Lord Mayhem

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Surely if the Devs didn't want farming at all then they'd increase drop rates on everything across the board and make inf completely trivial again, like it was pre-I9.

[/ QUOTE ]Since disliking farming means not wanting the game to have an economy?

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I don't believe I said that, no. Whether an economy is supply-heavy, demand-heavy, or even so utterly skewed towards one of those that most players see it as broken, I think you'll find it still qualifies as "an economy". Pre-I9 was still an economy, it just didn't have scarcity as much of a factor as it is now (until HOs anyway).

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Yet missing the FACT that the Devs have said that farming is not how they wished ppl to play the game completely goes over your head.

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You have a link or source for that "fact"?

Sure, the Devs have nerfed a few things that were popular with farmers (and a few things that weren't) for risk vs reward reasons, but it's a huge jump from there to what you're saying. Surely if the Devs didn't want farming at all then they'd increase drop rates on everything across the board and make inf completely trivial again, like it was pre-I9. Also, even if the Devs did express an absolute abhorrence for farming, then it's still not your job to police the game for it. If you think the player is doing wrong then report them - don't get abusive or you're committing a greater offence that is actually spelled out in the EULA (unlike farming...).

Actually I'm still at a loss as to how you think the issue here is farming - if we go with your shaky interpretation then all badgehunters are farmers.

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I've had that request, it was very politely put, from a pleasant enough guy.
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I wasn't doing anything at the time, and since I don't lose anything, felt no qualms about helping him out.

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A friend of mine, who pretty much never PvPs nor does much badgehunting, got asked politely to do the same thing last week. He wasn't busy at the time (he was just about to log out) and was in the same zone as the entrance to the specific PvP zone, and the other guy asked politely, so my friend popped in there for 1 minute and helped him. I'm not quite as altruistic, but I'd probably have done the same. I've even filled for farmers a few times while at WW, even though I don't personally hold with their playstyle.

If someone asks politely and I'm not busy then I'll consider their request - if I decline (for whatever reason, even if I don't specify one) then I expect them to accept that gracefully. If they don't then I'll get a chance to exercise my wit/diplomacy extricating myself from their idiocy (often at their expense, though I never sink to personal abuse), or there's /ignore if I can't be bothered. As soon as they get abusive they get /ignored then reported, and hopefully another degenerate imbecile gets trimmed out of what is generally a friendly playerbase.

Admittedly I'm usually hidden from searches on every character (to avoid spammers and inf/PL beggars) so it doesn't pop up often.

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mate, seriously, come on Union and join 'Union Badgehunters'. Channel is living proof of a fail community, ran by dictators.

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Yeah, but on the bright side at least it's not as moronically unintelligible as Union's Arena channel most of the time I'll take draconian mods over UBH turning into a mess like that any day of the week.

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Would shields be a very end-heavy set though due to the fact that heroes will be lugging a hunk of metal around with them all day...

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Who can say? Some of the physical/weapon sets, like Archery and Claws in particular, are very end-light - others, like the rifle attacks on my Arachnos Soldier or the Axe attacks on my brute, seem quite end-heavy. Just don't expect any kind of realism - this is a fantasy world where drawing a longbow can be less exhausting than pulling a trigger

I can speculate though: I can't see the shield set having an end recovery power, but I do think it will be toggle-heavy - I think most of the protective powers will be toggles (and I'm expecting positional defence more than typed defence with perhaps some resists) so that activating them is what gets the shield out and keeps it out. We know the set has a shield bash attack (from Dev comments and seeing Cimerorans use their shields) and I think the T9 "godmode" will be a Phase-like power akin to the one Council Ascendants get with their shields.

I probably will make a character with Shields set, but the main reason I want Shields in the game is so that the Devs can start focusing on Dual Pistols for I14

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Strangely enough, i like the idea of Dark Astoria. The idea of a zone in the city that has been just given up due to magical strangeness and ghosts is a fine one. It is a creepy place with all that fog hanging out and ghost running the street. But it needs a couple of storylines like Faultline and Croatora does. After all we wouldnt want whatever is going on there spread into talos right? Heroes should have a reason to venture there.

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Yes that is a very good idea. Maybe they could level-hike the zone to 35-50 like RWZ/Cimerora, make it co-op, and have a Midnight Squad presence there as suggested to give out missions. They could also have more CoT and some Mu in DA too (in the lore they also tie in with the Banished Pantheon story, as their gods Ermeeth and Hequat respectively used to be part of the same pantheon).

