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Considering that Scrapper guide was made before Inventions existed is an unfair study. Since I9, SR and INV to a point have benefited alot more to inventions than other scrapper sets.
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Regen can attain Perma Dull Pain too and get 800%+ Passive Regeneration. Dark can ignore endurance issues, get higher attainable resistances and a much shorter recharge/higher heal/higher accuracy on Dark Regen.
It's still a reasonably fair study into the differences between standard slotting in each set. Most folks won't have their set IOs all slotted up before they hit level 50 after all... 
Especially seeing that Inventions slotting applies roughly equally across all secondaries (+Def or +Recharge could be attained by a Regen, SR, INV or Dark, limited only by slotting and the secondary pool's available powers)
My Spines/DA had real endurance issues Pre-i9, and suffered from a somewhat lacking Heal one-on-one. My INV/SS Tanker had survivability issues against non S/L damage. Both toons have majorly benefitted from Set IOs, but conventional wisdom about the overall performance of the powersets themselves still applies.
Concerning SR, part of the set's inherent weakness (and one which IOs can't really compensate for) is that no other scrapper secondary is completely negated by the introduction of a few teammates. One solitary FF Defender can push a Scrapper's defense to everything past the 45% "soft cap", regardless of what secondary the Scrapper is. In that situation, SR offers virtually nothing except 'Quickness' and some +Recovery from Elude. Conversely, even with an empath a Regen will not be at the "+regeneration cap", and Dark and Inv operate using a combination of Heals/Resists/Defence. I agree that it's gotten much better solo with IOs though! 
As usual, Maelwys has a very good point here. The SR bit is arguable because it is valid only when teaming with a FF (or sonic) which is not always the case by a long way (well, at least not my case to be fair).
Anyway, we seem to agree that ALL scrapper secondaries have endured substantial variations after I9, some of them to more degree than others (not getting into which ones) and that makes the excellent work of Arcana not to carry same weight it had before I9.
In fact, I am not sure if after I9 a comparison like that can be done anymore without taking primaries into equation, since now they can be "tailored" to a certain extent to the player preferences and lots of the set effects are derived from the primary slotting.
I still think SR surpasses DA in terms if survivability after I9 and in particular situations even regen, but of course, that is my impression and I've known to be wrong once or twice 
.
Ah well, maelwys and i clearly have a different opinion on this point and im not going to bother trying to convince him
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I have personally played both Regen and Dark Scrappers to 50, and I know their strengths and weaknesses. I'm not stating that to appear arrogant, but to show that I am not basing my POV solely on meaningless figures.
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If you had taken a look at my signature i too have played them to 50 and are not basing my POV solely on meaningless figures.
In my experience Regen is the worst at surviving alpha strikes (again im NOT saying that it instantly dies at any alpha strike) CoF is NOT rubbish if you take the time to slot it right, OG also helps... a lot, it kicks in fairly quickly. Maybe it helps that i play my DA with CoF constantly on and thus get noticed less, but i dont know, as i dont know your build.
In conclusion, you and i both interpret the numbers differently and 'from experience' think certain factors weigh differently.
Offcourse, i'm not taking Sets into account as they can be rediculously expensive and its not reasonable to expect any 'avarage' player to be slottedup on SetIOs fully.
@Shift
Shift 50 DM/DA Scrapper ][ TTL 50 Kat/Reg Scrapper ][ Shabriel 50 Peacebringer ][ Ion Shift 46 Rad/Rad Corruptor ][ Thermal Shift 35 Fire/Fire Blaster
"A Scrapper is a lot like a chainsaw. Somewhat hard to handle, incredibly dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane."
As for the set IO slotting issue with scrappers, I was mostly against slotting huge numbers of Set IOs when I wrote the orgional version of my DM/DA guide. I couldn't see the point in spending 400mil on set IOs to basically lower the overal enhamcement of a given power.
Since then I have spent many hours with mid's HP and about 320mil on IOs/salvage to now be about 4 IOs short of full slotted. I'm very impressed with the results. I can now solo much faster than before, no need to rest at all. My end bare never drops below 85% odd % unless I'm fighting end drainers. I teams I fell I can be even more self sufficiant by never really needing to be healed etc.
