Modernizing Regeneration

[Galaxy Brain]

Linking the original topic here:

 

Regen has always been a staple comic book powerset, but it has had ups and downs in CoH.

 

It used to be absolutely amazing way back in the day, and was justifiably nerfed. But since then it has had had some struggles from global changes to the game and the introduction of IO's. To make things worse, several sets have come out which do it's shtick better when it comes to actual regeneration! While these sets may not have the immediate self heals, they have tons of regen + other defenses to layer on to make them feel similar while outperforming the set at a basic level.

 

While Regen can still have great performance when you use it actively, the concept of Regen as "I passively heal real fast" is strictly done better in Willpower. As a direct comparison, the two sets share:

[*]Fast Healing

[*]Quick Recovery

[*]A self rez that you can argue is better on WP

[*]Auto Powers that grant res vs all damage types, with WP's being a T1 and also boosting HP

[*]Toggles that grant increased regen with RTTC outperforming Regen as a set in terms of raw hp/sec

[*]----- Similarly, both sets are sort of defined by health recovery as the major mitigation

 

Where they differ is that instead of activated heals, WP opts for more toggles for layered defenses. This lets WP not only be more consistent, but also provides incredibly valuable resistances to effects that Regen does not.

 

Regen iirc lacks any sort of actual resistance vs debuffs of any sort, and that is the first thing I would like to see added to the set. Namely, Regen/Heal debuff resistance which while rare in PvE would still be nice to have for *the* healing set just as how defense sets have DDR. Thematically, you would think a regenerator would heal very quickly from all sorts of debuff and control effects. Recovery Debuffs, Defense Debuffs, a flash bang that damages your vision would heal faster (Perception, ToHit), something that saps your strength would return quickly (Damage), and so on. If Regen had a plethora of debuff resistance instead of..... none, it would be a thematic boon to the set and also fit the theme of no downtime.

 

Other suggestions that have been accumulated (no particular order nor do all of these need to be added!):

 

[*]As noted, lots of debuff resistance to show that you heal off side effects as well. Especially to -Recharge which cripples the set.

[*]Sentinel Regen is actually really cool in that it has a powerful, refreshing absorb toggle that lets you soak X damage per second for free. Something in normal regen to mirror this would be nice.

[*]Similarly, Sentinel Regen's self-rez can be used while alive to actually heal yourself. This is a neat twist and a real tactical choice as it goes on cooldown still, meaning you may not get to use it as an actual rez in an "oh crap" moment if you try to preemptively use it.

[*]Several sets have scaling defenses based on your HP. It seems kind of criminal that Regen of all sets doesn't have at the least Fast healing scale up as you lose health. Or even resilience being the opposite where you get much better effect for staying at or near full hp! /SR and /Rad can be templates here

[*]If possible, any over-heals get turned into Absorb.

[*]Change Reconstruction to be partially a flat heal and partially Heal over Time

 

Thoughts?

 

 

[Vanden]

If I had my druthers, the T1 power in Regeneration would be Revive, and it'd have a super short recharge, like 30 seconds. Fast Healing and Quick Recovery would be one power, with an extra 25% unenhanceable Regeneration buff (to make up for not being able to stick one healing SO in Fast Healing, since presumably people would slot for Recovery). The new T8 power would be a no-recharge toggle that, while active, changes the Heal in Dull Pain and Reconstruction to +Absorb, so you could turtle up in anticipation of a big hit while at full health.

[Zumberge]

Regeneration's Fast Healing provides some -regen resistance, but then again, Willpower's does that too.  Though it also has stun resistance and recovery which would come in handy with the Imperious Task Force and... not really sure where else, because you're not often getting hit with mag 16 stuns.

 

I'm at a loss as to what to suggest to make Regeneration more comparable to other defense sets, but the idea that it could be revisited and rethought is a valid one, especially in light of the changes that were made to it to adopt it to Sentinel.  The burst damage weakness should still be an element - I do like the original development team's tenet that every power set should have a weakness of some sort, or just something it doesn't do well at all -  as should the reactive nature of it, like click heals, but beyond that I don't know what to say.

