I'm surprised by this whole post. If tanks were dead, why were there so many of them around compared to so many other ATs when they did the big data dump here on HC?
It's not a "right set" issue. It's a "yes, it matters if an AT is made superfluous" issue. At least it matters to me. I'll have some numbers soon from the shield/em vs em/shield test.
I'm sure there's some combo out there, maybe stone/staff, where the brute might win on mission clearing, but I'd put good money on that it's going to be within the same margin as the difference between the shield/em test and the claws/sr test.
But I absolutely refuse to test with SOs. I don't have a SO on a single level 50 in my stable. Every last one of them is full of set IOs or basics where that would apply. And since I won't even play the game with SOs past lvl 32, maybe I could be talked into a nothing but basic IOs run for some combo.
It's been mentioned before and it would be nice to find out... what percentage of level 50 characters have SOs slotted? Any SOs at all. I think we need this info.