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Is Regen still worth playing?


FullEclipse

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13 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

What inspiration does +regen?

What inspiration does +HP?

 

Those are the benefits Regen brings.

The green ones technically, and other sets give +Hp and +Regen

 

13 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

Incorrect. I can email myself inspirations. I can 100% rely on having whatever insps I want whenever I want them.

Yes, this can be done by anybody but it still requires a lot of prep work and is still a finite resource. If we are going this far though, is that not the same as multiboxing with a personal buffing character? Anybody could do it and it will make your currently played character better. How is this fact specifically a boon for the Regeneration Set when every set can use this tool to patch up any holes or bolster any strengths they already have?

 

It'd be one thing if Regen had a power that say, made X inspirations more likely to drop or Y% buff to using inspirations compared to other sets. But, with that not being specifically the case, I stand by that a global mechanic does not specifically favor one set over another if there is no direct edge associated with it (unless we are comparing strictly "Only Purple Insps" or the like but even then...)

 

 

11 minutes ago, Troo said:

I think 'seems' is the term to key in on.

Folks have shown Regen can do some awesome things.

It is possible your mathematical analysis could be flawed and is failing to capture something. In my opinion that might be 'time'. It is possible there are other factors which are difficult to factor.

 

Yes, they have shown that they as a player can do awesome things, but what I am curious about is how much of that was REGEN specifically? If you have a ton of IO boosts, incarnates, temp powers, epic powers like Shadow Meld, and inspirations, that is a lot of extra layers besides /Regen that come into play. All those things could be used on another set that has a higher "base" level and in theory achieve even better results. 

 

I was able to solo the Night Shift arc on a lvl 20 Empathy/Assault Rifle defender vs EB's that were +2 to me on SO's and minimal slots due to my level. Does this make Empathy and AR an amazing combo for solo play, or does it mean I as a player was able to accomplish that feat? If I redo that arc with a different combo, given that we can use "Galaxy Brain is playing this character" as a control, and I complete it faster / with less defeats / damage taken, what can we conclude from that? If I used the exact same inspirations in the same way each run, the same general tactics, etc.

 

If I do everything exactly the same but with a different power, due to the RNG of accuracy / ai / etc it could still be a wildly different result which is why I try to limit tests to as few, easy to control variables as I can to ensure "ok, we are seeing what impact Regen itself has vs what Willpower itself has vs....".

 

@UberGuy had a good idea with running my missions with a neutral attack set and seeing the success rates / damage taken, but IMO even that has a grain of salt. If set A completes the mission without dying 5 times and takes 100,000 damage, and set B completes it 5 times with no deaths and takes 120,000 damage, set A could be said to be "tougher" but they both were able to win without dying at the end of the day... so at what point does it really matter? Where a lot of us are stuck is that Regen can pass that test just fine up to a point, but then other sets can naturally surpass it, like my test with it vs Willpower showed that in that small sample fight, WP on average performed just about as well as Regen with IH active. IH is not available at all times while WP's mitigation is in the comparison, and in the fight it was not even able to have a fully saturated RttC. To me that takes away from Regen in that it has "burst" tools that are not equitable to the passive abilities other sets can achieve, and throughout a mission it will have to take time away from direct combat to manage resources to just catch up to a set that does not have to worry about that.

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

No one is attempting to give you a reason not to use cheat codes. We're simply explaining to you that there's no difference between a regen spamming insps and any other powerset spamming them so they have no relevance to the discussion at hand. You can continue stating otherwise until you're blue in the face but you'll still be wrong.

We have explained it to you many times. You just refuse to accept the facts.

 

Stock up your email with insps and temps, refill all three amps every 8 hours, keep yourself fully cranked to the walls with base buffs. Knock yourself out. NO ONE CARES. It has NOTHING to do with balancing a melee armor against the other melee armors. I have no doubt that you're going to continue to argue that it does but you'll remain wrong.

 

Yes, yes, we get it. You're so much smarter and better than the rest of us because you can store insps in email.

