Stormwalker

Entirely fair. I'm still very much divided over whether the set needs additional spike mitigation (I agree with you about +4/x8 not being baseline, and to an extent agree about not balancing powers around that, but at the same time I'd like Regen to be a bit more competitive at this level without leaning quite so much on specific outside-the-set powers). But I also know that rashly making changes trying to solve that problem could result in making the set hilariously overpowered, and since Regen attracts players who are looking for a challenge because of the way it requires the player to take an active role in their survival, removing that challenge is definitely not the desirable outcome. Specifically regarding Dull Pain, there is some situational variance there depending on what you are fighting and how quickly the damage comes in, but in the worst cases of spike damage (i.e. the cases most relevant to the subject of spike mitigation), you run the risk of getting obliterated by the alpha before you even have the chance to activate it if you don't have it up at the start. That said, if I am starting the fight with MoG up (which I would normally do if I am expecting that kind of alpha, if MoG is off cooldown), I'll agree that I'm likely to hold off on using DP until I have taken some damage so that I can get some value out of its heal, because I'm unlikely to get crushed by the alpha with MoG up. The other factor is that frequently DP is already active and on cooldown from the previous fight when I start the next one, which precludes using it that way unless I want to sit around and wait for it to recharge (and whether I want to do that depends in part on how much of a threat I think that next spawn presents). Also, sometimes damage spikes come as a surprise (having a patrol come up on you while you are already engaged with an x8 spawn, for example), and this is where the active mitigation tools really come into play because you need your spike mitigation button and you need it right then, and that's where having something like Shadow Meld can save your bacon, because you've probably already used MoG if the original spawn was a significant threat. EDIT: Of course, on my Katana/Regen, frequently my response to the patrol situation was to toggle Super Speed on and bug out as soon as the combat speed restriction dropped, so that I could reset the encounter on more favorable terms. I know most Scrappers hate running away, but discretion is still the better part of valor.

One idea I had that I think would be very thematic for Regen, but I'm not sure would actually be practical to implement and I'm not sure would really work well - I haven't done the math, I'm working purely on thematics here is this: Instead of Revive, or possibly attached to Revive (since we now have powers that provide other powers when you select them), an autopower that has the following effect: Once per (some time interval, which would need connsiderable testing to fine tune), If an attack would reduce the Regenner to less than 1 HP (i.e. would kill the regenner), the attack is negated and an absorb effect is applied. The amount of absorb would be tuned to allow the regenner a few seconds to pop inspirations, regenerate back some health, and otherwise take measures to survive. The 1/(whatever interval) limitation means you still have to actively mitigate spikes, this power just has your back when you fail to adequately mitigate one (for example, when a spike comes in while MoG is down from mitigating a previous spike). The idea is that it should serve as an insurance policy for when you get an unexpected spike, or one you don't have a tool available to mitigate, but that once you have used it, it won't be there for a while so you can't just keep bouncing off 1 HP indefinitely. Missing one spike won't kill you, but missing two in a short span of time definitely will. Possibly triggering the absorb effect should also result in an offensive penalty (say, damage output reduced to 10% while the absorb is active, as your body is spending all its strength on not dying) to give you an incentive NOT to let yourself bounce off the absorb wall. Thus, skilled play is rewarded by not having to endure the offensive penalty. This is thematic for Regen, because it falls in that "Regenners are really freaking hard to actually kill theme that we have seen so much in comics (primary example: Wolverine) and other sources (D&D, where a Ring of Regeneration makes you actually unkillable by straight damage as long as you're still wearing it). And it serves as a spike mitigation tool. It also gives the Regenner an incentive to actually take Revive, when we all know that self-res powers are some of the most often skipped powers. For the skilled player, this provides an insurance policy that they probably won't need that often, but which occasionally will bail them out of a really tough situation, making the set a little less frustrating to play. For the unskilled player, this makes the set a little less punishing to play because it gives you a bit of forgiveness for mistakes. As I said, I'm not sure this idea is actually practical, so please don't downvote me to Hell for it. It's purely a concept suggestion, and a lot of testing would be needed to determine if it would actually be feasible and if it could even be implemented without making Regen comically OP. But I do think it would be thematic and could potentially address one of Regen's primary challenges. EDIT: I had initially put the interval in as 1/minute, which I selected entirely arbitrarily because I think it would take a lot of testing to properly tune so it doesn't completely make you immortal but still activates often enough to be useful to a less-skilled player, but the first friend of mine I showed this to said, "Yeah, I like the idea but at 1/minute you would never die," and he's probably right, so I revised this to simply reflect that an appropriate time interval would need to be chosen. (It should be noted that this idea was inspirerd by an ability in Phantasy Star Online 2 that the Fighter class has called "Limit Break Insurance". See, Fighter in PSO2 is driven by an ability called "Limit Break" which dramatically boosts your damage, but reduces you to 50% Max HP, turning you into a glass cannon. If you get hit in LB you're likely to be one-shotted. Limit Break Insurance modifies this so that if an attack would kill you, instead of killing you it just ends your Limit Break prematurely, costing you a significant chunk of your offense, but not killing you. You really don't want to proc LBI, because losing Limit Break time will severely reduce your DPS, but it's better than being dead and doing 0 DPS!)

