FA/SS/EM Non Farmer Tank Questions

SS/FA gets talked up a lot, but that's because of the stupendous damage potential. Survival on those sorts of builds comes almost entirely from a high-end build. Until you get setted, you're looking mostly at healing flames and knockdown from your attacks.

Yes, a fire armor brute is much more survivable than a blaster, but the brute has a taunt aura. Until you get the thing mature, it's gonna faceplant a LOT. It's the price you pay for godlike performance at the top end.


The Super Stunners are brutal for everyone who lacks drain resistance, and are not much fun even then. 100 percent rez rate with a drain-nuke? Really, Dev's? Freakshow USED to be fun.

On a lowby team, a fire armor brute takes a beating. Paper-thin, un-setted defenses combined with massive damage and a taunt aura. Unless there's buffs, or a sturdier melee around to soak some aggro for you, you're gonna get pounded.

For fire armor, the brute and tank are near-identically tough against fire damage, and the brute is quite close on most other damage types. The tanker has more hitpoints and some extra resists against all the other stuff.

Damage-wise, it's not close, the fire brute is far, far ahead.


Yes, although 50 percent fury is trivially easy to maintain once you get the toon mature. Heck, I find most high-cycle brute builds in severe conditions can hover right above 80 percent. I usually do damage comparison tinkering assuming 70 percent, it's a nice conservative number.


Against fire, you lose hardly nothing. If you build for solid defense numbers, you lose very little on any brute. In buff-rich environments, the only difference is a tankers higher hitpoint cap. Damage-wise, the brute does about 50 percent higher damage than the tanker given equal levels of high buffage, and almost always does a lot more damage than a tanker does.

You can build a brute to be tremendously durable, MUCH more durable than a Scrapper. (And well-built Scrappers aren't exactly delicate.) A tough brute can handle pretty much anything in the game.


Tankers can be made quite a bit more durable than a brute without buffs, but when the buffs start flyin', the brute closes the gap. A tanker can never, no matter how buffed, do more than 66 percent of a brutes damage, because their AT damage caps are lower than a Brutes.

Originally Posted by PapaSlade Rangle's right....this is fun.

This. This of all the “separations of powers” frosts my backside the most. I could live with it if the Brute did not have fury to enhance their damage as much as it does.

A brute, if put together properly can do everything a tank can do, including survive in the most daunting of battle situations. I know, I have a SS/WP brute 50 +3 that has not seen a face plant in a very, very, very long time. Even after taking a full alpha strike from either Nightstar or Siege or Marauder's fist of death! Because I have slotted the best IOs influence can buy, including a large number of lvl 50 purple enhancements, I am not afraid to jump into the midst of 50 whatever lvl foes, taunt them, and commence pounding the dog snot out of them and take them out. My lvl 50 Tank with DS/WP can do the same; however, he cannot defeat them all in a time anywhere close to what my Brute can do. Because of this disparity, I prefer a Brute to a Tanker, which I am sad to say.

A tank by definition is not just defensive it is an offensive weapon too. Tankers in the game should have the same damage potential as a Brute not including the fury. The difference between the two comes to the Tanker's ability to absorb damage while the Brute's fury enhances its damage. That alone separates the two monsters of melee.

Since a tank's main purpose is to lead the fight taking on the foes so the rest of the team can help take out those assaulting the tank (yes, this is a simple view of a team), I believe a tank should be able to use the damage it receives to its advantage. Like converting the damage into defensive bonuses much like a Brute's fury converts into damage. In the meantime, the damage potential for both the Tanker and Brute should be the same. I think this would make a Tank more attractive at least in my mind’s eye.