Regen vs Willpower

I am considering a scrapper build. To give you some background I have run mostly brutes, for a couple years. My main is a SS/Will, after switching from SS/Invul.

I am wondering what the style differences (feel/tactics) are between a regeneration Scrapper and a willpower scrapper? Is willpower chosen because softcapping a regen looks impossible, or is regen chosen because any I/O def/res benefits become like gold.

Also, are there certain primaries that are associated with each, and if so why?

Okay then, the deciding factor may come down to this. Is "Moment of glory" from regen able to have the rech time reduced by purples or LOTG? I know that "Strength of Will" from Willpower is not. (sad panda, my will brute would love that)

Regen is what I call a "Clicky" set. You have to pay a lot of attention to it when fighting. Willpower is mostly toggles and auto powers. The only powers you don't just leave on all the time are Strength of Will and the rez.

In PvE, a /Willpower Scrapper has a mix of healing, resistance, and defense that means you'll usually recover from more damage than you take. Softcapping its defense means that you're nearly invincible. In PvP the regen toggle isn't as good, defense has been nerfed globally, and its resistance isn't even close to being able to compete with a pure resistance set like Invuln.

In PvE, Regen has relatively few resistances, and defends itself purely by healing as much as possible to try and keep up with the damage you're taking. It's doable, but harder than playing a /WP. The changes to PvP add resistance to a /Regen scrapper, and Moment of Glory's short duration isn't as big of a deal when you're trying to take out a Blaster with insanely high damage and very little health.

Rundown of Willpower vs. Regen from my point of view from a recent private message:

"Willpower vs. Regen is... mostly about flavor. While both have very high regeneration rates, that's pretty much where the similarity ends. Willpower is a VERY passive secondary. Toggle on and go. You pretty much almost never notice it. Your green bar moves slowly. You never die, at least never by accident. On the down side, boring. No personality.

Regeneration, while possessing similar levels of power, is completely the opposite in terms of play. It is a VERY active secondary with tons of personality. You are constantly hitting click powers. You have to pay very careful attention to your health. Your green bar flies wildly all over the place. You have to develop a nearly psychic sense for what damage will be coming your way in the next few seconds. If you like to push the envelope, you're going to die. Over and over. It is a school of hard knocks. But once you master it, oh boy, can it reward. Do everything right, and you're invincible. It makes you want to throw your fists into the air and cheer. Make a split second error, and you're dead. But Regeneration didn't let you down. Look at those clicks in your tray, unused, ready and waiting. Regeneration was faithful. It was there for you. You let yourself down. It was your fault you died, and with experience, you'll know just what you did wrong, what you can do better the next time. You can always play better than you do play, and Regeneration is always there, teasing you with just how awesome you know it could be, if only you were a little better, a little smarter, a little faster. I love it, but Regeneration certainly isn't for everyone. And frankly, I also like to relax sometimes, maybe even most of the time. And for top end play, Regeneration requires hard core focus. So while I find Willpower boring and without personality, and my heart belongs to Regen, I also have a lot more levels of Willpower under my belt than Regeneration. You can only stare into the sun for so long."

For primary, I think the best to combine with either is Katana. But then, I'm a big Katana fan.

Heh, then this is exactly right for me. I not ony have a willpower for my main, it is a Str/Willpower brute. Yawn. And it is totally purp'd out (well 4 sets, can't seem to squeeze the 5th on) Fights like a wet cat. I always know when he will die, where it will be, why. (Why did I try to tank that room of Cims on the ITF when the team was across the map?, right, bored lol) When I need to tank for a team with him, he comes through (helps with team buffs), heavy damage, he is there. Challenging, not really.

This new toon is a concept one, claws/regen. Living on the razors edge is where I want him, fun peaks, crushing valleys. Trying to keep him alive and learning to use Regen will be a fun few weeks I hope, and after I get him to 50 and start to purple him, it is nice to know that he will have very regular bursts of 15 second god modes with no crash (although, in truth, the crash on a I/O'd will brute is negligible, but you have to wait a while for it to rech, sad panda) To be able to take an alpha with a semi squishy will be way cool, especially while dealing crushing crits.