Devs, Super Reflexes in need of an update....

[Doomguide2005]

12 hours ago, aethereal said:

It's ideal to not use it purely reactively, because then you do spend some time mezzed and thus more vulnerable to damage, etc.

 

If you're using anything like a normal build, you'll have practiced brawler way more than perma just though your global recharge, and you can easily reapply it between fights such that it's very unlikely that you'll ever have a gap in your protection.  If you do end up with a small gap, it's not the end of the world, though.

 

People get freaked out that it's not a toggle and put it on auto, but that ends up applying it way too often for most play -- then they get irritated that it's messing up their dps.

This^

Though I'll add it's also the knock protection and resistance so if you're set on not using IOs or pools like the OP appears to be prepare to get bounced around ... and that'll happen more than getting mezzed.

And as part of my own quirkiness I ran a /SR scrapper in Praetoria to level 20 without PB (on Live prior to being able to click when mezzed) just to see.  Yay Ghouls are fun!  And so was the market (as in what IOs).

[Aracknight]

3 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

And as part of my own quirkiness I ran a /SR scrapper in Praetoria to level 20 without PB (on Live prior to being able to click when mezzed) just to see.  Yay Ghouls are fun!  And so was the market (as in what IOs).

When I first came to Paragon, I primarily soloed because I was on dial-up internet, so my slow zone loading screen was a hindrance to people who tried to team with me.  I wasn't aware of builders, and IOs hadn't dropped yet.  

I got into the 40s before I got high speed internet, and joined a team in PI who were absolutely flabbergasted how I had survived without mez/kb protection.

It's funny how not knowing how bad a thing might be makes it pretty goddamn fun.  I learned how to use my MA stuns and knockbacks to protect myself from being attacked/mezzed/knocked back MORE than relying on my secondary skills.  Back then Stamina wasn't free, so I made the active decision to not even run (or take!) my toggles because they were making it so I couldn't kick trolls.  Cobra strike didn't even do damage back then either, and it was my number one defensive power because of the stun.   Even today I rock Diamagnetic interface because of it's -ToHit functionality, which works great coupled with my defense.  

 

And maybe that's the real lesson.  You get two powersets.  Both matter, as does how you use them.  And your choices, whether in a pre- or post- IO world should synergize to make the whole better.  I understood why Health and Stamina were "mandatory."  I guess the devs did too because they made a change to give them out for free.  But to me other things, like Hasten, aren't, unless you're chasing bleeding edge attack chains.

 

And while I hate to fall back on it..."Git gud"  is a valid critique of almost anything suggested to need a "fix."  I think the reason I'm good at SR is because of my journey how I played through it and adapted to it.  I thought "Crap, I'm getting hit.  Quick, stun that fool!"   instead of "Bleh, SR sucks."  IOs just made the game Easy Mode for me.  Most of the people here saying SR doesn't need much more than a tweak here and there, instead of an overhaul, know with great experience how it works. They know it isn't the one trick pony people less informed or expierenced think it is.  Would all of this work as well on say, Regen?  Maybe.  Maybe Regen got nerfed, not because it was overpowered, but because adaptive players figured out how to make it overpowered with their playstyle.   

 

Chickens and eggs, and all that.

 

It's easy to look at a spreadsheet and say it sucks.  Sports teams do it all the time when considering their recruits.  But tape don't lie.  Your spreadsheet can say whatever it wants to about my ability to survive and take down a Rikti Pylon, AV, or Giant Monster solo both as an SR secondary and an MA primary on my Scrapper.   But I can do that shit.  I can't do it on my Tanker version though.

 

Not yet, anyway.

 

 

But either way, as a much wiser person pointed out earlier, no powerset exists in a vacuum.  

Edited June 1, 2022 by Aracknight

[Blackjoy]

On 5/28/2022 at 6:38 PM, Stormwalker said:

If we're going to be talking about buffing an armor set, we should be looking at Regeneration (which is absolutely pathetic, and can't reach the survivability of other sets even WITH pool powers and heavy IO slotting) as opposed to SR (which is one of the best).

