Guide to a History of Regeneration: How to play Wolverine or Deadpool

[Rigged]

TL;DR

Play Willpower instead.

Regen is a journey of suffering and disappointment. There is no good ending for Regen, because it does not work and is not intended to work. Yes, you heard that right, the Live devs ruined regen on purpose and did it in a way that will likely make it impossible for the Homecoming devs to fix it.

A bit of history:

Regen was one of the launch powersets, as a scrapper-only secondary. At the time, its main attraction was that it provided very good survivability with little attention: it was mostly toggles, a self-heal, and a t9. This was actually considered pretty overpowered at the time, since it was the pre-ED era and the amount of regen so exceeded the incoming damage you were pretty much unkillable. But then came the first nerf. And the second. Then a rework. And another rework. The set became a meme for how often the devs would ruin it.

The problem:

Regen is a powerset with very little mitigation besides regeneration: the only exception is an auto power resist. This means that either you are regenerating enough health (plus your clickies) to survive, in which case you are basically invincible, or you are not, and you are dead. This binary balance could be tipped by as simple as a single extra enemy aggroing on you, and if you’re already at your limit you died really quickly. What this means is that Regen is not very scalable, a big problem when the game involves fighting up to 16 enemies at once. Conversely, defense and resist sets were very scalable because you mitigated a percent of incoming damage.

So why not fix it?

On Live, the set got reworked twice. Each time, the players who had gotten used to the previous version complained about the changes to their playstyle. They argued relentlessly with others who pointed out the set really needed another kind of mitigation, like defense or resist.

In the end, the Live devs decided: We will make a new set, and call it Willpower, and we will put the changes we wanted into that. Willpower got scaling regen, resistances, and defense. It is almost entirely toggles. It also uses a lot of the same power FX, just recolored to yellow. It is Regen reworked into a form that actually works very well.

The Live devs retained Regen as a legacy of the old set, not to be reworked again. They warned us of this. Those who liked old Regen can play it with the understanding that it does not work. Those who wanted regen that works should play Willpower. In fact, the last time they made a major rework to Regen, the Moment of Glory revamp, was in Issue 11, the same issue they introduced Willpower. 

As you can guess, this did nothing to dampen the complaints. People wanted Regen to be like Willpower, and they wanted the buffs on the set called Regen, because for some reason they just had to play the set called Regen, even though there is a perfectly serviceable set that does exactly what they want. Because they did not like that the working set was called Willpower.

Here's the thing though: for a while, Regen actually managed to work out. The IO system allows you to reach the defense softcap on Smash/Lethal damage, and because of the way the to-hit system worked, this used to softcap you against around 90% of the attacks in the game. This was widely considered to be overpowered for everyone, so Homecoming nerfed the system and now Smash/Lethal defense only applies to like 60% or so of attacks. This nerf caused Regen's survivability to drop dramatically (along with that of blasters), so the complaints are reviving again.

Ok but that was Live, why can’t Homecoming fix it?

Because of Willpower. Regen still has the same problems as it always did, and they can bump up the regen only to nerf it later. It’s a never-ending battle. The only way to fix regen would be to make it like Willpower, but then we already have Willpower. So for heaven's sake, just play Willpower.

So stop asking for Regen buffs. It will not work out. The problems are much more fundamental than adding more healing. As a matter of fact, the Live devs planned to add another Regen variant, Bio armor, which the Homecoming devs implemented. This is a Regen alternative with more flexibility. That's another option.

But I wanna be Wooooooolveriiiiiiine!

Lame and uncreative, but ok. Here’s the main thing you should know:

Wolverine is not a regen scrapper.

He is not. Wolverine has “Healing Factor” which is Marvel's stupid name for his regenerative abilities. But that is not the sum of his damage mitigation. Wolverine also has peak human agility and toughness. Which set is this?

Willpower. Wolverine is a Claws/Willpower scrapper, and players really should stop getting so attached to the name “Regeneration”. Although I suppose we should expect a lack of creativity from someone who wants to play Wolverine.

But I muuuuuust be Regen! Wolverine muuuuuust be regen!

Okay. Then please be prepared to die as often as Wolverine. As we all know, the only person who dies more often than Wolverine is Jean Grey. Wolverine dies a lot, and he gets up a lot, so please slot out Revive with recharge so that you can emulate your hero in your inflexible way. Please stop asking for the devs to fix Regen also, because it already has been.