 

tl;dr, good idea, but I'm too dumb to help.

[Galaxy Brain]

Regeneration's Fast Healing provides some -regen resistance, but then again, Willpower's does that too.  Though it also has stun resistance and recovery which would come in handy with the Imperious Task Force and... not really sure where else, because you're not often getting hit with mag 16 stuns.

 

I'm at a loss as to what to suggest to make Regeneration more comparable to other defense sets, but the idea that it could be revisited and rethought is a valid one, especially in light of the changes that were made to it to adopt it to Sentinel.  The burst damage weakness should still be an element - I do like the original development team's tenet that every power set should have a weakness of some sort, or just something it doesn't do well at all -  as should the reactive nature of it, like click heals, but beyond that I don't know what to say.

 

tl;dr, good idea, but I'm too dumb to help.

 

The burst damage is def a weakness, but the bigger thing is that Regen has little debuff resists which really cripple it when you're in a bind.

[SwitchFade]

NERF REGEN!

 

heh, kidding.

 

Hey, somebody had to!

[jack_nomind]

Without getting hyper-specific, the three things I think Regen needs most in PvE are:

 

• Fewer clicks.  Click powers cut into DPS and are sensitive to debuffs in a way that toggles don't share and autos are immune to. I'd alter:
  • Dull Pain.  +HP should be a passive in this set.  It's already got a click heal.
    
  • Instant Healing.  We have the technology to make this an "uneven" toggle with scaling or effects that react to other power use.

  [*]Better debuff resistance, as mentioned above.  It takes everything directly to the face.  /signed.

  [*]180 base cooldown on MoG.  Can't be permanent, but at least it'll be up in time for the next spawn even w/o a pocket kin.

[srmalloy]

Ignoring the bugged internal server that led to the devs claiming that a Claws/Regen Scrapper could casually solo missions set at +4/x8, which resulted in the rework of the powerset that turned Instant Healing into a click power, it always seemed to me that Instant Healing was poorly done as a power.

 

Part of the perception of Regen as an OP set, I believe, was the fact that a Regen character would generally finish a fight 'unhurt' -- with a full health bar. This was the result of the fact that, unlike every other defensive set in the game, Regen applies most of its powers to incoming damage again and again and again without limit. The basic premise behind Regen is that you take all the damage, but heal it back fast enough to keep you alive. In combat, this results in a character's HP nosediving at the start of the fight while the character tries to drop enough attackers to reduce the incoming damage below their regeneration rate. If they can do it, they will survive, and they will almost always be completely healed by the end of the fight; if they can't, they faceplant early in the fight. Instant Healing just makes this 'worse' by increasing the regen rate, ensuring that the character looks even less damaged by the end of the fight.

 

It always seemed to me that IH didn't need to be made a click power that couldn't be made perman it needed a change in how it worked to make it more in line with other defensive powers and to better match its name. The concept I had was to return IH to being a toggle, but that instead of cranking a character's regen rate, it made every hit the character took act similarly to the way Spectral Wounds does -- you get hit, and you take all the damage, then after a moment, an enhanceable fraction of that damage 'instantly' heals. This would make IH directly comparable to and balanceable against the Resistance and Defense toggles, while keeping it thematic to the powerset. And because its effect would only get applied once against each incoming attack, it, wouldn't add to the 'OP regen' perception. But it would have a good visual effect in combat, popping up big green heal numbers as IH healed the incoming hits, and keep a Regen character's health bar dynamic in tough fights, bouncing up and down as they dance with taking damage too fast to heal.

