Regen and an epic'ed out build

[Koopak]

i never cared much about runners personally, i generally have a ranged attack or two, or just accept that they will come back later.

An aside: I've got that comparison calculator roughed out just need to get the formulas sorted, but forgoet today is a production push at work so im working late.

[arcane]

Yeah I guess I already have a few scrappers without taunt auras and they’re more or less fine…

[Troo]

On 6/29/2022 at 7:41 PM, Koopak said:

DDR might not be the right answer, i know its not on brand, as the set has no +defense powers, and i have no problem with any one debuff remaining nightmareish.

+1,000

 

Chasing defense on Regeneration is a trap.
DDR on Regeneration, no thanks. (It would require a trade off we should not be okay with)

 

Meanwhile, adding resistance can have an exponential effect for Regeneration and almost out pace the need to know which targets to attack first.

 

[Troo]

On 6/29/2022 at 9:34 PM, Stormwalker said:

4). The method provided by the devs to this end, MoG, is inadequate to the task as it doesn't have enough uptime to allow you to cull enemies and reduce the incoming spike damage before it runs out.  Thus, another solution is needed in addition to MoG.

MoG, Instant Healing, Dull Pain and Reconstruction are there.. It’s up to the player to allocate them in an appropriate manner.

 

If a player is having issues with alphas the player may be lacking a plan or has a bad plan.

Know your character, what it can do and what it can’t do.

Occasionally there is a surprise, as intended.

Be prepared.

 

A Super Reflexes dodging attacks is not the same as a Regeneration character asking an enemy if it hurts their fists when they hit them with their face.

Stop trying to make them the same.

‘You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run”.

 

Nerf SR

 

 

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Troo

[ScarySai]

Some ideas I had, some are mutually exclusive, others are not.

 

-regen immunity/drain resist/more recharge resist

 

+ 20% recharge on one of the passives.

 

Regen characters get a higher max HP limit than their peers of the same AT.

 

Front-loaded heals casts.

 

Turn revive into unrelenting - I mean unrelenting just fits the idea of regen so well.

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by ScarySai

[Stormwalker]

3 hours ago, Troo said:

 

Nerf SR

 

 

 

SR isn't even the strongest defense set.  /EA and /Shield are both better.  The price you pay for the convenience of /SR (in terms of not having to worry at all about defense debuff because you have 95% resistance) is you give up a bit of the bleeding edge performance of /EA and /Shield.  The more time I spend on my Energy Melee/Energy Aura scrapper, the more appreciation I develop for the performance edge that Energy Aura gets, and also for the effort that goes into getting the most out of that performance.

 

SR is fine.  It has its Kryptonite (autohit powers, massive to-hit buffs, and non-positional attacks like Blind - which is why Carnies are still challenging for /SR +2/x8 and higher).  SR is eaiser to play than Shield Defense and Energy Aura, but the price of that ease is that it's weaker at the top end, and I think that is appropriately balanced.  Though, honestly, Shield Defense isn't much harder to play than SR and thus may need to be nerfed a bit if you are looking for true balance (personally, I think Shield Defense is a little OP, but not so terribly so as to require action).

 

Now, on to the other point:

 

Regen is a different animal, obviously, and it should be.

 

For spike mitigation, Reconstruction is not relevant.  Spike damage kills you so fast that you often don't have time to use Reconstruction.

 

Dull Pain and MoG are relevant.  Dull Pain's heal is not relevant to spike mitigation for the same reason that Reconstruction isn't.  Dull Pain's HP boost IS relevant, but a competent Regen build should have this buff active at all times.  Furthermore, Dull Pain's HP boost alone is not sufficient to mitigate spikes, because with minimal inherent mitigation in the set, spike damage will still overwhelm even the boosted HP.  When I consider the problem of spike mitigation, I am already assuming that DP's +HP buff is always present.

 

Thus, we come back to MoG.  MoG is the tool that Regen gets (within the set) for spike damage mitigation.  The problem with MoG is that it doesn't have enough uptime to do the job by itself.  Damage spikes can last longer than MoG's duration and can occur more often than MoG is available.  This is the reason Regenners turn to Shadow Meld and/or Rune of Protection.  They provide, essentially, a second MoG (not really, but they provide another power that serves the same purpose - providing damage mitigation to allow the Regenner to endure a damage spike).