Yeah.....so I after this comment I rolled up a Savage Melee / Regen and am now playing it at lvl 33.   Dull Pain + Instant Healing is effing God Mode at these levels.   The only pool power I use is Hasten and that's usually after the fight.   I was teaming with a Stone Stone in the 20's and had to give him all my blues.  And Savage Melee is a set that stops endo recovery as a side effect. 

 

I hadn't run Regen since Live, so I was highly suspicious of this allegation and I was right.   Regen is the ever-loving energizer bunny of secondaries.  It has more uptime than my Staff/WP on which I had to slot Stamina and use endo procs.   With essentially minimal slotting, Regen is far past SR in these levels, it's not even debatable. 

 

In other news, I did that same IDF 4x8 challenge with  SM/Radiation Armor scrapper....wow.   The guy blasted through them with no Insp and no click/toggle incarnates.  Then I had him take off all his pool powers except Tough and he still prevailed.  He did get red, but RA's performance was so far past any SR I've seen run those mobs, it's a joke.   He's getting +700 hitpoints from a cyclical absorb power.  He's got a heal.  And he's cycling Melt Armor every 30-40 seconds.  He's also got a +Recharge/enemy power that totally feeds his clickies....and that was my eureka moment. 

 

@Developers -  One major problem with SR is that it's not even self-complimentary in the way some of these other sets are.  There are no powers that form synergies with other powers, outside of DDR.   Even an ancient set like Regen benefits from the interaction between Dull Pain and Instant Healing, making both of those better combined.   Regen's Mez protection also provides extra Regen.   SR has none of that outside of DDR.   Even Quickness is problematic in that it merely makes Practiced Brawler cycle more frequently on auto, which is not exactly helping.    Look at all the various mechanics a set like RA employs: +RES, +Heal, +Absorb, +DMG, +Recovery, +Recharge, Foe (-regen, -DEF, -to hit).  And I'm not even including the abilities that help allies out.   Shield is so well built, it can devote an entire power (Grant Cover) to making sure the other scrappers nearby don't die and get suspicious of how OP Shield is.   

 

Devs....please run the numbers.

 

 

Edited June 2, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Luminara]

40 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

Savage Melee is a set that stops endo recovery as a side effect.

 

Blood Frenzy grants a stacking endurance discount, and none of the powers apply -Recovery.

 

/credibility

/thread

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Blackjoy said:

With essentially minimal slotting, Regen is far past SR in these levels, it's not even debatable. 

 

... nah, I'm done. May Satan have mercy on your soul. By all means, Devs, please, run the mystical numbers that prove how awful SR is and buff it accordingly. If this guy says regen is better than SR, it absolutely must be true. I mean, he thinks IDF are a problem for a /SR when they aren't for his /Rad... there MUST be SOMEthing going on that NONE of us are seeing!

Edited June 2, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Bill Z Bubba]

Total side note apropos of nothing, my new savage/sr scrapper is now 11, street hunted to 7, Shauna's Skulls arc to 11 so far, zero Rests, zero faceplants, nothing but SOs, no amplifiers, dbl-xp enabled. Whole hour and a half with three smoke breaks. The horror. I'm drinking, too, so maybe this'll be my night. Guess I wasn't done.

[arcane]

3 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

Yeah.....so I after this comment I rolled up a Savage Melee / Regen and am now playing it at lvl 33.   Dull Pain + Instant Healing is effing God Mode at these levels.   The only pool power I use is Hasten and that's usually after the fight.   I was teaming with a Stone Stone in the 20's and had to give him all my blues.  And Savage Melee is a set that stops endo recovery as a side effect. 

 

I hadn't run Regen since Live, so I was highly suspicious of this allegation and I was right.   Regen is the ever-loving energizer bunny of secondaries.  It has more uptime than my Staff/WP on which I had to slot Stamina and use endo procs.   With essentially minimal slotting, Regen is far past SR in these levels, it's not even debatable. 

