Focused Feedback: Powerset - Regeneration / Proliferation to Tankers

[Troo]

As I am assuming we are fairly committed to something along these lines at this point.

 

Suggestion:

Take another look at the power ordering.

I would strongly suggest at a minimum moving Second Wind (if it is to remain the second heal) to the level 10 spot. (Sentinels could have a different opinion and stick with their order)

• This could help mitigate the feel of losing Dull Pain for existing characters.
• It may also help retain some of the reactive aspect.
• Doesn't depart substantially from the beta design.

Part of me is guessing this was already a potential adjustment that would be considered if (reasons).

Heaven forbid Regens get a rez earlier in the game.

 

[Enamel_32]

Mechanically at level 50, the set performs well. Meaningfully better. The changes address a lot of issues people have complained about over the years.

 

But I think the leveling experience hasn't been entirely factored into the changes, and may suffer as a result. Leveling is something I found to be rough even before the changes. I also share @Troo's take on Dull Pain and its shifting usage over time:

6 hours ago, Troo said:

I use Dull Pain differently at lower levels than I do in later levels. It evolves with the character. (primarily another big heal -vs- perma +Max HP plus a big heal)

• Losing that big heal early on has an impact.

 

However, I think that feeling this loss could be attributed to Reconstruction under-performing. That can be addressed in its own straightforward way, or Second Wind could be pulled earlier in the set.

 

[aethereal]

I'll do another +1 on Dull Pain's usage going from reactive early, when it can't be perma'd, to proactive late when it can.  And Second Wind + Ailment Resistance is a good change which gets you half of the max HP earlier, and which also frees up your Second Wind usage to be somewhat more flexible by not pushing you as hard into the "you shouldn't care about the heal, just the max HP" paradigm.  But then Second Wind comes super late in the set.

 

Anyway, I did a little testing at 30, with better slotting, and predictably my endurance woes go away at this stage.  Right now, MoG and Second Wind are in the somewhat frustrating "very low uptime" mode, but that's not really something that you can do anything about, it's just the City of Heroes global recharge situation.

[Captain Powerhouse]

Hello,

 

Second Wind is being kept at a higher level precisely so it is not a trap for low level players that buy into it and find they can only use it every 6 minutes. Low level players will rarely have the tools to speed up that recharge. We really want low level powers to be usable regularly. It really sucks as a new player experience to spend one of your few available power slots on a power that can be used so rarely. If you already have Dull Pain at level 10, though, and don't respec, you will keep the power at level 10 until that build is respecd.

 

The combination of Ailment Resistance and Reconstruction can do a lot to improve low level play as Ailment Resistance will make Reconstruction a stronger heal.

 

As for Second Wind ignoring resistance, this is a treatment that is being given to extremely high recharge heals as a compensation for their high recharge. If you are heavily debuffed by Res(Regen) and use reconstruction, it will be back in a few seconds for you to retry. A minute tops if you did not slot anything there. But waste the Dull Pain's giant heal and you are in a lot of trouble. So it was considered that these powers in all ATs get the ignore-resistance treatment.

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Hello,

 

Second Wind is being kept at a higher level precisely so it is not a trap for low level players that buy into it and find they can only use it every 6 minutes. Low level players will rarely have the tools to speed up that recharge.

 

I appreciate that concept, but the low-level powers for Regeneration are so underwhelming.  When I did a lowbie Regenerator (before these changes that we're testing), Dull Pain was my panic-button power, the way Instant Healing later was, where it bailed me out when I was in over my head.  It's not great -- the recharge is indeed too long for a lowbie -- but it was an okay compromise.

 

If you don't want to move Second Wind down to T1-4, then consider moving Ailment Resistance earlier, or even Integration.

 

I agree that Ailment Resistance + Restoration feels decent -- I noticed that in my testing, Restoration felt a lot better once I had Ailment Resistance.

 

I think the core of the problem here is that Fast Healing and Quick Recovery are both low-end powers that are just not impressive, Restoration is fine but not really good until you get both Ailment Resistance and some recharge, and of the first four powers, only Ailment Resistance really feels impactful.  I don't totally understand keeping Fast Healing and Recovery unchanged in a medium revamp of the set.  It feels like even with the other improvements, Regen has some power budget to spare, and something to up both the power level (minorly) and the charisma (majorly) of the first half of the powerset would be welcome.

Edited June 3 by aethereal

[stryve]

I likely will not respec my Psi/Regen Scrapper for that reason.  Pretty happy with how it is now, and testing with Ailment Resistance and Reactive Regeneration showed about the same performance.  On the other hand, I do remember leveling him up, and Dull Pain's long recharge was very painful before I started getting things properly slotted.