The co-op TF could have the Banished Pantheon managing to bring their gods (Lughebu, Rambetu, etc) back to this dimension in physical form - that would be a threat big enough for both heroes and villains to want to work together to exile those evil gods again.

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The FF Proc icon is the same as Dark Armor's Soul Transfer.

Assault Bot still does well with it via the missiles, but I wouldn't bother sticking it in a pet that doesn't have knockback AoEs now TBH. Bruiser has Handclap and Footstomp, so it's still useful there.

At present I've got a 10% Resistance and FF +Rech Proc in the Assault Bot, and a 5% Defence and Smashing Damage Proc in the Battle Drones. Protector Bots are better slotted for Defence/Acc/Damage/Endred than procs, makes a big difference to get the bubbles from 7.5% to 12% defence when they're double-stacked.

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That's the kind of opinion I was looking for - thanks Mael. Just watching for the damage procs has shown me that the two lower tiers of bots don't really proc that often with a KB set proc.

Slotting the ProtBots with defence is something I didn't even consider, probably because I was thinking IOs only and they don't take defence sets - I may respec and drop the damage proc and aura from the ProtBots (I could move the +def aura from them to Assault Bot and forget about the Taunt/Placate resist aura altogether) which would leave me 2 slots free in the ProtBots for common Defence IOs. I could switch out the damage proc in the Assault Bot for a FF +rchg at the same time.

I'm in no rush, though - I'd still welcome more opinions on pet slotting

And yeah there is definitely an icon for FF +rchg, Col_Blitz - as Mael says it's the same as Soul Transfer (and Dark Miasma's Howling Twilight) - from using that IO on my Warshade and Scrapper I know the icon goes up for 10secs after each proc to mark the suppression period (5secs of effect, then 5secs of suppression before it can proc again).

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And thanks Valkryst .. it took 30 hours but i'm quite please with how it turned out.

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Wow, and I thought I was obsessive spending 4-5 hours placing bookcases around the walls and slotting together all those light fittings to make all those skylights in my villain base

But you definitely can feel pleased with how it turned out - that room looks great.

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About the floating thing to create multiple floors, positron hinted that he wanted to take supergroup bases to, quote, the next level and beyond.

This got me thinking and it seems very likely that one of the new changes will allow us to create multiple floors bases that are connected by stairs or elevators, just like instaced missions.

I'm so going to make a complete sewer system beneath the tanc base if this happens to be true.

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I just hope he adds a way for us to float things quickly and easily without using magic desks, and adds some decorative partition walls and suspended floor pieces so we can make better use of it.

I've always avoided floating things because I didn't want to log in one day to find my whole base was corrupted/broken. And because floating can look really bad unless you do it in an intelligent and supported/realistic way like Chelsea has with that library (great work btw!).

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Boomtown, like a few of the quieter hazard zones, also suffers from being a cul-de-sac. The Faultline re-vamp, apart from making the zone light-years more intersting and fun than before, also made it so you could get there - and just as importantly OUT of there a bit more reasonably with that drain addition to Pocket D.
Boomtown and maybe even DA could use a backdoor/funicular/I dunno what, to go with any re-vamp.

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What we need is a new zone north of Independence Port, between Boomtown and Croatoa, that could link all 3 of those zones together. Make it an airport, with co-op access for villains too, and it would be a cool zone to set out from on instanced missions around the world.

DA, I have no ideas - though there is room on the city map for a zone on the peninsula north of it (east of the bay Talos is in - is that Eastgate Bay that gets talked about in the Hollows?). Also such a peninsula zone would be fairly close to where I assume the Rogue Isles are (probably closest to Bloody Bay).

I don't think new city zones are likely though, not with how underutilised some of the existing ones are.

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Just spank em, and if the comment " Im just farming" comes upp

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Surely the best response to that is: "Me too! I'm farming YOU!"

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Interesting to see the chaser pics, especially the pics showing them in relation to the flyer. Might be able to squeeze one or two in when the time comes.

Is there any restrictions re placing them or can they just go anywhere atm?

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As Londoner said they can go anywhere - they count as a purely decorative item. When my mate first got the veteran badge that unlocks them he was dropping them down all over the base, in any room that had space for them (the workshop became a bit cluttered, heh) - he's a big fan of the chasers, which is why I dedicated one room as a hangar for them.