SR isn't even the strongest defense set. /EA and /Shield are both better. The price you pay for the convenience of /SR (in terms of not having to worry at all about defense debuff because you have 95% resistance) is you give up a bit of the bleeding edge performance of /EA and /Shield. The more time I spend on my Energy Melee/Energy Aura scrapper, the more appreciation I develop for the performance edge that Energy Aura gets, and also for the effort that goes into getting the most out of that performance. SR is fine. It has its Kryptonite (autohit powers, massive to-hit buffs, and non-positional attacks like Blind - which is why Carnies are still challenging for /SR +2/x8 and higher). SR is eaiser to play than Shield Defense and Energy Aura, but the price of that ease is that it's weaker at the top end, and I think that is appropriately balanced. Though, honestly, Shield Defense isn't much harder to play than SR and thus may need to be nerfed a bit if you are looking for true balance (personally, I think Shield Defense is a little OP, but not so terribly so as to require action). Now, on to the other point: Regen is a different animal, obviously, and it should be. For spike mitigation, Reconstruction is not relevant. Spike damage kills you so fast that you often don't have time to use Reconstruction. Dull Pain and MoG are relevant. Dull Pain's heal is not relevant to spike mitigation for the same reason that Reconstruction isn't. Dull Pain's HP boost IS relevant, but a competent Regen build should have this buff active at all times. Furthermore, Dull Pain's HP boost alone is not sufficient to mitigate spikes, because with minimal inherent mitigation in the set, spike damage will still overwhelm even the boosted HP. When I consider the problem of spike mitigation, I am already assuming that DP's +HP buff is always present. Thus, we come back to MoG. MoG is the tool that Regen gets (within the set) for spike damage mitigation. The problem with MoG is that it doesn't have enough uptime to do the job by itself. Damage spikes can last longer than MoG's duration and can occur more often than MoG is available. This is the reason Regenners turn to Shadow Meld and/or Rune of Protection. They provide, essentially, a second MoG (not really, but they provide another power that serves the same purpose - providing damage mitigation to allow the Regenner to endure a damage spike). Please note that my suggestion about buffing MoG was not actually my recommended approach to /Regen. It was merely a statement of what I think would be necessary for Regen to survive in the high-end arena if Bill's suggestion that Shadow Meld and Rune of Protection be nerfed was implemented. I've already said that my recommendation for addressing Regen is to add -regen debuff resistance (at least 95%), then re-evaluate, and then add additional debuff resistances as needed until the set becomes less prone to debuff-induced collapse. Mitigating spike damage is Regen's inherent challenge. It's a challenge that is induced by Regen's theme and it's a challenge the set is intended to have. I think we agree on that (please correct me if I'm wrong about this). What is open to debate is whether /Regen has sufficient tools to face that challenge (I don't think it does), and whether /Regen should have to reach outside the set for solutions to this problem or if it should have the tools to do it inherently (and, to be honest, I'm of two minds about that one). On the one hand, I think if /Regen had all those tools inherently, it would become OP when the outside tools were added to it. This is to say, as long as Shadow Meld and Rune of Protection exist in their current state, giving Regen any additional spike damage mitigation probably makes Regen overpowered. As a counterpoint, @Bill Z Bubba is absolutely correct when he says that Shadow Meld and Rune of Protection absolutely do render other Scrapper sets overpowered, so as long as that remains true, they probably should make Regen overpowered also. On the other hand, I don't like that Regen funnels you into specific pool choices to address its weakness. This greatly inhibits Regen's build flexibility, which isn't fun. Especially for people like me who play concept characters. My Broadsword/Regen, for example, can't fit either Rune of Protection OR Shadow Meld into her concept, so she's going to be very limited compared to my Katana/Regen and my Dark Melee/Regen at higher level (because the Katana can fit Shadow Meld in her concept, and the Dark Melee is a Magic Origin and can easily justify taking either or even BOTH). So, the question of whether Regen should get additional tools to help mitigate its weakness to spike damage is a question that remains open - there are arguments to be made on both sides. What I don't think is really debatable is that Regen desperately needs debuff resistance (at the minimum, -regen resistance, and a whole lot of it) to make the set a little less fragile (and by fragile, I mean prone to debuff-induced collapse, as I detailed in one of my previous posts). Right now /Regen is the only set that is severely threatened by all kinds of debuffs; every other set (or at least, all the ones I have played, which doesn't include some of the newer ones like /Rad and /Bio) has at least one or two types of debuff that it really doesn't care about. Regen shouldn't be the only one that doesn't have this security.