From my point of view I would say Dark Armor over regen, purely because I am a slightly lazey player. I like to toggle up when I logon and then just worry about attacks. Regen has more click activate powers which I tend to forget to activate, causing muh debt.
As for the dark vs regen in the small solo mob stakes, now fully IO'd up I have none of the end worries of before and I can only remember 1 ocasion recently when I had any isses at all solo and that ocasion was a safeguard against a lvl 52 nin/nin villan.
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I have personally played both Regen and Dark Scrappers to 50, and I know their strengths and weaknesses. I'm not stating that to appear arrogant, but to show that I am not basing my POV solely on meaningless figures.
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If you had taken a look at my signature i too have played them to 50 and are not basing my POV solely on meaningless figures.
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I did look at your sig, but I assumed those toons were from long ago given your views on Dull pain and CoF.
Once upon a time, many, many patches ago... Dull Pain's +HP was not enhanceable, and CoF did reasonable -tohit. In fact IIRC, CoF was once the main source of mitigation for a /DA because it did INSANELY high -tohit.
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CoF is NOT rubbish if you take the time to slot it right
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As of i7 in 'City of Data' (and I'm not aware of any changes via patches since) CoF grants:
-5% ToHit to Target for 5 seconds
Effect does not stack from same caster
This is enhanceable to a maximum of 7.5% -tohit. When fighting enemies higher than even-level this value scales down drastically- according to the data standardisation figures, versus +3s it's (0.65 * 7.5 = 4.875%) and versus +4s it's (0.48 * 7.5 = 3.6%).
Which means that versus a mob of +4s (a fairly decent level of difficulty, which might require thought rather than just jumping in and hitting things) a /DA scrapper running a fully slotted CoF has roughly the same mitigation as a scrapper running Maneuvers (3.57% Defence when 3-slotted). I think you'll agree that by itself without any other -tohit debuffs or +defence buffs to stack with, this mitigation is somewhat anemic at best.
These days /Dark's mitigation comes from three sources: Shields, Gloom and Dark Regeneration. Anything else save Immob/KB Protection is just wasted endurance, and as a Spines/DA I learned all about wasted endurance.
The "Fear" effect of ToF is also useless if you run Dark's Damage Aura or Team with AoE-capable toons.
And my DA's Build is here if you want to study it. It has not changed since the start of July, has been "main tank" on many AV fights and several TFs, and has financed the full IO'ing of at least two other toons.
When levelling, the Build had essentially the same power picks (with SOs and many more endurance issues!)
I appreciate that you might have had different experiences with DA, since DM/ has access to -tohit effects and an +endurance tool. However we seem to have gotten into a debate about secondaries, so I've been ignoring the primaries whenever possible in the above discussion (aside from the mention of Parry/DA)...
You are correct, CoF is a -5% tohit buff. IIRC wasn't something like -75% tohit buff in I3, at which time is was teh ubber or how ever you say it.
I have both OG and CoF on mine and it large teams without AoEr's, I use CoF as it tends to root the mobs, where as OG has a tendencey to make them wander off, which can be anoying...
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CoF is NOT rubbish if you take the time to slot it right
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Lol, of course it's not rubbish, I love CoF, pity it drains all that end, but it's great power and although the debuff is low, every bit helps.
Mmm I realize now I missed for some reason half of the posts, I couldn't see them earlier but I can see the whole thread now, weird, I missed a full page of posts that I swear they were not there when I made my last two posts.