 

Please note that my suggestion about buffing MoG was not actually my recommended approach to /Regen.  It was merely a statement of what I think would be necessary for Regen to survive in the high-end arena if Bill's suggestion that Shadow Meld and Rune of Protection be nerfed was implemented.  I've already said that my recommendation for addressing Regen is to add -regen debuff resistance (at least 95%), then re-evaluate, and then add additional debuff resistances as needed until the set becomes less prone to debuff-induced collapse.

 

Mitigating spike damage is Regen's inherent challenge.  It's a challenge that is induced by Regen's theme and it's a challenge the set is intended to have.  I think we agree on that (please correct me if I'm wrong about this).  What is open to debate is whether /Regen has sufficient tools to face that challenge (I don't think it does), and whether /Regen should have to reach outside the set for solutions to this problem or if it should have the tools to do it inherently (and, to be honest, I'm of two minds about that one). 

 

• On the one hand, I think if /Regen had all those tools inherently, it would become OP when the outside tools were added to it.  This is to say, as long as Shadow Meld and Rune of Protection exist in their current state, giving Regen any additional spike damage mitigation probably makes Regen overpowered.  As a counterpoint, @Bill Z Bubba is absolutely correct when he says that Shadow Meld and Rune of Protection absolutely do render other Scrapper sets overpowered, so as long as that remains true, they probably should make Regen overpowered also.
• On the other hand, I don't like that Regen funnels you into specific pool choices to address its weakness.  This greatly inhibits Regen's build flexibility, which isn't fun.  Especially for people like me who play concept characters.  My Broadsword/Regen, for example, can't fit either Rune of Protection OR Shadow Meld into her concept, so she's going to be very limited compared to my Katana/Regen and my Dark Melee/Regen at higher level (because the Katana can fit Shadow Meld in her concept, and the Dark Melee is a Magic Origin and can easily justify taking either or even BOTH).

 

So, the question of whether Regen should get additional tools to help mitigate its weakness to spike damage is a question that remains open - there are arguments to be made on both sides.

 

What I don't think is really debatable is that Regen desperately needs debuff resistance (at the minimum, -regen resistance, and a whole lot of it) to make the set a little less fragile (and by fragile, I mean prone to debuff-induced collapse, as I detailed in one of my previous posts).   Right now /Regen is the only set that is severely threatened by all kinds of debuffs; every other set (or at least, all the ones I have played, which doesn't include some of the newer ones like /Rad and /Bio) has at least one or two types of debuff that it really doesn't care about.  Regen shouldn't be the only one that doesn't have this security.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Stormwalker

[Stormwalker]

6 hours ago, ScarySai said:

Some ideas I had, some are mutually exclusive, others are not.

 

-regen immunity/drain resist/more recharge resist

 

+ 20% recharge on one of the passives.

 

Regen characters get a higher max HP limit than their peers of the same AT.

 

Front-loaded heals casts.

 

Turn revive into unrelenting - I mean unrelenting just fits the idea of regen so well.

 

 

One idea I had that I think would be very thematic for Regen, but I'm not sure would actually be practical to implement and I'm not sure would really work well - I haven't done the math, I'm working purely on thematics here is this:

 

Instead of Revive, or possibly attached to Revive (since we now have powers that provide other powers when you select them), an autopower that has the following effect:

 

Once per (some time interval, which would need connsiderable testing to fine tune), If an attack would reduce the Regenner to less than 1 HP (i.e. would kill the regenner), the attack is negated and an absorb effect is applied.  The amount of absorb would be tuned to allow the regenner a few seconds to pop inspirations, regenerate back some health, and otherwise take measures to survive. 

• The 1/(whatever interval) limitation means you still have to actively mitigate spikes, this power just has your back when you fail to adequately mitigate one (for example, when a spike comes in while MoG is down from mitigating a previous spike).
• The idea is that it should serve as an insurance policy for when you get an unexpected spike, or one you don't have a tool available to mitigate, but that once you have used it, it won't be there for a while so you can't just keep bouncing off 1 HP indefinitely.  Missing one spike won't kill you, but missing two in a short span of time definitely will.
• Possibly triggering the absorb effect should also result in an offensive penalty (say, damage output reduced to 10% while the absorb is active, as your body is spending all its strength on not dying) to give you an incentive NOT to let yourself bounce off the absorb wall.  Thus, skilled play is rewarded by not having to endure the offensive penalty.

