Brute vs Tanker for solo/two-man team

[PuckMulligan]

I've been running a rad/fire brute and he's pretty decent but so far, at admittedly a rather low level, he doesn't take damage quite as well as id hoped. Now, my impression was that the Brute was mostly a different kind of tank, since that's what villains had access to for tanking before going rogue, now I'm not so sure. I'm considering rerolling him as a fire/rad tank. 

 

I should also take into consideration this is a villain the rogue isles are rather barren so I imagine I'll be doing a lot of stuff solo or with my emp/rad defender friend.

 

Any opinions or foresight on how these two potential toons will play out in the long term?

 

[eknudson]

I'd say for solo or small teams that a brute's going to be better. For a duo with an emp defender, I would definitely say brute-- with permanent fortitude on you and regular heals, your brute should very rarely die to the kinds of things you'll see on a duo and a tank+emp defender will pretty much NEVER die but you'll take far longer to actually kill things.  

[Odhinn]

For solo / duo you are better off with a brute over a tank. (Full Disclosure; I frequently run as a duo with my Invul/SS tank. But, my partner is a blaster that does a monumental amount of damage. This will not be the case with a defender duo.) However, your secondary is (probably) the squishiest of the secondaries available to you. It takes a decent amount of investment to make a /fire as survivable as most of the other armor sets in my experience. All the Resistance powers in /fire plus tough 3 slotted with lvl 50 resistance IO's totals to less than 55% S/L resistance. Weave , combat jumping and, maneuvers slotted similarly only add to 12.5%  defense. Fire Armour is a set that "doesn't take damage quite as well" but does do some good damage in exchange.

 

I am not saying you can't make it work. Tactics and teamwork tend to out weigh the short comings in power sets. Most importantly, play the character YOU want to play and have fun. It is only a game.