Is Regen still worth playing?

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Nonononono.

We know SR is vastly superior. We're trying to make regen as good as possible to COMPARE to other sets.

That's why we keep having to NErf Regen.  So that people stop trying.  

 

 

[Haijinx]

13 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Meant to hit on this point earlier as prep for my build.

 

Seems I should lean heavily on winter IOs for -recharge debuff resistance.

Go max recharge for both the ST attack chain AND the click heals.

Ramp up melee defense as much as possible.

 

Is it agreed by all that these are the priorities?

Max Recharge 

S/L resist at 75% 

S/L Defense somewhere near 40 I guess 

Winter IOs are good. 

I assume this is claws since it makes doing the Purple thing easier with its varried attack types (melee, ranged, PBAOE, TAOE)

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by Haijinx

[Haijinx]

53 minutes ago, Snarky said:

you could, ....but its not worth chasing psi resist for the % of the game it is an issue.  carry some purples and oranges and don't be lead tank on those runs.  prob solved

Yeah.  Its so many slots you could use for something useful. 

 

[Snarky]

Okay, trying to think of possible ways to make regen as strong as possible, as it exists now.  I am thinking Brute.  1) I love Brutes,  2) No one will auto assume you are a Tank (like if you rolled a Tank) 3) you get huge health 

 

So, Bute Regen.  Then build for +Health and Rech.  With the build focus on +Health.  Just cram as much on as possible.  

 

Solo, you have the giant helath pool.  on teams, stay tight for buffs and lean into Inspiration Tray.

[Galaxy Brain]

Just for giggles, lets compare to Willpower in the same scenario:

 

Spoiler

23 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

 

This is a great way to put it, and while yes Regen has a niche when it comes to being equally good to "Damage" regardless of how it is applied, the reality is that such encounters are incredibly rare to the point of being almost a gimmick.

 

Lets actually eyeball Brute Regen vs Invuln against what I'd call an "MM" encounter with 3 minions, 2 lt's, and 1 boss.

 

Minions got 2 attacks with a 50% hit chance at base, which eyeballing a few enemy groups we will equate to ~24.38dps. x3 = 73.14dps

LTs got 4 attacks with a 57.5% hit chance at base, which eyeballing a few enemy groups we will equate to ~62.43dps. x2 = 124.89dps

Bosses got 6 attacks with a 65% hit chance at base, which eyeballing a few enemy groups we will equate to ~ 161.28dps

 

This is of course all averaged, assuming we are gonna put both brutes in a gauntlet that just has them fight these guys forever and ever and average the results. Lets see how both would behave over time with basic slotting (max values to HP/Res/Def/Rech) 

 

Regen:

Over time, regen will have:

 

14.86 res vs all (ignoring MoG since it's super hard to calculate with it's extreme stats on uptime/values)

119.38 HPS (all things averaged with 3-slotting stats / uptimes / spamming self heals)

2100 HP (Dull Pain over time, also integrated to the HPS)

 

With no inherent defenses, the Regen character will take the full brunt of the combined 359.28 DPS, reduced to 305.89 after resistances. Subtract the HPS from that, and you're left with 186.51 DPS to the character. 

 

2100 / 186.51 = ~12 seconds in this scenario.

 

 

Invuln:

Over time, invuln will have:

 

53.49% SL Res, 23.77% other res, 0 Psy res

19.02% def to all but Psy (in this 6-enemy example)

22.34 HPS

2100 HP (It has Dull Pain too!)

50% Def debuff res

25% End Res

20% Slow res

 

The inherent defenses will behave a bit differently thanks to the acc modifiers per rank, so lets adjust the incoming DPS per rank real quick:

 

Minions = 30.98% base hit chance = 45.3 dps

LT = 35.63% base hit chance = 77.36 dps

Boss = 40.27% base hit chance = 99.93 dps

 

Total DPS = 222.59

 

Now, with resistances we are either looking at 53.49% if they are SL damage or 23.77% for other damage types. Add in the HPS, and this reduces the final DPS down to either 81.19 SL or 147.34 other. 