 

Greens can replace the need for regen and more HP. What insp grants DDR? Oh wait, it doesn't matter because just as greens can replace regen and more HP purples can replace the need for DDR. It's almost like inspirations can be used by every armor just as we've been saying and you continue to ignore.

 

Yes, we know, not utilizing every possible cheat code/P2W/base buff available means we're all old and bad at the game. Why even bother with melee at that point at all? Any blaster playing like you is going to make any regenner you have look like it's attacking people with a feather.

 

Your ability to store insps and lean on amps and base buffs or anything doesn't impress anyone because anyone can do it. No one cares and it has no place in powerset balance discussion.

I was about to write this pretty much word for word as I scrolled through, but yeah I will just tip my hat to you at this point.  

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1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

So, there is a couple things we can do that would preserve the feel of regen while boosting it's effects. 

 

 

Bopper has a post here that goes over a lot of what could be done, but basically what we need here is both mechanics to buy Regen time to act, and to increase the speed of how it acts. There are some highlights:

 

1) Scaling Regeneration gives you more buffer when you actually do get in trouble where your healing factor kicks in harder the less HP you have. Bopper had it slated as a max of +450% bonus regen when at 0% hp, so on top of the ~580% you normally run passively on a regen with basic slotting, you could stack another 400% to get near IH levels without clicking. This buffer allows you to take on a few more seconds of damage, which can make all the difference. On top of this, many powers grant Regen Debuff resistance which helps with keeping your performance consistent. There are also Slow resists which like in Fiery Aura should be in every set that relies on click powers, as well as significant End Drain/-Rec resists with the altered Quick Recovery (Perseverance). That power also now comes with a small passive +HP boost to make up for Dull Pain not being as strong + having a better baseline for all your Regen stats / general toughness. 

 

2) The clicks are both more reliable and offer extra lingering benefits. Reconstruction for one now grants ~9.5% res vs all instead of 15% Toxic res only for it's duration on top of it's normal stats (this is unenhanceable) in order to make it so when you have to pop your heal, you are also made to be that much tougher vs whatever was able to hurt you. Dull Pain was shaved down to offer less effects (less max HP, less up front heal), but had it's recharge significantly reduced from 360s to 240s so that it is not only easier to maintain higher HP but it is up more often as a back-up click heal. Instant healing got a small (comparatively) recharge boost from 650 to 600s, but now also grants a % increase to all healing while active which, like Dull Pain, allows all Regen powers to be even more potent while active. Mog was made to animate much faster + the duration was made from 15s to 20s (with an increased rech of 240 > 300s) so that when you do pop it, you have far more time in your invincible state. On top of that, it swapped places with a revamp to Revive called "Return to Glory" which is literally a SECOND MoG you can use that doubles as a Revive if you die (you pop back up in MoG if used this way), which while on a longer rech by a whole minute, you now get an extra "avoid damage" button built into Regen that you can cycle with the other big clicks.

 

3) Add in a slight buff to integration where it has more unenhanceable regen (it had 50% unenhanceable /100% enhanceable and now it's 100/100), and everything layered together provides Regen with a stronger base outside of when it needs to use clicks, on top of more reliability when clicks are used thanks to better uptimes, better cycling of key abilities with 3 god mode powers, and the debuff resistances to keep it all consistent.

 

Outside of a second MoG, Bopper's changes keep the core playstyle and mechanics intact but just allow it to work better.

 

I myself would love to play that version, though with maybe a tweak to make Reconstruction available more often yet weaker per click, but still it sounds like it'd be just a better version of it's current self while still being uniquely Regeneration compared to the other heal-y sets.

 

Yeah it was scientific how he came to those conclusions also - I was the guinea pig he used.  lol. I died so many times in the infernal mission and ITF just figuring out how the various clicks interacted I had all the debt badges before the night was out back then.

 

Why did I put myself through it? - because on paper and the concept Regen is something I want, but it isnt something I want to change the core play style on - I just want it allowed on the monkeybars also.