Energy Aura gets my vote, for reasons that others have already expounded upon. It has almost everything that is good about /SR (lacking only /SR's higher -def resistance), and then brings a number of extra tools to the table. Built-in stealth with no slowdown in Energy Cloak, taunt aura and +rech in Entropic Aura, a click heal with a built-in end discount for all your powers, and an AoE end steal that provides a small additional defense buff. The only significant downsides to Energy Aura that I can think of are the Psi hole, and the fact that you have to turn Energy Cloak off for hostage rescue missions because they can't see you to follow you. Oh, and not being able to see your costume outside of combat while Energy Cloak is active, /SR would be my second choice, because even though Shield is stronger, Shield also disallows pretty much all of my favorite primaries (except Energy Melee, and I strongly recommend Energy Aura as a secondary for Energy Melee because the heal helps offset Energy Transfer's HP cost) and that prevents me from recommending it. Global: @Skylancer

Interestingly, I have a kinetic melee hoverscrapper. She's a lot of fun to play, but the performance is... not so good, so I'm hesitant to recommend it to others without knowing how much patience they have for slowly arresting the badguys.

My favorite primaries: Claws - not just because it's a fast blender, though it certainly is that. It also has an excellent bag of tricks. Ranged attack? Got that, with knockdown to boot! AoE? You get three (though I personally skip Eviscerate, and you probably will also because it has a flip in it), one of which (Shockwave) is an enormous cone that can basically serve as a second ranged attack. Runners? Not a problem for Claws. Between the ranged knockdown, and the huge cone with knockback (you'll want to slot Knockback -> Knockdown here), they won't get far. Plus, there is nothing like going bowling for villains and KD'ing the entire spawn with your first attack with Shockwave. Also, between Focus and Shockwave you can dribble enemies like a basketball! Who doesn't love that? Also, with enough recharge you can keep Follow-Up perpetually double-stacked (and sometimes triple-stacked), which is a very nice damage buff. Energy Melee - possibly my new favorite set. Nice animations and sounds, lots of WHAM, feels very superheroic. Deals massive damage, and the Disorient on multiple attacks is good for mitigation. I've completely fallen in love with my Energy Melee/Energy Aura. Katana - all around balanced set. Not the best damage, but solidly above average, -def on every attack, pretty animations, feels reasonably quick, and Divine Avalanche is a very nice mitigation tool, especially if you're not playing a defense set since it makes soft-capping melee/lethal easy. Staff Fighting - I have just discovered this set and can't speak to its power from experience yet (I'm told it's below average single-target but above average AoE), but I love the animations. Very lively, lots of fun to play, feel like Estelle Bright on a rampage (and if you don't know the Trails games, that is definitely a good thing because Estelle is a badass!) all the time. Dual Blades - combo system is neat, though the very best attack chain doesn't actually use it (second best does, though). Nice animations. If you want it to sound awesome, use the lightsaber SFX mod.

It's not really a matter of /Regen sucks. It's a matter of /Regen has a specific glaring weakness by design that it has no means within the set to adequately mitigate. Give Regen a means to mitigate that one weakness, and suddenly the set looks a whole lot better, and depending on how you fix it, it might even be overpowered. (Though even with that, I still think it would need debuff resistance, because of previous notes about the set being fragile). The reason I suggest buffing MoG (and don't do this if you don't also nerf Shadow Meld and Rune of Protection, or the results will be hilarious) is because it retains the skill element involved in mitigating that weakness. Which is to say, it's not a set-and-forget ability, you actually have to use it and use it correctly. If I wasn't concerned about the skill element, there are certainly easier ways to fix it. But if you take the skill element away, it's not /Regen anymore.

Sure, but if you do this /Regen will become unviable at the high end, specifically because of its alpha weakness. Of course, there's an easy solution to this! Buff MoG.

