Regen 3.0?

[Murcielago]

The two regen posts that have been floating around the forum recently made me think about regen possibly getting a rework by the New Dev Gods. I want to maintain a lot of the playstyle that it currently has and not turn it into a Willpower or Bio Armor clone. Regen lacks debuff resistance against a lot especially against it's primary damage mitigation, regen. -Regen is prevalent towards end game content, everything seems to have it along with increased accuracy. I am proposing the following:

1. Regen resistance to Resilience
2. Recharge resistance to Integration (credit to @JayboH)
3. Instant Healing changes
   1. Reduce Recharge time from 650s to 300s
   2. Remove unenhanceable regeneration to self
   3. Reduce regeneration rate but I'm not sure how to balance this out, I want to increase the utility of the power rather than use it as an O SH*T button in conjunction with MoG without making the set too bonkers.
   4.  Increase the duration from 90s to 120s
   5. Add -slow resistance to this power, I mean if you're healing quickly why should you be able to be slowed down?
4. Moment of Glory Changes
   1. Increase duration from 15s to 22s
      1. This will give the player slightly more time to run away and/or click heal rather than a mad scramble to RUN than it currently provides. 

I haven't really thought of anything else but feel free to poke holes and throw rocks at my ideas or even provide your own! 

[Murcielago]

@BrandX @Werner @JayboH any ideas?

[BrandX]

Have to be honest.  I never used MoG to run off and hide.  I used it like Instant Healing.  "Things are going down hill!  Click it!"

 

I still feel MoG should have Resist/Defense to All and Resilience to have Resist to All, with an increase in Toxic Resist (Regen to me should have high Toxic Resist :p)  Though if Psychic really needs to be a weakness, could add it to MoG but keep it out of Resilience.

 

I don't see why Regen and Recharge Resistance would be to over the top.

 

Not sure about the changes to Instant Healing on times and durations.  Not sure I want reduced regen rate.

[arcane]

Agree with adding all the debuff resistances. Think IH and MoG are fine. The debuff resistances would be welcome, but regen seems pretty good overall. Most of its critics tend to boil down to not liking click power defenses as opposed to real problems the set has even when played well.

 

I could be convinced to wiggle on IH moreso than MoG, which is already one of the best T9’s in the game.

Edited June 18, 2021 by arcane

[Haijinx]

Came for the nerf

[Werner]

I was involved in an earlier Regen thread that eventually got locked after things got heated. I was initially in the camp that Regen was in a pretty sad state compared to other sets in the current game and could use a look. But the thread and people with more recent and more relevant experience convinced me otherwise. I will probably just leave it at that. And if I do end up pulled into another discussion, my only recent experience is casual leveling of my old namesake Katana/Regen Scrapper, I think in his 30s now, so I'm not in a position to intelligently debate the pros and cons of specific suggestions anymore.

[Bill Z Bubba]

I'd honestly be happy if they just ported over Sent Regen. Course, same is true for Sent SR.

 

Also, Werner, that reply sounded awfully calm and rational. You sure you're on the right forums?

[kelika2]

Give Reconstruction a fast ticking/low potency heal over time effect.  regen tick + heal over time tick may actually make the set feel regenny

Dull Pain +10% resist to all or most in addition to current effects, unenhanceable resist

theres enough instant healing perma posts

moment of glory revamped to give a raw heal+regen+heal over time+resist. 30s duration, 5m rech, ignores +rech mods.  Other tier9 abilities enhance or go with the sets themes, regen should get the same

give +recovery to Stalker's Fast Healing for both regen/wp

and something about Revive without grasping at sents

[subbacultchas]

I definitely would like to see it worked on. I used to love it back on live before the massive changes to it, and I'm kind of at the point that I refuse to play it now as it is. Sure, with a lot of IO work you can get it decent, but it feels like adding rocket boosters to a dying horse. It's still dying.

I'm sure others that do play it now have better and more nuanced approaches to it, so apologies if you're a regen stan and I stepped on toes.

[Krazie Ivan]

not that i hold any hope for un-borkage of Regen, but, what if...
-- start with 25% resists to -regen, -rech, slows, etc. (basically all the crap we know torpedos a Regen).
-- +20% when Recon's Tox Res is active.
-- +20% when DP's HP bump is active.
-- +10% when IH is active.
=75% max debuff Res for Scraps. distribute +15% for Brutes over the 4 for 90% max to match AT diversity.

test & adjust from there, (edit: nvm, i'd entirely forgotten there are -regen & -rech debuffs so entirely out-sized. glad i tagged Uber to remind me)... but personally the only other thing i'd really like to see is some meaningful DDR.

