Anything Skippable in the New Regen?

[Seed22]

On 8/18/2025 at 12:16 AM, bAss_ackwards said:

The only thing I've skipped was Reconstruction. I've made a ~45% S/L/F/C/E/N Defense build that works quite well and is a lot of fun to play!

No. Do not do this OP, any of this.

 

Regen is a recharge and Max HP set. Literally the most simple set to build and play imo in the game. Just go recharge and max HP and at most maybe skip fast healing and even then thats some regen res you're leaving on the table.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

 

I really think people have gotten entirely wrapped around the axle about regen debuff resistance.

 

I ran Bio armor, like...  a lot.  Here is the list of enemies that notably debuffed my regen and gave me a hard time because of it:

 

Run plenty of Bio in my time, but Regen is not the only aspect that Bio relies on...or perhaps to say, Regen is more dependent on debuff resistance for not having the same protections Bio does. 

 

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

Regeneration debuffs are just really quite rare! 

 

Perhaps, but by the same token, sappers are pretty rare too and yet people despise them. 😛

[aethereal]

40 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Run plenty of Bio in my time, but Regen is not the only aspect that Bio relies on...or perhaps to say, Regen is more dependent on debuff resistance for not having the same protections Bio does. 

 

Regen is far from singularly reliant on regeneration!  It has two heals, a meaningful layer of resistance, and of course a defense godmode.  While it will of course be significantly impaired if its regen is debuffed, it has other tools!  Also, I don't know how much people actually are following this advice, but I note that the big advocates for this set tend to also take Rune of Power, Melee Hybrid, Shadow Meld, or other additional panic buttons.

 

But, more relevantly, note that we're not talking about the difference between 95% regen debuff resistance and 0% regen debuff resistance.  We're talking about the difference between 95% and 75%, and only some of the time.  Like, this is such a tiny hole that has so many ways to handle it.

 

40 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

 

Perhaps, but by the same token, sappers are pretty rare too and yet people despise them. 😛

 

Okay, but you don't hear people saying, "Invulnerability is a useless armor set because it has a problem with Sappers it must be given end/recovery protection."

 

People don't say, "Devouring Earth Crystals basically entirely negate defense armor so you can't play defense armors."

 

Plenty of armors have toxic and psi holes that are clearly much more likely to come up than this RDR hole, and mostly people say, "It's not that big a deal, just counterplay it, don't obsess over closing these holes."

 

Like, if someone has been killed all the time because of regen debuffs and has come to the conclusion that they really want to play regen but their lived experience is that it's miserable due to not having the absolute highest level of regen debuff resistance theoretically possible in every part of the game, that's fair.  I just want to ask:  is that in fact what your experience is?  Do you have lots of experience with deaths due to regen debuffs?  Or is this getting wrapped around the axle on the forums?

 

Edited August 21 by aethereal

[Erratic1]

1 minute ago, aethereal said:

Regen is far from singularly reliant on regeneration!  It has two heals, a meaningful layer of resistance, and of course a defense godmode.  While it will of course be significantly impaired if its regen is debuffed, it has other tools!  Also, I don't know how much people actually are following this advice, but I note that the big advocates for this set tend to also take Rune of Power, Melee Hybrid, Shadow Meld, or other additional panic buttons.

 

Healing is something Bio does on top of its regen AND resistance AND defense before we even get into its stance dancing allowing it to shift to be more protected at need.

4 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Like, this is such a tiny hole that has so many ways to handle it.

 

Again, sappers do not come up often, but when they do, you would really like to be resistant. Defense debuff does not come up regularly either and yet....

 

5 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Okay, but you don't hear people saying, "Invulnerability is a useless armor set because it has a problem with Sappers it must be given end/recovery protection."

 

Nor have I said Regen is useless if you don't take every bit of Regen Debuff Resistance. I prefer to minimize potential problems, particularly to the point where I don't have to think about them. Others have different thresholds for dealing with such things, and that is fine.

[aethereal]

19 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Healing is something Bio does on top of its regen AND resistance AND defense before we even get into its stance dancing allowing it to shift to be more protected at need.

