Look up about 4 posts to what I wrote about slotting for Brutes pre 20/pre stamina/pre i19. Some of it will aplly after i19, but seriously, this is how to slot lowbie brutes. its all about identifying how many slots are gonna be on a primary power, and cramming end reducers into all but one of those slots. Fury will pump your damage, and Fury will not die as you take a knee allatime. gl
Mace/shield, currently level 12, using a mix of IOs -- they didn't cost that much to get, and they definitely improve survivability. Still have definite blue shortages, though. My big mitigation for that so far was to get a kismet +acc proc so that the accuracy I've slotted will go further, because missing is costing a noticeable chunk of the blue I'm using -- probably about 20%, since my hit chance was about 80%. I'll try again in a day or two.