 

2100 / 81.19 = ~26 seconds in this scenario. (2.17x regen)

2100 / 147.34 = ~14 seconds in this scenario. (1.17x regen)

2100 / 114.26 (avg) = ~18 seconds in this scenario. (1.5x regen)

 

 

As you add more Res/Def, Invuln gets sturdier even when you compare the meager 22.34 HPS to Regen's 119.38 HPS over infinite time. Of course, this is not "actual" but may as well be given that Instant Healing is on such a low uptime of only about 27%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Willpower:

Over time, WP will have:

 

35.66% SL Res,  32.69% Psy Res, 8.91% other Res

3.92% SL Def,  11.89% Psy Def, 15.45% other Def

-6% ToHit on nearby enemies

63.86 HPS (with these 6 enemies)

1945 HP 

17.3% Def debuff res

25.95% Regen res (lol)

 

Ok, this is gonna be 3 different values for SL / Psy / Other

 

S/L: 

M Dps = 58.62   /    LT Dps = 100.1   /    Boss Dps = 129.29   after Defenses and -ToHit (it matters at even level)

 

Total DPS = 288.01 vs 35.66% res = 185.31 DPS -63.86 HPS = 121.45 DPS / 1945 HP = 16.02s (1.34x regen)

 

 

Psy: 

M Dps = 46.95  /    LT Dps = 80.18   /    Boss Dps = 103.58   after Defenses and -ToHit (it matters at even level)

 

Total DPS = 230.71 vs 32.69% res = 155.29 DPS -63.86 HPS = 91.43 DPS / 1945 HP = 21.27s (1.77x regen)

 

 

Other: 

M Dps = 41.76  /    LT Dps = 71.3   /    Boss Dps = 92.09   after Defenses and -ToHit (it matters at even level)

 

Total DPS = 205.15 vs 8.91% res = 186.87 DPS -63.86 HPS = 123.01 DPS / 1945 HP = 15.81s (1.32x regen)

 

Avg = 17.7s (1.48x regen)

 

 

This is again, a hypothetical score vs infinite DPS every second, but it still shows the relative strength even at 6 enemies...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

6 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Max Recharge 

S/L resist at 75% 

S/L Defense somewhere near 40 I guess 

Winter IOs are good. 

I assume this is claws since it makes doing the Purple thing easier with its varried attack types (melee, ranged, PBAOE, TAOE)

I'd rather go softcapped SLE def but I have major issues doing that with builds for some reason. Softcapped melee seems a lot easier. If I can get SL DR to near capped after that, yes.

Nah, went stone melee for all the KD. I've got enough claws.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Okay, trying to think of possible ways to make regen as strong as possible, as it exists now.  I am thinking Brute.  1) I love Brutes,  2) No one will auto assume you are a Tank (like if you rolled a Tank) 3) you get huge health 

 

So, Bute Regen.  Then build for +Health and Rech.  With the build focus on +Health.  Just cram as much on as possible.  

 

Solo, you have the giant helath pool.  on teams, stay tight for buffs and lean into Inspiration Tray.

Scrapper can rotate Shadow Meld and MOG though. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

Scrapper can rotate Shadow Meld and MOG though. 

Brute can go gloom for more ST damage and darkest night for -tohit AND -damage while having superior HP and thus superior Regen.

 

Also... shadow meld.... 3 sec animation for 12 secs of buff. Meh.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Haijinx]

Just now, Bill Z Bubba said:

Brute can go gloom for more ST damage and darkest night for -tohit AND -damage while having superior HP and thus superior Regen.

I wonder if Regen is the main issue.  

 

But yeah trying to rotate Shadow Meld, MOG and Instant Healing sounds sucky anyway. 

 

I'd just max out my recharge on Revive. 

[Haijinx]

Shadow Meld is kind of hit the animation while running Juuuuuuuuusssst before combat jumping into a spawn.  Since it doesn't root you.

[Rishidian]

I've been reading through this topic (and a bunch of others), and I get ideas for new toons to try, because I'm all for the experience of the play.  It sounds like Regen needs a mass of help just to be playable.  I understand there are a bunch of AT's that appeal to different tastes in play style and concepts.  But this doesn't sound like something I want to invest my limited time in.  I don't farm (If I'm gonna PL by farming, I might as well just start off with a Level 50 whatever on the test server) - all my toons get where they are the hard way (probably harder than most), so I tend to become attached to them.  If I have to work at liking the toon, then we are not destined for a long relationship.  I'm not talking about effort, because I put the effort into all my toons.  Work - as in -They Need To Pay Me to Do This- is what I'm talking about.  

 

For what it's worth, I think I'll pass on this one.

[Snarky]

16 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Brute can go gloom for more ST damage and darkest night for -tohit AND -damage while having superior HP and thus superior Regen.