Let me say something else (as a separate point to the previous post, and I don't want to get them crossed up). Regen, as a set, is fragile. No, I don't mean the Regenner is fragile, though this is sort of true in the sense of alpha mitigation. I mean the set itself is fragile. The Regenner is always riding the ragged edge of disaster. He exists in a delicate balance of multiple forces, and if any of those forces is upset, the whole house of cards is rapidly in danger of collapse. This is what I was getting at earlier when I was talking about all the different weaknesses sets have. Regen has all the weaknesses. It is vulnerable to every type of debuff. It is, in addition to that, vulnerable to spike damage in a way that no other armor is. Thus, it can be true that Regen has the greatest potential of any armor, and also true that Regen is the weakest scrapper armor set, because it will not ever actually achieve that potential (or if it does, won't sustain it for any length of time), because any kind of debuff upsets the apple cart. Having played a Regenner fairly extensively, I know the feeling when you get everything working and manage to hold onto it long enough that for a little while you feel completely invincible because the sum total of all your strengths exceeds any other set. I also know the feeling of watching all of that crumble to dust because the sum total of your weaknesses also exceeds any other set. This is what it is to be /Regen. What /Regen needs is a little bit of stability. The ability to endure at least some erosion of its capabilities without falling apart. In short, it needs debuff resistance. Start with -regen resistance. I suspect that won't be enough by itself, but it's a good place to start. I'd look at -recovery and -recharge resistance next. Once you reach the point where keeping a regenner running on all cylinders regularly is possible for a fairly skilled player (i.e. not only the very best players can make it work, but at the same time not expecting "a chimpanzee and two trainees" to be able to run the set, with apologies to Montgomery Scott) to hold it together in high-end combat, it's in about the right place. Right now it's not there. It falls apart too easily, and that needs to be fixed. /Regen should be a set that you have to work at for it to survive. It shouldn't be easy. But it shouldn't be a labor of Hercules, either.

Frankly, I think our statements are orthogonal to each other rather than in conflict. What I'm saying is that Regen has a specific point of weakness that NEEDS to be patched in some form or another and Shadow Meld effectively patches it, thus the degree of improvement that Shadow Meld introduces to Regen is greater than the degree of improvement it introduces to other sets. What you're saying is that the end result with other sets is better than the end result with Regen. Since I don't have as much experience with resist sets, as /Inv is pretty much the resist-focused set (not counting /WP as a resist set) I have played a lot of, and I never felt a need for Shadow Meld on my /Inv - it did just fine without it - I can't really argue this point with you and am not attempting to. All I'm saying is that Shadow Meld makes a huge difference in survivability for a /Regen, specifically in the area of alpha mitigation (which /Regen sorely needs), and this is why you see it crop up a lot in discussions about /Regen. To expound on this a little bit, a few points: 1). Regen has less mitigation than any other armor, by its very nature and design. This is in theme for a Regeneration set, as it heals damage rather than mitigating it. However... 2). This characteristic introduces a weakness to Regen that no other set has. Specifically, Regeneration is much less capable of mitigating alpha strikes from large spawns than any other set. 3). In order to successfully play "in the big leagues", so to speak, a /Regen player MUST have a method to manage this weakness. 4). The method provided by the devs to this end, MoG, is inadequate to the task as it doesn't have enough uptime to allow you to cull enemies and reduce the incoming spike damage before it runs out. Thus, another solution is needed in addition to MoG. 5). Shadow Meld is very nearly perfect for this purpose. I don't have experience with Rune of Protection, but given that it also shows up in these discussions from people who have used it, I would guess it provides a similar benefit. The benefit of Shadow Meld (or Rune of Protection, or any other tool that assists in mitigating alphas in this manner) to Regen is, bluntly, the ability to even enter the arena of high-end play. This is why I say that Shadow Meld is transformative for /Regen.

No, I'm saying that Shadow Meld serves as an effective patch for a specific and glaring problem with Regeneration that other sets don't have, namely Regeneration's difficulty in mitigating spike damage.

You're defining "benefit" differently than I am, so this is an argument of semantics. To clarify what I was saying, specifically: The difference in performance with and without Shadow Meld in Regeneration is greater than the difference in performance with and without Shadow Meld in any other set that I have played.

I know crap all about /Bio, so obviously I wouldn't begin to try to make that argument. I can only speak for the sets I've played. Also, there's a difference between saying "no other sets benefit from Shadow Meld" and saying "No other sets benefit from Shadow Meld to the degree that Regen does", which is what I was getting at. To clarify, when I respec'd my Katana/Regen on Live into Shadow Meld, that was a transformative change. The character felt vastly stronger after that respec, I'm not accustomed to pool (even Epic/Patron pool) powers having that kind of impact on a build.