Me, I'd rather have an Arachnos Flyer in our villain base - they look impressive - but you need a low floor and high ceilings to fit them in, plus lots of space so they're not blocking pathing. In our existing villain base that rules out every room except the big teleporter room - which is where it would fit thematically, but to make space I'd have to lose the library shelving, meeting table and the skylight in that room - all features I really like (I've spent a lot of time on that room) - and even then I'm still not sure a flyer would fit without blocking access to the teleporters. But if the Devs add extra base functionality for PvE that needs a new room and increased plotsize, then I'll definitely be putting in an Arachnos Flyer hangar as well.

Here are two bases I’ve made, both now on the smallest basic plot and used purely to support the PvE needs of my friend and I.

The Islanders - Villain base (Union): "The Penthouse"
Concept: These villains are rich from lots of bank robberies, so they can afford to live well.
History: Base was on a larger plot in I7/I8 (7 players earning prestige), but now we don’t need as much storage so I’ve compressed it onto the basic plot to save paying rent.

Overview - I wish I could fit in an Arachnos Flyer somewhere...
Entrance 2 - reception area (silver cupboards are stand-ins for lift doors)
Infirmary (detail) - mmmm brains in jars
Powerplant - not much to see here
Control Room (other end) - most of the control aux were added for looks only
Workshop 2 3 - base is mainly tech, but I used arcane storage for variety's sake
Teleport Room 2 3 - actually a "Ready Room" for villains to hang out and meet before going on missions

Stormwolves - Hero base (Defiant): "The Lair"
Concept: These heroes are poor, too busy doing good deeds to earn a wage, so they live in a dark basement.
History: Base has mostly been built over the last 5 months (2 players earning prestige), but due to cramming in all those extra blueside teleports (all but Perez) it sadly doesn’t have an infirmary or as much space/decor/storage/style as our redside base.

Overview - teleports are ordered by level, clockwise up to Peregrine/RWZ at top right
Entrance 2 - the centre of the base
Powerplant 2 - actually the "Chaser Hangar"
Control Room 2 - the Comm Centre, for receiving emergency calls on the hotline
Workshop 2 - basic storage room
Teleport Corridor (other one) - not much space for decor

I like the irony that the villain base is bright and homely while the hero base is dark and dingy.

Btw I’m a “boy” <winds back the years> but I don’t think I have too much trouble decorating - I just happen to like tidy yet busy layouts, with functionality and user-friendliness a slightly higher priority than style

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+ The buff stacking, which is a known issue but makes it difficult to tell which Bots are equipped/upgraded and impossible for me to tell when Bots are in Supremacy/Leadership range.

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Yeah this is an utter pain - I hope it gets fixed soon. I've turned the pet buff display off on my MM and I just use the actual look of the pet to tell if they're upgraded or not (but I do tend to upgrade as soon as I summon anyway).

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+ No Damage enhancement numbers showing up in the enhancement screen for ANY powers.
+ No damage enhancement numbers showing up on the Combat Attributes screen for henchmen.

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They don't show up in tooltips or even the detailed power info, but if you delve down into the pet powers themselves you do see the increase in the damage of the pets' powers. At least I do - it is almost double the base values, which is what I'd expect with 95%-ish +dmg enhancement in each pet. The pets don't seem to be doing sub-par damage for me either (well, it does feel a bit sub-par compared to some of my characters of different ATs, heh), but then I hadn't played my MM since I7 until I respecced and re-slotted him with IOs earlier this week, so I don't have much to compare against.

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+ Less damage inflicted than there should be by Henchmen slotted with [Set IOs] and [Common IOs]. Untested with SOs).

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I have set IOs in mine, but I've only hunted outdoors with them (badge-hunting Paragon Protectors in GV mainly) and haven't noticed their damage being overly subpar. Maybe I've just been lucky.

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+Protector Bots have developed a distressing tendency to repeatedly get stuck in the floor. This ONLY applies to Protector Bots, and ONLY since issue 12 hit. Assault bot and Battle Drones are fine.

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Yeah this has been majorly annoying - I've seen the exact same issue you describe, only with the ProtBots, and it affects my friend's bot MM too. Recall Friend solves it briefly - I took that originally cos bots were prone to getting stuck on railings/crates and other terrain back in I6/7, but never on flat ground.

I guess nobody is going to reply to this.

