Willpower and Fiery Melee: tanker or Scrapper

I created a concept character that was a Fire/Fire Tanker but I'm not all that crazy about Firey Aura (I'm used to playing Willpower toons). I'm just curious to know what the major differences would be between a Tanker and a Scrapper. I usually end up playing solo but I do team every once in awhile.

In short:

A tanker focuses on being survivable and controlling aggro for the team primarily and has a lesser focus on doing damage.

A scrapper focuses on killing everything that can be targeted and is slightly less focused on survivability.

If you want to focus on being a damage dealer that is versatile, can move quickly solo, and can stack well in groups, roll a scrapper. Scrappers don't have the perceived and sometimes very real responsibility of aggro control that tankers have.

Tankers don't stack as well as scrappers, solo slower due to a lesser damage output, and being a tanker generally requires you to focus on controlling aggro. This happens at the cost of you being a carefree damage dealer like a scrapper. They are good if you want something durable, but that durability sometimes comes at the expense of other desirable qualities.

My main Tanker is currently a WP/FIRE, and I went this route rather than scrapper for the following reasons;

1) There is nothing sweeter than having Fast Healing/Quick Recovery both by 12th level.
In the end this does not matter, but its a very fun boost in those early levels.

2) I love WP as a set. It offers tiered survival of +regen +def and resistance. It also offers a +HP boost which paired with the highest HP AT in the game is an amazing survival edge.

3) If you play a Tank, and WP is the defense of choice, FIRE is certainly a great way to assist in the Taunt-gap of WP. If you need more info on this, I reccomend Heraclea's excellent guide on WP Taunting.

In summary, WP will work very well on both ATs. I have levelled a MA/WP and it was amazingly fun and easy. I simply chose Tanker to see if it was the same or better than on a scrapper and was surprised how much better it works on a Tanker. IMHO

My two main concerns are survivability when playing solo and being able to fill a role on a team. I gravitated towards Tankers awhile back because when I first started playing the game I basically sucked at it and kept faceplanting. As a Tanker survivablity wasn't an issue, but when I do occassionally team I've discovered that Tanking really is an art form which I'm probably not that great at. Granted, I know that there are some issues holding aggro with a WP Tanker, but it seems that most teams I end up on (all PuG's btw) are throwing around knockback like crazy.

I'm probably going to go the Scrapper route, but how big of a difference will this make in my ability to survive when solo versus playing as a Tanker?

Willpower on a scrapper is very survivable compared to other scrappers.

My reccommendation is to take every secondary power as it opens up (if you are taking that power) and fit all your primary and pools in between. A willpower scrapper can take some nasty alpha-strikes solo before your defense gets built up a little, so you can always do tactical retreat and let your green bar fill up, then re-engage.

My MA/WP scrapper was the first Martial Arts scrapper that I was able to get out of the 20s and into 30+ territory ever. WP is that good

The biggest difference between my WP/FIRE Tanker and my MA/WP scrapper are how many mobs they could handle pre-SO. The scrapper was running +0/x1 and doing well, but I was not as comfortable with him on larger hordes. The Tanker OTOH, was fighting +0/x3 with only DUAL ORIGINS He was tough then and now at 25, he is a monster and my future farming character.

If your tank has survivability issues, you need to either respec or stop fighting +4s before getting SOs. Seriously, pretty much any tank except pre-IO Fire Tanks are almost immortal once they get a few defenses... they may take forever to actually defeat anything and have to stop for endurance every other spawn at lower levels but they don't die, so survivability is a non-issue.

Scrappers are squishier, but as long as you don't go nuts on the difficulty they're still plenty hard to kill. Willpower is a very good set with no real holes, so you should be able to solo pretty much any mission just fine. It will take a more expensive IO build to handle full team spawns on a Scrapper than a Tanker, but the ability to actually defeat said spawns in a reasonable time frame is worth it. /Fire Tankers are actually decent damage dealers so it doesn't take that long, but you can't match Scrapper speeds.

One thing to keep in mind is that Fire Melee is not the same set for Scrappers and Tankers. The Tanker version has a second PBAoE, while the Scrapper version replaces that with a high damage single target attack. As a result, Scrapper Fire Melee is very good at taking out tough single targets and has moderate AoE capability, while Tanker Fire Melee is much weaker against single targets but has significant AoE power (for a Tanker). That's mainly an issue in the mid levels though, since both Tanks and Scrappers can get an additional AoE from their epic pool.

I'd go with the Scrapper myself since you don't seem to heavily focused on being a team aggro holder. Scrappers are still tough enough to solo very well and on teams your role is generally to find the biggest, toughest enemy and punch them in the face until they fall down, then repeat. Nice and simple. Plus if you decide to really trick your build out with IOs you can probably handle +4/x8 spawns solo... Tankers just get that tough sooner and when fully IOed can handle +5/x10 or so. Which would be cool if +5/x10 difficulty actually existed, but since it doesn't that really just means they need a bit less support on a STF or Hami raid.

Tanks can have more AoE damage thanks to having both FSC and Combustion in their version of Fire Melee. Cumbustion also has a 15' radius versus a 10' radius for FSC-- this makes a difference in consistently reaching the target cap. The Tanks will also be more survivable in general play, and will have greater IO limits thanks to their huge HP cap.

The scrapper will destroy the Tank in single target damage, not just because of AT mods, but also due to having Cremate.

Tanker FSC + Combustion is slightly more damage than Scrapper FSC, but Scrapper FSC + Fire Ball is more damage than Tanker FSC + Combustion + Fire Ball, so once you add in epic pools the Scrapper has the advantage unless you are in a huge spawn where Combustion's larger area matters, and since Combustion isn't that damaging I'd still call it very close to even. The Scrapper gets much higher single target damage and gets about the same AoE for one less power choice, so overall I'd only pick the Tank if I wanted maximum survivability on a lower priced build. Once you start throwing half a billion or more inf at a Scrapper they quickly become able to survive pretty much anything you'll actually face on a regular basis so they're tough enough, even if a Tank is tougher.

Okay, so Scrapper it is. Any suggestions for IO sets that won't totally break the bank?

Thanks for the info, StrykerX!