 

Finally finished comparative testing on my Rad/Regen Sentinel, as I was a little more methodical than with the Scrapper.  This is an old toon, with a build that predates the major Sentinel rework, but he still does pretty well.  Full T4 Incarnates, all four +End/Max HP Accolades, etc.  Between power enhancement, Accolades, and set bonuses, Max HP is at the cap for the AT; Second Wind is slotted with a single Recharge Red and mostly used for Rez when I get overwhelmed.  I was very worried about loosing the Absorb shield from Instant Regeneration (95.17 every 3 seconds, capping at 475.86), since it's great for soaking alpha and then giving some breathing room for general regen to work during a fight. 

 

Porting the toon over to Brainstorm with no build changes, the differences in Regen Rate and Debuff Resist are very apparent:

Spoiler

Live | Beta

Losing the Absorb hurt, but nearly doubling the resting Regen Rate makes up for a lot.  To ensure an equivalent test on both sides, I ran the Welcome to Vanguard arc from Levantera in RWZ on both  live and beta, escalating difficulty from +1/x6 to +4/x6 at the end.  That arc has enough spawn density to easily get well over the agro cap shooting you, so x6 just means a few less bosses than x8.  Overall, performance seemed pretty even between the two.  Getting the attention of multiple groups at +4/x6 pushed me to the edge and kicked me over if I wasn't right on the ball, but that's what Second Wind is for.  I was honestly expecting an experience closer to what Taoquex reported earlier in this thread, but it's just not what I saw.

 

Now, a lot of that is probably down to build choices, as I have a fair bit of DEF and Resist from Pool Powers and set bonuses which with capped Max HP likely let me eat the alpha long enough for Reactive Regeneration to kick in.  Pretty sure I saw my Regen Rate hit ~150 hp/sec at least once during the worst of it, though I unfortunately didn't think to grab another screenshot.  Adding in Reconstruction and the occasional MoG was usually enough to keep me up long enough to reduce incoming fire.

 

Overall impressions of the changes for a Sentinel: 

• Trading Absorb for greatly increased Regen Rate works out about even. 
• Decreased cast time for MoG is greatly appreciated; feels much smoother to activate, especially reactively.
• Adding +20% Debuff Resist to all categories may not seem like much, but it has a noticeable effect in practice and gives a better base to build from.

[lemming]

2 hours ago, stryve said:

Finally finished comparative testing on my Rad/Regen Sentinel,

What are the odds I was trying out my Psi/Regen Scrapper and Rad/Regen Sentinel.

 

My results were pretty much the same, though a respec on my scrapper did make a difference.  Though mainly because it was one of my first chars, and there were some poor choices on live. 😉

[archgemini24]

If the idea is to have something available frequently for newer players early in the powerset, might Reconstruction warrant another look if Dull Pain/Second Wind is less of an option?

 

If the idea is that Reconstruction is available for a "retry" more consistently due to debuffs, does it make sense for it be more available for retries overall (base recharge change: Healing Flames is 40 seconds instead of 60). Perhaps a small post-click Regeneration boost and/or Regeneration and Recharge debuff resistance would give Reconstruction some uniqueness against other basic click-heals even if the base recharge is left alone; it would gain a lingering effect, and the temporary debuff resistance (again) helps it be more available for retries.

 

Other notes on running the set (Brute):

• It felt strange to finally see that all 9 powers had just enough of a use to warrant taking them all. At one point in my Regen-life I had builds where I did not take anything after Integration unless they were slot mules.
• Reactive Regeneration felt really good, but the stacks were a bit erratic. I am sure there were a few times where they saved me, but it did not feel like something I could leverage for myself (not particularly helped by the fact I run a Defense build; that is on me). If there are options for modification, please place my vote with doubling stack duration.
• Appreciate the cast-time reduction and bonus damage on Moment of Glory. Duration is still seems short even if this is meant to be a (now) Full-Body (offense and defense) Build-Up.
• Generally, the set felt better while maintaining the risk factor of getting Spiked. Will definitely enjoy my Regeneration character more, but will still pull out other melee characters when I need more top-end performance. I have not tried it on Tanks, yet. Life has been Lifing, recently.

[Lazarus]

If "FAST HEALING" was changed to +ABSORB, that would balance out the hole set and make it more stable.

 

Also +absorb is not affected be any debuffs, making the set more resistant.

[ghotistix]

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

If "FAST HEALING" was changed to +ABSORB, that would balance out the hole set and make it more stable.

 

Also +absorb is not affected be any debuffs, making the set more resistant.

