Leaping Pool - Just jump, or anything else good?

I have read through just about all the (horribly outdated?) guides on this site, and have read through hundreds of posts about various powers... but no one ever seems to take, or even talk about, some of the deeper powers in the "travel power pools." (The alternate pools that open at lvl 4 that include concealment, flight, leaping, medicine, etc.)

I took super jump for my brute, as I envision my character leaping about. But now that I am a good number of levels in, and have filled out an attack chain as well as a myriad of toggle defenses, powers like Spring attack are calling to me, and sound like something my brute would do.

Is there a reason no one ever talks about the other powers in ANY of the travel/alternate power pools? Do powers like spring attack just sound cool in the written description, but suck in practice? If so, why does no one actually SAY they blow, or at least give a reason.

Is there anything else in these powers, that might be good or useful?

Few guides talk about these powers because they are fairly recent I guess. Until a while ago, Leaping had no Spring Attack, for instance. Let me give you a quick run through of the Leaping pool, specifically:

Jump Kick: is generally considered a bad attack. Most of the power pool attacks are thought of as poor, with a notable exception in Air Superiority (although more for the control than the damage, but the quick animation helps, and looks good, too). Boxing is really not bad either, but most people seem to just take it to reach Tough/Weave.

Combat Jump: is a very nice toggle. Costs nearly nothing, adds a bit of defense to help reach that softcap and is a great place to slot all sorts of IOs, like KB protection, stealth, slow resistance, +to hit, or maybe throw an extra slot there to get that +ranged def from BoZ.

Super Jump: is probably the nicest travel power, IMHO at least. Might not be as safe for squishies as flying, but it's great.

Acrobatics: was a must-have for many squishies and even for some melee folks who lacked reliable KB protection, back before IOs. It also adds a bit of Hold protection. Nowadays it's often skipped (personally I still like it), especially because it costs a lot of end.

Spring Attack: is a mini shield-charge, with the teleportation and pseudo-pet summoning and all. It has 1/4 of SC's chance to knockdown (but it knocks up instead), about 2/3 of the damage and takes a bit longer to recharge. Shield Charge is a great attack. Spring Attack is slightly less great, but still not bad if you don't have a lot of AoE in your build. You might find better AoE in your patron pools, though...

Also, the reason why many of the guides are outdated is because nowadays it's quite easy to see what powers do, in-game, using this real numbers thing they added a good while back.

Just click on the detailed info tab or button, or drag the power to your chat window, or type it's name in brackets and you can see its numbers and figure out how it compares with other powers.

There are usually threads about new powersets and powers when they come out, too, discussing them more qualitatively and making comparisons and such, but you have to search for those threads, they don't usually end up in guides. One example for spring attack, for instance, is here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=272047

As for other recent travel pool additions:

I took Afterburner for a FF/ defender, instead of PFF (he is soft-capped to almost everything and has some high resists before PFF, so the extra flight speed is rather nice instead of the extra, mostly useless mitigation even in trials) and I like it, but I wouldn't take it in a tight build.

I'm sure there are evil things one can do with Burnout, like recharging god modes and such, but the end cost is huge, and the end penalty (-25 max end for 1 minute) seems to have disappointed a lot of people, it seems to make using it a bit hard.

I'll have to respec my Warshade to take his version of Long Range Teleport instead of one of his less useful powers, it's too tasty, but once again it probably won't fit in tighter builds...

And that's it. Hope my verbosity helps.

the only thing i usually take from leaping pool is combat jumping for its very cheap end cost as well as being an LOTG mule and adding some defense

I can't check in game right now, but I'm thinking combat jumping also gives some kind of immob protection. Good for squishies anyway. I use it with this bind for awesomeness:
/bind lshift "powexec_name super jump$$powexec_name combat jumping"

I love the Leaping pool. My personal take on the powers:

Combat Jumping - Fantastic in-combat mobility, immobilize protection, a bit of defense, and a place to drop another LotG recharge and / or a Kismet 6% to hit IO, and it costs virtually no endurance to run. Pretty much my go-to power for non-fliers when I want a place for a Kismet.

Super Jump - My favorite travel power for general use. Plenty of vertical mobility plus very good speed means it's usually the fastest way to get around aside from teleport and it works much better than teleporting indoors. Afterburner is faster, but that requires a second power pick and can't be turned on and off repeatedly. Super Speed is faster in wide open zones, but being able to jump across rooftops instead of running around buildings usually makes SJ faster in most places. Plus you get to play the "try to get from point A to point B without ever touching the ground" minigame to make travel less boring...

Jump Kick - Pretty much sucks, just like all the basic pool attacks that aren't Air Superiority. It isn't completely useless like Flurry though, so if you need extra damage on a Controller or something it can be semi-useful.