In case anyone cares I've decided to just slot my pets with the smashing damage procs from the Explosive Strike set in their 6th slot - mainly because the recipes were cheap and available (unlike Force Feedback: +rchg on redside), but also so I can test in a very visible way how often the pets proc it, seeing as only the Assault Bot seems to have more than 1 KB power. Also, with pet buff icons being broken, I wouldn't notice an FF +rchg buff being applied anyway so couldn't evaluate it properly, but with a damage proc I can look out for the proc numbers above the targets' heads.

Once I've tested it to see whether the proc-rate is reasonable I may post my findings here... although seeing the deluge of interest in this post to date perhaps I won't bother

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You having trouble comprehending? Yes, all risk. As in, "I get f***ing nothing in return for running a lethal gauntlet". A situation where you are expected to face great amounts of danger and get nothing. All risk.

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I thought barbarians thrived on risk... or are you roleplaying as an insurance adjuster this week?

My point about liking hazard zones was lots of risk for lots of reward - not lots of risk for no reward. Hunting those large hazard spawns either solo (if you have a build suited to it) or in a small group will get you experience and drops faster than missions will - and is fun for those who enjoy having the odds stacked against them.

Hollows being changed doesn't bother me personally that much - very few builds are very AE-capable at that level (though I did enjoy attempting some of the larger spawns with my BS/Regen scrapper back in the day). If the Devs clear spawns from the paths to mission doors and make those doors appear in the same neighbourhood as the contact then I won't complain - but I'm not in favour of almost every large spawn in a hazard zone being turned into small city zone spawns - and I saw very few big spawns when I had a quick mooch around the Hollows the other day. At least in Faultline they left some hazard-size stuff beyond the dam.

If hazard zones like Boomtown, Crey's Folly, Eden & Dark Astoria are due revamps in future then I'd rather they were more akin to Striga/Faultline/RWZ than Hollows.

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Hmm, for me the mobs only attack once they get hit. Maybe you should try distancing more? I guess boost range does give me nuking from spectacularly far away! Or maybe it's stealth that helps.

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Stealth and boost range help, but even without them the range of Rain of Arrows is sufficient for the archer to stand comfortably outside of boss aggro range while firing.

Something else I do is queue up Explosive Arrow after BU+Aim+RoA - the delay between RoA's cast animation ending and the damage applying ensures that both attacks hit simultaneously - only bosses, some lieuts and the occasional missed minion survive to return fire at me (at which point they get Fistful of Arrows in the face, or my single target attack chain on bosses). I used this tactic continuously on the last LGTF I did and it didn't get me killed once. But sure, on a Defender that won't work out quite so well.

To my mind a team would have to be very AE-heavy to render Rain of Arrows useless, unless the archer in question is waiting too long to use it. It's all about timing - just trust your tanker and fire RoA as he is running in.

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No. I managed to TP next to a target and AS it before I drop back on the group. No hover is needed. The hovering effect after TP is just long enough (well, I say 'just').

I must say that I did miss sometimes because of lag (either server lag and graphic lag, which means that I could not get the timing right) or I mis-judged the distance between me and the target.

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That explains why it never worked for me then - my connection usually sucks - sadly my ISP is rubbish and almost has a monopoly in my area as they own the infrastructure (they force their competitor to charge more for slower speeds).

According to City of Data the temporary hover on TP is 4secs (seems shorter than that for me), while the interruptible part of AS is 2secs (of a 3secs cast time), so yeah it should be easily possible - always interrupted for me though.

Admittedly I didn't try it much - I usually just waited for the temp hover to end, as it wasn't worth risking a miss and losing hide to save a few seconds. And against Rikti Drones I tended to use TP Foe (when solo) or just run in behind them, then TF/Bonesmasher them.

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If you have a good enough AT you can level faster in them than in missions. My Warshade farmed creys folly from 30 - 38 in record time (my record time obv ).

Edit: The good thing about hazard zones is that you have to keep on your toes otherwise you will die, dont want this feeling taken away from the game.

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Absolutely - it can be a nice fun challenge and a good way to find the limits of your build in PvE.

I still usually prefer missions as I enjoy the storylines, but I like the option to hunt outdoors for variety's sake, especially when levelling a build suited to it (Warshade definitely - I also did L45-50 in RWZ with my EM/Elec brute as it has boss/lieut-heavy spawns which suited him well - I may do the same with my stalkers). I've done most of the arcs in the game at least once, so if I choose to hunt outdoors I know I'm not missing out on anything I haven't seen before.