(from thousands of Regen hours played, but also might ask @UberGuy for input, as he's got more seat-time in FAR MORE varied content)

Edited June 18, 2021 by Krazie Ivan

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, kelika2 said:

Give Reconstruction a fast ticking/low potency heal over time effect.  regen tick + heal over time tick may actually make the set feel regenny

Dull Pain +10% resist to all or most in addition to current effects, unenhanceable resist

theres enough instant healing perma posts

moment of glory revamped to give a raw heal+regen+heal over time+resist. 30s duration, 5m rech, ignores +rech mods.  Other tier9 abilities enhance or go with the sets themes, regen should get the same

give +recovery to Stalker's Fast Healing for both regen/wp

and something about Revive without grasping at sents

 

Now that could be a good change to the set.  Heal over Time: 11% (went a little under half of what Temporal Mending gives on Defenders) attached to Reconstruction.

 

I wouldn't want to give up the full heal of Reconstruction but adding a small Heal Over Time on to it.  Not sure it would actually help it's survival that much but it seems like it would add to the Regen feeling to it.

[UberGuy]

• Nothing short of immuity to Regen debuff resistance will make a difference, because the -regen debuffs the game tosses around tend to be huge. What needs to happen instead is that the regen debuffs need to be reduced to something like 20% of their current scales - this would make Regen's current resistance levels more useful, though I wouldn't complain if they were raised. Malta Titan plasma blasts need to be reworked completely - they are random so they don't always land, but they cannot be resisted for scale - your resistance only makes them last less long.
• I think resistance to recharge debuffs is far more critical for such a click heavy set, and I see the -recharge resistance given to Fiery Aura in Temperature Protection when FA was buffed by Paragon Studios as precedent.
• IH should do more, and also probably recharge faster. I'd like it to have an up-front heal so it's more useful as a reactive power. If you don't hit it in anticipation of your being in mortal danger, it often cannot save you on its own if you're already near death.
• All self-rez powers should do something useful when used when you're not dead. I despise self rezzes, and consider them a waste of a power pick  when you could carry inspirations and instead take something that either keeps you alive longer, or fight longer, or helps you kill things faster.  If self rezzes all did something truly helpful if used when you're alive, this complaint would be nullified. People have suggested Regen's rez could be another MoG or IH like power. That might be a bit much, but I certainly like the general idea.
• In order to ever compete with sets that have meaningful defense or resistance, Regen either must gain those (and I think Resistance is the only sane one to give it more of), or develop some healing mechanic that acts more like them, healing % damage taken over a past time interval. This is simply due to the math invovled - X points of HP recovered / sec (whether healed or regenerated) counters X incoming DPS. Defense and Resistance counter a percentage of incoming DPS - the more DPS is coming at you, the more DPS you avoid/resist. This means even someone with Scrapper/Stalker can theoretically avoid something like 97.5% of damage coming at them (at resist cap and defense soft cap), which when faced with 1000 DPS would mean taking 25 DPS. You can survive that with Health and a couple of +heal/regen procs. A synthetic  and extreme example, since few builds could cap both defense and resist. But 1000 incoming DPS is not synthetic (foes like Cimerorans can achieve that easily), and Regen simply can't achieve that kind of HP replacement rate with help from Incarnate powers.

 

Because of the last bullet point above, I don't think any sane amount of healing over time or (suggested in other threads) ticking absorb is going to do anything for Regen. Those are just more HP replacement. That's not going to meaningfully change how the set plays under DPS stress unless the HP replacement / padding is huge.

 

An aside, but I ... don't run away when I use MoG. I use it proactively, on entry to a dangerous fight. Regen has to clear out foes because more foes = higher incoming DPS. Pretty much nothing is killing you while MoG is up, so it gives you time to thin the ranks of the enemy so that by the time they start being able to hurt you, fewer of them are there to do so. (If I have Shadow Meld, I use it for this since you can move while activating it, and then use MoG if the fight is still painful. Activating MoG mid stream in combat is not so bad - the animation is long-ish, but not terrible, and if you're in the middle of your foes, the root is not a big deal. Activating Shadow Meld in combat is painful, though, because that animation is brutally long.)

