Weekly Discussion 71: Regeneration

[ZacKing]

IH being a toggle is never what overpowered regen.  stacking DP was what did it. 

[Coyote]

I wonder if it would be a good solution to give Resilience an increase to its Resist value based on current HPs, similar to how Super Reflexes now works. With only one power getting this it wouldn't be as strong as stacking multiple powers on a SR character, but it would increase the amount of damage mitigation available to a Regen character, that scales up with incoming damage.

[Heraclea]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

I think Heraclea could be correct here.

 

Also, for those trying to chase defensive soft caps.. are you sure that's the best way to go?

 

Regen is more akin to resistance. You're gonna get hit, how hard is then the question. Would adding resistance have a bigger benefit?

And the problem with resistance is that in itself it only resists damage.  The chief problem Regen has in this material is that not only does it have very little native damage resistance, but that it also eats all the debuff (-recharge, -heal, -regen, -HP, -recovery and etc.) attached to that attack, without debuff resistance.  And unlike defense, and to some extent resistance, debuff resistance mostly can't be built for with special enhancements or set bonuses.   I took Ageless on the regen scrapper I mentioned (tanking regen brute has Barrier) and it does not cover all the bases.  Ideally Regen should shrug off all these debuffs like Electric armor shrugs off endurance drain.  Again, for an armor set depending on click heals, the availability and usefulness of those click heals should be preserved.  In the current level 50 game it's too often left with nothing. 

[Bopper]

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

I'm liking the idea of 8/9ths @Bopper and 1/9th @Vanden -- get Revive earlier in the set instead of mega Revive at the end.

@Supertanker mentioned basically rolling it into Reconstruction and that's maybe a bit much, but I could see rolling it into Dull Pain

I could get behind that. I think what you're suggesting would be to remove Dull Pain and replace it with Second Wind, which is the Sentinel version of Revive. Second Wind provides a Heal and Max HP buff based on your current HP total (the lower your health, the larger the heal and MaxHP buff you receive). It also allows you to use the power as a self rez, which provides the maximum versions of the Heal and MaxHP as your current HP% is 0. This would free up a new power to go into the build, but not sure what would be appropriate. Do we leave Dull Pain (Sentinels get Dismiss Pain as an auto that provides a MaxHP buff. I probably wouldn't include that in my proposal as I already gave an Auto MaxHP to Perseverance. But in general, it could fit for other proposals. Maybe you could make something like Hybernate, but make it called...I don't know, Cocoon. You create a large Absorb shield to allow you to rest/regenerate. You can only use powers that affect yourself and it lasts for up to 15s or until the Absorb shield is destroyed. Just an idea. A dart throw idea, really. *This by no means represents my support of Absorb being added to the set, but if it would be, it should be something thematic enough*.

[Bill Z Bubba]

14 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Using SO's only, wading into a group of 8 enemies (1 boss, 1 lt, 6 minions) with all S/L attacks without debuffs just to see how the damage soaking abilities of each armor set ranks. Breakdown of the enemies:

Thus backing my complete mockery that this game was ever "balanced around SOs."

[Lockpick]

Regen is to clicky for me and I played way back on Live before the nerf back swung.  My main was a Katana/Regen and he was never the same.  I would push for less clicks like WP.

[drbuzzard]

Did anyone mention 'nerf regen"?

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Thus backing my complete mockery that this game was ever "balanced around SOs."

Due to how SR performed? To be fair, this was a test of just soaking hits for X time and nothing else. The primary adding mitigation or other factors would surely swing results.

[Lost Deep]

17 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

As part of my next round of testing focusing on Armor sets, I decided to pit Regen vs some contemporaries on a Scrapper.

 

Using SO's only, wading into a group of 8 enemies (1 boss, 1 lt, 6 minions) with all S/L attacks without debuffs just to see how the damage soaking abilities of each armor set ranks. Breakdown of the enemies:

(...)

I feel like this needs to be looked at closer and talked about more. Regen without instant healing is so different from regen with it: whether you use instant healing correctly defines whether you're using one of the BEST defense sets in the game or one of the WORST. That's insane! This isn't a T9 Capstone, nor is it an early-game core power: you get it at level 28! The sheer difference here needs to be addressed. If nothing else, anytime instant healing is on cooldown you're running at low power.

