Fire Armor vs Shield defense

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I haven't seen any recent posts. With the new changes to burn, how do these sets compare from an offensive standpoint?

Blazing aura
Burn
Fiery embrace

Against all odds
Shield charge

Who wins?

From an offensive standpoint FA wins...by a lot....and by even more on a brute.
At their dmg caps (which is really really easy to get too) i believe burn alone has better AoEdps than SC. Thats taking into consideration that SC has 16 target cap and burn only has 5, it still wins.


But SD is much much much much tougher.

Do you want theory or practice? I'm pretty sure fire will win in theory, but I'm not so clear about in practice. Burn's radius is rather small, which can be a real problem in some of the newer content where a spawn is spread through a rather large room. You don't get the traditional large-damage-per-tic, but instead the initial damage AoE then a lesser tic. Shield charge is a good-sized radius AoE, which is nice.

The flipside to any of that is of course the shield charge nerf that went through sometime after I got my shieldie to 50 and left the game, then came back this year. I don't know how bad that is -- it doesn't feel awful, but I haven't done numeric quantification.

The other question is of course, "do you want to pull aggro off the tank?" If yes, go with SD. If not, go with fire. Alternately if you want to be the tank as a brute, SD is the way to go to get all the love and attention you deserve.

Edit: Yes you can herd for burn, but that tends to be against the brute mindset.

Ty for responses. That's what I expected. I have played both at 50 on a brute, except my shield brute is paired with stone melee, while my fire brute is paired with elec melee. I wasn't sure if my opinion of fire being better was based solely on elec's greater aoe damage.

I'm currently working on a claws/fire that seems very promising. I'm not sure if claws will outdue elec melee, but I'm sure it will be close. The claws aoe is so strong, on a shorter recharge than most others. Paired with the constant damage buff from 1-2 follow ups. I'm looking forward to it.

All else equal, fire wins, by a large margin.

FA does more damage and in general, SD is more survivable. However, when teams are put into the mix, FA can pull ahead depending on the makeup. Being softcapped with decent resists and a self heal, along with doing stupid damage is really awesome.

Fire Armor doesn't come with any defense so how can you 'neglect' it? You can neglect your resistances in Fire Armor by not taking your resistance toggles or slotting them, you can neglect your healing ability by ignoring Healing Flames. You can't neglect Fire Armor's defense.

Or are you equating playing the game with SOs with being built poorly? If so, should SO's be removed from the game so people don't fall into this trap?

For a team focus I'd rather have SD. The team usually has plenty of people capable of sending damage downrange. It doesn't always have buffers/etc. Plus SD carries the stronger taunt aura, so if you're being the tank, that's always handy.

Because when people are talking about how survivable SD is, they are referring to when it's softcapped, which can only be done with IO's.

If they're going to factor in IOs to hit the softcap shouldn't FA also be softcapped for the purpose of the discussion?

The price difference in doing so should be irrelevant when discussing effectiveness: It's a variable set by the player base, not the game mechanics. You were the first to mention soft capped fire armor when it should have been mentioned right away if shield defense was given the benefit of a soft capped defense.

I didn't think you were attacking SOs. I just dislike the word 'neglect' when applied to a form of mitigation that an armor set doesn't come with. All too easily 'neglect' can start to infer what you're neglecting is a 'necessity' in an MMO playerbase mindset. I throw around 'don't forget the SOs' speeches for new players and guests who might not get the fact that high end builds look nothing like the standard builds the game is supposedly still balanced around and might be picking or discriminating against power sets based on the high end IO builds... and then pass these picks or discriminations along to people they know.

The only time I notice a difference in survivability between my /FA and /SD brute is on ITF's and other defense debuff heavy mobs. Took my SS/FA on a LGTF last night and with less than 2% psi resist I never faceplanted or even came close. Dead mobs do no dmg

FA will win on damage, AoE damage, ST damage - you name it. Your survival depends on Healing Flames and killing the hell out of stuff really fast (which FA can do).