 

In other news, I did that same IDF 4x8 challenge with  SM/Radiation Armor scrapper....wow.   The guy blasted through them with no Insp and no click/toggle incarnates.  Then I had him take off all his pool powers except Tough and he still prevailed.  He did get red, but RA's performance was so far past any SR I've seen run those mobs, it's a joke.   He's getting +700 hitpoints from a cyclical absorb power.  He's got a heal.  And he's cycling Melt Armor every 30-40 seconds.  He's also got a +Recharge/enemy power that totally feeds his clickies....and that was my eureka moment. 

 

@Developers -  One major problem with SR is that it's not even self-complimentary in the way some of these other sets are.  There are no powers that form synergies with other powers, outside of DDR.   Even an ancient set like Regen benefits from the interaction between Dull Pain and Instant Healing, making both of those better combined.   Regen's Mez protection also provides extra Regen.   SR has none of that outside of DDR.   Even Quickness is problematic in that it merely makes Practiced Brawler cycle more frequently on auto, which is not exactly helping.    Look at all the various mechanics a set like RA employs: +RES, +Heal, +Absorb, +DMG, +Recovery, +Recharge, Foe (-regen, -DEF, -to hit).  And I'm not even including the abilities that help allies out.   Shield is so well built, it can devote an entire power (Grant Cover) to making sure the other scrappers nearby don't die and get suspicious of how OP Shield is.   

 

Devs....please run the numbers.

 

 

With all due respect, this is embarrassing. Please learn or stop.

[Luminara]

16 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Total side note apropos of nothing, my new savage/sr scrapper is now 11, street hunted to 7, Shauna's Skulls arc to 11 so far, zero Rests, zero faceplants, nothing but SOs, no amplifiers, dbl-xp enabled. Whole hour and a half with three smoke breaks. The horror. I'm drinking, too, so maybe this'll be my night. Guess I wasn't done.

 

Watch out for those Endurance Discounts that completely halt your Recovery.  🤣

[Bill Z Bubba]

Level 12. Picked up CJ. 24.08% melee def, 30.94% range def, 2.31% aoe def. Still zero faceplants, zero uses of Rest. When does this start sucking again? Between 30 and 36? I'll get there eventually. But I'll probably start doin radio missions to avoid the damn hunt X in another zone missions.

[Bill Z Bubba]

13. I used rest once! DOOOOOOOOM!

[Bill Z Bubba]

14 at the 2.5 hr mark. Still 1 use of rest, a faceplant did occur... during Eagle Eye's personal story arc when I was someone else with only Rise to the Challenge instead of being SR. 🙂 That first longbow spawn was nasty. Taking a break now. More later to continue proving this abject silliness wrong cuz I enjoy doing so.

[Blackjoy]

5 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Blood Frenzy grants a stacking endurance discount, and none of the powers apply -Recovery.

 

/credibility

/thread

So while you're "Exhausted", there is no effect on your endurance?

 

EDIT:  Interesting.  According to Wiki the only thing "Exhausted" does is stop you from gaining frenzy stacks.   Which means keeping the stacks up can grant as much as a  30% endurance discount.  This would explain why I haven't had to put any slots in QR or Stamina and only have one Endo Mod in Stamina and I have limitless endurance.   It would also explain why a savage/SR could run well  (at least with regard to endurance) as long as you never Exhaust.

 

What's also interesting is that it gives a +Recharge which is a big help to Regen's reliance on all its clicks.  Of course that +recharge provides no benefit to SR directly as contrasted with other sets that use clicks.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Aracknight]

So the answer is Nerf Regen?

 

Groovy.

[Rudra]

29 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

So while you're "Exhausted", there is no effect on your endurance?

 

Exhausted prevents you from gaining any Blood Frenzy until the exhaustion wears off. So no stacking END discount for the duration.

 

Edit: The powers that cause 'Exhausted' both say what it takes to get it and what it is in the power description/summary in the game too....

Edited June 3, 2022 by Rudra

[aethereal]

23 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

So while you're "Exhausted", there is no effect on your endurance?

 

Correct.  The only effect that "Exhausted" has is that while you have it, Savage Melee powers will not grant Blood Frenzy.

