QOL: Undo the Regen Nerf

[Dragon Crush]

OP said "regen tanks/brures" in that context it seems like they meant tankers/brutes.

[HelenCarnate]

17 minutes ago, Dragon Crush said:

OP said "regen tanks/brures" in that context it seems like they meant tankers/brutes.

The original post only listed tanks and was edited after he was called out for having no idea what he was talking about.

[Replacement]

48 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

OH! cool

so Blast != Blaster

Scrap != Scrapper

Fender != Defender

 

etc don't double down on it, it makes you look worse

Yeah, fast posts do come off as inflammatory, that's my bad.  But I'm not wrong. Tanking is a role. Ask any MMO, even the ones who don't know what Corruptor or Controller mean. 

 

Step into any other thread on this site and this will be accepted, gospel fact: Brutes tank all the time.

Don't be dense in just this one.

 

Edit: lol at Fender. If you weren't busy using hyperpartisan rhetoric I seriously would have given your post kudos for that.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Replacement

[Heraclea]

5 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

I just feel so bad for you. I had to teacha  few regen scraps just how wrong they are about it just as you are. Im truly not trying to be cobative nor insulting though it may seem otherwise but I beseech ye to take the time to read what Ill explain here and hopefully awaken your regens to their godly power.

 

Truth be told, I did not plan on making this character to run endgame content.  I created the character deliberately to do speed runs on Synapse and the like to make merits for other characters to use.  She does use liberal recharge, but this was done mostly by frankenslotting key powers with multiple damage/recharge or heal/recharge enhancements from different sets.  Leveraging set bonuses was never part of the plan; frankenslotting yellow sets was.  Set bonuses exemp away when you underlevel them, unless you want to spend millions on catalysts.  But a damage/recharge continues to enhance both damage and recharge. 

 

 I have two scrappers - a TW/WP and a Kinetic/Rad - that work quite well in endgame content.  Or at least as well as any scrapper can perform; incarnate trials are not all that friendly to melee DPS.  Unfriendliness to melee DPS in endgame content is a problem shared by many MMOs, unfortunately.  But this one was deliberately made to run lower level content for inf, lower level salvage, and merits.  I remade one of my characters from old live because I knew she worked well in the role I made her for. 

[Sarrate]

Let me preface this post with the fact that I'm a little out of touch with both Regen and the current state of CoH. I played Regen pre-ED, post-ED, and my first 50 and live forum avatar was my BS/Regen Scrapper. I stopped playing her for the reasons I'll get to in a moment, but I never respecced to take advantage of MoG, and I most certainly never experienced regen with heavy IO investment, let alone Incarnate powers.

 

With that said, I think Regen is a weak set compared to the armors for any type of non-trivial content.

 

The biggest benefits to Regen is the fact that its mitigation is damage agnostic (it protects against lethal, toxic, psi, and untyped equally).

The list of problems, are much longer and more severe:
 - Outside MoG, Regen is terrible at burst damage. I don't mean just the alpha strike when jumping into a mob, I mean any kind of damage that lines up like two bosses hitting at the same time.
 - Speaking of MoG, it has a 15 second duration and a 2.57s  animation time. Almost 1/5 of the duration (~17%) is spent just casting it.
 - Regen's mitigation doesn't scale. If the enemies can't out damage your healing, you're immortal. If they do, you die very quickly.
 - It has minimal debuff resistance. Against more classic enemy groups, this wasn't too bad, but at higher levels, or newer enemy groups, this becomes very problematic indeed.
 - Regen is very dependent upon clicks to survive. This means that time that could be spent attacking must be spent healing instead. It also means that recharge debuffs neuter Regen's survivability (remember, no built-in avoidance or resistance debuffs). If using a set with a weapon, this induces a redraw, further taking time away from attacking. (I've seen mention of "no redraw," so maybe this is gone now?) Finally, since Regen is very timing sensitive, it doesn't gel well with sets that have long animations.

As a thought experiment to assess a set's survivability, imagine pairing it with Fire Melee. Fire/SR? Soft cap it, take aid self. Fire/Regen? No mitigation from the primary, no defense as a base to build on, minimal resistance... oof.

Can you make Regen work? With enough investment in IOs and Incarnate abilities? Sure, but the return on investment will be lower than other secondaries.

 

-----

 

I know I just dumped on Regen, but I do have a soft spot for the concept. Trying to come up with improvements, however, is difficult:

 - Simply adding more regen/healing doesn't solve the fundamental problems with it. It would push up the immortal threshold (see Regen doesn't scale), but not solve any of the core problems.
 - Just adding def or res somewhere would help, but would that work in concept? How would that affect the other values of powers based on the power formula?
 - If you follow the cottage rule, then there is even less breathing room to work with.

