Galaxy Brain

Linking the original topic here: Regen has always been a staple comic book powerset, but it has had ups and downs in CoH. It used to be absolutely amazing way back in the day, and was justifiably nerfed. But since then it has had had some struggles from global changes to the game and the introduction of IO's. To make things worse, several sets have come out which do it's shtick better when it comes to actual regeneration! While these sets may not have the immediate self heals, they have tons of regen + other defenses to layer on to make them feel similar while outperforming the set at a basic level. While Regen can still have great performance when you use it actively, the concept of Regen as "I passively heal real fast" is strictly done better in Willpower. As a direct comparison, the two sets share: [*]Fast Healing [*]Quick Recovery [*]A self rez that you can argue is better on WP [*]Auto Powers that grant res vs all damage types, with WP's being a T1 and also boosting HP [*]Toggles that grant increased regen with RTTC outperforming Regen as a set in terms of raw hp/sec [*]----- Similarly, both sets are sort of defined by health recovery as the major mitigation Where they differ is that instead of activated heals, WP opts for more toggles for layered defenses. This lets WP not only be more consistent, but also provides incredibly valuable resistances to effects that Regen does not. Regen iirc lacks any sort of actual resistance vs debuffs of any sort, and that is the first thing I would like to see added to the set. Namely, Regen/Heal debuff resistance which while rare in PvE would still be nice to have for *the* healing set just as how defense sets have DDR. Thematically, you would think a regenerator would heal very quickly from all sorts of debuff and control effects. Recovery Debuffs, Defense Debuffs, a flash bang that damages your vision would heal faster (Perception, ToHit), something that saps your strength would return quickly (Damage), and so on. If Regen had a plethora of debuff resistance instead of..... none, it would be a thematic boon to the set and also fit the theme of no downtime. Other suggestions that have been accumulated (no particular order nor do all of these need to be added!): [*]As noted, lots of debuff resistance to show that you heal off side effects as well. Especially to -Recharge which cripples the set. [*]Sentinel Regen is actually really cool in that it has a powerful, refreshing absorb toggle that lets you soak X damage per second for free. Something in normal regen to mirror this would be nice. [*]Similarly, Sentinel Regen's self-rez can be used while alive to actually heal yourself. This is a neat twist and a real tactical choice as it goes on cooldown still, meaning you may not get to use it as an actual rez in an "oh crap" moment if you try to preemptively use it. [*]Several sets have scaling defenses based on your HP. It seems kind of criminal that Regen of all sets doesn't have at the least Fast healing scale up as you lose health. Or even resilience being the opposite where you get much better effect for staying at or near full hp! /SR and /Rad can be templates here [*]If possible, any over-heals get turned into Absorb. [*]Change Reconstruction to be partially a flat heal and partially Heal over Time Thoughts?

I don't think buffing sets automatically takes away from others. If you buff an under-performing set up, then its just usually at status quo without taking from anywhere else.

Global fitness was done for diversity since literally everyone took it

Wait, this is to make choosing harder though? Hasten is an easy choice to make due how potent it is, and unlike aim it's available for every single character.

Thanks for the replies everyone! What was mentioned here is that hasten is not necessary to play the game, which is 100% true. That said, I still feel it is overall incredibly good for what it is and it's why so, so many builds have it. When building for performance, it's almost unheard of not to grab hasten which makes me think that the base recharge times of powers could benefit from a slight boost. Hasten will still be great, but then it may also not be as sought after or polarizing.

Beam sounds fun! However, what do you mean by DoT powers? There are very few I can think of, but the ones that jump out are usually pretty good?

Yeah, range isnt *that* big of an advantage in this game where people can hop around at 70mph to close distance

These changes should apply to MM merc powers too ;)

Does anyone feel the benefits of each version of opportunity are worth them being separate? They each feel, I suppose toned down enough where combining them to "Combat Opportunity " wouldnt be too drastic, and allow either t1 or t2 blast to activate

(Knockback sets into knockdown sets)

This would be awesome. Doesn't /Sr on sentinels have something like this too?

Something I have yet to see talked about is the /Plant Manipulation. Is that any good....?

I'm just gonna jump in here, but does anyone else feel that tankers got hit harder by IOs given nearly anyone can softcap now and make their defense tanker-esque? With their claim to fame taken away, other melee classes (brutes) just way outshine them

Tbf, building defense onto a resistance base offers way more mitigation.

The other part of this is that their way of building damage applies to the team as well!

Looking at the upcoming changes to the set, as well as the sweet, sweet targeting drone, what would be a fun primary pairing? AR is the go to of course, but I dont wanna go for the classic this time around ;)

They already dont have snipes

I agree that the inherit needs a second look where it seems like it is forced on the 1st two powers. I've leveled a few sentinels now into the 30ish range and had solo and team experience. The opportunity mark is really nice if you have it ready on a hard target in a team setting and it *is* nice that it is triggered by an attack instead of a separate power like a debuff set would have. That said the downside is also that it is part of your most spammed powers so it can be akward to wait for the recharge when you have a target you want to hit with one or the other versions of Opportunity, or on the flipside it can be annoying to "waste" the main targeted debuff on a minion when the next group has something you would have liked to mark! I like the dynamic of choosing the offense or defense a lot, but I find the actual opportunity mark to be akward given how it is set up and how often I find it sort if wasted given how long you have to wait to mark a target + how comparatively weak the marked effect is. If marking was separate from opportunity, as weird as that sounds, I think itd be nicer.

Would it be possible to make Rage an auto power, and make it a mini-fury? Each SS attack you activate builds Rage. You can stack rage up to 8 times for 10% damage a stack. Stacks last X time before decaying This replaces the crash penalty with a time penalty, which is sort of the same: the player has no rage for a time

*This* The only problem is if you constantly keep the rage up as fast as you can. If you keep it to just under 2 min then it's fine.

Can we get Clown Run that uses the panicked NPC animation?

Knockback is important to the feel, but it is at odds with a ton of the game design unfortunately. If Knockback had a better effect to it, like knocked enemies took bonus damage when you launch them or treat it like DnD where prone enemies are "disadvantaged" and you can kill them faster it would not only feel more impactful to knock somebody on their butt but also be more team friendly in that it is useful to all?

It sounds like having the bite attacks slow down enemies would be nice for them

I'm down. I really wish the pet setups got changed a bit with some of them like this, you know?

Well one of the Mastermind ATE sets provides a nice AoE defense aura which can help mitigate that. While true, it is still a huge burden that is inherit to the melee pets