In fairness, if the other sets benefited from using something like Shadow Meld the way that Regen does, you would see people doing it with those sets. But they don't. It's a solution to a specific problem that Regen has (alpha mitigation) which is a direct result of the way the set works (by healing damage rather than mitigating it). And at some point the developers even realized this, which is why they changed MoG to work the way it does now. The problem is that MoG is not available a large enough portion of the time to truly solve the problem, so we lean on powers like Shadow Meld to fill the gap. That said, something I am seeing here is this: Every set has problems. Every set has challenges it has to overcome. Every set also has challenges it doesn't have to overcome. And here is part of the problem. Regen has all the potential? But it also has all the problems. Except one: Regen doesn't have endurance problems. But other than that? Every problem faced by other sets is a problem faced by Regen. Defense debuff? This one's a problem for most sets (/SR is the notable exception), but less so for resist-based sets as their primary mitigation remains active. /Regen has this problem, even though it has no inherent defense, because any reasonable /Regen build is going to include defense from outside the powerset (and /Regen by design needs every bit of mitigation it can get to survive the alpha). Resistance debuff? Defense sets don't so much care about this (they do care about it some, but it's not really crippling, especially since most of the debuff attacks will miss). /Regen does. It has a bit of inherent resistance--the only mitigation it gets natively--and since your mitigation from /Regen is very limited, you definitely want all of it. Besides, what Regenner doesn't take Tough? It's pretty much mandatory. Slow? Some sets can pretty much ignore this (/SR) and others are largely unaffected by it (/WP). Some other sets have real problems with it. It's completely devastating to /Regen, though, due to affecting Reconstruction's recharge time, not to mention other essential clicks both inside and outside the set. Recovery debuff? Defense sets are rarely hit by these (except for Carnies) and so don't have too much trouble. Resist sets have problems here. Regen? You wouldn't think Regen with its crazy recovery would have problems with this, but because of the magnitude of a lot of recovery debuffs, it does. Regeneration debuff? This one hurts everybody a little bit, but it is absolute death on a Regen because nobody depends on their Regeneration the way a Regen does, and on top of that, the magnitude of many Regen debuffs is so great that in some cases a single attack can completely shut down even a Regenner's crazy amounts of regen. I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of things because I'm writing this off the top of my head, but the point is this: Regeneration is Murphy's Armor. Anything that can go wrong, will. And you have to be prepared for and take measures against all of it. On my /SR, what do I worry about? Autohits, stacked to-hit buffs, and attacks with no positional component. Everything else I take in stride. On my /EA, what do I worry about? Carnies, mostly (psi and negative with strong debuffs). Also autohits and strong to-hit buffs. On my /Inv, what do I worry about? Resistance debuff and psi. Recovery debuff. That's pretty much it (though I might be forgetting some things, I haven't played an /Inv at 50 in a long time). On my /WP what do I worry about? A little bit of everything, but the only thing that really scares me by itself is a Sapper that I didn't see in time. You can take away any one aspect of my defense and I am just fine and can cruise along on the other layers until I have eliminated the source of the problem. If things get really hairy, I pop Strength of Will to bridge the gap. On a /Regen, what do I worry about? Freakin' everything. Regen is that tiny precision-engineered machine that is a work of art when everything is running but is in danger of breaking down if a grain of sand gets in one of its tiny gears. And this is in addition to Regen's unique problem that nobody else has - because it has so little inherent mitigation, it has problems with spike damage in a way no other set does. Why does /Regen need regen debuff resistance? So that it can have one thing it doesn't have to fear. And so that it can always count on the thing it does best to be there when it's needed. With that, /Regen becomes just like every other set. It has a strong core that it can always depend on, and it has problems it has to prepare for. Possibly still more problems than most other sets, but that's where the skill component comes in. That's just my 2 cents, YMMV.

The tricky part is making the high performance that Regen seems like it should have when you run the numbers more attainable without making it completely, ludicrously OP in a team setting with defense and resistance buffs both in play. The defense-based guys don't get that much benefit from defense buffs in team play because they're already soft-capped. The resistance-based guys get limited benefit from resist buffs in team play (they're probably hard-capped to S/L at least already). The Regenner benefits from both, and if you have enough of both, can become nigh invincible. So buffing the set too much could trivialize some team content. Hence "small tweak here, small tweak there" until it's right. Though, I realize that this isn't so much a risk for a Scrapper. Oh, sure, the Scrapper may be immortal, but he doesn't have a taunt aura, so his ability to trivialize team content is limited to his ability to hold aggro. For a Brute, on the other hand...

