Which is better solo, Absorb or Regen?

[Krelgas]

Been playing a couple months now with someone, got a couple characters into their early 30's and now my friend has been too busy to play. I have a couple character concepts I'd like to run as blasters, but since defense capping is more a late game thing it's going to be a pretty rough road. Which type of secondary is best, absorb based or regen based? Particularly prior to reaching defense cap.

[BassAckwards]

Regen helps in longer battles, absorb helps for alpha strikes if you play more as a blapper. 

 

My 0.02 cents

[Uun]

Are you thinking of Sentinels? Blasters don't have regen or absorb based secondaries.

[ZorkNemesis]

1 hour ago, Uun said:

Are you thinking of Sentinels? Blasters don't have regen or absorb based secondaries.

A bunch of the "sustain" powers offer a minimal amount of absorb in addition to their recovery buff.  Time, Ice, and Martial all have an absorb, not sure about others.  Many others offer regen, Devices, Energy, Mental, and others.

Edited October 7, 2019 by ZorkNemesis

[Uun]

40 minutes ago, ZorkNemesis said:

A bunch of the "sustain" powers offer a minimal amount of absorb in addition to their recovery buff.  Time, Ice, and Martial all have an absorb, not sure about others.  Many others offer regen, Devices, Energy, Mental, and others.

I'm aware, but it's one power per set, not the entire secondary. Emphasis on minimal. I have a lvl 50 Ice/Time and the absorb buff is about 85 hp per tick slotted.

[Krelgas]

3 hours ago, BassAckwards said:

Regen helps in longer battles, absorb helps for alpha strikes if you play more as a blapper. 

 

My 0.02 cents

I see, so Absorb is better in a brief moment, and Regen is better over time. Not really sure whether I'll be doing blapping or hover blasting yet but good to know either way.

 

7 minutes ago, Uun said:

I'm aware, but it's one power per set, not the entire secondary. Emphasis on minimal. I have a lvl 50 Ice/Time and the absorb buff is about 85 hp per tick slotted.

I'm more or less a noob since I haven't been to 50 yet but according to Mid's some of those powers can double a build's health regeneration. I'll be trying to squeeze out any potential for solo success since I'll be using this character to do all the content I can. 

[Hopeling]

Absorb is great against alpha strikes when you have a power like Ablative Carapace in Bio Armor that can give a big absorb shield at the start of a fight. Blaster absorb powers don't do that; they give a small tick of absorb every two seconds. Regen and absorb from Sustain powers are both good for longer battles and weak against alpha strikes.

 

The difference is that regen fills up your health bar continuously, while absorb ticks just go to waste if they're not used before the next tick. Absorb powers can prevent more total damage than regen powers heal (for comparison, Cauterizing Aura heals about 36 per tick with slotting, against the 85 absorb per tick that @Uun mentions), so if you get full use out of the absorb, it's significantly stronger. If you take one big hit every ten seconds instead of one small hit every two seconds, absorb is significantly weaker. Regen also helps you recover between fights.

 

For soloing, I'd give the nod to absorb overall since you're the only thing around for enemies to attack. Regen powers are still quite good though - +300% regen is nothing to sneeze at - so I wouldn't stress over it if you really want to play /Tactical or something.

[Frostweaver]

Bassackwards is appropriately named. That is utterly opposite of how they work best.

Absorb works best for slow incoming damage, like a sustained minor sort of damage, while +regen halps better to recover from spikes, like taking a small alpha. Regeneration helps more solo where you have fast damage and recovery time between fights, and absorb works better there there will always be a continuous rain of incoming potshots, like tanker/brute aggro overload on a team. Regen uses your whole health bar to recover, while Absorb just recovers it's own pool.

And Uun is acting gormless. Everyone knows what you mean by regen-based or absorb-based. Some folks just have to double down. Metabolic decay from atomic offers a nice regeneration buff, and energize, from energy manipulation offers both a heal and regen bonus. Such healing buffs tend to assist Soloing more effectively while the absorption from ice's Frigid protection and Time's temporal healing tend to help better against low-grade spillover from a Team's efforts.

Both, however, offer HUGE bonuses for survivability compared to the old school blaster. Don't let naysayers tell you that 85 hp absorb every few seconds is 'nearly useless'. I play both on homecoming and Goon, and can tell you that absorb offers a HUGE survivability edge. Slot it for healing and end recovery. Love it.

[Krelgas]

I appreciate the additional explanation. I haven't rolled a blaster yet so good timing, I'll just have to rethink my gameplan.