Buffing up Regeneration

[Night]

Regeneration has been under-performing for ages to the point that nerfing it is a running gag. It's been long outclassed by other sets and never really brought back in line, even with the Moment of Glory tweak which I think was the last major change they did on live. First off, let's take a look at what Regeneration currently has going for it (values taken from the current Mids build for Scrapper)

 

Fast Healing: 75% Regen, 25.96% Regen Resistance

 

Reconstruction: 24.99% Heal, 15% Toxic Resistance for 60 seconds

 

Quick Recovery: 30% Recovery

 

Dull Pain: 39.99% Heal, 39.99% Max HP for 120 seconds

 

Integration: 50% Regeneration, Mez Resist

 

Resilience: 9.38% Resistance(All), Disorient/Stun Resist

 

Instant Healing: 600% Regeneration for 90 seconds

 

Revive: 74.98% HP Self Rez

 

Moment of Glory: 71.25% Defense(All but Psi), 71.25% Resistance(All but Psi) for 15 seconds

 

A lot of healing, some minor resistance here and there but the set's defenses are mainly packed into Moment of Glory for taking the alpha strikes from groups or an AV. Having almost all it's defense and resistance packed into one power is also what makes the set so difficult (read: expensive) to build into decent defense numbers. With my changes to the set I tried to not so much change how each power works, but more add small bits on top of what they already do while keeping to the theme. Some powers still suffer the simple design from early on in the game's development and could do with updating, including something that helps the set overall.

 

Here's the suggested additions to above powers:

 

 

Fast Healing: +23.50% Recharge Time Resistance

 

Quick Recovery: +23.50% Recharge Time Resistance

 

Reconstruction: +25% one-time enhancable absorb

 

Integration: +23.50% Recharge Time Resistance, 48.19% enhancable, tick-regenerating absorb

 

Resilience: +15% Recharge Time Resistance, +3.75% Defense (All but Psi)

 

Instant Healing: turn into a toggle again

 

Revive: Make it usable when you're not defeated, healing for 74.98% max HP over 30 seconds

 

 

As defense builds usually fall when faced with Defense Debuffs, so does Regeneration when hit by anything that does -recharge, so giving the set an overall almost-capped resistance to Recharge Debuffs seems like a good idea. Taken from looking at Super Reflexes' inbuilt Defense Debuff Resistance sprinkled between all it's autos and toggles which goes above the 95% hardcap when enhanced and totaled. Regeneration only has one active toggle, so distributing the recharge resistance mainly between autos seems the better move here. If it needs a thematic explanation, you could say that your overclocked metabolism makes you nigh-immune to those effects.

 

Next, the addition of absorb into Regeneration was a great idea that works out well for the Sentinel version, so it should work well for the other versions as well. Having a constantly regenerating Absorb bar on Integration should improve raw survivability while not derailing from the concept of self-healing. With both health bars tick-regenerating at their own rates, at least I think that's how persistent-absorb works. Adding a chunk of Absorb on Reconstruction would further improve an already decent power.

 

While conceptually Regeneration doesn't really fit having defense, I'd still want to add a small amount in Resilience and open the power to defense slotting. If that thing can give damage resistance against everything, it may equally explain a tiny amount of defense, equal to Invulnerability's tiny amount in Tough Hide.

 

Finally, while I think the greatest overall buff would be the addition of Recharge Time Resistance throughout the set and integrating the Absorb mechanic, Revive being usable outside of being defeated is the one actual biggest change to how a power works. Just as how it works in the Sentinel's Regeneration version, or the Unrelenting power from the Presence pool, you would be able to use it as a mini panic button that adds on top of all the regeneration as well as using it as a self rez when defeated. It would also become a more valid pick than just a replacement for a wakie.

 

I don't think any set should rely mainly on their tier 9 power for the bulk of its damage or survivability, that's why I tried to add more to the rest of the set so you don't have to feel safe only when MoG is available. Regeneration used to be really, really strong back in the day, too strong, but then it kept being nerfed repeatedly to a point where it can't stand up to some of the newer sets. I remember when Willpower was released, that used to be the new Regeneration with how it also had more going for it than just health regen. Regeneration was once one of my favorite sets and I'd like to be able to use it again without feeling that I could be doing so much better, and at much lower cost to my build, if I simply ran with a secondary with high inbuilt defense or resistance.

