A radical Regen redesign

[aethereal]

This is an attempt to make Regeneration a mid-to-top-tier armor set, while retaining its identity as click-heavy and not passive.  Willpower is fine as a passive regeneration set.  If you just want your health to climb in the background without you doing anything, choose Willpower.

 

T1:  Reconstruction (Self Heal, Resist Toxic).  Reconstruction is a good solid cornerstone power and honestly everyone (well, Scrappers and Brutes) should just be told up front that they're fuckin' taking it.  No changes necessary.

 

T2:  Revive (Self Rez).  This is a suggestion from the other Regen redesign thread, and I think it's a good one.  Move the revive up to a point where it's potentially more useful, where you can't improve your damage mitigation with IOs and so forth, and then let people respec out of it when they stop needing it.  I'd also cut the cooldown on this dramatically, maybe to two minutes, or even to one.  If you wanna spam Revive, go with god, man -- there are obvious downsides.  I guess that would mean cutting the debt protection down, but does debt have any bite these days anyway?

 

T3:  Quickened Metabolism (Auto:  Self +regen, +recovery, +resist(regen debuff), +resist(slow)).  This is a combination of the old T1 and T3, plus a bit of slow resistance.

 

T4:  Integration (Toggle: Self +Res(Knockback, Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immobilize), +Regen).  This is unchanged, but moved up earlier in the set because frankly it armor sets want their goddamn mez resistance.

 

T5:  Dull Pain (Self Heal, +Max Health).  A great power as-is, but it requires some serious recharge reduction to be good, and so delaying it a bit is not a big deal.  You want good enhancement values and some spare slots before Dull Pain comes into its own.

 

T6:  Burst of Energy (Self: +Damage, +Recovery, +Regen).  So this is a big part of my sense of this being a radical revamp of Regeneration.  Armor sets that give people access to offensive abilities are in high demand, and create an incentive for people to work around some flaws in the pure mitigation aspects of the set.  Rather than trying to make Regeneration be top tier in pure mitigation, give them a reason to come to the set besides theme.  This would be a rapid recharge (maybe 30 seconds base recharge) clicky that gives a short (10 second) bonus to damage that scales to current hitpoints (so it gives more of a bonus the lower your current hitpoints).  It wouldn't stack, just replace.  It would give some +recovery and +regen just to stay in theme, but the draw would be the +damage.

 

T7:  Instant Healing (Self:  Heal).  The other part of why this is a radical redesign, and why everyone will hate this proposal.  My idea is the exact opposite of the "make it a toggle!" calls.  Instant Healing in this mode would be potentially huge amounts of mitigation at the cost of constantly clicking.  It would be lower base heal than Reconstruction, maybe as low as 5%, but spammable.  Maybe literally spammable, like with 0 cooldown, or maybe just a very short cooldown, like 4 seconds.  The idea is that if you want, you can sit there and do nothing but click Instant Healing, and it would be very hard to overcome the mitigation that this provides, but it's at the cost of you, you know, doing things.  This gives you, with Burst of Energy, a playstyle that is hopefully like, "Let my health dip, fire Burst of Energy, try to damage my way out of this, oh shit shit stab instant healing a bunch of times to hopefully get out of trouble!"  A lot of risk/reward management tools, basically.

 

T8:  Resilience (Auto:  Resist (all damage, stun)).  As-is.  Not an exciting power, but this set needs some passive mitigation.

 

T9:  Moment of Glory (Self +DEF(All DMG but Psionics), +Res(All DMG but Psionics, Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immobilize, Knockback, Repel), +Recovery).  No change.

 

So the end result of this set is designed to be one that really embraces low-level play, with Quickened Metabolism giving you very efficient low-end healing and recovery and Revive giving you a kind of dramatic power for low levels, and then as it hits mid-high levels Burst of Energy and Instant Healing giving you a bunch of ability to customize your offense/defense tradeoffs to your style of play and type of enemy.  It cedes passive regeneration as a concept entirely to Willpower and doubles down on active clicking, and tries to present in Instant Healing and Burst of Energy some unique powers that "feel" different from the heals that other sets give.

 

Explain why this is a terrible idea below.

Edited September 23, 2020 by aethereal

[Super Atom]

Working in absorb to function as its mitigation over resistances is probably the better of the two options.

[aethereal]

1 minute ago, Super Atom said:

Working in absorb to function as its mitigation over resistances is probably the better of the two options.