Several times I've also found outdoor hunting in hazard zones much faster xp with more drops than doing missions (greater reward for a greater risk/challenge, as it should be) - not just because it eliminates zoning times and travel to/from missions/contacts, but because spawns are larger and closer together.

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Hardly. Certain ones are great for grinding with AoE characters.

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Agreed. I really enjoyed Eden, Crey's Folly & Dark Astoria in particular when I duo'd my warshade with a friend's controller.

I don't want to see the spawns changed in size in any Hazard zones - they should be more dangerous than city zones - but I would like to see some storyline contacts added to them (and hospitals/stores/trainers) to expand upon the lore of those zones and the factions there (like Striga, Croatoa and Faultline have), starting with Boomtown.

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I'm sure there was a Dev post in recent months (probably on the US forums) saying that any effect of redraw was a player myth. The redraw animation play time, IIRC, is factored to not affect activation times for powers. So, redraw, while looking like it makes activation times longer, actually has no effect at all.

Maybe some one with better search-fu than me can track this post down?

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I would, but that post is outdated now. The dev Back Alley Brawler has been going through powersets and trimming out the allowed redraw times in each attack. He's doing this because he noticed that players preferred the better flow of animation in the new Dual Blades powerset, which didn't have the noticeable pauses at the end of each animation (if you already had weapons drawn) that were there to cover redraw in the older weapon sets.

So far he has changed Broadsword, Battle Axe and War Mace, which now flow a lot more smoothly than they used to with weapon drawn (source) and it seems he will do the same to other weapon sets in time for parity's sake. It looks like the reason these 3 sets were prioritised first might be because of integration with the forthcoming Shields powerset, as non-weapon powersets are getting looked at too for animation smoothness (source).

Archery he hasn't mentioned lately, but I didn't find it had noticeable pauses when I played it to 50 (mostly in I11), but I did notice redraw enough to want to minimise it. Maybe ranged sets never had the "redraw allowance" pause added to the end of their animation time, or maybe it's just not as noticeable because you tend to hold the same pose for most attacks (unlike melee sets) /shrug

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The AS might be interrupted the first time when you press the button possibly because you are still moving (usually happens right after you stop SS but TP does not seems to have that problem). Just press that AS button again and again until the animation is started.

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On my EM/EA stalker I had trouble using AS promptly after a TP until I took the Hover power. The drop from Teleport's temporary hover (1sec after you TP) will interrupt AS, unless you wait for it to happen before using AS (by which time a drone would definitely see you). Having Hover let me use AS as soon as I appeared next to my target.

Admittedly I just respecced him out of TP & Hover (and dropped Stealth & TP Foe too, which I'd only taken for PvP) to put in an extra attack and get Aid Self, so that now he can actually scrap in PvE for levelling to L50. I intend to make good use of the stalker changes

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It's fine with my archery/Energy blaster.

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I had no issues with Arch/En either, but then the only melee power I took from secondary was Total Focus (and I only really use it for stacking stuns on bosses/EBs) - otherwise I took all of my primary and all the buffs from secondary for a full ranged build.

All you have to remember is that if you want to use BU & Aim together (before Rain of Arrows, for instance), then make sure you use BU first, because the Aim in Archery will draw the bow for you during its cast time (but BU puts the bow away). Usually I had the bow out 99% of the time.

If you want to blap (/EM, /Elec) or take a control-heavy secondary (/MM, /Ice) then I'd recommend avoiding Archery (and Assault Rifle for that matter), though only if you care about redraw.

I think we'll get the City Vault before I13. I think I13 will have:

<ul type="square">[*]Base Editor additions/improvements, including personal apartments[*]Group content added to Cimerora - maybe bring Snakes &amp; Coralax into storyline there (would work lore-wise)[*]Complete revamp of Shadow Shard - 4 co-op zones L30-50 (5 levels each) with added mission content. Also some co-op content involving Rularuu accessed via Midnighter Club at lower levels.[*]New Shields powerset for Brutes/Scrappers/Tankers[*]More powerset proliferation - Arch/TA for Corrs, Thermal/Fire for Defs, /Cold for Trollers, Illu/Dark for Doms, /Sonic for MMs, Rad/ for Blasters, Broadsword for Tankers/Brutes, Axe/ for Scrappers, Ice/Ice for Stalkers[*]Added IO recipes - purple sets for categories that don't have them[*]More costume pieces, badges, QoL improvements, etc[/list]I expect the Moonbase zone and completion of the launchpads in Oakes/Steel will coincide with the arrival of the "Coming Storm", maybe in I14. Though I14/I15 could also have a Boomtown revamp into a co-op zone, with 5th Column returning to present timeline, and a TF against Reichsman who will lead them to try and rebuild his Axis Amerika empire here (I can't see Requiem leaving The Council with his tie to the Nictus). I14/I15 should also bring the Dual Pistols powerset for Corruptors/Blasters/Defenders.