This is thematic for Regen, because it falls in that "Regenners are really freaking hard to actually kill theme that we have seen so much in comics (primary example: Wolverine) and other sources (D&D, where a Ring of Regeneration makes you actually unkillable by straight damage as long as you're still wearing it).  And it serves as a spike mitigation tool.  It also gives the Regenner an incentive to actually take Revive, when we all know that self-res powers are some of the most often skipped powers.

• For the skilled player, this provides an insurance policy that they probably won't need that often, but which occasionally will bail them out of a really tough situation, making the set a little less frustrating to play.
• For the unskilled player, this makes the set a little less punishing to play because it gives you a bit of forgiveness for mistakes.

As I said, I'm not sure this idea is actually practical, so please don't downvote me to Hell for it.  It's purely a concept suggestion, and a lot of testing would be needed to determine if it would actually be feasible and if it could even be implemented without making Regen comically OP.   But I do think it would be thematic and could potentially address one of Regen's primary challenges.

 

EDIT: I had initially put the interval in as 1/minute, which I selected entirely arbitrarily because I think it would take a lot of testing to properly tune so it doesn't completely make you immortal but still activates often enough to be useful to a less-skilled player, but the first friend of mine I showed this to said, "Yeah, I like the idea but at 1/minute you would never die," and he's probably right, so I revised this to simply reflect that an appropriate time interval would need to be chosen.

 

(It should be noted that this idea was inspirerd by an ability in Phantasy Star Online 2 that the Fighter class has called "Limit Break Insurance".  See, Fighter in PSO2 is driven by an ability called "Limit Break" which dramatically boosts your damage, but reduces you to 50% Max HP, turning you into a glass cannon.  If you get hit in LB you're likely to be one-shotted.  Limit Break Insurance modifies this so that if an attack would kill you, instead of killing you it just ends your Limit Break prematurely, costing you a significant chunk of your offense, but not killing you.  You really don't want to proc LBI, because losing Limit Break time will severely reduce your DPS, but it's better than being dead and doing 0 DPS!)

Edited July 1, 2022 by Stormwalker

[Troo]

44 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

So, the question of whether Regen should get additional tools to help mitigate its weakness to spike damage is a question that remains open - there are arguments to be made on both sides.

the answer is no.

 

baseline is not 4/8.

 

at baseline Regeneration has the tools necessary to play effectively. 

when pushing the envelope there are various ways to take on higher level content. the least optimal method being: run

 

52 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

Dull Pain's heal is not relevant to spike mitigation for the same reason that Reconstruction isn't.  Dull Pain's HP boost IS relevant, but a competent Regen build should have this buff active at all times.

hmm, maybe I am doing it wrong.
maybe the method of taking a bit of damage first and then occasionally using DP as a ~30% heal and also then boosting max hp is too efficient. (some regeners don’t even need to use DP all that often instead saving it and applying it situationally)

 

1 hour ago, Stormwalker said:

On the other hand, I don't like that Regen funnels you into specific pool choices to address its weakness. 

meh, only at the highest levels is anyone ‘funneled’ but the same happens with other sets and ATs with IO selection, power picks and incarnates. I blame fotm builds rather than game choices.

 

I am not saying you are right or wrong these are merely my thoughts on the subject where my opinion diverges.

 

 

[Stormwalker]

20 minutes ago, Troo said:

I am not saying you are right or wrong these are merely my thoughts on the subject where my opinion diverges.

 

 

Entirely fair.  I'm still very much divided over whether the set needs additional spike mitigation (I agree with you about +4/x8 not being baseline, and to an extent agree about not balancing powers around that, but at the same time I'd like Regen to be a bit more competitive at this level without leaning quite so much on specific outside-the-set powers).

 

But I also know that rashly making changes trying to solve that problem could result in making the set hilariously overpowered, and since Regen attracts players who are looking for a challenge because of the way it requires the player to take an active role in their survival, removing that challenge is definitely not the desirable outcome.

 

Specifically regarding Dull Pain, there is some situational variance there depending on what you are fighting and how quickly the damage comes in, but in the worst cases of spike damage (i.e. the cases most relevant to the subject of spike mitigation), you run the risk of getting obliterated by the alpha before you even have the chance to activate it if you don't have it up at the start.  That said, if I am starting the fight with MoG up (which I would normally do if I am expecting that kind of alpha, if MoG is off cooldown), I'll agree that I'm likely to hold off on using DP until I have taken some damage so that I can get some value out of its heal, because I'm unlikely to get crushed by the alpha with MoG up.