 

If instant healing has to take a moderate nerf to move some of that power to other parts of the set, I'd take it. If Instant Healing is this essential to making the set function correctly, then buffing instant healing isn't solving the issue; it's just improving the band-aid.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Lost Deep

[Spaghetti Betty]

(talking specifically about Scrappers)

Am I the only one that feels Regen in its current form, while not perfect, is definitely a fun powerset? I like that your whole gameplan is to mitigate red numbers with green numbers. In a buff heavy game like this, the gameplay stands out. It also has a lot of synergy with primary sets. You could just bring some of the numbers back up, and tweak a few things and it would do fine, especially in a world of set IOs. But If I had to make a couple of radical changes to the set, this is what I would do.

 

Move Revive to level 20. Personally, level 35 feels extremely late to have access to this on a melee armor set with next to no real damage mitigation. I could realistically see it being placed at, I don't know, let's say 20. I feel like putting it there would be fantastic. That would give you a lot of freedom to choose it completely based on your gameplay experience. If you've learned where to place your Reconstruction and your Dull Pain during a fight, you might feel you don't need Revive. You can always take it later when the enemy difficulty ramps up in the 30s. Maybe you haven't quite synergized with the set just yet, and need a Get Out of Jail Free card to help you through to SOs and then IOs when the set really starts to shine. Of course, this means Resilience gets moved to 35, but now we can justifiably buff the move into usefulness since it will come later in the set.

 

Resilience's usefulness to the set is extremely questionable. It can mule a resistance set, right? But it gives so little resistance it's not worth slotting for in the first place. Hey, at least you'll get out of stun faster after using an Awaken. We could take the 'Resilience' title and run with that. Maybe give it an absorb over time? Sure, you could just buff the resistance numbers, but absorb is like a heal on top of your heal. That sounds like regeneration to me, not actually reducing the incoming damage.

 

Other than that I really don't know what else I would do. I like Regen.

 

 

[Lost Deep]

1 hour ago, Leetdeth said:

(talking specifically about Scrappers)

Am I the only one that feels Regen in its current form, while not perfect, is definitely a fun powerset? I like that your whole gameplan is to mitigate red numbers with green numbers. In a buff heavy game like this, the gameplay stands out. It also has a lot of synergy with primary sets. You could just bring some of the numbers back up, and tweak a few things and it would do fine, especially in a world of set IOs. But If I had to make a couple of radical changes to the set, this is what I would do.

 

(...)

Regen is definitely fun. It's wonky, and I like wonky, but I feel like it could still be wonky fun and work a bit better. The thing about IOs is that balancing for IOs is damagingly exclusionary; some people don't do IOs until 50. Some don't do them at all. Some have a single panacea they got as a gift and that's it. Balancing for IOs will more or less mean that the game will be unbalanced for a chunk of the playerbase, and especially with the raw amount of funds it takes to farm up high-end IOs it takes a time investment not everyone wants to put in.

 

Ideally, power sets (also archetypes etc) should be fun at every level of play. This isn't always going to be true, there's late-bloomers and sets that some people like and some hate, but the target for balance should be fun at every level of play. And Regen is, eh, pretty good but could use some improvements. Also, part of the reason to improve regen is to get it solid enough that it could apply to tanks; right now it feels like Regen does not have the consistent staying power needed to take the rigors of being a main tank, and if that can be fixed the power can be proliferated and more characters are possible.

 

The reason for this discussion is to figure out how to get it there while keeping it fun.

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Due to how SR performed? To be fair, this was a test of just soaking hits for X time and nothing else. The primary adding mitigation or other factors would surely swing results.

Just in the general spread of performance.

[ForeverLaxx]

5 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Thus backing my complete mockery that this game was ever "balanced around SOs."

Mock it all you want; that's the metric they were using. It's also worth noting that, for a time, a single boss was supposed to pose as a threat to a solo character. His experiment in just raw survival time without actively defeating the mobs, was comprised of 1 boss, 1 LT, and 6 minions which is well over the line of what players see at the base +0/x1 difficulty the game is built on. That spawn would be considered "group" content.

 

Keep in mind that "balanced for SOs" does not mean "all sets survive equally well under the same conditions". The fact SR and Regen were pretty similar in survival (outside of IH) while both are damage-type agnostic shows the balance might not have been very far off on paper. The others performed better because they had stronger tools to fight that specific type of enemy. If you threw fire damage at the Invuln or Negative damage at the Energy, their survival would likely start to look closer to SR's and Regen's values.

 

Though, to me, that just says both SR and Regen need some kind of upward tuning pass. Ignoring SR Tanks, of course, as they have zero issues due to how defense works and their ease of getting to the softcap on SOs alone. Probably why SR tanks didn't originally exist, honestly.