I don't think we'll see player-generated content until next year - I think NCSoft will want that issue to coincide with the release of Champions Online (I16?). I don't think we'll see an underwater zone until next year either, but odds are it will be the Coralax city zone, perhaps with a TF against Merulina, with the unlocking of a Coralax Hybrid Epic AT (available to both sides) as reward for completion. I don't think "Going Rogue" will happen at all - more likely that they'll just add a way for us to unlock all non-epic archetypes for both sides.

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If you see how they added Psi set for blasters, could be possible with TA also. Immobilize, a hold, the flash (like grenade of /dev), the glue arrow, oil slick and EMP and maybe the acid arrow (like sonic has -res also or AR -def). Perhaps aim to compensate the lower damage output compared to other sets.

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If you mean the Mental Manipulation secondary, then that was made especially for Blasters with some toned-down/changed powers from Mind Control and Psionic Assault plus new stuff. It is also more about controls/attacks than debuffs (like the other Blaster Manipulation sets).

Any bow-based secondary would have to be made especially for blasters too - sure, if such a set were made then some of the TA powers would likely be ported across (Entangling Arrow, maybe Ice Arrow or a toned-down Glue Arrow), but not the powerset as-is, and I don't know how they'd do melee powers without it being a redraw nightmare - unless they made it more of a utility set like Devices.

No buff/debuff/heal/control sets that Defenders get as primary and Corruptors/Controllers/Masterminds get as secondary has ever been ported to Blasters and I feel safe in saying they never will - it would be far too powerful to team that level of debuffing with blaster-level damage, and would totally marginalise some other ATs (Corruptors especially).

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Then again, would be like a Defender but with more damage then

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A Corruptor then, basically Remember Corruptors only have 75% of blaster-level ranged damage to "pay" for getting debuff sets, and those debuffs are 80% as effective as Defender ones, iirc (Defenders having 65% blaster-level ranged damage, but no inherent to boost damage like Corruptors/Blasters get).

I could perhaps see blasters getting a bow-based secondary in the far far distant future (unlikely, but possible), but I doubt it would bear much resemblance to TA. But Archery & Trick Arrows on Corruptors in the near future? Yes I could definitely see that - in fact it's something I'm keenly waiting for

I've never played a Fire/Fire Tanker, but Fire/Fire Brute was my first L50 villain. For sheer power and destruction the brute will beat your tanker by a noticeable margin as long as you keep your fury high, I can guarantee you that. I doubt you'll be as survivable as your Tanker, but Fire/ Tankers aren't renowned for that anyway - either way you still have the marvellous Healing Flames on the brute so the slightly lower resist numbers probably won't be as noticeable.

But they won't be similar to play. For starters you have Cremate instead of Combustion, so you'll be better at single target damage - but you won't necessarily lose out on AE damage - at high Fury (I can keep most of my brutes at 80-90% Fury no problem in normal play) your FSC will do better damage than your Tanker's FSC &amp; Combustion put together. At high fury, after using BU &amp; FE, my brute's FSC will pretty much kill most of the minions near him (if it doesn't, the next tick of Blazing Aura usually does) and bring the lieuts so low that a single tap from another attack takes them out.

With the brute you'll want to start off using your fast single target attacks until your Fury is at 75+% before you start pulling out the big attacks like FSC and GFS. That's pretty much the best playstyle for most brutes regardless of powersets. One good tip for brutes is to put a fast attack on auto (Ctrl + click the power in the tray), such as Brawl, Scorch or Boxing (if you take Fighting pool to get Tough later) - then you always have a filler in your attack chain, because you need to keep attacking quickly to keep Fury high if you're not being attacked much.

Hope you have fun with it - Fire/Fire Brutes are vastly underrated, but they have both great single target and area damage. Mine used to pull aggro away from other brutes (with different powersets) on sheer damage alone, no problem - against AV/GMs you can do some serious damage with the DoTs stacking and having time to tick full duration (Incinerate especially).