I think it's because DM is more complementary to SR than Katana, which is more complementary to Regen.
Katana's Divine Avalanche provides tons of melee and lethal defense. If you're trying to softcap an SR scrapper, it's helpful but it's also pretty easy to softcap using IOs At that point, DA becomes superfluous. For Regen though, which starts with no defense, DA really helps to make it more survivable and it allows people to reach the melee def softcap which helps in those AV fights.
DM on the other hand has a lot of overlap with the benefits of Regen. Both have superior end recovery mechanisms as well as great self heals. Regen benefits from those, sure, but not nearly as much as if you can get ~25% defense to range and aoe from IOs and cap your melee def from IOs and DA. For SR, the self heal is a huge deal. Siphon Life used with capped Defenses makes SR a hell of a lot tougher. Same with the end recovery in DM. People have always complained about SR's end use and having DC frees you up from searching out IO recovery bonuses.
That's not to say that Kat/SR isn't a great combo. Hey, I've got one at 50 myself and loved it the whole way.
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
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KAT/WP is easy to cap for melee and get high numbers for AOE and ranged as well.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
WP has no positional defenses, it'd be much easier to cap exotics (sans psi) and just go to town.
At least, that's what I do, softcapped L/F/C/E/N and Melee.
@Mojo-
Proud Member of Fusion Force.
Absolutely nothing wrong with Katana/Super Reflexes. It was one of the early no temps no inspirations AV soloing combos. Divine Avalanche fills in the defense gap while you're leveling up, turning a late-blooming secondary into an early-blooming one. It may also be one of the best combinations for custom Architect Entertainment enemies, with Super Reflexes handling the defense debuffs, and Divine Avalanche handling the to hit buffs.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
[ QUOTE ]
I think it's because DM is more complementary to SR than Katana, which is more complementary to Regen.
Katana's Divine Avalanche provides tons of melee and lethal defense. If you're trying to softcap an SR scrapper, it's helpful but it's also pretty easy to softcap using IOs At that point, DA becomes superfluous. For Regen though, which starts with no defense, DA really helps to make it more survivable and it allows people to reach the melee def softcap which helps in those AV fights.
DM on the other hand has a lot of overlap with the benefits of Regen. Both have superior end recovery mechanisms as well as great self heals. Regen benefits from those, sure, but not nearly as much as if you can get ~25% defense to range and aoe from IOs and cap your melee def from IOs and DA. For SR, the self heal is a huge deal. Siphon Life used with capped Defenses makes SR a hell of a lot tougher. Same with the end recovery in DM. People have always complained about SR's end use and having DC frees you up from searching out IO recovery bonuses.
That's not to say that Kat/SR isn't a great combo. Hey, I've got one at 50 myself and loved it the whole way.
[/ QUOTE ]
I love my kat/SRs. Having capped melee defence (or close) from the high teens onwards with just one application of DA makes levelling really easy. Then get to 40 ish, respec into a soft capped build and dump DA.
IO slotting depends on what you want to achieve. Soft capping is easy and comparatively cheap. I decided not to spend very much on mine, then added a couple of purples later, and bought a few things with merits along the way. The levels of the IOs are not exact, in many cases they are low to mid 30s which still ED caps the key attribute and makes it a lot cheaper.
This is extremely survivable in normal play, but you'd want more hits and regen for AV soloing. I decided not to go for +recharge, so my attack chain is GD-GC-SD-GC-FS-GC.
(50 respec build)
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It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
I have a katana/sr I still play he was my 1st 50 but I can only guess on the play style since I started my back in I2 when I had 6 slotted hasten with 5% defense from hasten. 6 slotted passives working my way to perma elude no DA it was consider a worthless power back then and you always took Sting of Wasp over Gamblers (different time) 
It was fun though but yes it is a good build late game still
Pinnacle
Langar Thurs-Katana/SR 50; Hejtmane-DM/DA 50
Rogue Spear-Spines/DA 50; Hypnosis-Ill/Rad 50
Sir Thomas Theroux-DM/SR 50; Melted Copper-Fire/Shield 50
Byzantine Warrior-DB/ELA 50;Blade Tempo-50 DB/EA
My brother has a kat/sr and when we play I use my D3 Def and we pwn. Its funny watchn him go nuts on enemies and not get into trouble at all.
Would anybody mind posting a decent leveling build for KAT/SR plz ? 
I've made almost one of everything but have never touched SR and always had the impression it was a tough set to squeeze everything you wanted in.
Much thanks for any assistance
OK, so I have been playing this game off and on for about 3 years now. Although I would seem a veteran, I am still learning new things about this game everyday. Also, in some areas, I still consider myself a n00b and I make no excuses about it. IO's still confuse the hell out of me and I am constantly reading about character builds so I know how best to build my own. So far, I have been able to find forums for all of my characters save one. For the life of me, I can not find a decent guide for building a scrapper with the Katana/SR set. Most of what I've found, or at least what seems to be the most popular is a DM/SR or Katana/Regen build. My question is why? For as long as I have been playing, granted once again I don't profess to be an expert by any means, I have been able to pull off my character with this particular build (Katana/SR) with great success. With Divine Avalanche stacked on my SR, as well as the high amount of damage that comes with the Katana, I find myself to be near unstoppable. The only problem I've come across is the high endurance cost of my toggles but I have supplemented that with Stamina from the Fitness pool power set.
Anyways, I suppose my question is "Is there a reason why this particular build isn't used too often?" and "Is there a good FAQ on how to build up such a character?" I think that about covers it.