With that said, I do have a few ideas (I don't know how feasible they are):

1) As a Regen feature, I'd suggest making the clicks (Recon/IH/MoG, specifically) have an interruptible animation / able to be cast while using other powers. Reason I say this is Regen can go from healthy to dead very fast. This would both mitigate the lost offense when clicking powers and make sets with longer animations more survivable.
2) Work absorb into some of the powers, and at a higher rate than regular healing. It would be thematic (consider it damage healed instantly) and also help deal with burst damage. Examples:
 2-A) Auto/Toggle - provide a longish stacking low value absorb. For example a 5% absorb every 5 seconds that lasts 25s and stacks 5 times. Basically, if you're being attacked a lot, it will slow it down a bit. If you're not taking damage, then you can build up a buffer against the next time a big attack comes in.
 2-B) Auto/Toggle - provide a largish high value, non-stacking, absorb. For example, a 20% absorb every 5 seconds that lasts 5 seconds. The idea is to blunt incoming attacks to make burst damage more survivable. This would not work as a heal as it doesn't help at high health, and heals persist, absorbs wouldn't.
 2-C) Give the clicks some absorb. Reduce Reconstruction's heal and provide it a larger absorb component. This could be used preventatively or reacitvely. Reduce the regen of IH and give it periodic absorb shields for its duration.
3) Perhaps give Regen a way to cheat death. For example, if IH is active and you'd take lethal damage, instead IH is removed (?) and you're granted a 100% absorb. Or IH stays and you're given a temp power to prevent this mechanic from happening for X time. Or make Revive castable while alive and if cast while alive, it provides the absorb on a lethal hit.
4) Based off incoming "damage," perhaps provide a boost to absorption enhancement (with absorption from other ideas). This is an attempt to give Regen some scaling factor to prevent them from being immortal to too much content. I also put "damage" in quotes, because maybe it should be something like how Fury calculates incoming attacks (frequency and mob rank).

 

I'm not saying all of the above should be done and I most certainly have not done any calculations on how crazy or weak the above values may be. They were all just ideas that I had to improve the set so I figured I'd share in case they sparked future discussion / improvements.

[Mr. Wallet]

52 minutes ago, Sarrate said:

(I've seen mention of "no redraw," so maybe this is gone now?

 

"No redraw" is an animation option when customizing your power in the character editor. By default you still redraw, but you can choose that option on all your powers and the weapon appears instantly in your hand, skipping the draw animation.

 

I just opened a thread a few days ago about removing the +acc inherent to weapons since Cryptic (Geko, I think?) said those were only there to balance against the redraws, but it hasn't gained any traction. Which I guess is fine, most of the drawn weapon sets aren't especially popular anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

As for what to do about regen, I never played it above the late 20s back before IOs, but have also thought it would be appropriate to the set's playstyle to give them a click, perhaps one that can only be used out of combat and gives them preposterous absorbtion for 5-10 seconds, so they can handle alphas. If they had a tool like that you could probably nerf the healing in the set quite a lot, widening the knife edge between full HP and death and giving the set a little more thrill and danger in the middle of the fight.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Mr. Wallet

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Some other things to keep in mind, Regen has recovery few other sets can compare with, this lets them use leadership toggles better then most. This means vengeance is an easy grab, since leadership has 2 powers that can take lotg recharge specials its really a pool worth taking, and a regen should be leading the charges fearlessly and pushing a pace that will likely get others killed now and then to veng off of. Sets with self res like regen are also expected to be downed more often then other sets by design. Frankly Im not sure why people have an issue with getting incapped now and then, especially self rezzers, wolverine and other comic characters best moments are pretty much always begun with getting beat down.

 

Oh and I myself do not use non attuned IO sets, honestly on the HC servers the cost is really not any higher then crafting non attuned yourself especially when you factor in mat and time costs. So exemping is not any kind of big deal.  I literally sell every drop and liquidate every merit into inf, it keeps the game time almost entirely as actively playing or RPing and hanging out. No need to horde, no need to do anything but just enjoy the actual game.

 

Now if you all really think regen some super bad set well your not alone, it became a common and very wrong impression many had after Will Power was added. Funny enough most will power users also tend to be bad at the game. They tend to be the rush in without thought and want to face tank everything and think the game is bad when they cant types ime. Will Power to me is a tank set, but the vast majority of WP users Ive seen on live and on HC face plant more then bad regen users.

