Claws/Fire gets really good really early on. SS/Fire will be better lategame when it's kitted out. Energy Melee would be a good choice if you don't want him to actually play the game. 
Im gona recomend claws. Just recently rolled one and got her to 50, greatest toon i have ever rolled. Been playing for 7ish years and this is the only toon that has been able to keep my attention enough to drop a little bit of inf into and do all the incarnate content with, funnest toon ever. Great AoE and ST damage even with very little IO investment. Really is a great combination, and becomes great early on.
Claws is just awesome no matter what. /Fire is meh outside of fire farms, but it's not awful. It's just a lot squishier than the normal secondaries for brutes.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Shadow_Mokadara
Hi, everybody,
a friend of mine is going to start his first City of Heroes chara this weekend. For style reasons, he wants his chara, Burning Bird, to be a /fire brute.
We're still pondering which primary to use, though. Burning animals usually don't wield any weapons, so those sets are out. (This includes fiery melee and stone melee.) Also, he doesn't like Kinetic Melee's animations. The remaining candidates are Claws, Energy Melee, Street Justice, and Super Strength.
Burning Bird probably won't become a super-purpled-out or farming chara. But since it's his first chara, it's supposed to be a fun, simple to play chara if possible.
I've been playing CoH for a some years now, so I might be biased. Which one of those primary power sets would you recommend for a new player to use on his first brute?
Thank you for any suggestions,
10joy