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

It always seemed to me that IH didn't need to be made a click power that couldn't be made perman it needed a change in how it worked to make it more in line with other defensive powers and to better match its name. The concept I had was to return IH to being a toggle, but that instead of cranking a character's regen rate, it made every hit the character took act similarly to the way Spectral Wounds does -- you get hit, and you take all the damage, then after a moment, an enhanceable fraction of that damage 'instantly' heals. This would make IH directly comparable to and balanceable against the Resistance and Defense toggles, while keeping it thematic to the powerset. And because its effect would only get applied once against each incoming attack, it, wouldn't add to the 'OP regen' perception. But it would have a good visual effect in combat, popping up big green heal numbers as IH healed the incoming hits, and keep a Regen character's health bar dynamic in tough fights, bouncing up and down as they dance with taking damage too fast to heal.

 

This would be really cool! My only concern though would be if spectral wounds is hard coded to the power vs placing an effect on the enemy that could be replicated onto Regen...

 

I agree with Vanden that the passive regen and recovery power could probably be rolled into one. Like with Rad armor where it has scaling recovery or regen based on percent, maybe it could just be flat boosts to both.

 

Sentinel regen also has an auto power for +MaxHp. Maybe that could be done here and also put in the debuff resistances?

 

If a new power is added though, I wonder what it could be...

[jack_nomind]

The concept I had was to return IH to being a toggle, but that instead of cranking a character's regen rate, it made every hit the character took act similarly to the way Spectral Wounds does -- you get hit, and you take all the damage, then after a moment, an enhanceable fraction of that damage 'instantly' heals.

 

This would be really cool! My only concern though would be if spectral wounds is hard coded to the power vs placing an effect on the enemy that could be replicated onto Regen...

 

Srmalloy's suggestion is an analogy -- it wouldn't make incoming attacks "turn into" spectral wounds effects, it would just record incoming damage and heal x% from it after y seconds.

 

(Which, for the record, is pretty close to how spectral wounds works but with requires a bit more bookkeeping and changes the effect source.)

[Zumberge]

This would be really cool! My only concern though would be if spectral wounds is hard coded to the power vs placing an effect on the enemy that could be replicated onto Regen...

 

Judging from the power tool tips, how Spectral Wounds works is not entirely unlike other powers with delayed effects: It deals damage on activation, then several seconds later applies a heal to the target.  It's not entirely unlike attacks with a knockdown component that activate a half-second or so after the initial damage.

 

I'm trying to figure out how to implement IH like this compared to how other powers work, though.  It's theoretically possible, but that's based around trying to reverse engineer an idea solely going off of how things are explained in power tooltips without actually seeing the code.

 

EDIT: Or what jack_nomind said, yeah.

[Galaxy Brain]

I guess to be clear, spectral wounds applies a heal based on a specific power's damage. Having it be a reactive heal would be awesome but require some finesse

[Trickshooter]

My personal ideas for updating Regen a bit:

 

Fast Healing +75% Regeneration +25.95% Res(Regeneration)	----->	Fast Healing (Unchanged) +75% Regeneration +25.95% Res(Regeneration)
Reconstruction 334.66 Heal +15% Res(Toxic)	----->	Reconstruction (Unchanged) 334.66 Heal +15% Res(Toxic)
Quick Recovery +30% Recovery	----->	Quick Recovery +30% Recovery +25% Res(Recovery, Endurance)
Dull Pain +267.724 MaxHP (Unenhanceable) +267.724 MaxHP 535.45 Heal	----->	Abate Pain +267.724 MaxHP +40% Absorb (after 0.25 second delay)
Integration Res(Knock*, Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immob) +50% Regeneration (Unenhanceable) +100% Regeneration	----->	Integration Res(Knock*, Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immob) +50% Regeneration (Unenhanceable) +100% Regeneration +20% Res(Speed, Recharge)
Resilience Res(Disorient) +9.375% Res(All Damage)	----->	Resilience Res(Disorient) +9.375% Res(All Damage) +267.724 MaxHP (Unenhanceable)
Instant Healing +600% Regeneration (Unenhanceable) +200% Regeneration	----->	Instant Healing (Unchanged) +600% Regeneration (Unenhanceable) +200% Regeneration
Revive 1003.97 Heal (while dead) 50 Endurance (while dead)	----->	Revitalize 1003.97 Heal (while dead) 50 Endurance (while dead) 535.45 Heal (while HP>0) 50 Endurance (while HP>0)
Moment of Glory Res(Knock*, Repel, Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immob) +71.25% Defense(All but Psi) +71.25% Resistance(All but Psi) +100% Recovery	----->	Moment of Glory (Unchanged) Res(Knock*, Repel, Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immob) +71.25% Defense(All but Psi) +71.25% Resistance(All but Psi) +100% Recovery