[Troo]

2 hours ago, Lost Deep said:

This isn't a T9 Capstone, nor is it an early-game core power: you get it at level 28!

There are a number of excellent secondary powers that show up around level 28. (would I be okay with IH showing up earlier, sure! But to swap with which?)

 

Tank Rage is at 28

Irradiated Ground

Far Sight

Lucky to complete Super Reflexes

Arachnos Soldiers get a Self Heal, +MaxHP at 28

Invincibility

Lightning Reflexes

Consume

World of Confusion

Trip Mine

Burn 

[TalonBlue]

I've noticed instances where my Katana/Regeneration Brute has zero regen from enemy debuffs and you also can be very vulnerable to recovery debuffs or endurance drains even with Quick Recovery and Stamina, while running only a few toggles. The thing I personally want to see, is some regen and recovery debuff resistances added somewhere in the kit for Regeneration. I'm ok with the downtime periods between Instant Healing and MoG, but seeing your main defensive statistic drop literally to zero or not having enough endurance to cast Reconstruction feels bad.

 

I personally don't like Revive, I don't have room for it and I don't like powers like this on purely defensive powersets IMO. Thematically it isn't as interesting as Rise of the Phoenix for example. Fiery Aura is a much more offensive, glass cannon playstyle so having a rez that also does damage makes sense. Revive is just a boring power. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

52 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Mock it all you want; that's the metric they were using.

I'm not denying that. Just saying the mark was never hit.

[ForeverLaxx]

7 minutes ago, TalonBlue said:

Revive is just a boring power. 

It is, but it's thematic to the set. Characters with a super healing factor often have their "rise from death" moment and it's pretty iconic to the idea of regeneration as a superpower. The fact it's not the set's T9, like some other armor set's version of the power, makes it even better in that regard. It can stand to be a bit boring when it's not the capstone and fills a power fantasy slot, in my opinion.

 

5 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I'm not denying that. Just saying the mark was never hit.

Numerically, with regards to SOs, I think most of the marks were where they should be. Resistance sets get similar values out the resistance that set most "cares about", with a bit of variance for the off-set stuff and clear holes in defenses that more or less make those sets "equal enough" when facing the right things. SR and Regen are probably just underperforming across the board at an SO level due to their damage-type agnostic behavior. I get that these sets trade a specific strength for being equally effective against any kind of damage, but their level of baseline effectiveness is likely too low for a Jack of all Trades since their highest points are in line with resistance-based set's lower points.

 

Then again, SR can be harder to quantify, especially over only a series of 10 tests, due to the nature of defense and how RNG it can be. Regen is, unfortunately, in the boat of "if it can't kill me in 2 minutes it can't kill me at all" territory. That makes it hard to tune effectively and probably why it's in such a troubled state overall. It's probably underpowered without IH active *on purpose* just to force Regen players to die when other ATs might not in order to make Regen not the default best option for every scenario.

 

If there's a way to fix that, well, that's what this thread is for.

[Zepp]

Hmmm...

Was thinking about the click-conundrum. It makes Regen the most skill-based set, but doesn't reward that skill...

I was, at first, thinking of awarding a small (5% for 5s) damage buff to Reconstruction. Then I though, that would mitigate the clickery DpS drop, but not really be interesting. Then I though, give Resilience a PO meter... you receive a 1% damage boost for every 10% of base health you lose, up to 15%...
In other words, a Scrapper at cap (2,409 HP) would have a 15% boost if they have 308 HP left...

 

Yes, Resilience is already the best passive resist power in the game, and this would make it even better. However, because of the lack of overall resistance in Regen, it is not alluring enough for some players. Adding a damage metric would increase the calculatory skill required (should I try to use my damage boost to finish quickly with 1hp, or should I play it safe and take a damage drop).
--also, adding 5-10% across the board resistance  and broader spectrum status resistances into Integration wouldn't be uncalled for...

 

Most Armor sets this would be a bad idea, but the type of player that enjoys Regen would likely enjoy this mechanic.

[drbuzzard]

1 hour ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Though, to me, that just says both SR and Regen need some kind of upward tuning pass. Ignoring SR Tanks, of course, as they have zero issues due to how defense works and their ease of getting to the softcap on SOs alone. Probably why SR tanks didn't originally exist, honestly.

