Shield/SS or Shield/Fiery?

[Shadowstormprime]

Hi my fellow Heroes!

 

Long time lurker, first time poster.
 

For a Shield Tanker, would you recommend Super Strength or Fiery Melee?
 
Fiery seems like it might be the more consistent performer, with decent AOE and ST. Not as proc friendly, but can slot -res procs. Shield Charge + FSC + Combustion seems like mayhem and should wipe a lot of mobs.
 
Super Strength seems like it might have higher peaks and lower valleys. Rage + AAO seems like it’ll really ramp damage. The rage crash on a primarily defensive set could be concerning, but I could try to compensate with building higher resists underneath or going for incarnate soft cap defenses. Shield Charge + Foot Stomp is probably tons of fun.
 
Which would you pair with Shield Defense?

[NinjaSquirrel]

I love them both personally, but, I love shield/ss more even if it's not as consistently as good a performer.  2Xrage + aao + shield charge makes me smile.  Procced out footstomp is really good as well.  Both these attacks hit in a HUGE area.  Procced out dominate + KO bloc can stack a large hold mag.

Fire may technically be better, but for me SS is more fun.

[Psiphon]

Both are good but SS provides more damage mitigation with the KD in foot stomp, with decent recharge you can keep the mobs bouncing a lot of the time. 

I've not really noticed the minus defence during the rage crash just the minus damage. Prestige damage powers aren't affected though so use those during the crash. 

[Warboss]

I may be a bit biased... but Fiery Melee! There are multiple options for slotting that adds additional functionality to the DoT. Example: slot either the KD proc from Overwhelming Force or Avalanche into FSC and Combustion for additional mitigation, and/or add KD proc from Kin Combat into one of your ST attacks... there are other tricks as well...

[BuiltDifferent5]

59 minutes ago, Warboss said:

I may be a bit biased... but Fiery Melee! There are multiple options for slotting that adds additional functionality to the DoT. Example: slot either the KD proc from Overwhelming Force or Avalanche into FSC and Combustion for additional mitigation, and/or add KD proc from Kin Combat into one of your ST attacks... there are other tricks as well...

KD procs in FSC and Combustion (or at least one of them) is great to layer on top of Shield charge.

 

Also, other than looking AWESOME together, Shield/Fiery feels like one of the most well balanced tanks between defense and offense. To me at least.