 

Here's the power description for Exhausted in CoD:  https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=temporary_powers.temporary_powers.savage_melee_exhausted&at=scrapper

[Bill Z Bubba]

26 minutes ago, Blackjoy said:

So while you're "Exhausted", there is no effect on your endurance?

 

EDIT:  Interesting.  According to Wiki the only thing "Exhausted" does is stop you from gaining frenzy stacks.   Which means keeping the stacks up can grant as much as a  30% endurance discount.  This would explain why I haven't had to put any slots in QR or Stamina and only have one Endo Mod in Stamina and I have limitless endurance.   It would also explain why a savage/SR could run well  (at least with regard to endurance) as long as you never Exhaust.

 

What's also interesting is that it gives a +Recharge which is a big help to Regen's reliance on all its clicks.  Of course that +recharge provides no benefit to SR directly as contrasted with other sets that use clicks.

 

And the backpedaling begins!

 

Would you like me to use a different primary? It won't change anything.

[Blackjoy]

29 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

And the backpedaling begins!

 

Would you like me to use a different primary? It won't change anything.

There's no backpedaling.  Regen is getting more out of Savage than SR.  If you're on Excelsior, I'll invite you to come duo and we'll see who can take more punishment.

 

 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Blackjoy

[Luminara]

9 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Would you like me to use a different primary? It won't change anything.

 

Don't do Staff, you'll get that 83% Recovery buff when you use Sky Splitter while Form of the Soul is active, and... run out of endurance... somehow.

[Bill Z Bubba]

6 hours ago, Blackjoy said:

There's no backpedaling.  Regen is getting more out of Savage than SR.  If you're on Excelsior, I'll invite you to come duo and we'll see who can take more punishment.

 

So the set with Quick Recovery is getting more out of Savage's endurance discount than SR with it's complete lack of endurance tools? I'll give you that SR needs no recharge, as Regen does, but of course, SR doesn't need the click heals that Regen so relies upon.

 

I am on Excel. Same global name. How about some max diff carnies and arachnos? I'll bring my claws/sr main. Or if it's just the 30s you're worried about, you'll have to give me a day or two to get there on the new savage/sr. Edit: Or if ya like, we can go for broke and duo a max diff, no insps, no temps, no incarnate master run rules ITF.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Golden Azrael]

On 5/28/2022 at 8:01 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

@Cancrusher
In an ancient Nordic Myth, Thor, Loki, and Thialvi were challenged by the giants in three fields. Thialvi, boasting being the fastest thing alive challenged the giants to a race, for which their king summoned Huggi. When all was said and done, Huggi outraced Thialvi easily and the truth was, the opponents of Thor and his companions were not what they seemed. Huggi was, in fact, Huginn, thought itself and 'nothing is faster than thought'.

 

Super Reflex characters just disagree.

 

@Blackjoy
I can sort of agree Super Reflexes could use some looking into, but as for what specifics is where we diverge.

Elude - While I agree with the reduction to end crash, I would actually suggest instead changing it to:

• Elude now lasts 30 seconds, it recharges in 180 seconds, the cooldown cannot be reduced.
• Elude now gives a more modest +20% Defense buff with an additional, whopping +40% Defense Debuff protection, and keeps its +Recovery and movement speed buffs. And here's where the new stuff comes in.
• Elude now gives a +40% recharge bonus for its duration and as well as a +50% ToHit and Accuracy buff (when you are moving so quickly, its easy to hit things moving so slow)
• Elude now casts a strong -50% recharge, Run, Fly, and jump speed debuff, and a -35% ToHit debuff to all enemies within a 60 ft. around the caster without needing line of sight. (these debuffs cannot be stacked from the same source)

The idea to this change is to basically let an SR player have a sense of being Quicksilver in Days of Future's Past, living in a moment of slowed time where enemies might as well not even be moving. Admittedly, numbers to the above may need serious adjustment as I'm not a theory crafter.

