Claws/SR Scrapper Questions

So, sitting at my computer one night I reminisced of my old RO days and the Assassins I've played and I got to thinking... how very close a Claws/SR scrapper was to it. Hard to hit, fast attacks, and even critting. Now, there are a few questions I have about /SR before I venture forth into scrapdom:

1. Attack Chain: Trying to stay in theme I wanted the fastest attack chain I could so I took Swipe, Strike, Slash. I realize this give me nothing in the way of AoEs but I was curious. If my recharge times were .65, 1.224, and 1.836 seconds respectively would this work as one continuous attack chain?

2. I have managed to make a build that soft-caps all positional defenses at 36. Now, how truly beastly do you feel. I have a few toons with S/L soft capped and they have some excellent survivability. Just wanted to hear for experienced players on the issue (Note I will have shadow meld and elude to help fight cascade effects)

3. I seem to have a end drain of 1.97 and a gain of only 3.17, is this deal-able?

4. For those who have played it, how was the ride? I know my mileage may vary but I'm still interested to hear your stories.

So feel free to answer, I always appreciate the advice.

I think a Night Widow makes a better assassin than a Claws/SR. You get your defense earlier, you get hidden status enabling crits, you get toxic damage in your quick animating attacks.

Then there's of course stalkers, but the minmaxer in me cringes at the idea of playing a stalker.

Back to topic, keep in mind SR, properly slotted, ends up with capped (95%) defense debuff resistance, so cascading failure won't happen. Shadow Meld or Elude (I wouldn't advice both, but it's your choice) can still be useful against high tohit foes or extremely high defense debuffs, but you'll be able to shrug off most common defense debuffs.

You could run a Swipe Strike Swipe Slash attack chain with the recharge numbers you posted about. It wouldn't be a fantastic attack chain, but it's enough to get you through content. I can understand not wanting Focus (it's what makes me not play Claws personally) but I'd strongly advice working Follow Up in there.

You do make a good point about the widow. I forgot about there ability to poison which does go with the concept. Still considering the scrapper though because of the higher DDR. Although I do have the widow with perma mind link easily as well was over soft cap defenses so it does have some DDR as well. The only difference in the attack chain for the widow though is lunge. Thanks for the advice, I think I may play both up to 20ish 30ish and see which I enjoy more. Now i just have to go back into mids and make sure I can soft cap by 30 ~ 35. Sure that wont be too hard.

1. Were you set on those attacks?
2. Not hard to soft cap with only 1 IO, a steadfast resist/+3% defense but you do more or less have your pool choices made for you ... i.e. Fighting, Leaping etc. For normal pve missions, using inspires, you'll find 36% ample I think. With ddr capped at 95% you will be dead from rng hate before anything that could truly be called cascade failure will ever kick in. Of the two I'd grab Shadow Meld before I'd grab Elude. Both will offer enough added defense to counter getting pummeled or when you feel the need for more defense outside of using inspires, but Shadow Meld both recharges faster (much) and has no nasty crash to deal with though granted hasn't Elude's duration either.
3. That amount of net recovery worries me, it's well under 2 at which point I generally find I'm spending far more time and worry over my blue bar than I enjoy. Under 1.5 net is that much more worrisome particularly if one has no way such as Dark Consumption or Conserve Power to gain or recover more or use less. I'd be aiming for a net of 2.5 and trying to push it to closer to a net of 3.00 myself. My current live build has 2 Performance Shifter +end and a of a net of 2.70 with Conserve Power for emergencies.
4. My claws/SR was and is my main character since I started playing and has logged in excess of 3500 hours at this point. Guess that pretty much speaks as to how much I enjoy playing her. The journey to 50 happened 5+ years ago but for me the journey is ongoing yet and won't truly end till the servers shut down.