SR wasn't a tanker primary because there was little crossover of defensive sets between tankers and scrappers initially. The only one was invulnerability, and back at launch invincibility had a bug which double stacked it, unyielding was unyielding stance so you couldn't move, and unstoppable could be perma-ed. Also the resistance cap was 90 for everyone, so scrappers just had to get to 40 or so and they capped out defense and resistance and had to just avoid dying during the unstoppable crashes. Back then when tankers had a damage scalar of .7 (iirc), if you could get an invulnerability scrapper to high enough, you made moot tankers easy enough. 

 

Let's just not worry too much about the notion of balance in the game as initially released (or really at any time, but certainly not when released). 

[summers]

A while ago I made the following suggestion thread that garnered a few likes but not very much commentary. It's about reducing the cast time of regenerations heals as well as generally the activation time for most 'emergency' powers including T9s.

 

 

On top of this I would love to see regeneration get a little love. It's surely one of the most thematic defensive sets (everyone can understand how someone regenerates, but is it immediately clear why having electricity for armour is good?)

 

Something that might feel on theme for regeneration is the Super Reflexes-style boost of having better resistances the lower health you have. This would mean you're still taking the hits, it's just as you get lower and lower you get tougher and tougher - it should feel like you're always getting hurt but are very hard to actually defeat.

[archgemini24]

10 hours ago, Zepp said:

Hmmm...

Was thinking about the click-conundrum. It makes Regen the most skill-based set, but doesn't reward that skill...

This is the problem with Regen for me even though I love the set (I play it with Dark Melee for a top-off heal while fighting and for a little bit of extra defense through to-hit debuffing). If a player has to actively leverage their mitigation (often at the cost of their offense, which leaves them in danger longer), then, if they do it well, their survivability should be in excess of other sets at the same balance point.

 

If other sets get their appropriate debuff resistances in their powers, there is no reason Fast Healing, Quick Recovery (or Perseverance, which looks awesome), and Resilience could not provide debuff resistance to Regeneration, Recovery, and Slow/Recharge.  I would rather see each power only provide one of the resistances at full power (or whatever Integration doesn't provide) so that a player must take all 3. The Slow/Recharge resistance is important, as it provides a way for Regeneration to have some offensive benefit besides some extra endurance.

 

Other note: Moment of Glory deserves to be +Res/+Def to ALL. It looks like one of the perks of the set as a whole is to be damage agnostic, but the 38 power has a hole that comes up most in the endgame? And one of the common secondary effects of Psy is recharge debuff? That's like slapping Regen twice. And, go figure, it's still one of the best t9s because of its complementary nature to the rest of the set, but there is still room for improvement.

 

[Replacement]

19 hours ago, Lockpick said:

Regen is to clicky for me and I played way back on Live before the nerf back swung.  My main was a Katana/Regen and he was never the same.  I would push for less clicks like WP.

I get this but I feel like... Live is dead, and we now have WP.  You don't need Regen to become a passive set.

 

Related: biggest buff to Regen is still moving the Heal effects to the start of the animation.

[Vanden]

14 hours ago, Zepp said:

Yes, Resilience is already the best passive resist power in the game,

Better than Resist Physical Damage, which gives 25% defense debuff resistance, or Grounded, which gives knockback protection, or Bane Spider Armor upgrade, which gives resist to all, +Max HP, and mez protection? I don’t think so.

[Mezmera]

I thought it was understood regen was to always be nerfed.  

 

What happened?!  We start making Energy Melee great again and all of a sudden people are compelled to actually give some thought to regen? 

 

What kind of times are we living in?!  Up is down, dark is light, and we are going to BUFF regen?!?!

[Zepp]

58 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Better than Resist Physical Damage, which gives 25% defense debuff resistance, or Grounded, which gives knockback protection, or Bane Spider Armor upgrade, which gives resist to all, +Max HP, and mez protection? I don’t think so.

•  First, I was stating that it was the best passive resist power, in other words, it offers 75% total resist, which is higher than Bo Ryaku (60%), True Grit (56.25%), or Hardened Carapace (56.25%). As such, it is the best passive resist power.
• Second, it's stun protection is also comparable to the other secondary effects you mentioned for Armor Powerset
• Finally, Bane Spider Armor Upgrade (60% total resist) is the only one of the three you mentioned that has better secondary effects, but it is not in an Armor Powerset.

However, as I clearly stated, those resistances are not as useful as they could be due to a lack of resistance in Regen and in pool powers. In addition, resistance from IOs is much lower than defense from IOs. So that means that Regen can make limited use of this power, even though it provides so much resistance.