Here's my advice: Play a Brute, since Regen is better when you have a higher base HP, and slot IOs for defense, especially Smash/Lethal defense. Although both would be significantly more effective on Willpower because of how stacking works in COH.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Rigged

[High_Beam]

This post is awesome and spot on!.

[Captain Fabulous]

On 3/28/2023 at 2:32 AM, Rigged said:

TL;DR

Play Willpower instead.

I may have just cackled. 😂

[Captain Fabulous]

OK, now that I've stopped cackling, I will add this: there was a discussion thread not that long ago with what IMHO were a number of ways that Regen could be improved without turning it into Willpower. I think it can be done, but the devs need to have the willpower to do so.

[Gobbledygook]

6 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

OK, now that I've stopped cackling, I will add this: there was a discussion thread not that long ago with what IMHO were a number of ways that Regen could be improved without turning it into Willpower. I think it can be done, but the devs need to have the willpower to do so.

 

I see what you did there

[Derek Icelord]

Plot twist, just swap the names of the sets?

[Troo]

 

Lies

 

[Force Redux]

I laughed with this.

 

But what's the story with Sentinel Regen? Works great for my Water/Regen and feels different than my Psi/Willpower too...

 

Couldn't Sentinel Regen be proliferated?

[Rigged]

31 minutes ago, Force Redux said:

I laughed with this.

 

But what's the story with Sentinel Regen? Works great for my Water/Regen and feels different than my Psi/Willpower too...

 

Couldn't Sentinel Regen be proliferated?

 

Sort of.

 

Sentinel regen gives a very high absorb toggle. This is in fact a modified form of the original Instant Healing, which was also a toggle (it just gave a ton of regen). But the original Instant Healing was considered overpowered and got turned into a clickie.

 

Here's the thing, though. No one will complain overmuch about a Sentinel toggle because Sentinels have a relatively low HP cap compared to all the melee ATs, which means your regen is naturally weaker. I suspect also that the massive AOE knockdowns from water/ also give your regen time to work.

 

But let's say we revert scrapper (and by extension, brute) regen back to the i1 version. I can't recall the exact numbers, but the issue then is that if regen could heal more damage than a x8 spawn of enemies can deal, it is basically invincible when facing x1 spawns and hence needs to be nerfed. This is the oldest, most annoying problem about regen to the devs: It is a never-ending yo-yo of buff and nerf, buff and nerf, which the Live devs did for 11 issues before they said "No more of this stupid crap, we are never touching this set again except to nerf it." And of course it is paired with the second most annoying thing for them, which is that every time they did try something different, a group of die-hard fanatics would say they are caving to easy-mode noobs who cannot handle clicking heals to save themselves and just want faceroll toggles.

 

What regen needs is some non-regen/healing form of mitigation, to stabilize it. The devs could add it to Regen, but then it would start to encroach on the territory of Willpower (and now Bio). You see why I say it likely cannot be fixed? The presence of the other two sets prevents Regen from getting too much of their goodies lest one or the other is made obsolete. And the Live devs decided, if one set has to be obsolete, it will be the set that the (at the time) die-hard fanatics demanded never be changed. Now, if the Live devs never created Willpower, the HC devs could have made Regen today like Willpower since the old crazy die-hards are probably gone.

 

Of course, the player can add mitigation to regen using IOs and pools. But the problem is 1) this uses set bonuses that could go towards offense and 2) will work better on Willpower or Bio (or just about any other set) because of how mitigation stacking works in COH.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Rigged

[Rigged]

9 hours ago, Troo said:

 

Lies

 

 

Search your feelings, you know it to be Troo!

[Rishidian]

Here's another option: Powers being able to be renamed by the player.

 

Make the powers able to be renamed locally.  This way I can call my moves how I want them.  They are still named the same on the system, but show up as a different name on my screen.

 

This way, you can have your WillPower Claws Wolverine Clone Thingey that actually works, but rename it to Regeneration.  Everyone else will know the truth, but your self-delusions can be maintained, and you can keep wearing that black and yellow getup you bought last October.

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 5/11/2023 at 11:07 PM, Rigged said:

Of course, the player can add mitigation to regen using IOs and pools. But the problem is 1) this uses set bonuses that could go towards offense and 2) will work better on Willpower or Bio (or just about any other set) because of how mitigation stacking works in COH.

 

[Captain Fabulous]

On 5/11/2023 at 10:07 AM, Rigged said:

 

Sort of.

 

Sentinel regen gives a very high absorb toggle. This is in fact a modified form of the original Instant Healing, which was also a toggle (it just gave a ton of regen). But the original Instant Healing was considered overpowered and got turned into a clickie.