Edited June 18, 2021 by UberGuy

[StrikerFox]

Imo, just making IH a toggle again would be great. The original Regen nerf happened during i5, ED happened in i6. ED would have dropped IH effectiveness a large amount without the initial nerf. It felt like Regen got hit hard two issues in a row. It also bothers me that it's called Regeneration but doesn't seem to be the best at regenerating.

 

[BrandX]

If we want to put something useful on self rez powers, why not give them a small passive ability?

 

Grab Revive and you get +5 Resist All.  Can't be buffed?  Basically the same as the IO.  Or 5% Heal Proc (like Power Transfer's Heal Proc).  May or may not be able to enhance it.

 

Just not +HP.  We get that from Dull Pain, so that just seems terrible.

 

Could be another +Rec boost, seeing as how Revive accepts Heal and EndMod Enhancements.

 

[Murcielago]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I'd honestly be happy if they just ported over Sent Regen.

I've never looked at the Sentinel version but now that I have I'm envious. That secondary looks really nice but that's just based off of looking at Mid's. 

[UberGuy]

1 hour ago, StrikerFox said:

Imo, just making IH a toggle again would be great. The original Regen nerf happened during i5, ED happened in i6. ED would have dropped IH effectiveness a large amount without the initial nerf. It felt like Regen got hit hard two issues in a row. It also bothers me that it's called Regeneration but doesn't seem to be the best at regenerating.

 

 

Seriously, just play Willpower. I don't mean that to be a dismissive response - I'm saying it because Willpower is functionally very similar to Regen with toggle IH. Yes, I know, the fact that it scales with foes means its basically not as strong at +regen on its own, but it's close in a pile of foes (and why aren't we always in a pile of foes?) and it gets +defense and +resist to boot.

 

Willpower is  very nearly the ultimate "toggle up and go" powerset, with a single toggle and just one click you can't even make recharge faster. This was, basically, how old toggle Regen played. It was vogue (and completely practical) to skip Reconstruction, so your only click was Dull Pain (and MoG, which you learned to try not to use.*) You fired up Integration and IH and did your thing.

 

I don't want that playstyle back for Regen. We now have it in WP. I actually enjoy click-happy Regen. I'd like the changes it gets to let it keep that flavor. I really do think it can be more competitive with res/def-based sets without toggle IH. Or at least toggle IH that did what the old one did.

 

* Old MoG was kind of like SR's Elude, but actually made it very likely you were going to die while it was running. You could not heal, you still took auto-hit damage like caltrops, and it did not block Psi damage. Perversely, the low HP but capped resists it gave you meant you were functionally exactly like you were at full health, but unable to heal or regenerate (and stuff that could miss could still hit you), except that Psi damage was unblocked and functionally caused 4x damage. Old MoG had its place, but mostly it wasn't a great idea unless you knew very well what you were up against.

Edited June 18, 2021 by UberGuy

[Daag]

3 hours ago, StrikerFox said:

Imo, just making IH a toggle again would be great. The original Regen nerf happened during i5, ED happened in i6. ED would have dropped IH effectiveness a large amount without the initial nerf. It felt like Regen got hit hard two issues in a row. It also bothers me that it's called Regeneration but doesn't seem to be the best at regenerating.

 

 

This. Regen hasn't felt like Regen since this change. I haven't been able to play a Regen character for very long since this change. (A long time I know.) I don't want to feel like a character who heals, I want to feel like a character who regenerates. I want chunks of my health bar to fill up as I'm fighting. 

 

Regen suffers from being one the original defense sets so has a mix of stuff.  It was one of the best sets originally, hence the nerf. But now it's a little meh. Performs fine, but doesn't really fulfill the flavor of the set the same way SR and Invul do. Moment of Glory still stands out as a weird power in the set, and had to be buffed how many times before people sorta started using it? 

 

A lot of T9s  in the defense sets need work though. They are very boring and/or skippable. So this isn't isolated to Regen.

 

What I want to see is the set having enough regeneration that I can cap it with some work from IO sets and slotting. Then the t9 lets me break the cap so that I'm healing so fast I can take the sustained damage for a bit.

 

Barring that, I would like any changes to Regen to make it feel like I'm regenerating rather than just interrupting my attacks to heal a bit.

[Glacier Peak]

If the changes to Moment of Glory were implemented as you suggest, the power would need to be renamed to "More than a Moment of Glory."

 

Seriously though, 15 seconds is plenty of time.

