In this work, dissipative effects from a phonon bath on the resonance fluorescence of a solid-state two level system embedded in a high quality semiconductor microcavity and driven by an intense laser, are investigated. Within the density operator formalism, we derive a variational master equation valid for broader ranges of temperatures, pumping rates, and radiation-matter couplings, than previous studies. From the obtained master equation, fluorescence spectra for various thermal and exciting conditions are numerically calculated, and compared to those computed from weak coupling and polaronic master equations, respectively. Our results evidence the breakdown of those rougher approaches under increased temperature and strong pumping. arXiv:1611.05532v3 [cond-mat.mes-hall]