I was thinking 95%, like /SR's DDR, but honestly I wouldn't be opposed to it getting 100% -regen resistance, either. It's Regen's hat, it should be good at it. Also, the idea that an attack can shut down someone's entire secondary (which is a bit of an exaggeration because of Reconstruction, Dull Pain, Resilience and MoG, but it's really not that much of an exaggeration when you talk about some of those enormous regen debuffs) is just kind of ridiculous. That should never happen. Also, I thought Geko was the regen-hater. Am I remembering wrong?

I don't know that it's defenders so much overstate it's potential - in a team environment with the right teammates to boost it in certain ways, it's potential is astronomical, and even solo it's potential in terms of "if everything works absolutely right" is very possibly the best of all the Scrapper secondaries. The problem with Regen is that said potential is unattainable, at least in solo play. Unless you're fighting enemies that don't debuff at all. It's an impossible ideal. Regen debuff resistance would go a long way toward making a larger percentage of that theoretical maximum performance attainable, which is why I'm of the mind that it should be added to the set, without ANY other changes, and then the set's performance should be re-evaluated. To put it in other terms, with regen debuff resistance, I think both Regen's skill ceiling (the highest performance a truly skilled player can attain from the set) AND its skill floor (the performance an unskilled player will attain from the set) will both be improved. The highly skilled player will have one less variable to juggle in intense situations, making it easier to manage the other variables they do still have to deal with... and the unskilled player will have what probably feels to them like a fatal Achilles' heel removed from the set.

I'm honestly not that concerned about performance of sets below 50. I mean, I'm not completely unconcerned with it (as I've previously said, I'd like to see the power order in /SR rearranged so the AoE defense comes sooner, and I'd like to see sets like /Regen and /Invuln get their mez protection sooner), because I do level up my characters the old-fashioned way... but for the most part when I compare powersets, I am comparing them at Level 50. This is mostly because I really don't push my builds very hard until they get to 50, generally. Also, unless you largely stop playing a character once they get to 50, they're going to spend a lot more time playing at Level 50 than they are in any of the level ranges below that. Therefore, to me, performance at level 50 is more important. I'm not going to get into a deep discussion of /SR in this thread, since this is a /Regen thread and it's off-topic, so I'll just make this observation and leave it at that: a correctly built /SR (which is to say, one who has softcapped all positional defenses, invested in IO's to add damage resistance, max HP, and regeneration, and who is built appropriately for the offense set selected) is quite capable at 40. And I'll note that increasing enemy level as opposed to increasing enemy number slants your results somewhat against defense sets. Another thing that has to be taken into account is that what enemies you are fighting has a whole lot to do with performance. For example, my Energy Melee/Energy Aura (who recently hit Level 50, and has unlocked all of her Incarnate slots but most of them are still at T1) can run +2/x8 against pretty much any enemy group I have thrown her at - including IDF - save for one exception, that being Carnies, where +2/x5 seems to be about as high as she can go in her current state (it should be noted that her IO build isn't completed yet, either). The reason for this should be apparent. Energy Aura has a psi hole, and has a hard time soft-capping Negative Energy defense. Carnie bosses throw out a whole lot of both, and fighting three Carnie bosses at once is something she just can't do yet (without heavy inspiration usage to plug the psi hole, that is). By contrast, my DB/WP at level 43 finds Carnies to be no challenge at all, but struggles mightily against Malta, who both my Claws/SR and my EnM/EnA both hold in utter contempt. Point being, who you are fighting and what they throw out against you makes a big difference in performance. Regen has issues with large spawn sizes where lots of debuffs are being thrown out, especially when those debuffs include regeneration debuff. It needs regeneration debuff resistance, at the very least - it needs to be able to protect its primary survival mechanism, just like defense sets need DDR to protect theirs. I think recharge and maybe even recovery debuff resistance is possibly needed as well, but I would start with the regen debuff resistance and observe the effects of that change before changing anything else. Spike damage is a different problem, but there are ways to mitigate spike damage. That said, outside of MoG most of those methods come from outside the set, which can severely limit build flexibility for a /Regenner. That's definitely a problem (I really don't like how Regen tends to funnel you into either Rune of Protection or Shadow Meld), but it may be the price /Regen has to pay for its high theoretical maximum performance. Of course, one could argue that certain other sets with really difficult endurance problems funnel you into the Body pool for Conserve Power and/or Physical Perfection, but it's hard for me to judge that (as I tend to go Body on most scrappers regardless, because I can fit it in almost any concept build). My point, though, is that tools for mitigating damage spikes do exist, and there really is no tool for mitigating regeneration debuff (other than "don't get hit by it", which becomes unrealistic as spawn sizes approach x8). Thus, I would qualify the lack of regeneration debuff resistance as the primary problem facing the set.

