Dechs Kaison

I would be immensely surprised if the brute was not better for this particular combination.

Broadsword includes no consistent +damage power to favor the scrapper base damage.
Dark Regeneration will have a larger health point pool to heal into.
Death Shroud will do more damage over time with Fury's buff.

I strongly disagree. Survival of a single event may be binary, but survival over a series of events becomes a measurable statistic. No one survives everything all the time, not even my Dark Armor tank. If you can survive everything you fight all the time you fight it, that means you are not fighting at your full potential.

Keep in mind there are some brute combinations that can do more damage than the same sets on scrappers. Further, Super Strength.

Thermal's great so long as you can get some good recharge into the powers.

As far as keeping the ninjas alive against a GM, just take [Provoke].

I agree with all your points except these. The control auras are no more harmful to Fury than cycling Footstomp every time its up. Further, with the most recent Fury changes, I've been able to build and maintain the "maximum" Fury level by simply attacking the RWZ dummies. Taking attacks is the fast track to build your Fury, but that is by no means necessary to maintaining it.

I'd like to add a few points to what you had as well.

8. Damage auras: These receive heavy benefit from Fury, especially considering the taunt effect to keep enemies in range. Scrapper damage auras will begin to edge away when consistent damage buffs are present, of course, such as with Claws (Follow UP) or Dark Melee (Soul Drain).
9. Not chasing a Fury bar: I believe there is some benefit to always dealing your maximum damage all the time, from the second you start fighting to the second you stop. There are also situations where Fury cannot be maintained, like the low level game where you need to rest more often, or in teams that spend very little time actually fighting mobs because of overwhelming AoE damage.

Technically, no, but there are ways around this. I use an attack macro that tells my Assbot and two protectors to attack while leaving the three drones in bodyguard mode. In this way, I still have a good amount of damage sharing, but keep the majority of my damage focused.

I don't advise that you stick your face in a fire too. Does that mean you need to ignore that advice and try it before you realize its a bad idea?

Anyone who follows this advice will be sorely disappointed by their character's performance.

And really, that's only half the good of his post.

You cannot let misinformation like that stand without rebuttal. For every poster there are likely ten lurkers, and you risk them learning incorrect things about the game.

The only necessary thing for the triumph of stupid, is for smart men to do nothing.

At the very least, people like me are entertained by it. So thanks for that.

I'm tired of these Maple Pancake Logouts on this Maple Pancake Forum!

Yes, it's great, but that's still not bodyguard mode, so be careful. If you tell them to attack, even in defensive mode, you lose the bodyguard mode damage sharing. As soon as the fighting stops, they will return to "follow" and you'll be fine.

If that's what happens, that's what happens and I end up going bankrupt and pay people for the better part of a few months. I've got some cash reserves and if need be I have some IOs in characters that can be turned into inf rather readily, though I hope it doesn't come to that.

The real hope is that the bets are quite evenly spread out and I end up making some influence out of this.

First, and this is minor, there is no apostrophe in my name. I don't understand why so many people put it there.

I got the odds by determining who was most likely to win. I did this by consulting with two of my friends to who are better sports experts than myself. Judging by the draft choices and standard ESPN fantasy rules, we ranked the teams by strength. Skippy Sidekick came out on top, the next two were tied, all the way down to Friend of the Studio, who is at the largest disadvantage in our eyes.

If you're actually asking why betting on certain teams will pay differently, it's so people will be inclined to bet on the long shots. If every team were to pay the same on the bet, then the only people to bet on are the top three, and I'm not likely to be able to pay anyone their winnings. But since Friend of the Stuido pays sixteen times to one, it becomes worth it to place some influence on him for the chance that he puts the right players in, makes a few good trades, or one of his players takes off. Basically, my odds are there to make everyone a fair bet. Skippy is about three times more likely to win than Zwillinger, but Zwillinger pays three times as much if he wins.

I can get them to stay at range most of the time. Level doesn't matter if you keep a close watch on them. As soon as one moves forward, tap "Defensive/Follow" to clear their aggro and make them run back to you, then tell them "Defensive/Goto" at your feet. The second part is what makes them return to attacking immediately.