 

The other factor is that frequently DP is already active and on cooldown from the previous fight when I start the next one, which precludes using it that way unless I want to sit around and wait for it to recharge (and whether I want to do that depends in part on how much of a threat I think that next spawn presents).

 

Also, sometimes damage spikes come as a surprise (having a patrol come up on you while you are already engaged with an x8 spawn, for example), and this is where the active mitigation tools really come into play because you need your spike mitigation button and you need it right then, and that's where having something like Shadow Meld can save your bacon, because you've probably already used MoG if the original spawn was a significant threat. 

 

EDIT: Of course, on my Katana/Regen, frequently my response to the patrol situation was to toggle Super Speed on and bug out as soon as the combat speed restriction dropped, so that I could reset the encounter on more favorable terms.  I know most Scrappers hate running away, but discretion is still the better part of valor.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Stormwalker

[ScarySai]

I guess it depends on what you would define as 'overpowered' in the current age of the game.  I don't think anything will really touch the old titan/bio pairing. Even fire blasters can't solo itrials, to my knowledge.

 

I'd argue that if any set deserves to be maybe intentionally uptuned a bit, it's regen. It's much more active than it's peers, and requires a bit more attention from it's pilot. I can't think of a set that's had buff requests more than regen.

 

Maybe energy melee? That rework was a banger.

Edited July 1, 2022 by ScarySai

[Stormwalker]

3 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

I guess it depends on what you would define as 'overpowered' in the current age of the game.  I don't think anything will really touch the old titan/bio pairing. Even fire blasters can't solo itrials, to my knowledge.

 

I'd argue that if any set deserves to be maybe intentionally uptuned a bit, it's regen. It's much more active than it's peers, and requires a bit more attention from it's pilot. I can't think of a set that's had buff requests more than regen.

 

Maybe energy melee? That rework was a banger.

 

The Energy Melee changes were really huge.  I... kinda hated playing my old Energy Melee/Inv Brute, but I had to play her because she was my primary roleplaying character (I was on Virtue).  By contrast, my new Energy Melee scrapper has very quickly become a favorite purely for gameplay reasons.

 

And when I say I don't want to make the set hilariously overpowered, I mean I don't want Regen to either 1). trivialize high-end play, or 2). be far and away the best set.  It's fine if it ends up slightly better than the others, since you have to work for that.  But if it's a lot better than the others, well.. by definition that isn't balance.

 

The thing with Regen is, because of the way it works, small changes can have pretty large impacts to its survivability.  So balancing it is tricky.

[Gobbledygook]

This the discussion seems to have veered into one of what changes Regen needs, I gotta say I agree with what @Bopper worked up about a year or so back.

The thread has been closed, as it was a weekly discussion.

 

 

[Brutal Justice]

11 hours ago, Troo said:

Nerf SR

40% defense hard caps for non tanks/brutes!

[ScarySai]

21 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

40% defense hard caps for non tanks/brutes!

 

Keep dreaming, pal.

[Zepp]

1 hour ago, Gobbledygook said:

This the discussion seems to have veered into one of what changes Regen needs, I gotta say I agree with what @Bopper worked up about a year or so back.

The thread has been closed, as it was a weekly discussion.

 

 

Not a fan of working on MoG without addressing the effective uptime. MoG, while one of the best designed T9s in many ways, suffers from the worst uptime (Most are 18% pre-enhancement [180s up 1,000s down] with Bio at 16.67% [45s up 270s down] being slightly worse and Rad at 25% [60s up 480s down] being notable enhanceable exceptions -- Shield at 33.33% [120s up 360s down] and WP at 40% [120s up 300s down] are unenhanceable. Regeneration is notably worse at 6.25% [15s up 240s down], the proposal suggests making it only slightly better at 6.67% [20s up 300s down] which will mean you have it up less often for only a minor buff to uptime.) Shadow Meld has the same uptime as Bio as a tertiary power. Making MoG 15/90 (or better yet 15/60) would be a better tradeoff.

I would also support moving all the T9s to 25% uptime. This would mean that they aren't in the Perma-able range, but that they are more of a consistent tool.

[Troo]

On 6/29/2022 at 10:22 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Maybe if regen didn't suck so bad it had to rely on two broken pool powers to be viable, it wouldn't be an issue. But thanks for bringing that up!