 

Also... shadow meld.... 3 sec animation for 12 secs of buff. Meh.

i was already wondering about pairing this with Dark Melee.   i love DM, although its a mixed bag definitely.  didnt think the combat heal would help much and the Dark Consumpot is not needed....but the -tohit debuffs.....that could not hurt 

[Werner]

32 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Seems I should lean heavily on winter IOs for -recharge debuff resistance.

Go max recharge for both the ST attack chain AND the click heals.

Ramp up melee defense as much as possible.

 

Is it agreed by all that these are the priorities?

Those would be among my priorities, yes. High HP, and I forget where perma Dull Pain will get me without further help on a Scrapper. I also want to make sure my endurance is more than sustainable to handle drains and debuffs, though Regen is friendly in that regard. And I’m thinking Barrier. Maybe squeeze in Focused Accuracy for to hit debuff resistance, at least with Katana where I have to hit to keep my defense up. Make sure I can always hit everything. Slow resistance so I can get to things to hit them, but that’ll come along with the recharge time resistance.

[SwitchFade]

36 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Nonononono.

We know SR is vastly superior. We're trying to make regen as good as possible to COMPARE to other sets.

Ok so here's what you do.

 

Roll WP, SR or invuln. Color it green on everything. Name it Healy McRegen. Play and say, "I is regen."

 

Then...

 

Nerf Regen.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Werner said:

Maybe squeeze in Focused Accuracy for to hit debuff resistance, at least with Katana where I have to hit to keep my defense up.

Pretty sure CP-SC/PP would be kinda superfluous in this situation. I'll need to find another way to crank up +acc/+tohit. Thankfully, I'm a LotG junkie.

[UberGuy]

35 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Any slows will mess you up hard, the fact that your heals are not instant make it so your key ability to reactively heal is impacted at times, and with the cooldowns on many abilities you have to be able to predict beforehand when to use an ability (mainly for IH) in order to adequately use it, and there many be many times where it is just the wrong call and you "waste" your power. 

It's because of this that any time I join a thread arguing for buffs to Regen (usually anchored on "bring back toggle IH", because, hey), this is one of the core things I argue for - give Regen good base resistance to -recharge. There is some mechanical precedent for it - when Fiery Aura got it's one big rebalance pass pre-sunset, resistance to -recharge was added to Temperature Protection. The motive here seems obvious, meaning I don't think this was added for thematic purposes. FA has one survival-based click, that cliick was re-balanced in ways that made the set more survivable (buffing the scale and reducing the base recharge of Healing Flames), and it seems clear that the resistance to -recharge was to let it get that heal back more often even in the face of -recharge debuffs.

 

People still go on about Regen needing better resistance to -regen, and while I think that would be both thematic and useful, I don't think it's the most useful resistance it needs, by far. I say that honor belongs to recharge, because, as GB mentions, it relies not only on Reconstruction (the ur-version of Healing Flames), but Dull Pain, MoG and IH. Regen needed more -regen resist back when its survival was dominated by toggle IH, but that's no longer the way the set works.

 

I fight things like L54 CoT and Malta all the time, and they can shut down +regen handily. (More on Malta in a sec.) I definitely notice it, but it isn't enough on its own to get me killed unless I'm not paying attention. (Not paying attention is pretty dangerous when playing Regen anyway.) What gets me killed (other than raging DPS I can't possible handle) is having my survival clicks turned into tiny dots by some god-awful quantity of -recharge, like an AV hitting me with Lingering Radiation, or too many KoA landing web grenades on me. (The latter is very rare, but its happened on the oddball case where they stripped my defense and I didn't do something fast enough.) Oh, and high-notoriety Arachnoids are a huge problem for the same reason, except they stack slows on you way easier. The Poison slow the bosses can hit you with is devastating.

 

I compensate for more mundane sources of -recharge with IOs, especially WinterOs. But I think Regen should be much better at resisting -recharge. I say explain this as the character having a raging metabolism. Sure, that only explains toxins or freezing cold, and not things like netting/webbing, but you know, this is a comic-book-based game where we heal people's wounds by spraying them with radiation, and tech SOs boost fear by enhancing your face with scary robotic reconfiguration capability.