 

I really came to appreciate the play style more after that night and actually learned a few tricks to survive better - and could probably make it work pretty easily with creative slotting and pool power choices to 70% of content and random incidents in the game - but rhe fact remains it severely lags behind every other set in terms of baseline survivability.  I love the play style though - it's unique - which is why I wanted the EM Regen Brute in the first place.

 

Whatever numbers Bopper came up with preserved the play style in theory but also would be the base regen number that would allow you to use that metric and build on it to level its capability of surviving those brutal missions like the ITF.  I would play it for sure.

 

Literally nobody is advocating to change how it plays - only make it stronger.

Edited by Infinitum
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Pre-nerf regen wouldn't even be as good as some sets even still, by today's build standards.

 

I don't see a problem with any potential fixes to the set leading to it being slightly overpowered. When a set is this weak for this long, I think it deserves a bit of extra love to make up for it.

 

Energy Aura's a pretty good example. That set used to make regen look good by comparison, same for war mace.

 

Now, strong and pretty isn't a meme anymore, it's actually a horrifyingly strong combo.

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Since I joined the forums in I'm guessing 2006, there are two questions that have come up frequently that I think are closely related:

  1. What should we exclude when evaluating a set's performance?
  2. What should we exclude when bragging about our accomplishments with a build?

I recognize that these are technically not the same question, but I feel like historically they've been answered the same way, and I personally feel more comfortable when they are, so I'll probably confuse them for each other for the rest of this post. But yeah, not the same question. I know.

 

Anyway, by the time I joined the forums, there was already a consensus answer to these questions, and a consensus yardstick for measuring performance - the Rikti War Zone Challenge. Go to the Rikti War Zone and solo a spawn of Rikti 4 levels higher than you that includes 3 bosses. The restrictions were:

  1. No temporary powers
  2. No inspirations
  3. No external buffs
  4. No base empowerment buffs
  5. No splitting up the spawn
  6. No deaths and resurrections

The general philosophy behind the Rikti War Zone Challenge Rules was that what was of most interest was not our performance in how the game was typically played, but rather in a sort of worst case scenario - all our teammates were dead, we'd already burned every inspiration we had, our buffs had worn off, GO. And following that general philosophy, all builds were legal - take any powers you want, slot any enhancements you want. These are actual builds, even if being played with more restrictions than typical play.

 

The possibly-weak relative performance of Regeneration was then, as now, a topic of discussion. Regeneration had not yet beaten this challenge, and many seemed to believe that it wasn't possible. I was intrigued, and with some practice, I was able to beat the challenge with my Katana/Regeneration Scrapper. And that led me to make my first forum post ever, proving the Regeneration naysayers wrong - at least if anyone would believe a first time poster. As I recall though, they did believe me. That was nice.

 

Time passed, and we started calling these the Scrapper Challenge Rules, and we were applying them to other challenges, such as soloing AVs. Yes, you could solo an AV with inspirations, and of course you did technically solo an AV, but we we wouldn't give you much credit for doing so unless you'd followed the Scrapper Challenge Rules. When invention origin enhancements came out, I don't remember it being controversial when we allowed them in such challenges. Including them matched the underlying philosophy - your actual build in a specific worst case scenario.

 

Disallowing inspiration use is arguably particularly silly for longer-duration challenges, where the inspirations are going to fall like rain and the long-duration will make sure that performance averages out, that nobody benefits more than anyone else from some lucky drops. But we stuck with it and kept the same rules for all challenges as I recall.

 

But though history may provide an answer to our questions, it of course doesn't tell us whether or not it is the best answer, only that it was once a historical consensus. And some of us were around back then, and followed that consensus religiously, and have been for 15+ years, making us a bit old and set in our ways, and prone to yelling at the kids to get off our lawn if they propose handling things differently, such as with the PvP anything goes rule. (And I agree that anything goes is absolutely the correct rule for most PvP, and I have total respect for PvPers, even if it isn't for me.)

