Werner

Sounds like you've answered your own question. Yes, each primary set is strong enough to take out AVs. No, you don't need Soul Drain to be fully-saturated.

You may WANT a lot of DPS, though. First, trading punches for 20 minutes can get boring. Second, time exposed to danger. The higher your damage output, the less time you'll spend trading punches, the less chance the AV has of getting a lucky string of hits that takes you out.

For just AV soloing, I'd go DM/SD. Similar DPS, plus you have a self-heal as part of your chain and an endurance recovery tool. Win. But FM/SD can do the DPS without risking killing the Against All Odds fodder, plus it has tremendous AoE potential. Add Aid Self, and you're good to go on AVs and pretty much everything else in the game.

As far as cost, recharge is where the influence goes (unless you splurge on PvPs). Fire Melee has an excellent chain at +145% recharge (Inc>Scorch>Crem>Scorch) that I would happily settle for on an AV soloing build. Dark Melee also has an excellent chain at only +128% recharge (Smite>SP>MG>Smite>SP>SL), but I really wouldn't want to settle for that on an AV soloing build, because I want to be spamming Siphon Life. I'd want to go for Smite>MG>Smite>SL, which takes +235% recharge, which is going to cost you wheelbarrows full of influence. So... maybe Fire Melee is cheaper in practice, though only because you're making do with Aid Self, and settling for it recharging less fast than it could.

As for builds, I don't have an example, but there are plenty of them floating around.

Hmmm, I don't plan or save leveling builds, so I can't give you mine. But I didn't have any serious endurance trouble, and it was pretty strong. I know you said common IOs, but frankenslotting is in about the same cost neighborhood, and is almost THE answer to endurance woes. You can seriously have 80-90% endurance reduction in your attacks without compromising accuracy, damage or recharge. Do the same in Death Shroud, which IS an attack, and should be treated as one. Normal endurance reduction in most toggles (for me, one SO or IO). I ran Cloak of Fear as well. Oppressive Gloom was better for me in the mid game, but Cloak of Fear was better in the end game, so that's my recommendation. I probably put two endurance reducers in it. Probably two accuracy, two endurance, two fear. Just guessing. I strongly suspect I took Conserve Power and Physical Perfection while leveling. I do have them now. I grabbed the endurance accolades.

From my late 30s respec into my final attack chain, I was playing generally between +2x3 and +2x6 with bosses no AVs, but was willing to turn it down when playing against, say, Arachnos or Vanguard.

I agree that the Theft of Essence proc is almost magic for your blue bar. No clue what they cost, though, so it might fall into the "I am not looking to set this toon out!" category. Still, if you're willing to toss in a few fairly cheap IOs, I'd strongly recommend the Theft of Essence proc, Steadfast Protection unique, and Kismet unique.

Edit: Theft of Essence looks hard to get below 30. The 30s are going between 510,000 and 2,000,000 for the last five. Kismet is about 5 million if you want it now at level 30, less if you're willing to spread your bids around and possibly wait. Steadfast Protections look pricey (30 million) at the most available level, 30. But with some spread out bids in the lower levels, it looks like you could get one in the 3 to 4 million range without a lot of trouble.

Well, I only have experience with Katana/Dark, which is an excellent combination. Dark actually has one of the best heals in the game, the stealth you mentioned, a stun aura, a fear aura, a tiny little bit of defense. The whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts, where the combination of stealth and the stun or fear aura break up the alpha, the resistance lets you survive it, and the heal lets you recover from it. The alpha breakup also helps with getting Divine Avalanche up and stacked, since before it's up can be the most dangerous part of a fight. Absolutely top notch (edit: to clarify, top notch survivability) when IO'd to the gills (see sig), but also very good before that point.

But really, I'm pretty sure that Katana makes them all good. One thing they all benefit greatly from is a lot of defense, and that's what Katana provides.

AVs like to mix up their attacks, so you'll be pounded by melee, ranged and AoE. So you'll want soft-capped melee, ranged and AoE. Now, 40.5% AoE defense might seem close enough to the soft cap of 45%. But actually, it will have you taking almost twice as much AoE damage as you'd otherwise take. Now, if everything else is solid, you can probably weather that storm. But it's much easier to just think of soft-capping all positions as being a requirement. Have a look at Blessing of the Zephyr for one easy boost.

