Am I doing something wrong?

I am still fairly new to the game. I mainly play the first char I created, a lvl 39 Kat/SR. I felt pretty good until a recent thread about what diff settings people play. I found I was way lower than others. I took some advice and frankeslotted my attacks. I now have 35% def in all and a decent attack chain (I have GD under 6 sec recharge). I don't have any IO sets yet (other than the frankenslotting but don't think that counts), and I still have trouble going beyond 0 x4 diff settings - this seems to be my limit. At these settings I'm dying once/mission on avg. I don't mind dying and like a challenge, but I feel like I'm somehow not overcoming the challenge because it seems I should be able to do at least 0 x8 diff settings. So, am I doing something wrong? I realize this is a very tough question since I'd almost have to post a clip of one or two of my battles so you could see what I'm doing. I try to use different strategies like pulling guys, taking on the toughest first, jumping in and attacking, moving around when attacking guys (not just standing still button mashing). My two toughest scenarios seems to be very large number of guys and red boss and any number of guys. In these battles I can usually count on either hospital visit or burning most, if not all, of my greens. Anyhow, sorry for the lengthy post, just curious if anyone has any tips/advice on how to improve combat scenarios outside of IO sets.

My combat "strategy" is to jump into the middle of the spawn, kill target, tab, follow, kill, tab, follow, kill, and so on. No real strategy, rarely even select my target beyond the first one. If you're actually using strategy, you're ahead of how I normally play.

So I'm thinking you have build issues. As far as some basics, you should have Divine Avalanche slotted as an attack, and be using it once every ten seconds (or ASAP again if you miss). That will get your melee defense over the magic 45% number, and you'll take only 1/3 the damage from melee attacks that you do at 35%. That's huge. I actually monitor melee defense to make sure I'm always over 45%. You should have all the passive defense powers, as they provide your scaling damage resistance and much of your defense debuff resistance. You should have both Tough and Weave, and Tough should be slotted up (one endred, three resist) and used. I would highly suggest buying a Steadfast Protection +3% defense unique to put in Tough (could replace one of the resists). The difference between 35% defense and 38% defense is that the 35% defense build will take 25% more damage.

Consider a Gaussian set somewhere. If you don't have Tactics, you can plop it in Build Up. It'll eat into your DPS a little in Build Up, but it's worth it for the extra 2.5% defense. The difference between 38% defense and 40.5% defense is that the 38% defense build will take 26% more damage.

I'd probably be chaining Divine Avalanche -> Gambler's Cut -> Golden Dragonfly -> Gambler's Cut -> Soaring Dragon -> Gambler's Cut. That requires a recharge of 5.94 seconds in Golden Dragonfly, which it sounds like you're set for. Then you need Gambler's Cut recharging in 1.58 seconds, Soaring Dragon in 6.34 seconds, and Divine Avalanche in 6.34 seconds. That should be doable with Quickness and frankenslotting.

Oh, and until you hit 45% defense, purples are your inspiration of choice, not greens. Heck, even if you make no build changes, or are already doing everything I suggest, popping a purple to take you from 35% defense to the soft cap will massively reduce the incoming damage. Ideally, you size up the fight and take the purple before jumping in. But if you find yourself getting creamed, make sure you hit a purple as well as a green.

Well, some good advice already. I have posted my build below, it is my anticipated lvl 50 build, so everything is correct up to 38 (since I'm only lvl 39). You can easily see one of the probs, no DA. I spec'd out in the 20s, is it crucial? I think I'll try having a lot more purples in my insp tray and see if that helps. Also, I can almost feel the comments on my "atypical" frankenslotting of my melee attacks so I'll just say, for whatever reason the crushing impact recipes were quite high over the weekend so if I can get my hands on some cheap I'll swap 'em out, but for now I at least wanted something better than common IOs.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Broegar: Level 50 Science Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Katana
Secondary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery
Hero Profile:
------------
Level 1: Gambler's Cut B'ngBlow-Acc/Dmg(A), B'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx(3), B'ngBlow-Dmg/Rchg(5), F'dSmite-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(7), F'dSmite-Dmg/EndRdx(7), F'dSmite-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34)
Level 1: Focused Fighting DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(13), DefBuff-I(13), EndRdx-I(39), EndRdx-I(40)
Level 2: Flashing Steel M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx(A), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg(3), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(5), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9), RechRdx-I(36)
Level 4: Focused Senses DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(15), DefBuff-I(15), EndRdx-I(39), EndRdx(42)
Level 6: Build Up RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(11), RechRdx-I(17)
Level 8: Combat Jumping DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(11)
Level 10: Practiced Brawler RechRdx-I(A)
Level 12: Hurdle Jump-I(A)
Level 14: Super Jump Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Health Heal-I(A), Heal-I(17), Heal-I(31)
Level 18: The Lotus Drops M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx(A), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg(19), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(19), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(21), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), RechRdx-I(37)
Level 20: Stamina EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(23), EndMod-I(25)
Level 22: Dodge DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(23), DefBuff-I(37)
Level 24: Agile DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(25), DefBuff-I(37)
Level 26: Soaring Dragon B'ngBlow-Acc/Dmg(A), B'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx(27), B'ngBlow-Dmg/Rchg(27), F'dSmite-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(29), F'dSmite-Dmg/EndRdx(29), F'dSmite-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31)
Level 28: Quickness Run-I(A)
Level 30: Lucky DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(31), DefBuff-I(39)
Level 32: Golden Dragonfly M'Strk-Acc/Dmg(A), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx(33), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(33), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), RechRdx-I(34)
Level 35: Evasion DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(36), DefBuff-I(36), EndRdx-I(40), EndRdx-I(43)
Level 38: Maneuvers DefBuff(A), DefBuff(40), EndRdx(42), EndRdx(42)
Level 41: Boxing Empty(A)
Level 44: Tough S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), ResDam-I(45), ResDam-I(45), ResDam-I(45), EndRdx-I(46)
Level 47: Weave DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(48), EndRdx-I(48)
Level 49: Conserve Power RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50), RechRdx-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit

The only time you should consider dropping Divine Avalanche is if you are already softcapped in melee defense. It makes a huge difference when running without defense IOs... instead of hitting you around 15-20% of the time things in melee will only hit you 5-7.5% of the time. Since most enemies should be in melee (aside from the odd ranged-heavy groups) that alone can effectively double or even triple your survival time.

/SR really can't handle the large hordes of enemies you get on x6 or x8 team size settings without softcapped defense. I'd suggest dropping the Leadership pool (Scrappers have low buff modifiers so it's not too effective) and getting Weave earlier, plus grabbing Divine Avalanche and some (relatively) cheap ranged and AoE defense bonuses. Even if you don't fully softcap, getting to around 40% ranged and AoE and keeping your Divine Avalanche buff going full time will make you a lot tougher than you are now. The other, more expensive, goal is to increase your global recharge enough to tighten your attack chain up to the point where you can drop an attack... that will not only boost your DPS but also let you get Aid Self (you may have to drop Conserve Power but you shouldn't need it with good slotting). Aid Self on softcapped /SR is a huge survivability boost... you can generally fire it off any time you want without being interrupted.

Those builds aren't cheap, but they aren't horribly expensive either. Run some TFs if you can and be sure to sell any good drops you get on the market and you should be able to afford a 50 million inf build before hitting 50.

Ok... dont like DA, so i tried to make some sample builds how to reach softcap w/o it. The only "expensive" one is these builds is the +3% def all steadfast IO (which is really not that hard to acquire from eg. AE if you dont have the extra 10-20 M inf)

Neither of these builds have Flashing Steel, which i dont know if you like or not. Also, havent slotted anything that dont contribute towards def. For example, theres some slots in brawl and sprint, dont let it fool you, like i said, these builds are slotted only for def purposes only.

1st build, Kat/SR/Blaze, no haste, tried to get it cheap (imo Red Fortunes are cheap, if they in your opinion are not, replace em with something else, even with regular def and reduce endu IOs or even SOs etc)

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2nd build is Kat/SR/body mastery with haste

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Didnt include eg. Gaussian in either of these examples, if you can afford that in either buildup or maybe pick focused accuracy (if you take body mastery) it will make things eveb easier. Also, Flashing Steel gives you an option to slot 1 more multistrike (+1.88% melee and AoE def).

In Kick is also possible to mule in 1.88% ranged def. In Boxing some melee and AoE def (with Razzle Dazzle), etc...

There are options, even cheap ones, its just what you consider cheap and are you willing to eg. grind a little AE to get the steadfast and/or money to buy other recipes. You can go w/o the +3% steadfast too, it just requires more slotting and maybe more expensive sets to get there (eg. Touch of Death for melee and Mako for ranged, etc)

Hope you got some ideas!

*edit*
took out the some Mid's "clutter" to shorten this

ps. i had ~10 M inf when i returned and i got my char softcapped with this iirc:
Used lower lvl recipes and stuff, but anyway... sofcapped

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what flavor mobs are you fighting, in comparison to those who say they jump into +4/8 (or even +2/8 or +3/8) ??? carnies or freaks? Knives or Family? mucho difference.

and are you fighting bosses or just minions and LT's ???

I am a science origin, so I flip between current story arc (terra consp), cimerora, and occasional radio mission. So DE, Cimerorans, and "take ur pick" enemies. Obviously my enemies are another part of the prob. DE quartz is just BRUTAL and Cimeroran def debuff sucks, so.....
It sounds like I need to make quite a few adjustments. For some strange reason I wanted to try to take my first char to 50 w/o sets, but I'm beginning to rethink that decision. I think I'll take the advice here and make some mods to my build (and pry open the wallet). Thanks for the advice everyone.

Well, to be honest, a lot of the people running +4/x8 missions are doing so with extremely IOed level 50 (or close to it) builds.

Not being able to run that high is nothing to be worried about, you are not any less of a scrapper for it, we won't make fun of you or anything.

Truth be told, we're not supposed to be able to solo that high of a difficulty. Those that can are the exceptions rather than the rule.

I have 2 level 50 scrappers, one can run on high difficulty, the other can't. They are Claws/Regen and BS/DA. The Claws/Regen can't run that high because I didn't have a spare billion influence to drop into his build. The BS/DA can, because I managed to softcap his defenses on top of his already high resistances and the best self heal in the game. (and I did it amazingly cheaply)

Biggest key to BS/DA's survivability is Parry, which is identical to Divine Avalanche. my advice is to pick up DA until you are softcapped to melee without it.