 

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Night

[Troo]

Oh dear..

 

I agree some -recharge resistance would be helpful. Maybe some -regen resistance as well. These don't drastically change the set.

 

Rather than going on a rant I'll link to a larger discussion that was just had. I'll be right back with that link.

 

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Troo

[TemporalVileTerror]

Godspeed, @Night.

May your thread be eternally free of pointless memes!

 

As for -Recharge Resistance?  Does that exist as a thing already?  I'm having trouble thinking of an existing Power off the top of my head in-game which does that.

[Troo]

I think Quickness from Super Reflexes does. Looks like 40%.

Also Fallout Shelter from Radiation. Ice has 100% spread over many powers.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Troo

[Alchemystic]

A lot of effort went into this post, which is more than I can say for most threads that discuss rebalancing Regeneration, so kudos.

 

I can already see some welcome improvements; adding absorb for one would be great for this powerset to offset the fact the def/res values are so low without popping your T9. Making Revive a click power that can instantly heal you is curious, since this there's some strong healing potential already, but since it's heal-over-time that may be enough to give it more of a unique purpose.

 

The added recharge resistance is especially good! For a powerset that relies on click powers so heavily, having some in-built resistance to recharge debuffs would really help it from struggling too much. This would also avoid the trap of 'just decrease the recharge times' which would potentially make it perform too well.

 

My only suggestion would be to also give it resistance to healing/regeneration debuffs, and perhaps give one power with the ability to increase healing received much like Nature Affinity or Field Medic does.

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Tyrannical

[TemporalVileTerror]

Ah, yes; there we go.

+40% of it, by the looks of it . . . but it also gives +20% strength to Recharge.

I'm now curious if Resistance to Recharge has any kind of effect on -positive- Recharge Buffs that aren't flagged as Unresistable.  What's the math on that?

 

 . . . 

 

@Bopper?

[Bopper]

1 minute ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

Ah, yes; there we go.

+40% of it, by the looks of it . . . but it also gives +20% strength to Recharge.

I'm now curious if Resistance to Recharge has any kind of effect on -positive- Recharge Buffs that aren't flagged as Unresistable.  What's the math on that?

 

 . . . 

 

@Bopper?

I'm unaware of any recharge buffs that are resistible, but if there are any it would work the same as resisting a recharge debuff. If you were given a 50% recharge buff that was not flagged as ignoreResistance and you had 30% resistance to slows, you would only receive 70% of that 50% buff (35% recharge buff, in the end)

[Outrider_01]

3 hours ago, Night said:

Recharge Time Resistance

I laughed at the thought "WHY IS INSTANT HEALING TAKING SO LONG TO RECHARGE" then someone goes "Its worse.  They buffed it."

[Nayeh]

I would suggest the either of the following:

 

- Add an unenhanceable Resistance to "Debuff Regeneration" somewhere on an active ability that can be stacked if it recharges fast enough (Similar to how Healing Flames can get you more Toxic Resistance if stacked). Perhaps expand and cover more Debuff resistances since, after all, you specialize in quick recovery.

 

- A Healing Bonus passive that increases the amount of Healing you receive from outside resources (other players).

 

- Add a Passive ability, call it something like "Second Chance", where your Health cannot drop beyond 1% HP for the next 3-5-10 seconds or so with a long internal cooldown. The strangest aspect about the Regeneration line is that you have to be proactive in usage and in some unfortunate cases you just instantly drop with no reaction time.

 

- Passive out-of-combat Regeneration is dramatically increased. Allowing for a subtle buff that doesn't change gameplay during fights much.

 

- Change Instant Healing to function like Mitigate Wounds Hercules has on SMITE. When used, this ability provides a small heal/regen, a +Res All type buff, and starts a damage counter for the next 4-5 seconds then returns a percentage of healing based on the damage delivered to you.

This means if we set a value at like 50% returned HP and you lost 80% of your HP within that duration, you will receive back an equivalent of 50% of damage that was dealt within that timeframe. This rewards players that can predict massive damage incoming, they can still possibly die, and it just feels good in both an enemy and player perspective. If an enemy knows you've used this, they could simply choose to wait out the duration to prevent you from receiving a larger heal or make an effort to fight through this ability and kill you before the heal tick.

