Regen vs Willpower?

[Flurry]

Hi Sents! Can anyone share their experiences with how Regen and Willpower compare to each other, specifically with Sentinels? I understand the basics (pure regen/absorb vs layered protection) but from a practical standpoint, which is more survivable? Do the clicks in Regen make it tougher or weaker than WP's multi-layered approach? How good is Regen's absorb anyway? Thanks!

Edited July 23, 2020 by Flurry
Clarifications

[oldskool]

Sentinel Willpower can struggle at times earlier on since there is zero enemy scaling on Up to the Challenge (unlike Rise to the Challenge on melee).  This means if you get swarmed you're not going to heal any faster than if you were at range.  This can hurt earlier on as the defense layering takes some work to really build it up.  That said, Willpower is very hands off and rather easy to build.  With investment down the road it can be "OK".  Quite frankly, Sentinel Invulnerability does much of what Willpower does and does it better.  The only thing Willpower really has going for it is Psi resistance here and that's generally overrated. 

 

Why is Invulnerability so good here?  1) Invulnerability also has an absorb... Sentinel exclusive.  2) The same power that does the absorb also buffs your endurance which buffs your recovery.  That means you can have really good sustain on a set that wasn't really known for its sustain.  Having Dull Pain is just icing on the cake.  

Bio Armor, you didn't bring it up but I will, has some similar early game issues to Willpower.  The clicky powers it has to heal/absorb reduce that frustration a bit, but the asymmetric defense design is very very similar.  Investment into IO sets can help close some holes just like it does on Willpower.  

Regeneration has a slightly smoother ride earlier on while everyone's defenses/resistances are still building up.  Having a regenerating absorb shield helps and then you have Reconstruction to layer that with.  Later on the lack of any baseline defense makes shoring up that weakness a very big challenge.  A challenge that generally isn't worth it and may not even be necessary to fix depending on what you're doing. 

Regen and Willpower both lack defense debuff resistance so anything you do build via IO sets is still vulnerable to cascading failure.  At least Regen has multiple click powers to respond to that where Willpower does not.  This is not assuming the use of certain Incarnate powers to help mitigate either set's weaknesses (i.e., Barrier or the Ageless path with DDR).  

[drbuzzard]

Hmm, interesting question. I'd probably say WP is more durable since it has a stronger base to stack other defenses on top of than regen. You can softcap f,c,ne, e, with some work and get to l/s 75% resistece as well. Regen doesn't have a lot of defenses to build on (a fairly low resistance to all). However the absorb shield in regen is great really. It's good enough to let you ignore a few minions without even thinking about it. Nice thing about regen is it is fairly damage type agnostic, and it has a strong feel like old school regen without being as powerful as old school regen (which we do have to admit was pretty damned broken). 

[Flurry]

Thank you both for your advice. Bio Armor doesn't work for my concept but Invuln is within the realm of possibility so I will have to look into that in more detail.

 

If Regen and WP are similar in survivability, my preference is to try Regen since it's slightly more interesting to play compared to WP's set it and forget it style. I mostly just want to avoid picking a set that lags behind in the protection department.