 

I do agree about Evasion, admittedly, and would personally prefer to somehow move it to the level 20 slot where Brutes can get it. For Tanks, I would like to see it buffed into a better taunt aura though. I would say in addition to it's AoE bonus maybe each enemy gives the tank a stacking bonus to ToHit or Recharge, while enemies inside have a chance to suffer a mag 2 confusion lasting only 1 or even half a second. The idea being that the confusion represents letting your enemies hit one another with their attacks as you dodge around them.

 

For a secondary layer of defense/mitigation, I might suggest just giving the passives maybe an additional +3% resistance that can be affected by enhancements. Alternatively, maybe try to sneak in a decently strong -Rech debuff. (maybe into that above mentioned change to Evasion?)

 

As for Practiced Brawler lacking Fear protection? I admit, it annoys the hell out of me too since a lot of controls can be said to be some actual restraint on the character while fear implies your character suddenly devolves into a sniveling coward. BUT! A lot of mez protection in sets lack Fear protection actually, or confuse protection, sometimes knockback, and sometimes a combo of those three (Fire armor, looking at you. Holy crap, it doesn't even have stun protection!). There are only three sets that have total mez protection: Willpower (makes sense for the set theme), Shield (thematically the shield is a protective ward), and scrapper/sentinel Ninjutsu (which only get that from the passive KB protection power tacked on) That's three out of fourteen armor sets in the game. Though Practiced Brawler is kind of anemic in terms of effects, as it ONLY gives its mez protection while others have secondary effects (Invul's gives Damage resistance, Shield gives Defense Debuff Resistance, etc.) I might propose a secondary effect for PB being to give them nigh immunity to taunts and placates, there's only really three enemies that make use of it, but when they do come up, it's annoying, especially placate for SR as the enemy that's placated you can't hit you to end it and if they're the last one standing you might be staring at eachother for a bit. Thematically, a 'practiced brawler' might be able to ignore distractions such as taunts and placates.

 

SOme good ideas.

 

You move so fast in Elude Bullet Time that you effectively debuff enemies.

 

I like it.

 

Azrael.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4.5 hours to level 20. Currently at +0/x4 w/ bosses and 100% solo. Two faceplants. First was when I didn't see that second Caliban, second was against a fresh spawn of Vahz. My fire/regen brute experiment faceplanted a hell of a lot more often by this point. Other than the power order, as covered earlier, and the uselessness of Elude in 99% of the content, I'm really not seeing a problem here. Last thing SR or this game needs is more power creep.

[Bill Z Bubba]

More random thoughts.

 

Why does Elude still grant DDR when SR is capped without it? It should have been dumped and Elude completely changed when they disallowed permalude builds with ED and the GDN.

 

I dislike the blood frenzy mechanic. Savage's first real AoE is rending flurry. If I use it at 5 stacks of BF, I can't build more BF so seeing the indicator pop up makes me NOT want to click it. Or I can waste brain space on watching the stacks and/or only click it when it's not lit up. It's a distraction. With claws, there's no thought. Just shreddin. At least savage leap doesn't cause exhaustion but at a 40sec base recharge time, it's not gonna be cycled into a regular attack chain worth a shit.

 

Given that you face so many guns in the lowbie levels, which are ranged with defense debuffs, I can see why the OG devs chose to have agile show up before dodge, so maybe just swapping Evasion with Quickness would be acceptable. Maybe.

[BillyMailman]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I dislike the blood frenzy mechanic. Savage's first real AoE is rending flurry. If I use it at 5 stacks of BF, I can't build more BF so seeing the indicator pop up makes me NOT want to click it. Or I can waste brain space on watching the stacks and/or only click it when it's not lit up. It's a distraction. With claws, there's no thought. Just shreddin. At least savage leap doesn't cause exhaustion but at a 40sec base recharge time, it's not gonna be cycled into a regular attack chain worth a shit.

 

I mean, the full-stack version is Foot Stomp-sized, which is almost four times the total area covered as the base version (15' radius vs. 8', nearly double, means nearly double the area). Much easier to get the full ten targets in a 15' AoE. But yes, if you wanna stop the Exhausted thing, you need to fire it at four stacks, instead of five.