 

But I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to questions about what should be allowed when evaluating performance or posting about accomplishments in PvE. I view questions like "should we include inspirations?" as being on a sort of slippery slope of what should and shouldn't be included. We've seen other points on that slippery slope in the current discussion, such as "should we include pool powers?" There was a little back and forth on that when comparing Regen to Super Reflexes. I see that point as being very high on the slippery slope. Yes, pool powers are not part of the armor set being discussed, but we all have them in our actual end-game builds. So if we said we couldn't include them in discussions, it would be impossible to discuss our end game builds as examples of what a set could do. So it seems overly restrictive to me, and only makes it more difficult to bring evidence to the table. Similarly, we all slot enhancements in our powers, and typically IOs in the end-game builds that we talk about, that we brag about. Bragging about what one can do with just SOs is certainly more impressive, but also rather atypical. The consensus on incarnate powers is also that they can be included, as again, anyone bragging about what they can do with an end-game build likely has them. Removing them for a challenge is fairly straightforward, but it becomes an extra restriction, something extra to brag about, but not typical.

 

Where I see no consensus yet is the pay to win performance amplifiers, though I feel like more people are against than for their inclusion. They are certainly similar to temporary powers, yet the game doesn't exclude them if you exclude temporary powers. In theory they could run out without you able to refresh them, such as on a task force, but their 8 hour duration makes this exceptionally unlikely in practice. In my Shield Defense/Martial Arts Tanker build, I even built around the use of the Defense Amplifier. The build runs just fine without, but that's what I optimized around, and I always keep it refreshed, so I'm never playing without it. So for me, running a challenge without at least the Defense Amplifier would be an artificial restriction. But the Scrapper Challenge Rules include all sorts of artificial restrictions, so that's hardly an argument. In any case, this seems to be the area of most active discussion about what should and shouldn't be allowed.

 

But discussing whether or not a refreshable buff with an 8 hour duration (performance amplifiers) should be allowed is much higher up that slippery slope than whether or not a refreshable buff with a 1 minute duration should be allowed (inspirations). Again, that's only an appeal to history and consensus, not an appeal to right or wrong, as I don't believe there is a right and wrong. It is valid to discuss relative power levels while leveling on SOs. It is valid to discuss relative power levels with 3 SOs and no pool powers. It is valid to discuss relative power levels on a full team with buffers and a mailbox full of large inspirations. But the historical discussion, at least to the extent that I've seen or been involved in it, has mostly been in the neighborhood of the Scrapper Challenge Rules. That's unlikely to convince someone who thinks we should evaluate sets based on their performance on a full team of buffers and a mailbox full of large inspirations, particularly if that's how they play the game all the time. And I'm absolutely not trying to convince anyone to stop playing the game like that. Of course play the game like that. I don't use inspirations in the end game, but I consider myself a weirdo for restricting myself that way. I just wanted to clarify the historical context of where some of us are coming from, and why we might find ourselves strongly disagreeing.

Edited by Werner
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29 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I wouldn't mind IH being turned back into a toggle as it was originally.

IH needs some love, but I don't think this is actually a very useful change. All it does is make Regen basically unkillable on normal notoriety, lets it still crumple under heavy fire, and be extra preposterous with IOs or/and external buffs.

 

Scaling regen seems unlikely to be that useful to me for the same reasons. Anyone with lots of experience playing Regen is familiar with how popping IH after you're already in trouble isn't likely to save you - it can't get you high again that fast on its own (in fact, you're probably still trending down under heavy fire), and random walks in enemy hits are more likely to kill you when your HP are low relative to the damage attached to incoming attacks. Scaling +regen to high levels when you have low HP will have all these same problems.

 

I'd rather see modest scaling resists (a-la SR but with Toxic resist), high -regen resistance (instead of trying to counter high -regen with more +regen), high -recharge resistance, reduce how much of the +regen the set gets is unenhanceable, and give IH some other bone - better recharge, Recon-level heal up front, or maybe even some (very) light MoG-style treatment where it adds a modest bit of +res or +def. Hell, I hate the idea of +absorb on Regen, but even throwing that on IH (I dunno how you explain that) would improve it.

 

Another in-thread idea was to give Burst of Speed treatment to Recon, but honestly, I'd rather see something similar to that on MoG or click IH. They couldn't possibly be allowed to recharge instantly, but they could have "spurts" of low recharge (say 30s base for MoG) and  then after the third use or whatever MoG would jump up to 240.

