1. warmace damage simply sux in comparison to superstrength, stone and EM (the big3)
2. fire as secondary is ok, good for offence, bad for damage migation...missing knockback and immob protection is also a guarantee for a quick debt badge 
a selfres as a tier 9 power is not so fantastic, too
burn with the fear effect makes the power without an AOE immob pretty worthless...
the gems of fiery aura are fiery embrace + blazing aura...
you wont have any PvE problems, but if you team with other brutes you might become a bit frustrated cause of their damage output and survivability
BANG BANG!!!
I can not speak for the WM/Fire combo (I have a WM/WP), but I think WM is disliked for the low damage and the slow animations/recharge timers. The only good thing about WM would be that it has 1 PBAoE and 2 cones, even if one of the cone attacks are so narrow it almost just counts as a ST attack.
Of cause I respected at level 38, and not I just use the 3 AoE, attacks and the first attack that I had to take as my chain.
Combine that with the redraw factor that makes added attacks like Air Superiority less effective to add to the chain, and WM have no place where it outshines the other sets.
Oh and BTW I took War Mace for charter concept reasons, luckily my secondary gives me the survivability that I need.
Hmm...
What I get a little confused about is, that when I looked at the powers, I saw one moderate damage attack, one high damage attack, one supperior damage attack and then later one extream damage attack - to me it looked like it would dish out alot of damage, with Build up and Hasten.
Whats wrong here - did they lie to us/me when they wrote the various things about thouse powers, or is it the fact that they have from moderate to slow attack speed, or again some one said that it was the animation time?
I been away from the game for about two years, so I havn't seen if they are trying to do some thing about the issue with Mace - any hope for some "loving" in the near future?
dont think they will change something 
...i really love the warmace set but in the higher lvls it really starts to become frustrating...
BANG BANG!!!
Okay, thanks for your help
Mace has had a considerable buff recently. The animation times are much faster. In addition, the final power, crowd control, is now a 180 degree arc.
Im not having a problem with Mace on my tank, although it certainly is more of a team set. I think only fire melee has more AoE.
EM has had a big nerf recently, and from what I understand SS and SM are looking precarious.
In any case, the dev's are applying military mathematics to melee sets in terms of balancing activation times vs. damage.
WM will probably always be slightly lower ST damage than other sets, because it has more AoE, but I wouldnt worry about the sets being balanced.
So fare I made it to level 16, the first few levels was very easy, guess its is for every one, but blazing aura let me take 4-6 evens at a time.
Then I made it to level 8, was begining to get issues with my endurance, couldn't fight for long then i needed a rest to get it back.
Around level 10 i turned off my Blazing aura, wasn't worth it, ran dry within 1 or 2 min.
At level 12 i desided to put a single endurance reduction in each of my attack powers, and that helped alot.
Now at level 16 I start to use my blazing aura again, when in groups, just to keep the mobs from hitting my team mates, its okay, but never use it solo.
So i went to the forum, to find out more about Warmace/Fire, but it doesn't look like anyone playes em, not may writes about em and thouse who does sais that WM sucks, how come?
I know its heavy on the endurance, I figured that it would be better, with combustion and endurance regen from fitness. I find the damage okay at my level and I love then knockdown effect.
But what are the reasons why no one playes mace/fire, cant remember to have seen anyone in game?