SD is arguably the next best secondary for offense, however the level of defense it provides is well above what FA can provide.

Um, let me put it this way: if /SD has only SOs and the /FA has only SOs. The /SD toon will have about 30% def or so, if they grab fighting and other def PPs, and about 30% s/l res and 15% against everything else but PSI. And that -dmg and some +hp
The /FA toon with have about 50% s/l res 30% or so e/n and 90% fire and about 6% def. But they do also get their heal, which can end up at about 48% hp every 17 seconds or so.
The SD is going to be much much much much more survivable before we factor in any possible buffs from teammates, which I really don’t want to go into right now >.<

Now we get into IOs: /SD toon should be soft capped to m/r/a and have at least 50% DRR most of the time. The /FA toon on the other hand now is soft capped to s/l and has 0 DRR, their heal should also be up a bit more often hopefully. If each toons is fighting mobs that are doing s/l dmg and killing them quickly enough survivability would even out quite a bit.
But now let’s say you are fighting a mob that is nrg with -def. The /FA will have only about that 30%ish res and maybe 15% def at most. This def will melt away within seconds and they are left much easier to hit with very little res. This should be where the "dead mobs do no dmg" thing should kick in, right?

But now the /SD toons fighting a mob just like this luckily they have at most 7.5% tohit. They might get hit once or so but that only ends up sending their def down by a few % points. But they would be were their "dead mobs do no dmg" thing should kick in (as well as any possible def points they have beyond the cap). And the mob is dead before any major -def can be layered on, right?

Dont get me wrong though i LOVE /FA and actually kind of hate /SD, even though /SD is more survivable.

FA is absolutely more damaging when solo, but on teams, when Against All Odds has all the enemies it needs to give a constant buff, I'd say that the damage is more equal, and the added survivability is certainly a plus.

This is coming from a person who absolutely loves his SS/Fire brute, by the way.

SS/Fire has more ridiculous damage than any other brute I play. Minions evaporate so quickly that usually only Lieutenants or Bosses are left alive for Burn, and powers like Knockout Blow and Haymaker, while awesome attacks in their own right, are basically filler while you wait for Burn and Foot Stomp to recharge, all while Blazing Aura ticks away nice chunks of enemy health. Triple-stacked Rage and Fiery Embrace raise damage to a degree that people have to see to believe. Healing Flames and Consume keep you going for a long time, which is impressive when you consider how much endurance you're burning through with all those attacks. I find myself needing Consume ever after taking the Cardiac Alpha.

Unfortunately, you have to use a lot of purples if you want them to see it. /Fire's resistance isn't any great shakes, and its defense is nonexistent unless you get the Fighting Pool, when it then rises to a whopping 6%. Right now I don't know if it's POSSIBLE to softcap S/L defense on an SS/Fire. I've spent a lot of influence trying, but I've only managed about 19% so far after throwing 1.5 billion at my brute. I worry that I might accidentally gimp him, too.

/Shield Defense has few of these problems. It's easily softcapped in terms of defense, and has a permanent damage buff of varying degrees in the form of Against All Odds. No heal or endurance recovery power, but you can use leftover IOs that SS/Fire uses for defense bonuses to boost regeneration, recovery, and recharge. I've seen a SS/Shield Brute in action, and it looks sort of like a cross between Captain America and the Incredible Hulk. It doesn't stop for anything.

Anyway, that's sort of my take on it. /Shield lets you more easily softcap and has a more steady dmg buff, but may run into more endurance troubles. /Fire has a better attack in Burn (it may have a lower target cap, but it comes up at least three times in the time it takes Shield Charge to recharge), but is far less durable.

I didn't go the S/L def route on mine. I built for rech, ranged def, and some meele def. Most of your -def comes from ranged (ITF being the biggest exception) and most of the stuff in meele range dies very very quickly.