 

But its all about synergy between the primary and 2ndary. I keep saying this and people keep ignoring it, every set by design has an optimal pairing. For regen its got a few, kat,bs, regen, ma, claws all pair extremely well with regen built around heavy global recharge.

 

Oh and ofcourse scrappers dont dish it out like mass murder blasters in end game. Thats not some flaw, thats not imbalance. A scrapper should have to spend much more time then a blaster wiping out hordes, thats why they get the defense set not another dmg set as a 2ndary. I mean its not some mystery, if your biggest interest is big numbers on big groups play a blaster. My scrappers are first and foremost all AV killer builds, my blasters can typically solo some AVs but not every one of them in the game let alone as many as a dozen at once like a Dark/SR scrapper can.

 

I can promise you when i run an inc trial on a scrapper the DPS is very relevant in the beat down phase of the big bads, and judgement exists to wipe out large groups of trash. I mean its not a solo thing, not everyone needs to be a mass murder build to bring something useful to the trial.

 

Regen is actually one of the best designed and best balanced sets in the game, it can be great or it can be garbage depending on the builder/player using it. Its not an auto I win button, but it also isnt some newb trap power set. It pairs with a wider range of offense sets then many other offense sets which is makes it really quite newb friendly.

[MetaVileTerror]

Call me crazy, but maybe what the Regeneration Set needs is permission to be defeated all the time.  

Make Revive have a Recharge timer of 1 minute, and an activation time of less than 1 second.  Maybe even make it so the more allies you have around you, the faster Revive Recharges, so you don't miss out on the action in big teams.  Adjust the Debt which a Regen character can accrue after picking up Revive as well.

Alternatively, add a weaker-than-Revive revive mechanic to Moment of Glory and Instant Healing.  Give the Regen'er multiple ways to get back up and back in to the fight after a full defeat.

 

Make /THAT/ Regen's schtick!   Yes, you'll get defeated, again and again and again and again, but you're right back up and back in to the fight every time!  You're the sort of character who just won't stay down.  That seems to be "on brand" for Regen without shifting the set in to Willpower territory.

[0th Power]

8 hours ago, Heraclea said:

Set bonuses exemp away when you underlevel them, unless you want to spend millions on catalysts.

/offtopic You can buy pre-attuned from the /ah for the same price (FWIW).

[Dragon Crush]

I wouldn't worry too much about ripping off willpower a bit myself, regen was around first and will ripped off regen first.

 

So, another idea for helping regeneration I had, looking at Mids, regen Dull Pain, invulnerable Dull Pain, and ice Hoarfrost are all identical (Earth's Embrace has a longer cast time). So let's change the regen version to differentiate it a bit, they're all listed at 40% heal/+max hp (or 39.99%-40.03% depending on AT) 360 recharge, 120 duration.

My suggestions for regen version of the power -

1) 35%heal/+max HP

 

2) 330 recharge and 150 duration for better uptime

 

3) The big one - when you pick the regen version of Dull Pain, you are granted an unslottable auto power called Dulled Pain that grants 15% +max HP, and an absorb shield that ticks every 5 seconds and lasts 15 so it can triple stack for +8% absorb per tick. This will give a 24% absorb shield to soften alphas and provide a bit of a cushion through extended fights.

 

Some other suggestions I have include-

Upping the regen on Integration, maybe to 75% un-enhanceable, 150% enhanceable, as well as adding a hefty chunk of -regen resist (70%+) to the power.

 

Add some -recharge resist to Resilience, something like 20-30%. Not sure if it'd be a problem with how powers work, but maybe have it only help against -recharge and not -slow movement, would help us keep clicking those heals but not necessarily  escape the caltrops patch to escape the beating (for example).

 

Port over the sentinel version of the rez. It can be used while alive, healing and granting +max HP, with the effect being greater the lower your HP, or it can be used as a rez just in case you click it a little too late. Oh, and it recharges faster as well (250 vs 300).

[ShardWarrior]

16 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

They are so click heavy any other set bonus theme like resistance or soft defense is utterly wasted. 

Yes it is.  That's one of the major issues with it. 

 

Saying Regen should "focus exclusively on recharge" is not good advice at all in my opinion and your own post actually says this too by recommending sword sets or DM as a primary because of the Buffs/Debuffs those provide.  Incidentally, ToHit debuffs from DM or the DEF buff from parry doesn't save you from ranged or AoE attacks.  You can have all the global recharge bonuses you want, they won't save you when you're overwhelmed by damage since Regen has no resistances or defenses other than pure healing to to fall back on. 

