Had forgotten about the 10% DR. Good point. Still it's nice getting the extra strikethrough and block as a monk.
Saying that Bruisers are not as Defensive as Monks is like saying Zerkers are not as defensive as Guards... well yes the Defensive tank is more defensive then the Offensive tanks. But i do think the Bruiser need some buffing, but not in the way to make when compete with the ST tanking of Monks/Guards/Pallys. Bruisers are more AoE tanks then Monks and i think should be focused that way Defensively. I do not know enough about Zerkers/SK's/Bruisers to make suggestions to Focus the Defensive into the AoE tanking realm... but that's my input.
In a game where brawlers can only survive while running a temp, by design, both brawlers need sufficient defensive abilities to do so. It's not a question of monks vs bruisers, it's survival vs death.
This isn't a defensive vs offensive tank thing. It's an ability to tank things thing. I play a zerk a lot, my bruiser (now monk) a bit and I also have an SK. I'm not a raid tank, but from a Dom point of view, my zerk finds it pretty easy. I've not tanked Dom with my other tanks but from a damage prevention/reduction point of view, both the SK and zerk have more compared to a Bruiser. Quantity maybe not but ability to have them up most of the time definitely. Bruisers, SKs and Zerks should be better at AE tanking, but they should still be acceptable for single target big hitters. To be honest, other than one extra AE blue CA and one AE snap, bruisers don't really have anything to really stand out from a monk on AE tanking. Not compared to a zerk vs guardian thats for sure. And because of the low mit of leather tanks, multiple mob tanking on a bruiser ain't that great! The thing zerks and SKs have that bruisers don't is a % based heals when hit (or lifetaps when hitting in SKs case). Perhaps that's the answer, because it does help when tanking singles too, as I can testify from a zerkers perspective.
Just a thought, If bruisers are limited to such a short range... They should be hella scary at that range.
I suggested a very long time ago that they should get % based heals that proc off avoiding attacks. Or healing for a lot when they are strike-throughed. However there Mitigation isn't that far off actually. Most tanking these days, is just managing temps.
Dropped Wild Beating today to experiment with more AA options. Can't say I really miss it being gone except in PVP for when you get target locked to nothing. It's decent damage reckless I guess but in tanking I haven't really noticed it being gone because it never really did anything having a snap component on it with a range of 5m I can't remember a single situation in PvE where this ability actually saved someone from having aggro and dying. . It was just an extra AE to cast for some subpar damage.
Temp abilities yes. Temp stoneskins/invulnerability abilities no, certainly not for a zerker. My zerker sits around 16-17k mit in groups. I use adrenaline, chaos and wall of rage all the time, because they're up for a large proportion of the time due to long duration and shortish reuse, but the rest of his abilities are only needed for the oh crap moments. If I had less Mitigation, I'd get hit harder and so have to use those other damage prevention abilities more. I see other zerkers run in with Battle Frenzy up but I think it's a waste. It's such a great ability it should really be only used situationally, as you generally don't need a healer at all when using it. So to me, as a zerker, it's not about cycling temps to be invulnerable all the time. But as a bruiser, I didn't really have that option anyway. My now monk has a lot more options, although I've not done any content challenging enough to need it on him.