I mean, I agree that in a perfect world Regen has all the ability to perform at that level. But in practice, I found that there was always some variable in play that prevented Regen from ever quite achieving that potential. Oh, sure, I could find ways to survive almost any situation I put myself in, but that was true of nearly all my scrappers, and frequently the extra effort that it took to accomplish that survival on a Regen ended up compromising offensive performance in the end. And, as I noted, I mained a Regen for quite some time on Live, so I was very practiced at surviving. This is one of the reasons I think debuff resistance would really help - it reduces the number of variables in play. Just having regeneration debuff resistance alone would help with managing certain problematic enemy groups. Oh, sure, some of those groups (Malta comes to mind) are throwing lots of different debuffs at you, and giving you regeneration debuff resistance is not going to prevent those other debuffs from sticking, but it does mean at least you can count on your regeneration working for you so you can focus on managing those other challenges a bit. As an example of this effect in play in other sets, compare Super Reflexes to Energy Aura. /SR's 95% DDR means you almost never have to worry about whether your defense is intact. It's always there for you. As such, you can focus on avoiding and/or compensating for other debuffs. Energy Aura, even with it's ~65% (I don't remember the exact number) DDR is still very prone to defense failure (not to mention the fact that it has a Psi hole and a deficiency in Negative Energy defense), means you actually have to pay attention to defense debuff and be careful not to let it lead to a defense crash. This is only one of several ways that /EA is more difficult to play than /SR (though if you successfully manage it, it's stronger because of the extra tools it brings that /SR doesn't... unless you're fighting Carnies, who are very nasty in areas /EA is weaker). Note that I'm not saying /Regen shouldn't still be the most difficult set to play. I am saying it needs just a little boost (i.e. debuff resistance) to reduce the number of monkeywrenches that can be thrown into its works, to make it more possible to actually achieve its potential. Am I making sense here? Or, to put it in other terms, as it stands right now Regeneration is such a juggling act when fighting enemy groups that throw multiple different kinds of debuffs at you that you pretty much never get to run at that maximum potential efficiency.

I thumbs-upped your post because even though I don't agree with everything you said, you certainly made some valid points and made me consider something I previously had not. I have to grant you this much: in a team where you have support that raises the team's defense and resistance, Regeneration probably is the strongest of all Scrapper secondaries. In a full team, the Regenner can have the best of all worlds: soft-capped defense (and then some), hard-capped resistances (and then some) and its inherently superior regeneration and recovery rates, and that's going to be very difficult for any other set to match. This is, in fact, a very valid point and one that is definitely a factor in the balance equation. I will admit that I hadn't thought of it in those terms because when I think of Scrappers I generally think of solo play (the fact that I don't team very often due to sound sensitivity issues - this game gets very loud in teams when the AoE's start flying - probably has something to do with not considering the team perspective as well). In terms of solo play, I still maintain it is the weakest Scrapper secondary (though not by a huge margin). And I still think it at least needs debuff resistance. Fair?

Apparently, yes, there is some disagreement on the underperformance of Regen. I'm not sure how, based on my experience with the set. I mean, once again, I am not saying Regen is completely terrible (I will confess to calling it "pathetic" in another thread, and I will admit that was hyperbole, but I haven't leaned on any such exaggerations in this discussion), I just feel like - based on my experience with the set - that it's not quite as strong as the other Scrapper defense sets. As I've said before, I would start by adding debuff resistances to Regeneration, and then playtesting to see how much effect that had before making any other changes to the set. I don't think that's an unreasonable approach to it. I think giving Regen a small offensive buff of some sort (like Energy Aura gets, though I'm thinking a small +damage buff rather than a +rech buff in this case, for thematic reasons) would be appropriate, but let's give it the debuff resistances it clearly needs first and then re-evaluate whether anything more is needed. And I do agree that maintaining Regen's requirement for an active style of play, thus forcing players to be "on the ball" to get the most out of it, is a good idea. I just think it should reward that effort a little more than it does. Also, @Troo, my Katana/Regen on Live wasn't my only Regen. She was just my first 50, and the one I had the most playtime on and invested the most effort and inf into her build. I also had a Martial Arts/Regen and a Dark Melee/Regen, both of whom reached Level 50 on Live. So I am well aware of how to play the set without leaning on Divine Avalanche as a crutch. That said, DA does make a nice survival tool. I've also re-created both the Katana/Regen and the Dark Melee/Regen (though I made the DM/Regen a Brute this time, because why not have the best Regen I can get?) on HC (I re-made the MA/Regen as a Street Justice/WP instead, as those sets suit her better; neither was available yet when I created the original character on Live). And for what it's worth, I choose my powersets based on concept and not on what is optimal. Optimization for me is a matter of "let's see how far I can go while remaining in concept". Fortunately, that Katana/Regen's concept (she is a ninja with Regeneration and Superspeed mutant powers, essentially) made dipping into Soul Mastery for Shadow Meld possible.