 

I'd also reduce the recharge and duration of Abate Pain to increase it's uptime, and then reorder the powers:

 

Fast Healing Lvl 1

Reconstruction Lvl 2

Resilience Lvl 4

Revitalize Lvl 10

Integration Lvl 16

Abate Pain Lvl 20

Quick Recovery Lvl 28 (I know everyone is gonna really hate this)

Instant Healing Lvl 35

Moment of Glory Lvl 38

 

My thinking here is that moving some of the MaxHP to Resilience improves performance during Dull Pain/Abate Pain downtime. And since Revive/Revitalize has better recharge than old Dull Pain anyway, it's ability to be used while alive means we can remove the Heal from Dull Pain/Abate Pain and give it something else more defensive/preemptive, like Absorb. And unless someone insists that the MaxHP moved to Resilience become enhanceable, this would also not add or change any sets or enhancements the powers already take. However, I do realize that this makes the set feel even more click-heavy, and I'm really sorry about suggesting moving QR to level 28, I really am, I just could not figure out how else to get more powers that actually contribute to survivability to be available earlier. I honestly hesitate to suggest changing power order at all, but it makes more sense this way.

[jack_nomind]

Generally on Regen, Dull Pain doesn't have downtime (indeed, most /Regen goes for permahasten, which actually stacks the power).  The new version of the power looks like something intended to be skipped.

 

...In general, I love the formatting, but I don't think these changes make Regen noticeably more attractive for PvE.  If anything, putting yet another click power into rotation (by splitting Dull Pain into two different clicks, Abate and Revitalize) and making Abate require more frequent re-casting complicates it even further.

[Trickshooter]

Generally on Regen, Dull Pain doesn't have downtime (indeed, most /Regen goes for permahasten, which actually stacks the power).  The new version of the power looks like something intended to be skipped.

 

...In general, I love the formatting, but I don't think these changes make Regen noticeably more attractive for PvE.  If anything, putting yet another click power into rotation (by splitting Dull Pain into two different clicks, Abate and Revitalize) and making Abate require more frequent re-casting complicates it even further.

 

That's fair. I'm mostly just trying to avoid changing anything from a click or toggle or adding or removing allowable enhancements. The further away you get away from how a power already functions, the more you tend to get "GOD PLEASE NO" as a response from other players.

[ShardWarrior]

Instant Healing being a toggle is never what overpowered Regen IMO.  Stuff like being able to stack Dull Pain and being able to build (pre-ED) where a Regen scrapper could tank Hamidon with little support  was.  We had a Spines/Regen scrapper (who the name escapes me right now but perhaps someone will remember it) that used to tank Hami for us on Triumph.  However, building to be able to tank Hami gimped the DPS to the point of being useless, so there was a trade off there.  Again, this was also pre-ED - everyone's favorite update.

 

Regen always had (and still does have) its drawbacks - poor Alpha Strike mitigation (without MoG) and little to no -regen -heal debuffs.

 

I had wondered whether IH should have been kept as a toggle, but work something along the lines of Tough Hide or Phalanx Fighting where the regen %was based off the number of enemies in melee range instead of a flat X% regeneration.

 

Not sure of what would make this set better.... my main back in the day was MA/Regen, but I have since re-rolled her as MA/Nin or MA/SR.  Regen is just too bland now IMO.

