EA and consume should keep the end at healthy lvls?
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With fire/ice can you easily do without Stamina, EA and consume should keep the end at healthy lvls?
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Stamina is a must in my opinion. Even with consume maxed out for recharge and end recovery, and hasten, you will be running so many toggles (BA, FS, PS, tough, acro, CJ at least) that you will have trouble attacking anything without stamina.
And if by EA you mean Energy Absorbtion, then I'm afraid that is in the ice primary. A fire tank with EA would be awesome 
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And if by EA you mean Energy Absorbtion, then I'm afraid that is in the ice primary. A fire tank with EA would be awesome
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Interesting idea, shame it isn't possible ....
A Firey Aura tank with the Ice Armour Primary as a secondary would be great, although endurance may be an issue, even with stamina due to large numbers of toggles.
Although Chilling Embrace and Burn might work well together, especially if you slotted Chilling Embrace for Slows. Having Frozen and Glacier Armours and Fire Shield and Plasma Shield would make for awesome damage mitigation. However no taunt so bad idea.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
On the other hand, with blazing aura, icicles, chilling ambrace and provoke aggro would stick to you like (censored) to a blanket.
Damn, I want one!
well.. if you have ice armour as secondary... how would you get attacks? 
"god, how many devs did hami have to sleep with to get ED?"
Total Cat @Stagefright
Blazing aura, Burn, Consume and Icicles for a nice bit of aoe damage, and I suppose pool powers like AS and (ahem) Flurry for single target damage. Admittedly, this would be an ultra-tank, sacrificing damage for defence, but with the above combination of aoe powers i reckon it would kill , sorry arrest things quick enough.
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Blazing aura, Burn, Consume and Icicles for a nice bit of aoe damage, and I suppose pool powers like AS and (ahem) Flurry for single target damage. Admittedly, this would be an ultra-tank, sacrificing damage for defence, but with the above combination of aoe powers i reckon it would kill , sorry arrest things quick enough.
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Shall we ask Bridger to do this for us? After all hasn't he got all of the Tank powersets on his toon.
I wonder what the best two primaries together are. Probably something boring like Ice/Ice for double stacked Chilling Embrace and capped defence before Energy Absorption.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
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And if by EA you mean Energy Absorbtion, then I'm afraid that is in the ice primary. A fire tank with EA would be awesome
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oops 
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Blazing aura, Burn, Consume and Icicles for a nice bit of aoe damage, and I suppose pool powers like AS and (ahem) Flurry for single target damage. Admittedly, this would be an ultra-tank, sacrificing damage for defence, but with the above combination of aoe powers i reckon it would kill , sorry arrest things quick enough.
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Shall we ask Bridger to do this for us? After all hasn't he got all of the Tank powersets on his toon.
I wonder what the best two primaries together are. Probably something boring like Ice/Ice for double stacked Chilling Embrace and capped defence before Energy Absorption.
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Probably Ice/Invuln with stacked Ice defense and invuln resistances and defence :O
But with Ice/Invul you'd only have icicles for damage. You'd never die, but niether would anything else
Hey! The allmighty Air Superiority, Jump Kick and Flurry will be your attacks!
Err...Ok, maybe tankers should stay with a melee set..
you're right of course, but i'd still like to have a go with one.
PvE-fire/ice PvP-fire/fire, in PvP */ice can perform fine although it lacks serious damage, and well fire/fire does have 2 build ups.
I have just started a fire/ice tanker currently at lvl 6.
Been reading the forums and even tho ive started my tank, im still not sure which combo will give me more pleasure / be a better tank.
I dont want to devote anymore time to fire/ice if the general opinion is fire/fire is better.
BTW i picked fire/ because of its more offensive nature.
Any comments appreciated.