 

- Revive should be changed to some kind of Dual-function so it can have some use if you aren't dying and make the user feel like they could possibly waste their heal. Sort of how Howling Twilight forces a player to either conserve the ability to resurrect potential deaths or utilize it for crowd control.

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Nayeh

[CaptainLupis]

For me the set shouldn't have defence bolted on, what it should have is ways of dealing with all the debuffs it will get hit with. Resilience should have some regen and recharge debuff resistance. QR end drain res. Integration more regen debuff res and a scaling regen value so it does more at lower health.  Instant healing should fill out the regen resistance, a small passive amount all the time and a larger value when active. Things like that would keep the flavour of the set and make it somewhat more viable.

[Galaxy Brain]

7 hours ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

Godspeed, @Night.

May your thread be eternally free of pointless memes!

 

As for -Recharge Resistance?  Does that exist as a thing already?  I'm having trouble thinking of an existing Power off the top of my head in-game which does that.

Tons of armors have slow/rech resist! Invuln, Energy, Fire, Ice *especially*, and so on.

 

@Bopper has an excellent write up on regen already which can be found in the thread that @Troo linked:

 

 

 

 

One thing we all agree on is that a set based on clicks 100% needs recharge resistance (negative rech res lol). Regen strives of reactive click powers and it needs to be an explicit reward using them than a liability. I feel like a properly played regen should be the toughest set to put down and keep down as opposed to one that goes down all the time, but a large onus is on the player to maintain that.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Galaxy Brain

[kelika2]

I think the major problem is the time it takes for regen ticks to happen, at higher levels a lot can happen in those few seconds.

 

So with the addition of a few things on Homecoming, like Blaster's /Ice Manip's ability to toggle on the numbers on their shield/absorb, and changing lesser used/borderline useless powers I suggest this:

 

Fast Healing is now a toggle, a nature aff/time manip Heal Over Time.  healing and tick times unknown because I dont wanna have to factor in Reconstruction/Dull Pain for balance

Move Fast Healing's -regen resist and +regen into Integration

[SwitchFade]

I'm confused, what day is it? 😁🤯

[Coyote]

3 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

I'm confused, what day is it? 😁🤯

 

I don't know, Nerf Regen Tuesday was earlier in the week... have we added Fix Regen Wednesdays? I think Fix Regen Fridays would sound better 😉

[Alchemystic]

3 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

I don't know, Nerf Regen Tuesday was earlier in the week... have we added Fix Regen Wednesdays? I think Fix Regen Fridays would sound better 😉

 

Wednesday is 'Free Hasten' day so we should probably avoid scheduling conflicts.

 

Does Thursday work? Oh! wait... that's 'Melee/Support AT' day...

 

I guess Friday it is!

[Haijinx]

21 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

I don't know, Nerf Regen Tuesday was earlier in the week... have we added Fix Regen Wednesdays? I think Fix Regen Fridays would sound better 😉

The title of this thread is wrong.

[SwitchFade]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

The title of this thread is wrong.

Well, the title is buffing up regen....

 

Could one "Buff Down" something?

 

If you can be underwhelmed... And you can be overwhelmed...

 

Can you just be... Whelmed?!

[CaptainLupis]

2 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

Why would Regeneration need to be rebalanced/improved?

 

NERF Regen!

Why improve it? To get people's hopes up, so they can crush them with a double nerf in the next pass obviously.

[Haijinx]

40 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Well, the title is buffing up regen....

 

Could one "Buff Down" something?

 

If you can be underwhelmed... And you can be overwhelmed...

 

Can you just be... Whelmed?!

According to Robin in Young Justice, yes.

[GM Kaiju]

Everyone please stay on topic.

[BrandX]

One simple thing, I always thought they should do, is add Psy Resist to Resilience and Moment of Glory, and Defense ALL to MoG.

 

I did like a suggestion mentioned in another thread of adding Debuff Resistance to Regen, and wondered if Defense Debuff Resistance would help Regen.

 

These being two ideas I didn't feel threw Regen over some "OMG TO MUCH" hill.