 

Here's the thing, though. No one will complain overmuch about a Sentinel toggle because Sentinels have a relatively low HP cap compared to all the melee ATs, which means your regen is naturally weaker. I suspect also that the massive AOE knockdowns from water/ also give your regen time to work.

 

But let's say we revert scrapper (and by extension, brute) regen back to the i1 version. I can't recall the exact numbers, but the issue then is that if regen could heal more damage than a x8 spawn of enemies can deal, it is basically invincible when facing x1 spawns and hence needs to be nerfed. This is the oldest, most annoying problem about regen to the devs: It is a never-ending yo-yo of buff and nerf, buff and nerf, which the Live devs did for 11 issues before they said "No more of this stupid crap, we are never touching this set again except to nerf it." And of course it is paired with the second most annoying thing for them, which is that every time they did try something different, a group of die-hard fanatics would say they are caving to easy-mode noobs who cannot handle clicking heals to save themselves and just want faceroll toggles.

 

What regen needs is some non-regen/healing form of mitigation, to stabilize it. The devs could add it to Regen, but then it would start to encroach on the territory of Willpower (and now Bio). You see why I say it likely cannot be fixed? The presence of the other two sets prevents Regen from getting too much of their goodies lest one or the other is made obsolete. And the Live devs decided, if one set has to be obsolete, it will be the set that the (at the time) die-hard fanatics demanded never be changed. Now, if the Live devs never created Willpower, the HC devs could have made Regen today like Willpower since the old crazy die-hards are probably gone.

 

Of course, the player can add mitigation to regen using IOs and pools. But the problem is 1) this uses set bonuses that could go towards offense and 2) will work better on Willpower or Bio (or just about any other set) because of how mitigation stacking works in COH.

See if you can find that fairly recent Regen thread as it had a lot of great ideas on improving Regen without turning it into Willpower or Bio. +Absorb, +max HP, and a scaling +HP buff were a few of the good suggestions.

[Wravis]

On 5/11/2023 at 10:07 AM, Rigged said:

 

 The devs could add it to Regen, but then it would start to encroach on the territory of Willpower (and now Bio). You see why I say it likely cannot be fixed? The presence of the other two sets prevents Regen from getting too much of their goodies lest one or the other is made obsolete. And the Live devs decided, if one set has to be obsolete, it will be the set that the (at the time) die-hard fanatics demanded never be changed. Now, if the Live devs never created Willpower, the HC devs could have made Regen today like Willpower since the old crazy die-hards are probably gone.

 

What a dumb sentiment. Make it a good set. Let people pick the one with the name they prefer. Who cares if they overlap?

Willpower is presented as a natural character's ability to shrug it off. Regeneration is presented as someone with powers healing it away. Just make it a distinction for flavor. Why have one be garbage just to keep it from being too similar to another?

Or give it a minor difference. Make Regeneration have high S/L defense and high elemental resists, inverting Willpower's low S/L defense and low elemental resists.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Wravis

[Force Redux]

Regeneration, if it were improved, should have a pretty high debuff resistance to -Regen and -max health. I don't recall any other set has any such robust  debuff resistance. Would add to the uniqueness.

[Nyghtmaire]

11 hours ago, Wravis said:

Or give it a minor difference. Make Regeneration have high S/L defense and high elemental resists, inverting Willpower's low S/L defense and low elemental resists

I like it, a “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” approach. High psi defense just to mess with everyone. And scaling defenses pinned to number of foes - represents all the fast-forming scabs and scar tissue. 

[VULCAN]

On 5/11/2023 at 4:07 PM, Rigged said:

What regen needs is some non-regen/healing form of mitigation, to stabilize it. The devs could add it to Regen, but then it would start to encroach on the territory of Willpower (and now Bio).

Well, why don't we copy the sentinels regen absorb shield ?
You were just evocating it at the begining of your post. It's already in game, so its not a big thing to transfer it from sentinel to scrapper.

Some adjustments on the % to find the good balance and its done. As this, it will bring "a bit" of mitigation damage to help regen set, without making it a monster that has to be nerf, and without transforming it into willpower or bio.

[VULCAN]

On 5/13/2023 at 4:58 AM, Force Redux said:

Regeneration, if it were improved, should have a pretty high debuff resistance to -Regen and -max health. I don't recall any other set has any such robust  debuff resistance. Would add to the uniqueness.

A bit like Super Reflex with their resistance to -Def