 

IH as a click deserves lower recharge, even with some of the suggested improvements, or it deserves to offer a way stronger survival boost at its current recharge. Honestly, as infrequently as we can use it currently, IH is the power in the set that I feel has the lowest cottage rule threshold, though as the set's biggest source of actual +regen, others might hate that idea.

Edited by UberGuy
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7 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Literally nobody is advocating to change how it plays - only make it stronger.

Oh is that so? I disagree.

 

Removing three or four powers, shuffling things around and replacing them with different new powers & functions... those are not small tweaks or adjustments, it is a revamp.

Yeah, it is going to impact how it plays.

 

But, Troo what are you going on about, no one said that here..

 

With some of the folks chiming in.. seems like something is already cooked up and in the works.

 

What exactly is the justification for revamping an existing set?

  • It can't solo a +4/8 ITF?.. oh oops I guess it can.
  • No one plays it.. yes they do.
  • Did those that play it regularly ask for a revamp? No they did not.

 

I've said this before, some of the changes being planned are heavy handed, done in a vacuum and justified in an echo chamber. How hard is it to just spin up a new set vs revamping existing sets?

 

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1 hour ago, Troo said:

Regen, at +4 without level shifts, is not a friend to DPS.

At more reasonable levels it is not as much of an concern due to not needing as many clicks. Even then, there are secondaries that add to DPS and those that don't.

That's just it: at level 20, Regen is very friendly to DPS.  Quick Recovery at level 4 is the most important thing the set has going for it, and what makes it fun to start out with.  The problems kick in at higher levels where there's too much debuff flying around, the set has no defense and eats most of it, and the clicks all prevent you from doing something else. 

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1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

@Troo, if you rename Quick Recovery to "Last Longer" and it still gives the exact same Recovery bonuses, but also +10% Hp, is the power truly replaced?

Is that all you are doing? No.

 

Let's put our cards on the table.

 

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  • Lead Game Master

Hey all. A couple things have become apparent.

1) We need to Nerf Regen. Not really, just had to get that meme out of the way 🙂

2) Everyone is arguing into a brick wall at this point. Base Performance vs "All the trimmings"; anecdotal personal experience vs numbers and data; whether or not Regen can do certain things that are the hallmarks of a top-tier set or player. These are important discussions to have, buuuuut....

3) People have been getting a bit heated in these debates. Things seem to have cooled down a little over the last page or so, but I'm *this* close to closing the topic. Especially since the answer to the question posited by the thread title seems to have been answered: Is Regen Worth playing? The consensus is somewhere between "Yes, but it needs help" to "Not really". What, if anything, to do about that, has already been discussed, as pointed out by the posters who keep linking back to the same threads again and again. At this point, nothing new is being added to the conversation.

I'll keep this thread open for the moment, but consider this a final notice (barring some exceptionally constructive discussion occurring soon).

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2 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

That's just it: at level 20, Regen is very friendly to DPS.  Quick Recovery at level 4 is the most important thing the set has going for it, and what makes it fun to start out with.  The problems kick in at higher levels where there's too much debuff flying around, the set has no defense and eats most of it, and the clicks all prevent you from doing something else. 

I would support a couple minor tweaks and propping up it's current function. That's not what they are doing.

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30 minutes ago, Troo said:

Is that all you are doing? No.

 

Let's put our cards on the table.

So, the change Bopper suggested is not currently anything official but it was decided on by extensive playtesting + edits to a personal version of City of Data for the official look 😛

 

Those particular changes do not replace any powers in the cottage-sense outside possibly Reconstruction losing the ability to slot for resistance (but who did that?). All the powers work basically the same as before power-to-power where they are still a click, still a toggle, still a passive and the main thing they did prior is still in tact. What changed is the addition of new effects or alterations to the timing of the powers / shuffling of values. 

 

Outside of Return to Glory being a super-revive, all the changes presented could be boiled down to "Basically the same power but with added stuff".

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