 

Malta plasma burns are very harsh, and the way they work reads to me as something from when IH defined Regen. It is one of the few non-mez effects in the game that is resisted on duration, not magnitude. In other words, if you have -regen resistance, you make the -10,000% debuff Malta bots apply last less long. I mean, I guess it's a bit of a blessing that you get to do anything to it, as 90% resistance to this scale of debuff is still -1000%, at even level. At least it's a random chance and doesn't happen every time. IMO, these should work more like Twilight Grasp - a large, but scale resistable debuff. (CoT Death Mages have a -500% regen debuff at even level, but it always applies when the power lands. Given that CoT spawns seem boss heavy - 3-4 per spawn - I'm basically permanently at nill regen when fighting CoT on high notoriety.)

 

The other tweaks I remember wanting for the set were:

• Remove the half unenhanceable limitation on Fast Healing.
• Add an up-front heal, roughly Reconstruction scale, to Instant Healing. This would make it more effective as a reactionary power. Right now if you use it too late, when your HP are already under half or so and still dropping, it probably won't save you. That kind of sucks for a power with such a high recharge.

Something like the scaling resists that SR has would also be a potent buff to the set. This would need some careful testing / tuning, though. Explain it as short-term scar tissue / scabbing.

 

[UberGuy]

26 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Shadow Meld is kind of hit the animation while running Juuuuuuuuusssst before combat jumping into a spawn.  Since it doesn't root you.

Totally what I do. I never activate it in a scrum unless I'm desperate.

[Haijinx]

16 minutes ago, Werner said:

Those would be among my priorities, yes. High HP, and I forget where perma Dull Pain will get me without further help on a Scrapper. I also want to make sure my endurance is more than sustainable to handle drains and debuffs, though Regen is friendly in that regard. And I’m thinking Barrier. Maybe squeeze in Focused Accuracy for to hit debuff resistance, at least with Katana where I have to hit to keep my defense up. Make sure I can always hit everything. Slow resistance so I can get to things to hit them, but that’ll come along with the recharge time resistance.

Everytime someone picks Focused Accuracy for a build, Baby Back Alley Brawler cries. 

 

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Meant to hit on this point earlier as prep for my build.

 

Seems I should lean heavily on winter IOs for -recharge debuff resistance.

Go max recharge for both the ST attack chain AND the click heals.

Ramp up melee defense as much as possible.

 

Is it agreed by all that these are the priorities?

Recharge, recharge, recharge

Think of Regen as an exotic or active Resist set. Things that help resist sets help regen. Defense is helpful (Over 30.. meh. Only really needed occasionally), -tohit is also effective.

 

33 minutes ago, Snarky said:

i was already wondering about pairing this with Dark Melee.   i love DM, although its a mixed bag definitely.  didnt think the combat heal would help much and the Dark Consumpot is not needed....but the -tohit debuffs.....that could not hurt 

Dark Melee and Regen have natural synergies.

 

I know there is likely a formula I could show damage mitigation that relates X amount of Regen = X amount of Resist (why aren't there regen tanks? hmm..)

[Myrmidon]

10 hours ago, Snarky said:

Aragorn: "Give me your sword." Aragorn: "What is your name?" Háleth: "Háleth, son of Háma, my lord." Háleth: "The men are saying that we will not live out the night. They say that it is hopeless." [Aragorn stands up and swings the sword.] Aragorn: "This is a good sword, Háleth, son of Háma." [He lays his hand on the boys shoulder.] Aragorn: "There is always hope."

Regeneration player, “It was here that I learned that there can be no true despair without hope”.

[Coyote]

7 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Having regen resist regen debuffs does seem to be a no-brainer but I've no clue if there's some underlying reason it can't be done.

 

Nah, why would we give Defense-based sets resistance to Defense debuffs?

 

... Oh. Wait.

[Haijinx]

10 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Regeneration player, “It was here that I learned that there can be no true despair without hope”.

gaze upon my wrecked body, ye better sets, and despair

[oldskool]

Dark Regeneration is the best regeneration. 

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Meant to hit on this point earlier as prep for my build.

 

Seems I should lean heavily on winter IOs for -recharge debuff resistance.

Go max recharge for both the ST attack chain AND the click heals.

Ramp up melee defense as much as possible.

 

Is it agreed by all that these are the priorities?

Yeah my strongest regen build was similar to that - I tried the resist route first and almost duplicated the figures I had for my willpower build with resists and regen, but it was horrible - like GB said other debuffs still nuke regen far worse to where its a shrug for willpower under similar circumstances.

 

So I the tried defense - it gives you a head start and fighting chance, but even running against someone with 1 leg - against debuffers - the one legged man will win.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

Everytime someone picks Focused Accuracy for a build, Baby Back Alley Brawler cries. 

 

Most of my melee builds have FA on it, I like it.