Defense debuff is so prevalent in the game that I don't think the argument about defense holds water, to be blunt. Remember, my regenner on Live was Katana. I know very well about what can be done with defense on a Regen. It's a nice survival tool, but defense on a set with no defense debuff resistance will not go remotely as far as on a set that has it. Also, how much offensive potential are you giving up to build to high levels of defense/resistance on a regen? Of course, when I say these things, I'm not really considering Incarnate powers. Most of my time spent on my Regen on Live was before the Incarnate system came into play. I would presume that Barrier on a Regen is probably highly effective. EDIT: Also, why do you people keep insisting on rehashing the basics of a regenner like you think I don't know how to play one? My first 50 on Live was a Katana/Regen and I played her for quite some time as my main. I built the hell out of her, using pretty much every trick that was available at the time (which is most of the tricks that are available now, barring Rune of Protection and Incarnate powers). I DID all of those things. I rotated Shadow Meld and MoG to manage alphas. I used IO sets to shore up my resistances. I know how to play a freakin' Regen scrapper. Just because I think Regen underperforms does not mean that I am freaking incompetent at playing one! Stop making assumptions about other people's skills when they disagree with you!

And this is the first thing I would add to Regen if it was up to me. And then before I changed anything else I'd want to see how much difference it made. Though I expect a little bit more tweaking would still be needed. As I have said before, I've played Regen. Quite a lot, my first 50 on Live was a Katana/Regen. I know what the set is capable of. I'm not claiming it's vastly below the other sets in terms of its maximum potential, but it is below them, and makes you work harder to get to that maximum potential than any other set. That's not a good combination. The set that takes the most effort to succeed shouldn't reward that effort with the least performance. But you still DO have to make regular use of Reconstruction, and while you might only click each of those other powers once per fight, that's still several clicks you have to make that other sets don't. Especially when you start adding in things like Shadow Meld which also require a click and has an activation time. Energy Aura, by comparison, has two clicks (Energize and Energy Drain) that I use reasonably often (and that's being generous, I really don't really use Energy Drain much unless I am fighting things that have -recovery or end drain attacks), but Energy Aura also provides an offensive advantage (in the form of Entropic Aura's +rech) that offsets the lost damage output from those clicks. Regen, which in my experience is definitely more clicky than Energy Aura, does not provide anything of the sort.

It's definitely tricky, but I think it is possible to improve the set's numeric performance some while keeping it challenging to play Personally, I think Regen should stay challenging to play, but it needs to offer more reward for that challenge. Maybe it should provide some kind of offensive advantage to offset the lost DPS from all those clicks. It could be fluffed as the regenner being so accustomed to fighting through pain that it doesn't faze him and he just fights even harder.

Seriously, I keep seeing people saying that all it takes is a few inspirations to make Regen as good as the other sets. Except, what stop sthe guy plying one of the other sets from using inspirations? Someone keeps talking about how /SR is prone to damage spikes due to bad streaks? A couple of greens solves that problem nicely, on the rare occasion that it pops up. In the meantime, while the regenner is clicking Reconstruction, and Dull Pain, and Instant Healing, and MoG, and whatever temp or pool clicks they are using to mitigate Regen's flaws (i.e. Shadow Meld, Rune of Protection, etc.) the /SR is clicking more attacks and dealing more damage output, thinning out the enemy spawn faster (thus reducing incoming damage faster), and ultimately clearing the map faster. And doing all of this with a build that allows more flexibility in power selection and costs less inf to make work. This is why Regen needs help. It doesn't adequately reward the amount of effort and investment that has to be put into making it perform.