My experience is cobbled together from my WM/WP brute and kat/fire scrapper, both in their 40's.
For mace, i've skipped bash (i respecced out of it after getting crowd control), and whirling mace (which i'm considering working back into the build, with both crowd control and whirling mace at 10 targets, the aoe dmg would add up nicely).
For /Fire; Depending on who you talk to and how they use the set, Temp Protection, Consume, Burn, and Rise of the Phoenix are potential skippables.
Temp Protection - the benefit here is the 20% slow resist, if you decide you need it (/fire depends on cranking Healing Flame's recharge). With only the toggles, you will be running 70%-ish fire resist. you don't need more.
Consume - WM can be end-hungry; i'd say you'd get good mileage out of it. It just has a kinda long recharge.
Burn - Fire is squishy, particularly if you are running without Tough. Burn's Afraid effect can give breathing room, and with an aoe immob (or *maybe* mace's knockdowns) can be leveraged as an attack. You may not feel like it's worth it. It's also the set's immob protection, if you don't have Combat Jumping.
Rise of the Phoenix - insert usual self-rez debate here. Insps can get you up and free up a power slot, if all you use this for is to rez yourself. However, debt is a joke, and some players use this for an attack, dealing over 600 damage enhanced, a mag 4 stun, hefty knockback, over a 25 foot radius. i'm still on the fence on this one for my scrapper.
there's my 2 inf; have fun!
50s:
Grimmloch, Tactically Delicious, Ugly Frankie, Operative Tracker, CryoFurnace, Professional Help, Silver Sphinx, Aries Knight, Tachyon Aegis, Jade Sphinx
Currently building:
Any one of half a dozen alts!
2. Take a power that can take KB IOs and slot four kinetic crash in it. If you don't want to waste one of your "good" powers, take kick from fighting, or Rise of the Pheonix (you'll wait a long time though =X) If not, the karma or steadfast special -KB IO. It's a bit costy, but you should be able to find 5-10 mil for at least this one. Just be patient.
3. Taunt is your number one power to skip. Aside from that, i'd skip one of the aoe (whirling mace) or bash, depending if you want aoe or ST damage.
For /fire, everything outside of fire shield, plasma shield and healing flame is skippable. But i wouldn't skip more then 1-2 powers. They are all very good and usefull. (only one i skipped on my FA is the damage aura, cause my character is ST oriented)
"It's a scrapper. If he can't handle it, no one can." -BrandX
Okay, after just getting my Elec/WP Brute up to 50, I found myself feeling the urge to create another Brute.
Inspiration struck and I decided to create a Brute that's related to two of my other toons. The thing they have in common is that Fire in some form is always one of their powers.
Now I have two Fire/ Scrappers (Regen and WP), so I decided to go with /Fire for the secondary (if for no other reason I'm kind of burnt out on WP right now and I have a 50 Invul Tank and a low level SS/Invul Brute).
I decided to go with War Mace for the primary just because I haven't done much with it and I liked the custom options.
So, here are my questions:
1. Are there any War Mace and/or /Fire Guides for Brutes? Haven't seen anything for Mace yet and the only /Fire was ported over from the Tank Forum.)
2. My 50 Brute is fairly well off by my standards, but I don't want to waste too much infamy. What's my cheapest IO option for KB Protection? (I am NOT taking Acrobatics.)
3. What would you say are the most skippable powers for WM and /Fire for a Brute?
Thanks for any and all help.
My COX Fanfiction:
Blue's Assembled Story Links