 

These suggestions look to have a bit of additional survival added in, so I do like that. 🙂  Maining Regen right now, but I don't feel it's as survivable as other secondaries, but I live (then maybe die and Revive :p) with it.

[DreadShinobi]

I like the recharge debuff resistance added to fast healing and quick recovery. It doesnt need to be 100% immunity though. You can get more from IOs if you want that.

 

I'd like to see reconstruction be not so one dimensional. I don't think an absorb shield makes sense in this power but maybe a delayed heal at 50% value that goes off 10 seconds after the initial heal or a heal over time ticker. Maybe reduce the cooldown to 40s akin to healing flames.

 

Would like to see resist-all added to integration equal to resilience. Resilience would be a nice place for an absorb over time akin to blaster sustains.

 

Instant healing shouldnt be a toggle imo, but a cooldown reduction would suffice.

 

Revive would be nice to be usable out of combat.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Hi Night! 👋

 

I like a lot of your proposals. I think pulling from the already existing and generally well-considered Sentinel Regen is a wise choice. Further, I haven't seen much in the way of disagreement in the way of adding recharge resistance to the set. It makes good sense, pumps the set up but doesn't change the way it plays for those who enjoy the reactive playstyle.

 

I think if I had to disagree with your proposal anywhere it'd be here:

On 3/18/2021 at 11:40 AM, Night said:

Reconstruction: +25% one-time enhancable absorb

 

Reconstruction can get down to about a 15 second cooldown. Having an enhanceable 25% absorb on that kind of cooldown seems far too overpowered. I can respect the idea of building in options for the power: proactive versus reactive, while also giving the set something other than MoG to slap down on before diving into a nasty pile, but this seems way too strong. Along with the rolling absorb from Integration the set would essentially lose it's reactivity in play. Wouldn't need to even to take Instant Healing. I'd suggest dropping this off Reconstruction. 

 

Okay I lied, maybe two things I disagree with:

On 3/18/2021 at 11:40 AM, Night said:

Resilience: +15% Recharge Time Resistance, +3.75% Defense (All but Psi)

 

I'm not sure about adding token Defense to the set. This does more than just bump Defense up a bit, it offers more slotting options (specifically for LotG, Kismet, Shield Wall, and Reactive Defenses) that will undoubtedly make the set stronger. I'm assuming this was your intent, though it wasn't stated outright. I haven't seen any of the more experienced Regen hands weigh in on this portion, but I can see my own Regen characters going through full respecs with to this change alone. Personally I'd trade this huge buff for making Instant Healing perma-able with enough recharge.

 

But like I said up front, I think you have a great proposal for improvements, and I know I'd enjoy my current Regeners even more than I already do with these changes to the set.

[CaptainLupis]

2 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Hi Night! 👋

Okay I lied, maybe two things I disagree with:

 

I'm not sure about adding token Defense to the set. This does more than just bump Defense up a bit, it offers more slotting options (specifically for LotG, Kismet, Shield Wall, and Reactive Defenses) that will undoubtedly make the set stronger. I'm assuming this was your intent, though it wasn't stated outright. I haven't seen any of the more experienced Regen hands weigh in on this portion, but I can see my own Regen characters going through full respecs with to this change alone. Personally I'd trade this huge buff for making Instant Healing perma-able with enough recharge.

 

But like I said up front, I think you have a great proposal for improvements, and I know I'd enjoy my current Regeners even more than I already do with these changes to the set.

I don't think it would change much, slotting wise, for me to be honest. I'd still be slotting the 2 res/+def uniques and the unbreakable guard in it. I will usually be taking something with defence, be it combat jumping hover whatever, as standard anyway so I already have places to slot most of those def IOs you mentioned. Yes, it would give an opportunity for 1 extra LotG to slot, but I don't see that as being OP, and if you are slotting the res/+defs, like I do, you still need to buy a slot to get that LotG.

 

As I said earlier in the thread I don't think defence should be bolted on, but if it were, in the power and value @Night proposed, I don't think it would make a big difference to how I would build mine.

[Alchemystic]

From what I understand, the added defense value isn't just to give it a little boost to its protective abilities, but to also make the powerset more competitive when it comes to slotting sets.