 

yes, it would be really nice if at least some regen users **cough** sentinels **cough** had an absorb shield.

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 6/3/2025 at 11:24 AM, stryve said:

Porting the toon over to Brainstorm with no build changes, the differences in Regen Rate and Debuff Resist are very apparent:

 

It gets even better with a few (5-8?) Stacks of Reactive Regeneration. My Sent was walking around with maxed Regen resist (95%; the players asked for more, now we can cap it!) and 70% Recovery resist (at 50).

 

On 6/3/2025 at 3:14 PM, Troo said:

Is Dull Pain also an issue in the Invulnerability power set (available at the same level)? Is that a change folks have to look forward to there as well?

 

HC: "Hey Invul players, we know you already cap HP with minimal investment so we're tweaking DP max HP downwards and giving you an extra rez power you didn't have before lol. Don't worry, you can still run perma capped HP lmao."

 

Edited June 4 by twozerofoxtrot
😆

[Psi-bolt]

When Regen was proliferated to Brutes, Integration was made the Taunt Aura because there wasn't any other toggles to put it in.  It's not typically the status protection power.  It's usually a power with a damage aura, scaling effect, etc.  With the set now having such a power again, could the Taunt effect please move to Reactive Regeneration for Tankers.   I would wish this for Brutes as well honestly, but since folks have the choice to take Instant Healing, I can see why we wouldn't want to make that choice even an worse idea.  

 

The reason I prefer to have it there is that sometimes when I want to stealth/speed through missions I would like to be able to turn off my taunt aura.  Even though it's supposed to suppress under stealth, it doesn't always.  Speed Phase handles that for Super Speed stealth, but other forms of stealth aren't as consistent.  

[Yuro]

1 hour ago, Psi-bolt said:

When Regen was proliferated to Brutes, Integration was made the Taunt Aura because there wasn't any other toggles to put it in.  It's not typically the status protection power.  It's usually a power with a damage aura, scaling effect, etc.  With the set now having such a power again, could the Taunt effect please move to Reactive Regeneration for Tankers.   I would wish this for Brutes as well honestly, but since folks have the choice to take Instant Healing, I can see why we wouldn't want to make that choice even an worse idea.  

 

The reason I prefer to have it there is that sometimes when I want to stealth/speed through missions I would like to be able to turn off my taunt aura.  Even though it's supposed to suppress under stealth, it doesn't always.  Speed Phase handles that for Super Speed stealth, but other forms of stealth aren't as consistent.  

Having had to deal with this issue for years on an Energy Aura brute, you can find an "Only Affect Self" toggle at the P2W vendors.  I believe it's free.  If you toggle it on, the taunt won't affect anything and you can stealth on by.  Yeah, it is kind of a nuisance that way but it's something.

[Troo]

5 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Don't worry, you can still run perma capped HP lmao

 

So you think Invulnerability should get revamped as well. Fair enough.

 

[Troo]

It appears there are undocumented changes in Moment of Glory

• Removed in exchange for lesser values?
  • 100.00 knockup protection for 15.00s on self (reduced to 7.50) {at level 1}
  • 100.00 knock protection for 15.00s on self (reduced to 7.50) {level 1}
  • 100.00 repel protection for 15.00s on self (reduced to 7.50) {level 1}
  • 1,000.00%% resistance to knockup for 15.00s on self (reduced to 100) {level 1}
  • 1,000.00%% resistance to knock for 15.00s on self (reduced to 100) {level 1} 
  • 1,000.00%% resistance to repel for 15.00s on self (reduced to 100) {level 1}
  • 9.00 immobilize protection for 15.00s on self (reduced to 7.50) {level 1}
    • 20.76 reduced to 17.30 at level 50

 

Spoiler

 

 

[lemming]

51 minutes ago, Yuro said:

Having had to deal with this issue for years on an Energy Aura brute, you can find an "Only Affect Self" toggle at the P2W vendors.  I believe it's free.  If you toggle it on, the taunt won't affect anything and you can stealth on by.  Yeah, it is kind of a nuisance that way but it's something.

I do this a lot.

 

I'd have to do more research on the stealth suppresses auras.   It seems to work fine with my blasters and stalkers, but my other melee chars use the Only Affect Self trick.

[Enamel_32]

First off I'd like to say thanks for the clarification regarding Ailment Resistance, Dull Pain and Reconstruction. I fully agree with the motivation behind it.

 

I've never really felt that Reconstruction pulls its own weight. I think a big reason is while it's roughly in line with other standard-size heals in the game, the overall set doesn't provide much in means of reducing damage, compared to the other sets with heals like this. Often I'll see incoming damage, while Reconstruction is activating, take a big bite out of the health I wanted Reconstruction to recover in the first place. Dull Pain / Second Wind get around this through brute force, but the 15% healing increase doesn't quite elevate it to that level.