[StrikerFox]

3 hours ago, UberGuy said:

Seriously, just play Willpower. I don't mean that to be a dismissive response - I'm saying it because Willpower is functionally very similar to Regen with toggle IH. Yes, I know, the fact that it scales with foes means its basically not as strong at +regen on its own, but it's close in a pile of foes (and why aren't we always in a pile of foes?) and it gets +defense and +resist to boot.

 

I was commenting more from the Stalker's point of view. Willpower on Stalkers is lacking since it does not have RttC. Bio seems like the regen king.

[BrandX]

57 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

If the changes to Moment of Glory were implemented as you suggest, the power would need to be renamed to "More than a Moment of Glory."

 

Seriously though, 15 seconds is plenty of time.

 

The original MoG lasted more than 15 seconds and was called Moment of Glory 😛

[Sir Myshkin]

Thinking outside the box, especially with sets like Willpower and Bio Armor present, I'd really like to just flat out go a new direction and leave our current Regen as a historical record for players to play and use, and build a ground-up alternative that doesn't rely on the same bones and has some more dynamic options to change how it plays for the individual player.

 

I'm picturing more the variance of different concepts in the realm of what it means to be a "Regen" concept. Most instantly travel to Wolverine in their thoughts, but this isn't the only core concept which applies, we have slower healing, more resistance based concepts out there too that span a wider range of books/authors beyond just comics. I'd really like to see us be able to choose whether we build a Resistive Healer, or a Speed Regen, or possibly have some kind of blending options.

 

Take as an example if I start off with a character out of the box who has a duality level one power you have to choose which form gets toggled on, either enhanced healing, or enhanced regen. If I choose enhanced regen, powers I take going forward will have stacking Regen bonuses, my heals won't be heals, but absorbs, and the set will aggressively ramp up its Regen to be a constant Instant Healing level percentage.

 

The alternative path would be enhanced healing effects with mild regen (albeit considerably better than any normal character), and resistance based, but selective. The player will have to choose their weakness. S/L, F/C, E/N, T/Psi, but for each taken it extends the recharge of their T9 which would be a "Moment of Glory" but longer duration, lower values, but higher potential uptime depending on the choices the player makes. Of course... a bit hypothetical to the options in coding such a configuration, and purely a whiteboard/napkin brainstorm moment, but it's the other side of the coin everyone always talks about.

[BrandX]

2 hours ago, Sir Myshkin said:

Thinking outside the box, especially with sets like Willpower and Bio Armor present, I'd really like to just flat out go a new direction and leave our current Regen as a historical record for players to play and use, and build a ground-up alternative that doesn't rely on the same bones and has some more dynamic options to change how it plays for the individual player.

 

I'm picturing more the variance of different concepts in the realm of what it means to be a "Regen" concept. Most instantly travel to Wolverine in their thoughts, but this isn't the only core concept which applies, we have slower healing, more resistance based concepts out there too that span a wider range of books/authors beyond just comics. I'd really like to see us be able to choose whether we build a Resistive Healer, or a Speed Regen, or possibly have some kind of blending options.

 

Take as an example if I start off with a character out of the box who has a duality level one power you have to choose which form gets toggled on, either enhanced healing, or enhanced regen. If I choose enhanced regen, powers I take going forward will have stacking Regen bonuses, my heals won't be heals, but absorbs, and the set will aggressively ramp up its Regen to be a constant Instant Healing level percentage.

 

The alternative path would be enhanced healing effects with mild regen (albeit considerably better than any normal character), and resistance based, but selective. The player will have to choose their weakness. S/L, F/C, E/N, T/Psi, but for each taken it extends the recharge of their T9 which would be a "Moment of Glory" but longer duration, lower values, but higher potential uptime depending on the choices the player makes. Of course... a bit hypothetical to the options in coding such a configuration, and purely a whiteboard/napkin brainstorm moment, but it's the other side of the coin everyone always talks about.

 

Well, I could do that with almost any set with a heal.

 

Ninjitsu has a self heal.  I can say that's regen for the concept.

 

WP of course is used for Regen concepts.

 

Fire Armor...regen with fire powers due to healing flames, and look, comes with a self rez.

 

All it really takes for a regen concept is a self heal really.

 

So, I'd still like to improve on Regeneration it self.  