It’s not me saying this but

it appeared that Super Reflexes can be the worst too..

Spoiler

 

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:

• Minions: 1 light Smashing Melee, 1 light lethal Ranged
• LTs: 1 Light and 1 Medium melee (both smashing), 1 Medium Ranged, 1 ranged AoE (both lethal)
• Boss: Light, Med, Heavy, and PBAoE Melee (smashing), 1 Medium Ranged, 1 ranged AoE (both lethal)

I also ran Rad Melee with the only attack used being Irradiated Ground with 2 end SO's and 1 Acc SO just to deal chip damage over time to see if that'd be a factor / help emulate some attacking. The armor sets were also slotted optimally with SO's, with Tier 9's not being included nor Rez powers

 

Results:

 

 

Invulnerability takes the cake as one would expect vs S/L enemies, but surprisingly did not have the best survival time. This is mainly due to luck, as I would always save Dull Pain till I am near half HP lost and pop that for a refresh, which could dramatically extend my life or simply be a short delay. It at least had the best "worst" time.

 

Regeneration with Instant Healing running as I walk into the encounter was the next best, with the next highest average time to death, but generally being right behind Invuln using only Dull Pain while Regen with IH still had to use DP and then Reconstruction the moment I saw a large chunk missing again.

 

Elec Armor and Willpower are neck and neck with one providing more offensive utility with End Drain actually mattering vs the boss and the added damage aura wiping away minions, while WP opted for a more balanced array of defenses. The 10 runs a piece showed that at least at this level /Elec has a scootch more survival thanks to offense.

 

Regen without Instant Healing is next with a 10 second avg gap between it and Willpower. Needing to use Dull Pain and the Reconstruction almost instantly many times lead to poor scores, with an especially bad 5s death on the books. What is good here is that given that Regen has no damage type interactions aside from a bit higher Toxic Res, that in reality with more damage types it likely has much more consistent performance compared to even Invuln.... with IH on at least.

 

Lastly, Super Reflexes even with 30% def to all positions would often just need a few hits to be taken down. Essentially tied with Regen, it loses out on consistency here by a tad (despite both being top consistency performers lol) as well as the actual averages. The scaling resists barely mattered when you only had a handful of hitpoints to defend to be honest, and with 0 sustain ability it was just a matter of time until luck ran out.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by Troo

[Gobbledygook]

Ithink that what this clearly chows, is that IH needs to be made a toggle again.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 hours ago, Troo said:

It’s not me saying this but

it appeared that Super Reflexes can be the worst too..

 

Yup. As stated earlier, SOs only with no pool powers is a good data point.

 

Now they need to run the exact same test with Tough. Then again with Weave. Etc, etc.

[Haijinx]

lulz SR with only SO's 

 

Why would you play that way?

[Bill Z Bubba]

44 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

lulz SR with only SO's 

 

Why would you play that way?

 

Nobody should but it's a data point. My fire/regen brute build is up in the brute forum. Will probably get it done this weekend with PLing but hoping yall can tweak it first.

[Zepp]

Regen was really good before Inherent Fitness...

[Haijinx]

44 minutes ago, Zepp said:

Regen was really good before Inherent Fitness...

 

At least until Willpower made that less of a thing 

 

Still for low levels it was better since you got Fast Recovery at 4 instead of 20. 

[Haijinx]

52 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Nobody should but it's a data point. My fire/regen brute build is up in the brute forum. Will probably get it done this weekend with PLing but hoping yall can tweak it first.

 

Yes I suppose, this is a bit of a Rabbit Hole.  On SO's there is an entirely different pecking order for Secondaries (And Primaries) 

 

A lot of the "Good Sets" like Energy Aura, Invul, SR become kinda Meh on SO's only.   

 

Some sets completely transform with just a handful of IO's though.  SR being a great example.  Regen is the opposite.  It basically stays relatively near SO performance until you get a fairly big chunk of IOs in there.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

Ok, I tried. I can see, based on that fire/regen brute's performance, how on a scrapper, cycling between IH, Rune, MoG, Shadow Meld and Hybrid Melee, you could make a pretty damn tough nut to crack. Or get similar performance from another armor without the need of Rune and Shadow Meld and go with Hybrid Assault for more damage. My overall opinion of regen remains unchanged.

[SomeGuy]