[Troo]

On 6/2/2025 at 9:46 AM, Troo said:

Suggestion:

Take another look at the power ordering.

I would strongly suggest at a minimum moving Second Wind (if it is to remain the second heal) to the level 10 spot. (Sentinels could have a different opinion and stick with their order)

• This could help mitigate the feel of losing Dull Pain for existing characters.
• It may also help retain some of the reactive aspect.
• Doesn't depart substantially from the beta design.

Heaven forbid Regens get a rez earlier in the game.

 

Having a second heal earlier in the game helps. This adds to the responsive feel of the set even if it is only used occasionally. It also separates Regeneration from Willpower's set-it-and-forget-it.

 

If not level 10, maybe level 16.

 

 

Taking the option away from existing characters to use Reconstruction and Dull Pain (now Second Wind) situationally is painful. My squishy Stalker sure notices.

Dull Pain has never been available all the time, folks know that, it is in the description for new folks, there is no trap here.

 

No more trap than building Defense on Regeneration which is now even more designed to take hits.

[Psi-bolt]

3 hours ago, Yuro said:

Having had to deal with this issue for years on an Energy Aura brute, you can find an "Only Affect Self" toggle at the P2W vendors.  I believe it's free.  If you toggle it on, the taunt won't affect anything and you can stealth on by.  Yeah, it is kind of a nuisance that way but it's something.

That's a great workaround, thanks.  

[Indystruck]

3 hours ago, Yuro said:

Having had to deal with this issue for years on an Energy Aura brute, you can find an "Only Affect Self" toggle at the P2W vendors.  I believe it's free.  If you toggle it on, the taunt won't affect anything and you can stealth on by.  Yeah, it is kind of a nuisance that way but it's something.

 

Hadn't ever considered using those in a non-RP/costume contest venue, good looking out.

[twozerofoxtrot]

5 hours ago, Troo said:

 

So you think Invulnerability should get revamped as well. Fair enough.

 

 

To paraphrase a tweet that might not have it's place on this Forum:

"That's a whole new sentence."

[Troo]

 

Did you just call me a "Bitch" and City Council member gave you a Haha reaction?! That's cool.

 

 

 

 

[WeatherLord]

Copied my T4'd Ninja Blade/Regen/Weapon Mastery Stalker to Beta and respec'd into Reactive Regeneration. My build already included all 9 Regen powers though I did shuffle a few slots around slightly. The overall build didn't need to change much though. This character is very heavy on theme, but I tried to squeeze as much efficiency into the character as possible (Perma Hasten, 42% Smash/Lethal Resists and 20ish other Resists, 90% Slow Resists, only 12% Def to all but Divine Avalanche easily softcaps Melee, good amount of Procs in single target attack chain)

 

My Beta Experience:

I played several missions ranging from +1/x3 to +4/x8 to experiment with the differences. I normally play Solo around +2 or +3 and keep the player count low, as Stalkers are naturally better at DPSing hard single targets vs groups. Ninja Blade specifically has pretty bad AoE sadly 

 

Playing at lower difficulties was mostly fine, Reactive Regen really helps keeps your health topped up. Regen has always felt like it rides a razor's edge between "unkillable" and "just plain dead". Sometimes a group of enemies could beat on me for eternity and my HP bar never moves. However, if you get too lax about it throughout the mission, your HP can plummet incredibly quickly and then you're dead.

 

To really stress-test the build, the final mission I played was the Marauder one from Maria Jenkins at +4/x8 which is not normally a mission / difficulty level that I could do on Live. That mission has IDF and since they do -regen, I wanted to see how it would go. Jumping into a group to fight them head on works great for exactly 15 seconds, then MoG wears off and you're dead. So, I used lots of pull tactics. This is where the new Reactive Regen really shined, as I could definitely tell it was helping to both keep me healed up plus prevented a good amount of -regen debuffs from coming through. As long as I was very careful, took it slow, leveraged cooldowns properly, pulling the group around corners, it went OK. I died a few times, though I accepted Death as a natural (but temporary) part of the Regeneration Powerset a long time ago. The mission is still a slog, and clearly I'm not expecting Stalker Regeneration to breeze through this at +4/x8. Ultimately, it was a nice stress-test to get a feel for the Set's ceiling. The -regen resistances and the higher average regen thanks to RR is huge!