[Koopak]

I'm slowly working on an attempt to provide a full look into Regen and other power sets that factors in as many elements as possible because of how much more complex Regen is since it shifts states to much over the course of a fight. Honestly at this point it may be easier to make contributions to Mids or something lol.

Anyways I'll just repeat my usual. I FEEL that Regen is fine, provided the player puts in the effort to play it well, save for two main things.

1. Nearly every debuff type crushes it. Most defense sets simply don't care much about one or two of them. For instance Willpower basically doesn't give a shit if its hit with -1000% recharge. Radiation or other resist sets, don't care as much about -defense, and SR and other defense set have -def resist. Regen however crumbles under -regen, -defense, -recharge, and even -endurance

2. Regen has no built in compensation for the DPS loss of using so many active defenses. Toggle sets like Willpower don't lose any dps, because they don't have to do anything other than attack. Energy Aura, or Super Reflexes both have +Global Recharge to compensate for the cost of spending time on their active powers. Bio Armor doesn't have recharge, but it does have a damage aura and a damage proc via Offensive Adaptation. Regen has none of these while arguably depending on its active powers significantly more often.

These two facts, regardless of where Regen stands in raw durability, are objectively true. These two issues are the first place any changes to the set should focus.

[Sir Myshkin]

On 6/19/2021 at 12:06 AM, BrandX said:

 

All it really takes for a regen concept is a self heal really.

But you’re just talking about concept, and not the reality of what a regenerative character is. I’m not talking about slapping 50-60% Resistances together and Reconstruction, I’m talking about expanding Resilience, expanding the baseline coverage of the character beyond just S/L so they have a better footing. 
 

Then in a Resistance path still having enhanced baseline Regen in the 400-600% range, but also grant enhanced healing effects (not just from their own powers, but support they receive from teammates too). With a more sophisticated T9, looking at a build that can feel more like a stable 60-75% Res character a portion of the time, and use their boosted healing to compensate the other half. A more “I heal faster, but I’m not insane” kind of Regen. Something that doesn’t need Tough, Weave, Maneuvers, a bucket of IOs, Shadow Meld, and a Happy Meal to walk outdoors.

 

The opposing path to that would be the truly more traditional Regen with a handful of heals/absorbs, a minimum baseline of Resistance with no additional add on (in set), and powers that stack more Regen and Absorb effects when used. Get a character down a path to where they can walk around burning 200 HP/s. That’s the truly insane type of Regen. One that doesn’t wait for a Res or Def check but takes the hit and shrugs it off instantly. It’s possible to get a Scrapper up to this currently, but it’s taxing to keep them there, and they have gaps that are irritating, and the set lacks Regen Debuff Resistance which is just ??? Crazy to me.

 

Hopefully that elaborates my rambling a bit better.

[BrandX]

7 hours ago, Sir Myshkin said:

But you’re just talking about concept, and not the reality of what a regenerative character is. I’m not talking about slapping 50-60% Resistances together and Reconstruction, I’m talking about expanding Resilience, expanding the baseline coverage of the character beyond just S/L so they have a better footing. 
 

Then in a Resistance path still having enhanced baseline Regen in the 400-600% range, but also grant enhanced healing effects (not just from their own powers, but support they receive from teammates too). With a more sophisticated T9, looking at a build that can feel more like a stable 60-75% Res character a portion of the time, and use their boosted healing to compensate the other half. A more “I heal faster, but I’m not insane” kind of Regen. Something that doesn’t need Tough, Weave, Maneuvers, a bucket of IOs, Shadow Meld, and a Happy Meal to walk outdoors.

 

The opposing path to that would be the truly more traditional Regen with a handful of heals/absorbs, a minimum baseline of Resistance with no additional add on (in set), and powers that stack more Regen and Absorb effects when used. Get a character down a path to where they can walk around burning 200 HP/s. That’s the truly insane type of Regen. One that doesn’t wait for a Res or Def check but takes the hit and shrugs it off instantly. It’s possible to get a Scrapper up to this currently, but it’s taxing to keep them there, and they have gaps that are irritating, and the set lacks Regen Debuff Resistance which is just ??? Crazy to me.

 

Hopefully that elaborates my rambling a bit better.

 

I made a thread about trying to make a Regen without Tough/Weave, but even then, most other sets use Tough/Weave to get that extra Resist/Defense.

 

Maneuvers may or may not be the exception.

 

At just SO range, I'm not sure I would see Regen much differently than the other sets on just SOs, but it's been so long since I ran a SO build at level 50 😛