Negative_IQ

So I levelled a Fire/Fire brute to 8 last night, and have decided that maybe Fire/X is not for me. Because I wanted to make a more "smashy" brute to fit in with my concept, I decided to skip fire sword. This has left me with three moves with almost identical attack animations, which suffice to say is a little boring.

There are a couple of things i'd like to know about SS/Fire vs Fire/Fire, if anyone who has had experience with these things would be kind enough to educate me.

Firstly, is it worth skipping jab? I haven't seen many SS/Fire builds, either here or on the US forums, but the two I did drag up both skipped jab. Is there a reason for this? I know its a low-damage power, but on my SS Tank at least it makes a good link in the attack chain while I wait for something else to recharge.

Secondly, is firey embrace worth it? According to the description, it "Significantly boosts the damage of all your Fire attacks for quite a while. Also increases the damage of all your other non-fire based attacks for a short while." Is this increase to non-fire damage worth it for an SS/Fire?

Thirdly, is hand clap worth it? I know I skipped it on my tank, but is it any better on a brute?

And finally... is there anything else I should know? When should I be thinking about power pools, and what are the "must-haves"? A lot of brutes seem to take tough and weave, and not having played a brute before i'm not sure whether I should follow in their footsteps.

I'll be on later, grinding my way through mercy no doubt if anyone wants to team up

Smackhammer can be there, just name a time and place.

So I originally came here looking for advice on how to build my new Grav/Psi dominator, but then I immediately ran into several posts slagging off the grav/mind combo and had to find out for myself.

Do you guys all really think grav/psi is gimp? I've got my grav/psi guy up to level 7, and so far i'm finding him pretty damn awesome. What is it about the combo that makes people percieve it as gimp? My only complaint about my dude's performance would be that lift and propel seem largely redundant when i've got a whole secondary power set full of blasty type powers which get the job done considerably better (and don't have an animation that lasts several hours, and use less endurance), but that's nothing a respec won't fix.

So to summarise:

-Is grav/psi really that gimp?
-What powers should I skip in order to minimise gimpedness?
-What powers should I take to maximise awesomeness?

16, although I'm quickly getting bored of masterminding and will probably end up dumping my current main villain.

We should meet underneath the gigantic anvil I have hung between the two tallest buildings in Mercy Island. Don't worry, its perfectly safe, I have the only key that could unbolt the flimsy chain supporting it and send it crashing onto the mass of RPers gathered below.... and why would I want that?

Rofl Copter.