If you want heal + absorb, go Bio.  It's a great set, it covers this schtick well.  I avoided absorb for the same reason that I doubled down on clicky powers instead of passive ones -- give Regen a unique identity.

[Super Atom]

5 minutes ago, aethereal said:

If you want heal + absorb, go Bio.  It's a great set, it covers this schtick well.  I avoided absorb for the same reason that I doubled down on clicky powers instead of passive ones -- give Regen a unique identity.

 

Well, absorb is in high demand because it's not used very much and is pretty much tailor made for regen/heal based sets is all im saying. Otherwise this is pretty much the same as the other Regen threads, It's better than what we have now and I'd love to give it a try as suggested.

[Vanden]

There's two reasons I always advocate for Revive to be the T1. The first is the practical reason, which was covered here; it gives you Revive at the levels you'll probably need it most. Putting it at T2 covers that. But the second is thematic. Think of any fictional character with superhuman regeneration. Wolverine, Deadpool, Vamp from Metal Gear Solid, The Spirit from Frank Miller's 2008 magnum opus of the same name, they all have the ability to come back from wounds that should kill a normal human. That is Revive, not Reconstruction. It's a hugely thematic ability, and every Regen character should be able to do it. Sure, Stalkers and maybe some day Tankers would be able to skip it, but a Revive in every Regen character's toolkit is something that just makes too much sense.

 

I'm also definitely in favor of reducing its recharge.

[Dragon Crush]

15 minutes ago, Vanden said:

There's two reasons I always advocate for Revive to be the T1. The first is the practical reason, which was covered here; it gives you Revive at the levels you'll probably need it most. Putting it at T2 covers that. But the second is thematic. Think of any fictional character with superhuman regeneration. Wolverine, Deadpool, Vamp from Metal Gear Solid, The Spirit from Frank Miller's 2008 magnum opus of the same name, they all have the ability to come back from wounds that should kill a normal human. That is Revive, not Reconstruction. It's a hugely thematic ability, and every Regen character should be able to do it. Sure, Stalkers and maybe some day Tankers would be able to skip it, but a Revive in every Regen character's toolkit is something that just makes too much sense.

 

I'm also definitely in favor of reducing its recharge.

 

Not a huge fan of this set of regen revamp ideas, but if the rez got the same treatment as the sentinel version, where you can click it while alive and it'll heal you based on how low your HP is, I could go for it being t1/2

 

As for the MOAR CLICKS version of regen, maybe another offshoot like willpower got regeneration's regeneration, and your version of IH would need a very fast animation for this idea, and I'd vote for this version of reconstruction having a reduced cooldown , as well as 10 seconds of moderate +regen.

[BrandX]

Don't care for Burst of Energy.  Instant Healing, just seems like a fail.  Sit there and constantly stab it?  Doesn't sound like it would be a meaningful power to use.  And I still believe MoG should give defense to all (psychic and positional) and resist to all (this includes psychic).

[aethereal]

1 minute ago, BrandX said:

Instant Healing, just seems like a fail.  Sit there and constantly stab it?  Doesn't sound like it would be a meaningful power to use.

It's a tradeoff.  If you find yourself using it a lot, it means you're in over your head -- but it gives you a chance to recover from being in over your head.

[archgemini24]

@aethereal, I like the idea of your Instant Healing (near-instant cast, near-instant recharge, potentially super expensive if the base heal was left at something decent), but with your suggested Instant Healing I would switch Reconstruction and Quickened Metabolism around. This way, late-game respecs are not forced to take Reconstruction and its funhouse mirror brother if they want to just go with Instant Healing instead and are comfortable leveraging its costs (or taking the more steady but less costly Reconstruction). Slotted for healing, it could be decent (or even good), but more than two casts without slotting for Endurance Reduction could (should?) cause issues. Would a short-term Recovery debuff be appropriate given the potential exhaustive nature of the power if the heal was left at a decent value?

 

Burst of Energy looks like the offensive version of Moment of Glory except with a much better uptime. I would certainly take it.