Acrobatics - Kind of endurance heavy but very handy on some squishies. The KB protection can be had easily enough from IOs but Acrobatics also protects against a single hold. On a character with high defense and no mez protection that can be huge since things aren't too likely to land a second hold before the first wears off. If you just want KB protection I'd go with IOs though.

Spring Attack - Very fun though only semi-useful since it really doesn't hit that hard. I like it for adding some extra AoE to single target focused melee characters like my Bane Spider, but if you already have decent AoE it's kind of redundant unless you want it for thematic reasons.

Jump kick is actually quite good if you are lacking damage in your primary or secondary sets. It's lightning fast recharge and the fact that it benefits from containment make it an excellent soloing tool for controllers. It does the same damage and animation time as air superiority but with a much faster recharge. It makes up for that by only having a 20% chance to KU instead of 100%. However, if you are a controller, you don't need the extra mitigation and do need the damage more frequently.

+1 on the jump kick love, for the aforementioned reasons.

Way back jump kick used to have a much longer activation cycle, and really was on par with flurry (sucks).

Somewhere along the line the 'rooted' portion of the animation was reduced significantly. The end state was identical activation and damage per activation as Air Sup, but Jump Kick has a 2.8 sec recharge (compared to 4.0 seconds for Air Sup).

The complete animation for jump kick is still in game, but if you move or activate another power after the 1.5 second activation period, the remainder of the animation is truncated. I think the optional extended animation cycle is what perpetuates the myth that jump kick still 'sucks'.

If you don't need the 100% knockdown of Air Sup, Jump Kick is actually a superior alternative, given its faster recharge rate.

Personally, I love Jump Kicks animation

Combat Jumping is always useful on almsot every build.

And Spring Attack may not be some uber attack, but it's total LOVE!

If Super Jump had an alternate animation to match Ninja Run, Id be in love the Jump Pool. Currently, I hate Super Jump as it makes me think my character is jumping like the Hulk or Pitt.

Jump Kick: Skip it

Combat Jumping: Nice for shoring up defense.

Super Jump: Stick a slow-resist IO in there and done.

Acrobatics: Honestly, a waste of a power when you have KB IOs.

Spring Attack: Spring Attack's only real problem is that the recharge is too damn long. As has been noted, it's kind of a cross between Shield Charge (a teleport attack) and Foot Stomp (does knockdown). I have this on my Inv/SS tank and SS/Inv Brute. It's a nice combat opener.

1. Enter a mob with Spring Attack.
2. Foot Stomp.
3. Judgement (if you're Incarnate) (this usually only leaves bosses or really tough LTs).
4. Lay about with ST attacks while FS recharges.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I find CJ is a must have for the added mobility. It's a fault of mine, but I simply must have mid-jump directional control.

The touch of +def, immob res, and IO mule uses are just gravy.

My Fire/Kin controller left the flight pool, for Spring attack and the immob/hold prot from CJ and Acrobatics.

What it means for my troller, is that, once every 45 seconds or so, i can leap into a fresh pack of mobs, knocking half of them off their feet, giving me a head start on debuffing them, and buffing me , with the added benefit of placing my troller at the centre of a spawn, where Hot Feet can do the most, and without alerting the pack to my presence till (for them) its too late.

I actually grab Acrobatics on my squishies when they're already jumpers. Not for the KB protection, but for the Hold protection. There's a fair number of late game enemies, like Malta and Nemesis, with these insanely obnoxious little AoE Hold gas attacks that just ruin you, as well as some other enemies with weak hold attacks (I think CoT have them). Two points of hold protection helps at least keep every little one point three second hold off your back.

I also can't quite tell, but it seems using Combat Jumping with Fly gives you extra mobility, or at least tighter controls. I have nothing to prove this with beyond that when I use the two together, it feels different.

Indeed my Fire/Nrg blaster learned early on that Hurdle plus CJ let her pull by leaping up, back, and around a corner firing the blast of her choice mid-leap. Hurdle would give her the distance and CJ the control to easily make the corner. Neither by themselves was quite as effective or make the maneuver as easy to pull off. Likewise she had Acrobatics from the days of pre IO's and anecdotally one mission in particular highlighted the difference between a Fire/Nrg blaster with and without Acro. Several of us in the SG were running an outdoor map and about 3/4's of the way thru I was noting the other blaster (also Fire/Nrg) was spending a not insignificant bit more time mezzed (this was pre IO).

Combat jumping is one of my most picked powers.

All of my characters have Combat Jumping, period.

Even long before IO's made it godly for LotG, Kismet, etc, it was an indispensable power to have.