 

Though, Blood Thirst, your Build Up variant, not only instantly puts you at five stacks of Blood Frenzy, but also removes Exhausted, so you can also just hit the large version of Rending Flurry, and immediately follow it up with Blood Thirst, and there's no exhaustion at all.

[arcane]

I just completely ignore the Savage Melee mechanic and trow AoE’s

[Stormwalker]

Ok, so I thought I was done on this subject, but I have one more thing to say.

 

On live, I had multiple level 50 scrappers.  I had a Claws/SR (who I have now re-made on HC and have been running Incarnate arcs at +2/x8 and her build isn't even close finished yet because I can't afford the purple sets she needs, mostly because i keep having her send all her inf to my alts!), I had a Katana/Regen, I had a Kinetic Melee/Willpower, I had a Dark Melee/Dark Armor.  I also had an Energy/Energy blaster, an Energy Melee/Invlunerability Brute, and a Super Strength/Invlunerability Brute.

 

The only two of those characters who EVER had survivability issues were the Blaster, and the Katana/Regen.  Incidentally, the Katana/Regen's survivability improved vastly after I respec'd her into Shadowmeld.  The Blaster... well, she's a Blaster.  Though honestly she was pretty tough until she got mezzed and Temp. Invlunerability and Tough dropped.  And could be briefly invincible with Force of Nature.

 

At level 50, in a real build (i.e. one where you make reasonable pool and IO choices to shore up the weaknesses of your set and amplify its strengths), the Claws/SR was by FAR the most capable of those scrappers.  The Dark/Dark was probably similarly survivable (which is to say, neither of them ever died unless I did something completely reckless or stupid), but Dark Melee just couldn't touch Claws in the damage output department.

 

On HC, currently, I now have the following scrappers:

Kitten America - 50 Claws/SR (aforementioned)

Seladri - 40 Dual Blades/Willpower

Stardriver - 36 Energy Melee/Energy Aura

Star Charger - 16 Broadsword/Shield

Bladewhisper - 12 Katana/Regeneration

Sword of the Stars - 10 Katana/Willpower

The Smokemeister - 8 Dark Melee/Dark Armor

Nanodrive - 8 Street Justice/Willpower

Patriot Dream - 7 Martial Arts/Willpower

Bladescream - 5 Broadsword/Regeneration

Shadow Ruby - 5 Dark Melee/Regeneration

 

I also have an SS/Invuln Tanker, an EM/Inv Brute, and a Fire/Fire Brute, all less than level 10 currently.  (EDIT: I forgot, I also have a 25 Psionic Melee/Willpower Brute!)

 

As you can see, I play all the sets (or, at least, all the older ones).  You might ask why I have so many regenners when I insist the set is underpowered?  That would be because they are all re-creations of old characters from CoH Live.   In fact, my Street Justice/WP was originally an MA/Regen on live, also.   You might ask why I only have one SR in spite of my profession that it's one of the best sets?  Because, as I have already admitted, SR is a pain to level until you get to 35 because of the lack of AoE defense (and I am totally on board with rearranging the powers to fix that, as I have already said).  It's also partially because SR lacks a taunt aura which can make dealing with runners at high level very frustrating (but isn't so much a problem for the one SR I have because Claws has excellent tools for this in Focus and Shockwave).  Note that I would be entirely in favor of adding a Taunt Aura to scrapper SR, but this isn't even one of the points you raised in your post.

 

That said, you'll still notice my SR was the first (and so far my only) to 50, getting there, what... two weeks after I made my initial "Hi, I'm new to Homecoming, need advice" post on this forum?  And there was no powerleveling involved.  I leveled Kitten America purely solo, 1-50, yes I used double XP, but no amplifiers, doing story arcs.  Someone gave me 100 million inf to help me get started, which enabled me to invest in some good IO's when I was in the mid-20's... most of that money went into Performance Shifters, a Steadfast Protection +3% def, and 5 LotG +recharges.  The Steadfast Protection and the Performance Shifters are IO's I slot on all my scrappers and so are pretty representative of a standard build.  The LotG +recharges offer almost no benefit to SR, those were purely to enable me to use the best possible Claws attack chain.  Everything else she has, she funded herself and in fact she has also been handing off inf to all my other characters along the way.