 

Sorry, @Vanden, but while I completely understand the thematic appeal, I would advocate against putting the Revive as the T1 even moreso than Reconstruction, especially if left as-is or only given a shorter recharge time. Requiring people die and take on debt (even if the impact of debt is mostly minimized) to make use of a power is not a power I would want to have stuck on me. Not saying not I would not take it for early game (for the reasons mentioned), but without significant improvements to the power (at least matching the Sentinel's Second Wind version, but then it clashes with Dull Pain), it does not appeal in a late-game build. If using Revive cleared that debt I could see it, but then people would be complaining that Regen suffers no penalty from dying (although I would argue being forced that take a power that requires you to die to use it is penalty enough since that's one more power they cannot take later to keep from face-planting in the first place).

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, archgemini24 said:

Requiring people die and take on debt (even if the impact of debt is mostly minimized) to make use of a power is not a power I would want to have stuck on me

Slightly off-topic, but this seems like such a backwards way of looking at self-rez powers to me. They’re not powers that you need to die to use, they’re powers that let you respond when you’re defeated. Defeats are going to happen, they’re an inevitable part of the game. It’s like looking at an attack power and only seeing that you have to encounter enemies to make use of it, or being bothered that you have to take damage for Reconstruction to be of use.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Vanden

[Bill Z Bubba]

50 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Slightly off-topic, but this seems like such a backwards way of looking at self-rez powers to me. They’re not powers that you need to die to use, they’re powers that let you respond when you’re defeated. Defeats are going to happen to happen, they’re an inevitable part of the game. It’s like looking at an attack power and only seeing that you have to encounter enemies to make use of it, or being bothered that you have to take damage for Reconstruction to be of use.

I don't disagree with you at all but still fail to see why a power pick should be wasted on a rez when I try to always build to where faceplanting even at max diff is an extreme rarity or when we can get a rez from the P2W vendor or just eat wakies. Leveling up, maybe, but they're often T9 powers. More useful in the days of no IOs and no incarnate powers? Sure. Nowadays? Not even remotely to me.

[Haijinx]

I'm pretty sure Regen already got a revamp.

 

Its called Willpower.

[Haijinx]

5 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I don't disagree with you at all but still fail to see why a power pick should be wasted on a rez when I try to always build to where faceplanting even at max diff is an extreme rarity or when we can get a rez from the P2W vendor or just eat wakies. Leveling up, maybe, but they're often T9 powers. More useful in the days of no IOs and no incarnate powers? Sure. Nowadays? Not even remotely to me.

Would be awesome if it worked while you were alive though.

 

And be thematic in this case.  

[MTeague]

I like MOST of the ideas here. 

But I cannot support the proposed changes to Instant Healing and feel it's a complete deal-breaker and destruction of the set. 

A third Click Heal, even with short-to-no-cooldown, would be vastly less useful to me than the current sky-high regeneration boost that IH provides.

 

I would leave IH exactly as it currently exists. Mayyyyyyyybe drop the cooldown a touch. Maybe. 

[archgemini24]

16 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Slightly off-topic, but this seems like such a backwards way of looking at self-rez powers to me. They’re not powers that you need to die to use, they’re powers that let you respond when you’re defeated. Defeats are going to happen to happen, they’re an inevitable part of the game. It’s like looking at an attack power and only seeing that you have to encounter enemies to make use of it, or being bothered that you have to take damage for Reconstruction to be of use.

I don't think it's off-topic, at all, given the current discussion of moving a Revive power to a T1.

 

That said, there are challenges in this game (self-imposed or otherwise, such as Flashback TFs) that require no deaths. In those instances, a rez power is a lost pick, especially when a player can use that power for another convenience purpose or for a power that reduces the need for a rez to begin with. Might even be worse if a player exemplars to the point where powers are limited (this is, admittedly, a stretch: a player would have to exemplar down 6 or less to only have their first secondary power available). In situations where revives are allowed, I still would not take Regeneration's Revive as-is because it is fairly weak. Born in Battle or a Rez Pack are better and save me an entire power. If I am dying more often than those are available, I am willing to own that is a "me" problem, but even more of a reason to want to have another power available rather than a rez. On most sets, I even usually take the rez... at 49... except on /Regen, where I usually get some other power better used to buy me a few more seconds for Reconstruction to recharge.

 

Powers that let you respond when you're defeated and powers that require being defeated to use is not a distinctive enough difference to me, especially when there is a penalty for being defeated in and of itself, no matter how small. Like I mentioned, if the Revive were to wipe that debt, I could see forcing it on players. If the Revive was better, I could see it. As-is, I do not see the problem of a rez as the T2. Available really early when it might see most use, available at level 1 if it ever gets to Tankers, but otherwise skippable and allowing players the option to build around not getting defeated in the first place.