 

When it came time to fight the AV, I had to Rez twice using Second Wind, but I was able to solo the AV without Lore pets or any Temp Powers, though I did use Barrier and Assault Hybrid. As a point of reference, I can solo him just fine on my Live build as well. It's a balance between going heavy DPS while cycling the big protection clicks (Instant Healing, Barrier, MoG) while heavily relying on Divine Avalanche while the big protection clicks are on cooldown. While IH does have superior Regen while it's up, having RR on constantly was definitely preferable.

 

My Thoughts / Opinions:

The changes are definitely an improvement. I particularly like Reactive Regen, a permanent ~400% Regen (enhanced) at minimum is really nice! I'm also a big fan of the added debuff resistances. Second Wind giving a heal is neat, and I'm fine with the instant rez pop-up on defeat. Glad to see a small amount of +recovery added to Fast Healing, since Stalkers always missed getting that benefit compared to the other archetypes. I didn't really notice the +Damage in MoG, but it's alright (would much rather have +recharge!). While I don't see myself using Instant Healing anymore, shouldn't it also get some -regen resistances? RR can cap -regen resist, but Instant Healing continues to just get neutered.

 

As other posters have mentioned, the lower HP cap really hurts Stalkers (and by extension Sentinels) a lot here. While going from "fine" to "dead" is kinda part of Regeneration's DNA, it's always felt more extreme on a Stalker, as enemies can burn through their 2k HP much faster. Since increasing the HP cap is unrealistic, it would be really nice to have some kind of +Absorb, though at this stage that's probably a pipe dream. I can live without it.

 

Please do consider giving +Recharge somewhere though. Especially if you want the Reconstruction + Ailment Resistance bigger heals combo to be an integral part of the set. With Reconstruction being a 60 second cooldown, it needs all the recharge it can get. Since regen has very little Damage Resistance / Defense, it eats through HP much quicker, which continues to be my experience on Live and when testing. In fact, for the longest time I never even had Reconstruction in my build. I always felt like I'd use it, then 5 seconds later I'm at half HP again, so I experimented with other defensive cooldown powers like Unleash Potential and Shadow Meld. Reconstruction just feels like it has a bit of an identity crisis at times. Either your regen is enough to keep you alive forever, or your about to be overwhelmed and need to do something about it. In those cases, popping Reconstruction will buy you a few more seconds at most, so either you need to have it ready again quickly or you need to have a Plan B.

 

Regardless, I'm happy the set is finally getting some love, thank you Devs! I love the active playstyle of Regeneration and needing to manage incoming damage, but I always find myself reaching to use Reconstruction and MoG only to see them often still recharging on cooldown. If the set could get some +Recharge somewhere, it'd really help with leveraging those active cooldowns (and benefit the players that decide to stick with IH). Reconstruction comboing with Ailment is neat and clearly better than Live, but as a heal in the premier Healing Armor Set, I just wish it did more.

Edited June 5 by WeatherLord

[Mournblade]

I tested a Claws/Regen and Katana/Regen on Beta, and I too found the changes to be a great improvement.  I don’t have strong opinions about the power progression in Regen, but I can say that the key to survival for me was to 6-slot Reconstruction, Second Wind, and MoG and 2-slot Hasten to keep SW up all the time. 

Fighting against large mobs of -Def enemies like Warriors in the new KW story arc (and Banished Pantheon Shamans) will drop your defense into -70% range so you’ll get hit a lot.  I light off Second Wind immediately to keep it up and going all the time for the HP boost (I don’t use it as a heal). 

If I get overwhelmed, I hit MoG.  There’s no crash and it caps your resists (for 15 seconds) and gives you +120% Defense if it is 6-slotted with a good set (like Reactive Defenses).  Recon is there as an oh-crap power, but I could solo x8 missions without much trouble.  I found that I used MoG a good bit when I soloed the new Khalisti Wharf Warrior missions because of the -Def cascading death spiral. 

Honestly, the new changes make Regen play kind of edgy, which I like.  I’m a huge SR fan and it has the same feel of “I’m freakin’ invincible” and then WHAM!  You just have to be disciplined to reactivate Second Wind every two minutes and be ready to hit MoG when you’re getting overwhelmed.

 

I attached my enhancement slotting for reference.

[KaizenSoze]

1 hour ago, Mournblade said:

Fighting against large mobs of -Def enemies like Warriors in the new KW story arc (and Banished Pantheon Shamans) will drop your defense into -70% range so you’ll get hit a lot.  I light off Second Wind immediately to keep it up and going all the time for the HP boost (I don’t use it as a heal). 

Try the new Skulls, I found them harder than Warriors because they do high damage neg energy. I found it hard to get enough resists to energy or energy attacks. Also, PPD Awakened are painful for the same reason.