Death shroud reduces the duration of a fight within a group preferably between 4 and 10. Sometimes that fight duration isn't reduced enough and you pop your clogs before the enemies do. CoF offers a level of control to atleast survive the group but with a longer fight duration for a downside (providing your not running Death Shroud as it breaks the fear). It's simply an active defense like touch of fear is, as opposed to passive defense like dark embrace. Being a heavy toggle doesn't matter as you probably should have turned Death Shroud off and then ST'd any main target before switching CoF off and DS on again. In teams that are AoE heavy, then there is lower fight durations and possibly a large amount of control anyway so just Death Shroud or even Death Shroud and Oppressive Gloom is fine. Situational toggling is nothing new, there is no point running Brimstone Armour on a Freak Mission. In short I wouldn't normally run CoF for its -tohit.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
I don't doubt what you say Shannon, honsetly, but CoF is sooooo cool 
I guess it's down to concept sometimes as well as playstyle, in my case, I am way too forgetful to toggle/untoggle so I guess Death Shroud will complement better my claws/DA to compensate that bit of "ooooomph" that claws lack and Cloak of Fear will complement better my DM/DA for concept and stacking -acc.
In my humble opinion, both DM and DA are like a swiss knife and allow scrappers do many interesting things with almost any combination either between them or with other scrapper primaries/secondaries.
Actually the way of my Brute really as I don't play a DM/DA scrapper.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
The only time I'd consider taking CoF would be on a Brute /DA.
Dirty Brutes get a Mag 3 Fear while Scrappers are stuck with Mag 2...
Cheater Brutes!
Mmmmm, Dual Blades/DA Brute...
Wait, whats the idea with Status effects on a brute? You let things live THAT long??!
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
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Wait, whats the idea with Status effects on a brute? You let things live THAT long??!
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Well, yeah. Gotta build up that Fury somehow...
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The only time I'd consider taking CoF would be on a Brute /DA.
Dirty Brutes get a Mag 3 Fear while Scrappers are stuck with Mag 2...
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I actually didn't know that there was a difference. I assumed there was a fault on my part in initially thinking CoF was Mag 2 and then seeing that it was Mag 3 for my Brute. Well I suppose its fair that Scrappers get a Mag 2. Its still minions ain't it.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Mag 3 would affect LTs I think. Unless I'm wrong and Petrifying Gaze in the Dark "Epic" pool is more than Mag 3 that Mid's claims.
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Wait, whats the idea with Status effects on a brute? You let things live THAT long??!
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Well, yeah. Gotta build up that Fury somehow...
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Alpha Strike. Thats where fury comes from on a DA. Can fill the bar with that alone, then fill your health with Dark regen and lay them all to waste in seconds
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
OK, one last question - in order, what are the most-to-least endurance-expensive powersets (primary and secondary) for scrappers?
Iaculus
Primary, most > least
Spines > Broadsword > Dark Melee > Katana, Martial Arts > Claws
Secondary, most > least
Dark Armour > Invulnerability > Super Reflexes > Regeneration
@Jay Leon Hart
Kerensky: this has nothing to do with underwear
Zwillinger: I put on my robe and wizard hat...
Synapse: I had to resist starting my last post off with "Yo dawg!"
Ah? Much obliged. Thought I heard that SR drank end like there was no tomorrow, but I guess I stand corrected.
Iaculus
I'd swap SR with Inv but otherwise agree with the list
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
[ QUOTE ]
I'd swap SR with Inv but otherwise agree with the list
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SR and Inv are pretty close on end consumption tbh, but putting 2xendrdx in toggles should be fine with any of them.
The main end drainer is the primary anyway.
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Ah? Much obliged. Thought I heard that SR drank end like there was no tomorrow, but I guess I stand corrected.
Iaculus
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Its not that they dont drink up end, its just that Dark Armor goes on an endurance-drinking pub crawl
Actually, re-checking the figures, SR is more end-heavy than Inv with just the toggles, by 0.05 end/sec. Then there's the 10 end from PB every few minutes.
@Jay Leon Hart
Kerensky: this has nothing to do with underwear
Zwillinger: I put on my robe and wizard hat...
Synapse: I had to resist starting my last post off with "Yo dawg!"
Totally agree with Jackal here, my Union DM/SR has all his defenses above 50% and can take ANY alpha, but I guess it's hard to accept in some cases.
Wouldn't say SR is beyond regen, but I'd classify now as second best close to regen (even better in some circumstances) and above DA, but hey, that's just my opinion. Inv still the weakest in my opinion although greatly improved now that most holes can be filled to a certain extent.