Resistance is decent. You've taken and slotted Tough for actual use. Good.

Hit points, as long as she has the accolades, are passable at 1750. I'd want more, but it should do.

Very high passive regeneration at 29 hit points per second (assuming you have the hit point accolades). Good.

No Aid Self. This may or may not be something you want to address. People can and do solo AVs without a self heal, and high passive regeneration like you have is the name of the game with that approach. Also, unless I'm specifically going for no temps no insps, I'd rather have a few greens than Aid Self. But if your wife specifically wants to solo AVs no temps no insps, OR if she finds it nerve wracking waiting for passive regeneration to do its thing, all the while hoping desperately not to get hit again, then you'll probably want to add Aid Self to the build.

Endurance use - assuming you have the endurance accolades, it looks MORE than sufficient on the surface, with a net recovery of 3.47 EPS before factoring in the attack chain, and with an average Claws attack chain probably taking less than 3 EPS. While I can't say for sure without doing a lot of calculation, you could probably trade some endurance recovery for other things you need.

Attack Chain. On the surface, the attacks look a bit of a mess to me, like you haven't really chosen what you're after. With the global recharge you're already packing, I'd probably grab Hasten, drop an attack or two, and use one of the high end attack chains. While not THE top, my favorite is Follow Up -> Eviscerate -> Focus because it includes an AoE. Not needed for AVs, but more practical for tearing apart most normal content. Hmmm, that takes +274% recharge in Eviscerate. Even with Hasten and the purple set in Eviscerate, that's only +254%. Might still be the best chain for you, but it might also be nice to scrounge up another 20% recharge. I'd probably try to get the recharge myself. Shockwave with five Ragnaroks would be 10%.

So if we go for that chain, Strike doesn't get slotted, and Slash is replaced by Hasten. That frees up a LOT of slots, so that's going to cause a giant cascade in the build, so it's hard to make recommendations past that point.

I can at least suggest how I'd slot the three attacks, though. In Follow Up, five Hecatombs (all but damage/recharge), and if your endurance is under control, the Mako proc. In Eviscerate, five Armageddon (all but damage) and the Fury of the Gladiator proc. In Focus, five Apocalypse (all but damage/recharge) and if your endurance is under control, Gladiator's Javelin proc. If endurance isn't under control, do something else with the final slot in Eviscerate and Focus, up to and including slotting a mere common endurance IO.

While it may not be necessary, dropping Super Jump is one way to free up a power pick. Hurdle + Ninja Run seems fast enough to me for a travel power, and Hurdle + Combat Jumping is good unsuppressed speed.

While some people love it, and I'll admit that I've never used it (so you can discount my opinion if you wish), I consider it a waste of a power pick. It only works on a single target, so what you're trying to do is lock down a single target that would otherwise be too dangerous to survive. On a well-built Scrapper, the only single targets dangerous enough to need them feared are probably archvillains. Even elite bosses should only take a few inspirations. Archvillains are immune while the purple triangles are up, and if you can survive while the triangles are up, you might as well just keep doing damage while they're down instead of wasting DPS trying to lock them down.

I know you said you're looking for a change of pace from your defense-based Scrappers, but I really would at least get melee to the soft cap, and probably lethal. Even at 38.4% melee defense, you're taking over twice as much damage in melee as someone at the soft cap. That pretty much wastes all your other hard work in the rest of the build.

You have one too many 3.13% AoE defense bonuses. As a step in the right direction, you could swap an Eradication set for an Obliteration set to pick up 3.75% of the melee defense you need.

Hack is generally better than Slash unless there's something very specific you're going for. I'd be using the Parry -> Headsplitter -> Parry -> Disembowel -> Hack chain, which you can do with a simple swap.

I don't recommend Achilles' Heel in AoEs. Achilles' Heel is a boss buster, not a minion muncher. It does more for you in your single-target chain. It looks like you could just switch your Slice and Head Splitter slotting, so that's the easy answer.

Pick up the hit point and endurance accolades if you haven't already.

I'm not sure what I'd put in Charged Armor, Conductive Shield and Static Shield, but slotting only resistance IOs sounds like wasted opportunity to me.

I still haven't fiddled with Electric Armor, so I'm not sure how intelligently I can comment on that or on the overall build, so I'll leave that to others.