[srmalloy]

I had wondered whether IH should have been kept as a toggle, but work something along the lines of Tough Hide or Phalanx Fighting where the regen %was based off the number of enemies in melee range instead of a flat X% regeneration.

 

It would probably play hob with the row of buff icons, but you could modify it so that if you had IH on, every time you were hit you got a short-term buff to your regen rate. I'm not sure that 'number of enemies in melee range' is viable to do, because you could surround a high-level character with low-level nominally-hostile mobs that would ignore you for the purposes of buffing your regen against a higher-level attacker -- determining what an 'enemy' is may be more complicated than we want to make the server do in combat, and it ignores mobs with ranged attacks that may actually be attacking you.

[srmalloy]

I guess to be clear, spectral wounds applies a heal based on a specific power's damage. Having it be a reactive heal would be awesome but require some finesse

 

Without access to the code, I can't say how the process actually works, but there are enough powers now that apply an effect to the target if the attack hits (i.e.,most Dark powers applying a to-hit debuff) that making a variant that applies an effect with a delay and a heal should be doable. The difference would be that it would need to be done as a check after any Resistance defenses reduce the base damage of the hit, so that the magnitude of the heal could be determined. So I believe that the pieces of what would make up such a change already have examples in the code, although I can't say whether assembling them into a new effect would be practical.

[Brutal Justice]

I don’t think absorb is a good mechanic for regen. Absorb on a defense toon benefits greatly from the defense and fewer hits landing. I am unsure if the same can be said for resist based sets, but I would guess that it can. Absorb on regen wouldn’t benefit at all from the entire rest of the set.  You can’t click heal the absorb or regen the absorb.  It may be a great mechanic for other sets but not regen.  Simply adding +max hp would be a much better option because it also increases your hp/s regen.

 

A perma dullpain regen brute with 3200 hp can be quite sturdy simply because you can eat those alpha strikes a little easier.  Yes with recharge that high your sustain also goes up because you can click heal more often, but in normal mob to mob play on SO’s with hasten, reconstruction is up for nearly every mob already.  So in my experience, some +max hp would help quite a bit without greatly changing how the set plays.  I would take IH as a toggle though

[Trickshooter]

I don’t think absorb is a good mechanic for regen. Absorb on a defense toon benefits greatly from the defense and fewer hits landing. I am unsure if the same can be said for resist based sets, but I would guess that it can. Absorb on regen wouldn’t benefit at all from the entire rest of the set.  You can’t click heal the absorb or regen the absorb.  It may be a great mechanic for other sets but not regen.  Simply adding +max hp would be a much better option because it also increases your hp/s regen.

 

A perma dullpain regen brute with 3200 hp can be quite sturdy simply because you can eat those alpha strikes a little easier.  Yes with recharge that high your sustain also goes up because you can click heal more often, but in normal mob to mob play on SO’s with hasten, reconstruction is up for nearly every mob already.  So in my experience, some +max hp would help quite a bit without greatly changing how the set plays.  I would take IH as a toggle though

 

I can see what you're getting at with Defense and Resistance on a character with Absorb, but I also feel like Absorb benefits just as well from +MaxHP when it's granted as a percentage based on current MaxHP.

 

[Galaxy Brain]

I don’t think absorb is a good mechanic for regen. Absorb on a defense toon benefits greatly from the defense and fewer hits landing. I am unsure if the same can be said for resist based sets, but I would guess that it can. Absorb on regen wouldn’t benefit at all from the entire rest of the set.  You can’t click heal the absorb or regen the absorb.  It may be a great mechanic for other sets but not regen.  Simply adding +max hp would be a much better option because it also increases your hp/s regen.

 

A perma dullpain regen brute with 3200 hp can be quite sturdy simply because you can eat those alpha strikes a little easier.  Yes with recharge that high your sustain also goes up because you can click heal more often, but in normal mob to mob play on SO’s with hasten, reconstruction is up for nearly every mob already.  So in my experience, some +max hp would help quite a bit without greatly changing how the set plays.  I would take IH as a toggle though

 

 

Sentinel Regen has an absorb toggle which constantly refreshes a modest amount of Absorb over your hp. I think this fits in perfectly as, iirc, it behaves as a layer of anti-dps where each second you have a layer of X that damage must pass. On my sentinel I often monitor my HP value directly and vs small stuff it rarely budges due to this layer.