 

17 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

If you think regen unfit for lvl 50 play, and incarnate content, that is entirely on you and your ability to build and play a character.

I've played with @Heraclea numerous times on all kinds of content - he/she knows what they are doing and how to build/play a character.

[Troo]

14 hours ago, Replacement said:

Ok, now for the actual reason I'm here.

On 12/7/2019 at 8:30 AM, Troo said:

No you haven't. You may (if you wish) want to edit much of your post.

 

Opinions are important and we're all entitled to them. Presenting opinions as facts may tend to run into resistance.

 

Regen is great for some ATs and not so great for others. I personally don't see a problem with that. I would totally try and create a Regen Tank build if I could..

Wrong-o.

 

Tank != Tanker.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Or what you feel is 'wrong-o'.

 

If you are referring to my first sentence, well.. There are no Regeneration Tankers.

I pointed out the original poster may wish to edit their post due to statements like "watched countless PI team Regen tanks eat mud 1-10 times".

 

I have a couple Regeneration Stalkers and it is awesome for them. Regeneration is different from Def or Res based sets, that variety in my opinion is a good thing.

[BrandX]

I'm sure the OP meant Regen Brutes instead of Tanks.

 

My guess, is the only reason for Regen's nerfs, is PvP.  PvE wise, as a EM/Regen Brute myself, I can tell you, it's not as tough as anything I've done with other secondaries, like Electric, Dark, Ninjitsu, Willpower, Ice Armor...and I'm pretty sure if I got my Fire Armor finished IOed, it'd be tough too.

[Troo]

If you've run an EM/Regen brute for some time back on live, you've trooly seen some nerfs. My main is an EM/Regen stalker. I would definitely prioritize addressing EM over Regen.

Regen benefits greatly from high recharge and splash of control. That is different than on many melee builds.

[ShardWarrior]

25 minutes ago, BrandX said:

My guess, is the only reason for Regen's nerfs, is PvP. 

As I recall, PvP had nothing to do with nerfs to Regen.  Regen was overpowered back in the days before ED when you could 6 slot heal enhancements and could stack Dull Pain  - which is what made Regen overpowered more than anything else.

[Dragon Crush]

Given powers can behave very differently in PvE and PvP, just leave them as for PvP (or not, never cared much for PvP in this game, just hate when it interferes with PvE).  Also ED was added ages ago, but after the nerfs, and with ED they seem like too much.

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Or what you feel is 'wrong-o'.

 

If you are referring to my first sentence, well.. There are no Regeneration Tankers.

I pointed out the original poster may wish to edit their post due to statements like "watched countless PI team Regen tanks eat mud 1-10 times".

 

I have a couple Regeneration Stalkers and it is awesome for them. Regeneration is different from Def or Res based sets, that variety in my opinion is a good thing.

I was taking exception to this rolling generalization that a tank means the tanker AT, so "clearly the OP is wrong/stupid/lying," instead of the obvious and reasonable answer that they were dealing with Regen Brutes that were tanking.

 

But I was being pretty weirdly aggro about the whole thing.

 

While I do think Regen needs work, I agree that EM comes first (though it's looking like SS will cut to the front of the line).

Edited December 12, 2019 by Replacement

[Troo]

@Replacement gotcha.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

6 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Yes it is.  That's one of the major issues with it. 

 

Saying Regen should "focus exclusively on recharge" is not good advice at all in my opinion and your own post actually says this too by recommending sword sets or DM as a primary because of the Buffs/Debuffs those provide.  Incidentally, ToHit debuffs from DM or the DEF buff from parry doesn't save you from ranged or AoE attacks.  You can have all the global recharge bonuses you want, they won't save you when you're overwhelmed by damage since Regen has no resistances or defenses other than pure healing to to fall back on. 

 

I've played with @Heraclea numerous times on all kinds of content - he/she knows what they are doing and how to build/play a character.

Since I fimrly believe every set should havea  flaw that needs help being covered I dont see dark melees to hit debuffing or a swords parrying as anything other then logical pairing. Parry also protects from letahl dmg no matter how it comes, so for example you can benefit from it against a myriad of lethal based ranged/aoe attacks attacks.  When you can keep it easily triple stacked your def will be very substantial to a great number of attacks from a large variety of mobs, that is ofcouse why dark is the most meta and optimal pairing because everything becomes less effective by dark debuffs making them whiff endlessly. MoG pairs well with dark because you can use mog to charge in and have the buffer to stack the to hit debuffing so you have nothing to fear.