 

And after all this typing and thought, @Bill Z Bubba beat me to it.

 

1 minute ago, MTeague said:

I like MOST of the ideas here. 

But I cannot support the proposed changes to Instant Healing and feel it's a complete deal-breaker and destruction of the set. 

A third Click Heal, even with short-to-no-cooldown, would be vastly less useful to me than the current sky-high regeneration boost that IH provides.

 

I would leave IH exactly as it currently exists. Mayyyyyyyybe drop the cooldown a touch. Maybe. 

Fair enough. If implemented this way, I would probably work IH in my builds as a Reconstruction replacement. I personally would rather see IH going back to a toggle at reduced rates or getting better uptime rates like you suggested. In a long-past post I suggested 90/300 and making it the T9 of the set. IMO, this would bring to match some of the better T9s mitigation powers like Light Form and Eclipse and give /Regen another IO path: chase Resistance or Defense to slow down incoming damage or chase Recharge like the Kheldians do.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

So Regen is one of those sets that because of the popular trope of a hero who can heal from even mortal wounds has a certain appeal to a wide variety of mind sets. From those who live in fear of injury and illness, to those who crave eternal youth/life and those who simply wish they could fight forever without weariness or wound halting their eternal war.

 

Many games have tried to create a game play viable approach to this that does not simply render the player into a state of natural god mode. Some of the ideas here, reflect many others and are not at all bad but not how I would approach it if in charge.

 

For starters, I actually do agree that the ability to self rez should be the foundation identity of the set. While a power like Rise of the Phoenix sits well as a master of/one with the flame end tier power, in regen, the ability to simply not stay dead belongs as the base to build up from.

 

So for it to be tier 1 makes sense but also needs a 2ndary aspect that fits with,compliments, and will make having it something every regen needs. How do we do this? Well one of the other common themes in pop fiction for regen characters is that even if in every other way normal human, because of the abuse their body endures, their fight or flight response operates at a much more extreme degree. This is generally the very simple sci fi logic used for why characters like wolverine and deadpool have atypical strength and speed and become lost in more of a haze of pain and reaction as a fight goes on. In the old days blasters had a different kind of defiance, one some blasters really loved especially self rez fire x3 builds, because it truly leveraged a play style that made having a self rez useful.

 

To that end Id suggest that along with self rez being the tier 1, it comes packaged with a variation on that old defiance, in which the character gains dmg.recharge/ and move speed the lower their life is. This way when their click heals are over taxed, and they are suffering the most , their mind and body become one fusion of raw fury lashing out on reflex and rage, until their body heals enough to let them focus again. I might even give it a to hit/def debuff that scales, to let those bonuses get really nice without being just pure buffing.

 

Because I love me Regen but of late it does feel not lacking entirely as also out of order. Rez should also maybe work more like a mog/rez hybrid so when they do get up they get up ready to swing.

[ABlueThingy]

What if you just fused reconstruction and revive?  So if you're alive, it's a basic heal.  But if you're dead, it brings you back.  Also opens up a new slot in the set to put something more interesting

[Lines]

1 minute ago, ABlueThingy said:

What if you just fused reconstruction and revive?  So if you're alive, it's a basic heal.  But if you're dead, it brings you back.  Also opens up a new slot in the set to put something more interesting

Recharge might be an issue. If you use it and then don't survive (which seems like it will be a common scenario), then you'll be down for a while.

 

Unless it has some unique recharge mechanic that instantly recharges it when you die, and recharges it if you use it as a rez.

[ABlueThingy]

1 minute ago, Lines said:

Recharge might be an issue. If you use it and then don't survive (which seems like it will be a common scenario), then you'll be down for a while.

 

Unless it has some unique recharge mechanic that instantly recharges it when you die, and recharges it if you use it as a rez.

That would be neat.  There's already a few powers with unique recharge mechanics like that.  Not specifically that one of course but other weird things.

