DP feeling more "Damaging" then AR

Maybe it's just the way I play but I am trying to a good lock on using them both effectively as blasters. Now typically, I don't worry about damage/DPS because I have a tendency to play Corruptors/Defender but I am rather enjoying the damage change.

First, I prefer to stay at range predominately and I realize that several of blasters secondarys are melee oriented. I do take one or two just to fill in the gaps but stick to mainly range.

Now, I have two blasters. One is DP/Energy, the other is AR/Fire. Both are lvl 24. When I level, I do searches for builds on the forum just to play around with different sets to see which I like and which I don't. Majority if not all the threads state AR will out damage a DP. Now, both are, more or less slotted the same with SO's but I am finding myself trying to figure out why my DP is quite obviously outdamaging my AR.

I don't have any MID's info on either set and I am not really looking to number crunch, just attempting to find out why there is so much dislike toward DP and why I am having a hard time finding love for AR.

With DP, I am finding myself with more AOE potential so far and though some of the animation times do seem slower then AR, I am still feeling like I can mow down a large group faster then I ever could with AR.

With my AR/Fire, I have taken everything except beanbags and snipe, so far only took Fire ring, Fire Sword Circle and Build up. With DP I have taken everything but supressive fire and on the energy side, Build up, Power Thrust and Conserve power.

First, AR's Flamethrower is not doing much for me at the moment so my only real AOE's are Fire Sword Circle and grenade. The rest are just hit or miss cones that seem to miss more often. With DP, Bullet Rain seems to do far more damage then Flamethrower and Grenade combined, not counting cones that are helped with the inherent accuracy. Fire Sword Circle does alot of potential damage but even slotting with an acc, I am seeing alot of hit and miss.

Now I have never leveled either of these before so maybe AR is a late bloomer set but since after today, all I have is ignite and full Auto left on AR, and with DP I have Hail of bullets and Piercing Rounds, I am wondering if its worth continuing with the AR. Does Full Auto make up for the damage I am seeing in DP? Whats your take on this?

On another note, I decided to take Leadership on my AR and Fighting on my DP. I am considering changing up and wondering which of these are more effective on a blaster? I dont like building for solo or for teams but a good mix of both.

If you already feel like DP is outdamaging AR, the tier 9s probably aren't going to do anything but reinforce that. Not only does hail hit significantly harder than full auto, it can hit six more targets and it gives you ample mitigation while you're animating it. The drawback is of course that it takes twice as long to recharge but of the two I know which one I'd rather have.

AR is utter junk. The whole set is basically propped by by ignite.
Their ST sucks. Buckshot is junk, Grenade is junk because it scatters the mobs from your other AOES. Flamethrower is way too short and way too slow. It has no AIM either.
Full Auto is bad, narrow cone, 10 target cap and STILL does less damage than pretty much all other nukes even with crits factored it.
There's only 1 decent skill in the entire tree and that's Ignite and that basically only works on AVs.

There's like 2 reasons to roll a AR.
1. Full Auto makes feel like Rambo (doesn't kill like Rambo however).
2. Ignite is ok for AVs (hope that he doesn't move 2 ft in any direction)
3. You can use a lot of your skills as KB IO set mules. Ok that's 3 reasons but there you go.

Ignite is easily leveraged on quite a few Corruptor builds, I just want to add that.