 

And yes I will tell anyone who uses regen but thinks its not a monster of a set that they either need to learn how to use it better.  With heavy global recharge its very unlikely you will ever have your regen overwhelmed by inc dmg, and there isnt a big bad in the game that can one shot a perma dull pained scrappers HP. Keep in mind a scrappers job is one on one with big bad AVs, a blasters job is to wipe out the masses. For that job of taking on big bads one on one I have never met one that threatens a regen that is built and played well.

 

So yes if someone has a regen, but feels they cant handle some AV or solo just about all content with ease I will say they are not good at building/playing regen. That isnt an insult to a player, not every player is good with every AT/power set.

 

Many players for example I know are not good at keeping an eye on cooldowns, or using active and reactive powers, they favor toggle heavy sets and very small attack chains of 2-3 powers because that is what they need to play well and not feel overwhelmed or distracted from the game by monitering their power bar. So far as I can tell all the ones saying regen isnt that good or inferior to WP are those kind of players that simply dont want to deal with numerous clicky powers in their 2ndary. This is imo the only truth to why they see WP as superior to regen, because for how they play it certainly is.

 

How I control my character is I tend to have between 6-9 power trays open, my thumb buttons on my mouse cover the attack powers while I actively mouse click on every other ability as needed. That is no matter what AT/power set I have because I collect temp powers and like to keep them ready to use no matter what lvl my toon is playing at. I know a great many players that cant imagine using more then 1 active power tray. Hell I see players all the time bitch about not being able to make more then one power auto fire where as I have never even remotely found that to be an issue. Hence why some players hate sets like SR with a clicky mez power and think such are inferior to toggle mez when they are imo the superior form of mez pro.

 

So obviously different people/gamers and their personal approach to how they control their character can dictate heavily what they see as good and bad. Im not calling herc a bad gamer, but I am saying it sounds like they are a bad match for a set like regen and should stick to WP as for concepts they are basically interchangable if RP is a factor, if not then def WP or any other toggle heavy set.

 

Because the only real change Id love to see to regen, is their mez pro power made into a clicky to better fit with the rest of the set.

[Lost Ninja]

17 hours ago, Replacement said:

I was taking exception to this rolling generalization that a tank means the tanker AT, so "clearly the OP is wrong/stupid/lying," instead of the obvious and reasonable answer that they were dealing with Regen Brutes that were tanking.

 

But I was being pretty weirdly aggro about the whole thing.

 

While I do think Regen needs work, I agree that EM comes first (though it's looking like SS will cut to the front of the line).

The first Hami raid I joined we had a */regen scrapper as the main tank... this was of course prior to all the regen nerfs... 😄 (and before Brutes existed)

[HelenCarnate]

23 minutes ago, Lost Ninja said:

The first Hami raid I joined we had a */regen scrapper as the main tank... this was of course prior to all the regen nerfs... 😄 (and before Brutes existed)

The way Hami does damage makes regen one of the best options.

[ShardWarrior]

16 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

So yes if someone has a regen, but feels they cant handle some AV or solo just about all content with ease I will say they are not good at building/playing regen.

Well no, you're saying (in your narrow opinion) they made the wrong primary selection.  There are a lot more combinations and builds available than DM/Regen or KAT/Regen. 

 

2 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

The first Hami raid I joined we had a */regen scrapper as the main tank... this was of course prior to all the regen nerfs... 😄 (and before Brutes existed)

We had one on Triumph.  I cannot recall the name, but they were a Spines/Regen scrapper who tanked Hami before ED and the great regen nerfs.

[Myrmidon]

18 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

The first Hami raid I joined we had a */regen scrapper as the main tank... this was of course prior to all the regen nerfs... 😄 (and before Brutes existed)

On Champion before ED, it was usually my task to use Group Flight to keep the Regen above Hamidon to make Tanking it easier. A Tanker acting as support for the Regen to Tank was hilarious to me.🤣

[MetaVileTerror]

Well, judging by the rep score, some people are liking the Revive changes I proposed up-page.
Are there any clear and present criticisms that we can lob at it, to put it to the test?  Let's try to tear it apart to see if it stands up.

[Vanden]

1 hour ago, MetaVileTerror said:

Well, judging by the rep score, some people are liking the Revive changes I proposed up-page.
Are there any clear and present criticisms that we can lob at it, to put it to the test?  Let's try to tear it apart to see if it stands up.

I'm actually kind of miffed because it's so similar to what I posted many moons ago but it's getting way more likes.