[ShardWarrior]

On 9/23/2020 at 4:24 PM, Vanden said:

There's two reasons I always advocate for Revive to be the T1. The first is the practical reason, which was covered here; it gives you Revive at the levels you'll probably need it most. Putting it at T2 covers that. But the second is thematic. Think of any fictional character with superhuman regeneration. Wolverine, Deadpool, Vamp from Metal Gear Solid, The Spirit from Frank Miller's 2008 magnum opus of the same name, they all have the ability to come back from wounds that should kill a normal human. That is Revive, not Reconstruction. It's a hugely thematic ability, and every Regen character should be able to do it. Sure, Stalkers and maybe some day Tankers would be able to skip it, but a Revive in every Regen character's toolkit is something that just makes too much sense.

 

I'm also definitely in favor of reducing its recharge.

Personally, I am torn on this one.  I can understand your reasoning here and do not necessarily disagree with you.  However, I agree with @Bill Z Bubba in that I always build to avoid being defeated.  In a way, it feels like "we know this set is really weak and you will die a lot, so here is a free rez" is sort of admitting the set stinks.

[BrandX]

Are you're saying Fire Armor, Dark Armor, and Willpower are weak too?  Aren't at least two of those considered pretty strong?

 

I always felt it was just a matter of theme of the set, and I like the self rez aspect of those themes 🙂

 

Though, I do feel at least the WP and Regen rez don't have enough protection, to rez in the middle of a group of bad guys, which is what I believe they should be able to do, for a power slot.  

[Vanden]

8 minutes ago, BrandX said:

Though, I do feel at least the WP and Regen rez don't have enough protection, to rez in the middle of a group of bad guys, which is what I believe they should be able to do, for a power slot.

They make you untouchable for like 15 seconds, you can’t get better protection than that.

[Obus Form]

@aethereal love the idea and play style!  I have some suggestions/feedback though:

 

If Super Reflexes is the ultimate version of no-resistance defense-based set, I would think Regen would be the ultimate version of a no-defense low-resistance Self Healing, +Regen, and +Max Health based set (no absorb mechanic). 

 

To that end, your version of Instant Healing being, for example, 5% isn't bad because when it's fully slotted it would be 10% heal on a short (5 second?) CD that is reduced to 30% of its original CD (1.5 second?) after slotting.  However, I would say the constant clicking of it is silly since people will want to it on Autocast, which will end up getting macro'd to be a toggle autocast between, for example, turning on a travel power (out of combat) and auto casting Instant Healing (in combat). I think the biggest caveat to enjoyment/hate of using a constant-click heal would be the animation and requirement or lack-there-of of standing still.  E.G. Crab Soldier's Serum heal requires you to stand still, brandish a needle, stab yourself, see the green, "aaahhhh yesss" sound, then continue.  Some heals like /Electric Armour barely interrupt attack animation chains at all.  In keeping with your playstyle of "active healing" instead of /WP passive healing, I think a short animation similar to /Electric Armor heal would fit nicely.

 

Given /Regen's non-existent Defense, and low amount of Resistance, what do you think about having all of /Regen's passive powers all give Max Health such that a Tank/Brute reaches 90% of their maximum achievable +Max Health after slotting?  I haven't done the math.  However, just from poking in Mid's for years, it is my understanding that no brute/tank ever comes close to reaching 100% of their maximum achievable +Max Health.  Therefore, if any /Armor Set would be the one to optimize Max Health, /Regen would fit the theme.

 

Lastly, I think the Resilience would have to give 100% immunity to -regen debuffs since a single tick of -regen would destroy this entire set.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Obus Form

[ABlueThingy]

As a more out there idea, what if all of Regen's clicks were Rez powers while you're down?  They just revive you and trip the power's effect. DP gets you up with 15 seconds of untouchable and bonus max HP.  IH gets you up with 15sec of untouch and a huge regen boost.  Etc

 

You'd have Recon, DP, IH, and MoG. 4 build in revives.  You could toss Revive entirely and replace it with something else. Like something from the OP.

 

I dunno how effective it would sure give Regen a flavor no one could match.  You'd always have SOME kind of revive ready.  I can't see that being too overpowered, like Bill Z and Shard said no one builds for rez. 

 

It would also satisfy the part of me that gets frustrated when I die in a game and wants to stuff another quarter in so I can try that level again without restarting the whole game.  And then run back to the change counter and get more quarters because I just blew 20$ and because I WILL BEAT THIS BOSS.  (this is perhaps not a healthy urge)

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

They make you untouchable for like 15 seconds, you can’t get better protection than that.

 

They say that, but I find myself getting beat down before the 15 seconds.