Dark Regen is the most usefull power from the /Dark set in PvE, without it I'd need a tray of awakens or private medical cover
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
This is my build, and it works amazingly well for me in PvE...
To save time i'll make all the important ones italic...
Dark Melee
Shadow Punch
Smite
Shadow Maul
Touch of Fear
Siphon Life
Dark Consumption
Soul Drain
Midnight Grasp
Dark Armour
Dark Embrace
Murky Cloud
Obsidian Shield
Dark Regeneration
Cloak of Darkness
Cloak of Fear (or oppressive gloom)
Soul Transfer
Leaping
Combat Jumping
Super Jump
Acrobatics
Fitness
Health
Hurdle
Stamina
Patron
Ranged high dmg power
Ranged AOE Immob power
Thanks guys. 
I played a dark/elec brute to level 40 in the Training Room event.
Bear in mind I have a +recharge inherent from elec secondary, but I found shadow maul absolutely terrible. Now I know it does good out of the box damage, but its animation is hideously long. I did far far better doing ultra rapid cycling tier 1 and tier 2 attacks, slotted for accuracy, debuff, and recharge. This allowed me to hugely debuff accuracy and very rapidly build fury.
Using shadow maul just locked me in a long long cycle, and thus fury built up much more slowly.
If you do take it, Id only use it once fury has really really built up. But to be honest, Id stick with rapid cycling first two attacks (maybe filled out with air superiority or boxing), and then unleash the big hitters (like tier 9). Brutes work best by rapidly building and sustaining fury - shadow maul impaired this.
Horese for Courses, mind. It was just my observation and It was based on very rapid recharges (due to slotting and elec secondary). I just felt I needed to put in a word of caution about shadow maul for your consideration.
Id argue that but my build was dark/dark and these powersets will either compliment each other perfectly for you or drive you insane.
Bouncing into the middle of a bunch of mobs with Cloak of fear, waiting a second for the fear to stick then working your fury up, at about half fury good positioning will let me drop 2-3 +1/2 mobs (if well positioned) in 1 move... one move... worth thinking of. But again its personal opinion, but after running my brute since i started playing this game i've learnt to use this power properly (as i'd call it) and i've gotta say, that whilst at times the 3 second animation has caused me to face plant due to unexpected dmg its also saved me vast amounts of endurance and let me tell you when u hit 3-4 mobs at once with it, it'll give u a tingling feeling 
In that sense i guess Shadow Maul is like Marmite, you either love it or hate it!
Depends how you play I guess!
I was playing with /elec, and recharge boosted first two teirs. I could fire off those two attacks super fast, and build up fury / debuff very quickly. To lock myself in the Shadowmaul would just kill me.
I guess you are playing a more big hitter/slower fury style, which is perfectly valid.
Really just posted to point out that shadow maul has a downside and you certainly can play a different way.
Back in the day after a good soul drain you could take down at least 10 from a tightly packed herd with Shadow Maul as a scrapper *sighs*
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
Shadow Maul is great for scrappers. But brutes build fury per hit, not per damage... Getting locked in that long animation aint so good...
I mucked around with a DM scrapper once (level 14 or so i think) and Shadow Maul was good - id def get it again (But to be honest i find scrappers pretty tedious). I wouldnt touch it with a barge pole on my DM/ELec brute.
I wouldn't touch a DM Brute, but then my favourite DM powers aren't that good for a brute. I like DM for a scrapper one of the best single target DPS there is, for a brute it wouldn't come close to topping the single target charts, what with EN, Stone and SS being so solid. ToF is fantastic for a scrapper, makes you the AV fighting king, but as a brute not really that handy, it stops people hitting you. As you said, SM has great damage, long animation. I guess MG is still worth it, but its damage seems much lower on the brute side than on the scrapper one. I wouldn't want to play a set I know well in reverse
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
[ QUOTE ]
ToF is fantastic for a scrapper, makes you the AV fighting king, but as a brute not really that handy, it stops people hitting you.
[/ QUOTE ]
That doesn't matter.
Fury is generated each time you attack or are attacked, it's irrelevant whether those attacks hit or miss either way.
I rolled a dark/dark brute last night to try it out, seems pretty good so far, but having never played these powersets before, I don't know much about the powers themselves.
Can anyone please tell me which powers are considered as indespensible and which are best avoided on both the primary and secondary powersets please?
So far I've only got to level 5 and I have Smite, Shadow Maul, Death Shroud and Murky Cloud. I want to be sure (as far as possible) that I build this character well from the start though hence asking so early.
As the thread title says though, I'm only really interested in PvE.
Any advice appreciated!