[jack_nomind]

So the great thing about Absorb is that if it ticks fast enough, it works as a sort of less-broken Damage Protection.  (Real Damage Protection is a bad idea.)  It's less broken because Absorb actually has two stats -- current and max.

 

Basically, if you give someone 10 points of max absorb and 10 points of absorb every second, after twenty seconds they have... 10 points of absorb.  The max absorb you gave them doesn't permit any more than that.  Because of this behavior, Regen *could* benefit from a very fast-ticking +absorb power without being OP.

 

As far as exactly how much Absorb powers give, afaik it's based on the base HP of the caster's AT.  Since in this case the caster and recipient are the same AT, it means any given % would be the same regardless of build specifics.

 

...I think.  I do actually need to research Absorb again at some point.

[Galaxy Brain]

So the great thing about Absorb is that if it ticks fast enough, it works as a sort of less-broken Damage Protection.  (Real Damage Protection is a bad idea.)  It's less broken because Absorb actually has two stats -- current and max.

 

Basically, if you give someone 10 points of max absorb and 10 points of absorb every second, after twenty seconds they have... 10 points of absorb.  The max absorb you gave them doesn't permit any more than that.  Because of this behavior, Regen *could* benefit from a very fast-ticking +absorb power without being OP.

 

As far as exactly how much Absorb powers give, afaik it's based on the base HP of the caster's AT.  Since in this case the caster and recipient are the same AT, it means any given % would be the same regardless of build specifics.

 

...I think.  I do actually need to research Absorb again at some point.

 

I think that is how it works. Essentially, say we give the set 10% absorb per sec, which means enemies have to out dps 10% of your hp a sec to start dealing damage. Regen would then take effect to mirror say, a regenerator not even caring about superficial slices and nicks that would cause others to bleed out

[Trickshooter]

As far as exactly how much Absorb powers give, afaik it's based on the base HP of the caster's AT.  Since in this case the caster and recipient are the same AT, it means any given % would be the same regardless of build specifics.

 

...I think.  I do actually need to research Absorb again at some point.

 

This is the part I wasn't sure about in my example about Nature. It looks like it would give 25% Absorb, and that would be 25% of your allies' HP bar, but then the Max Absorb looks like it's based on the caster.

[Galaxy Brain]

So technically any max hp boost also helps absorb.

 

Also, I feel Regen should have some sort of HP scaling power. Sort of enforcing that if you didn't 1-2 shot them, they aren't staying down.

[Brutal Justice]

My maths may be wrong but I will try :) 

 

If a /sr has a 10% chance of getting hit. And a regen has a 95% chance.  If there are 10 incoming hits for 100 damage a piece. That’s 1000 dam.

 

My guesswork maths

For /sr 1000dam x .1 equals 100 damage received. From those 10 hits.  300 absorb minus 100 leaves you with 200 more absorb points.

 

For /regen 1000dam x .95 equals 950 damage received. From those 10 hits.  800 absorb minus 950 leaves you with 150 less hp.

 

That’s a 350 hp + absorb difference. 

 

My main point is, other than the +hp from dull pain, the absorb has no synergy with the rest of the set.  On that sentinel, the absorb is making the regen from fast healing and integration worthless against the small stuff.  Against the big stuff the regen from those powers isn’t going to help much either. Either the absorb mechanic keeps you up or you’re clicking heals, which tends to be how regen already plays with fast healing and integration. 

 

I suppose the continual absorb refresh acts like a regen effect which also lets your passive regen get more value.  Just came to that realization while typing this.  I wouldn’t want to lose any passive regen for the added absorb though.

 

Even though I just realized that, I left the whole post to show my thought process on the synergy