 

She's freakin' invincible.  She died a few times on the way to 35, due to a combination of inexperience on my part (because I've been away from CoH since it shut down way back when) and the lack of AoE defense problem.   Not many, though.  She was running at +1/x5 by the time I got to level 40.  I increased it to +2/x5 when I unlocked my Alpha slot, and +2/x8 when I unlocked the remaining slots.  Dying was never a problem, nor was it frustrating.  The only thing that was frustrating was having to Rest a lot before I got the Performance Shifters, but that is a problem on every armor set except Regen (which is about the only advantage Regen has over the other sets; it gets QR absurdly early before it has any use for that much end so you can go completely berserk with your attack chain).  This, by the way, is what makes Regen feel kind of godlike at low-mid levels.  You have more Endurance than you know what to do with so you can go all-out on offense.  Which works pretty well until you get to higher level ranges where you actually NEED defenses to live.

 

Now, my Regen?  Well, she's been having some minor issues.  Notably the lack of mez protection because Regen doesn't get mez protection until level 16, and you need it a lot sooner than that with these new story arcs that throw Skull bosses with Holds at you.  Back in the old days, this was never an issue because you almost never got mezzed prior to level 16, but that's no longer true, and it's a problem for Regen now.  Once she hits 16 I'm sure she'll be good to go, but I also know that she's going to start lagging behind the other sets in performance as she gets to higher levels, until she finally can take Darkness Mastery and pick up Shadowmeld which neatly patches some of Regen's holes (what's that?  A pool power that's needed to make a set work correctly?  Say it ain't so!)

 

That said, other than this, yes, Regen is easy to level for the first 20-25 levels or so until the other sets start to come into their own.  This is because (and only because) it gets Quick Recovery at level 4, while every other armor struggles with endurance issues until they either get powers to address it (Dark Consumption, Energize, WP's QR at 20) or can slot SO/IO enhancements that offer better endurance reduction than is easily obtainable at low levels.  That said, once the other sets grow out of their endurance issues, they all leave Regen in the dust.  Well, except maybe scrapper Invuln.  I don't have an Invuln scrapper because my memory of Live tells me the set is no good without the higher resist caps of Brutes and Tankers, but having not played it at all recently I'm hesitant to speak with regard to it.

 

Anyway, I've said all I'm going to say.  You can feel free to disagree with me if you want, but this is my experience and from what I read, it agrees with the experience of almost everyone else commenting in this thread.

 

In summary:

1). SR suffers below level 35 from a lack of AoE defense.  This should be fixed.

2). Not having a taunt aura sucks with all the runners these days.  Scrapper SR should get one.

3). SR is otherwise a very high-performing set in any reasonable build.

4). In an optimized build, SR is third-best behind only Shield and Energy Aura among scrapper secondaries.

5). Regen feels godlike at low-mid levels because it gets QR really early and thus has absurd Recovery and nothing to do with all that Endurance, enabling you to go ham with your attack chain when other sets can't.  As other sets come into their own, this advantage is nullified.

6). Regen needs mez protection at level 10 like other sets.  Not having it in the new content sucks.

7). At high level, Regen's survivability lags behind other sets to the point that a specific Epic Pool Power is needed to bring it even close to par.  No set should be this dependent on your choice of Epic Pool.  Epic Pools exist to round out your character, not patch major deficiencies in your secondary!

 

Changes I would make to SR:

1). Rearrange powers as BillZBubba has suggested so that AoE defense comes earlier.  I hate moving Quickness back because I love Quickness, but the price has to be paid somewhere and that's the most logical place.

2). Add a taunt aura to one of the SR toggles.

 

Changes I would make to Regen?  Yeah, there have been pages and pages of debate on that subject and I don't have time to weigh in on it right now.  Besides, it's off-topic.  I'd start with resistance to -recovery and -regen, though.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Stormwalker