Fiery Armor and Defense

Most of my melee toons have some Defense component, whether it is positional or typed, and I generally IO my melee toons for Defense. I'm a bit unsure of how to go with my Fire/SS, which has no inherent Defense.

Just speaking in broad terms, is it wiser to build towards typed or positional Defense? Or a mix of both (ie one Type, one position)? Skip Defense altogether and go HP or Regen?

General thought concerning defensive set bonuses:

You can generally get Typed defense set bonuses using less slots than you can get Positional defense set bonuses. (3-4 vs. 5-6) Although it's not 100% accurate as there are some that will give small positional bonuses with 3, but that's the exception to the rule. Those typically come with larger typed bonuses at 3 slots.

If you're starting from scratch, like you would be with Fiery Aura it's easier to go with typed. There are some who firmly believe that Melee Positional is better, so YMMV.

Smashing and Lethal attacks are estimated to be included in about 70% of the attacks out there so it's usually best to focus on S/L first, then En/Neg, followed by Fire/Cold and Psi.

My Opinion?

Being a Tank (and even moreso: a Tank with access to Footstomp!) you'll want Defence that works well on foes that try to hit you in melee range. So pick one of either Melee Defence or S/L Defence, and build towards that.

Footstomp is important in 3 ways:
1. Besides Taunt, it's your main Aggro-Holding ability.
2. It's your main source of AoE damage (besides BA, Burn and any Epic Powers)
3. It's a big source of damage mitigation - foes that're Knocked Down aren't hitting you.

Personally, on my Fire/NRG I went for S/L Defence - I found I could get better numbers for that than positional Melee Defence via slotting (and since I also occasionally tank tougher foes at a distance, S/L would also help versus certain ranged attacks- Malta Gunslingers, for example). But it's entirely your call and Fire/SS has some advantages over Fire/NRG- with SS's Rage you may be willing to sacrifice some more +Accuracy by using "Touch of Death" sets over "Kinetic Combat" ones.

Regardless of what sort of Defense you build for, you're unlikely to be able to hit the 45% Softcap without really screwing up the rest of your build, however it's quite possible to hit about 30% Defence without sacrificing very much (and if you go for lower level sets such as Reactive Armor and Kinetic Combat, you'll even keep most of your defence when you exemplar down into your mid 30s for TFs). And I guarantee you'll notice a big difference in survivability even with that level of Defence.

Reactive Armor, Touch of Death, Kinetic Combat, Obliteration and Rectified Reticle are the main sets to look out for, and be sure to pick up a Steadfast Protection +3% Defence Unique too.

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As a rough guideline (and currently feeling very envious of Footstomp's added PBAoE knockdown yumminess) my level 50 Fire/NRG/NRG build in Mids currently displays:

70.4% S/L Resistance (I took "Tough", but not "Weave")
47% E/N Resistance
90% (capped) Fire Resistance
24% Cold Resistance
60%-80% Toxic Resistance(via Healing Flames)

32.8% S/L Defence (will hit the softcap with one small +12.5% purple)
19.3% Melee Defence, approx 10% E/N/F/C and 8% Ranged/AoE Defence

Health sits at 128.6%, about 2410 HP at level 50 - the same level as the Scrapper HP Cap. Passive Regeneration is 18.1 HP/Second. Recovery is 3.63 End/Second plus the Performance Shifter Unique.

The build also has +30% Global Accuracy (My least accurate Attacks show 141.1% Accuracy) and +40% Global Recharge (Mainly affects Healing Flames's Heal regularity: +50% Base HP every ~18.5 Seconds. As well as increasing the regularity of the Stuns from my Standard Attacks and the Knockdowns from Air Superiority and Energy Torrent)

Weave, Combat Jumping and the steadfast IO can get you around 15% to all to start off. I'd focus on getting s/l up to around 35% so that a small purple can softcap you there.

I went Melee myself.. and im around 34% melee defense which helps a lot.

There is smash with psi, lethal with cold or fire, smash with energy, smash with neg energy etc etc. Going by that you do cover alot by covering s/l. Melee is fine if you can force melee attacks and ranged damage is weaker anyway. I went for keeping my firetank a completely different feel to my other tankers.

Why is everyone acting like it's an "either or" situation with Typed and Melee defense?

My Fire Tank went with both. All of the sets that give one of those also give half that to the other. I slotted 6x Obliteration in Blazing Aura, Consume, Fire Sword Circle, Rise of the Phoenix, and Combustion. I slotted 4x Kinetic Combat in Scorch, Fire Sword, Boxing, Brawl, and Greater Fire Sword.

That's 28% defense to S/M/L, combined with slotted Combat Jumping, Weave, Steadfast +3%, and Maneuvers (the only leadership toggle I took), I find I don't get hit much.

When I do get hit, I have enough recharge that my Healing Flames is up in about 17 seconds. (Obliteration has the 5% rech in it, and Combat Jumping, Weave, and Maneuvers all take LotG +Rech)

The other consideration for basic survivability on a Fire Tank is actually recharge. You're more scrapper than tanker, Fire Armor's the most offensively oriented set, and getting that heal up quicker does more to boost your survivability than any other power in Fire Armor. (50% heal every 20 seconds equates to a lot of resistance/defense but I'll leave other more math oriented forumites to prove or disprove the point.) Getting Footstomp up faster can only help you, too.

If you can get both S/L and M to 38% cheaply, then I wouldn't sweat it too much past that. I, personally, would not favor one over the other, if it's a choice between EITHER S/L OR M, then I'm going Recharge.

Anyone have a good build handy for the Fire/SS thats more of a scranker than a tank? Ive been toying with this idea myself and would love to see what numbers some of you could come up with =)

I have an offensive build (you can see it in the guide in my sig) that is S/L defense. My defensive build has positional defense to Range/Melee/AOE/Psi. I think both are at roughly the same percentages (low 20s).

For what it's worth, I notice the defensive build doing better against some of the exotic mobs at the end of the game. I soloed better against Carnies with the defensive build, interestingly enough. Some of their nasty debuffs don't have smash/lethal, I'm thinking. Their end drain on defeat also is energy or an aoe (can't recall off the top of my head). Other mobs, the S/L does nicely.