 

But it has zero debuff resistance.  Again, you are talking about the difference between 75% resistance and 95% resistance, some-but-not-all-of-the-time.  If we were talking about actual damage resistance, we wouldn't even call 75% resistance a "hole."  People think that Shield has good DDR, and its DDR is usually around 75%.

 

I really want to know: do you actually have experience being killed due to regen debuffs?

[Erratic1]

Just now, aethereal said:

 

But it has zero debuff resistance.  Again, you are talking about the difference between 75% resistance and 95% resistance, some-but-not-all-of-the-time.  If we were talking about actual damage resistance, we wouldn't even call 75% resistance a "hole."  People think that Shield has good DDR, and its DDR is usually around 75%.

 

I really want to know: do you actually have experience being killed due to regen debuffs?

 

It has no Debuff resistance but relies for that on only two damage types, with resistance, healing, the ability to shift into Defensive stance, -=*AND*=- the ability to increases its Regeneration, which is an inherent offset to Regeneration being debuffed.

 

As for experience being killed due to regen debuffs, no I don't...I try to avoid that by taking what I can to keep from dying. Isn't that the point? 😛

[aethereal]

Okay, so here's what I'd like to say to people contemplating the new Regen:

 

The idea that Regen has a big problem with regeneration debuff resistance is based on nothing.  It's a giant game of forum telephone, where someone at some point said, "Super Reflexes has 95% DDR, so Regen should have 95% RDR," and other people picked that up and amplified it despite it never having been a significant problem with the set, until it became common wisdom.  Look, if you want to get Fast Healing, feel free, but you should be aware that if you have a character with Fast Healing or without, if you're not allowed to look at the powers screen or monitor combat attributes, you very likely will be literally unable to tell whether you have that power or not even if you play 10 hours against a wide variety of content.

 

The problem that Regeneration has -- both the original set and the revamped one -- is with damage.  Using only the powers in the set, it has weaker mitigation than most armor sets.  Spaghetti Betty and others have realized that you can plug this hole by essentially playing "Moment of Glory, Rune of Power, Hybrid Melee, and Barrier defense," and then having the other powers in Regeneration serve as an additional layer of mitigation on top of basically playing a maxed def or resistance character.  This is in fact powerful, because most sets have nowhere to go once they max their def or res, but the big virtue of regeneration is that it's a whole different layer of mitigation that stacks well with def/res.

 

However, if you don't continuously keep yourself in god mode with MoG + non-regen powers -- whether because that's not a style of play you enjoy or for concept reasons or whatever else -- you're going to struggle not with regeneration debuffs but with totally ordinary damage that is done not by 1% of the game but by 100% of enemies.  Not throwing power choices on mostly-useless powers leaves things open to take that Shadow Meld or Rune of Power that will help a lot more with your survivability than another 20% RDR.  If you don't want to take those, you should choose it based largely on whether you can usefully have it mule whichever or defense or resistance that you're chasing.  Or just take another attack power.

[Erratic1]

Sounds like the argument is being made one does not need Regeneration Debuff Resistance (for reasons or if you build in certain ways). As the purpose of Regeneration is healing damage faster than it is coming in, that then suggest there is some reachable effective Regeneration value which is sufficient to always live. So what is this value?

 

Resistance and Defense are mostly about increasing your effective Regeneration value--you take less damage over time and so your regeneration outpaces incoming damage. RDR is an offset to effects which directly lower your resistance. Is the game dripping in regeneration debuffs? Cant say I've ever truly noticed them, but as noted, no other powerset other than Regeneration is so focused on Regeneration by which to notice. You might as well ask a Resistance based character what their experience is as goes Defense debuffs--they don't care about such. But people always pooh-pooh the notion of Resistance based characters layering Defense because it can be stripped EVEN IF MOST THINGS IN THE GAME DON'T STRIP IT and so in most cases it would improve survivability and they would be no worse off (assuming they hadn't traded Resistance for Defense) for having the extra Defense.

 

If you are content with not maxing your RDR, that is of course your choice. I am not sure why, even if the times it makes a difference is only 1 time in 1000, some seem to think it is problematic for others to address that 1 time, especially not when most builds are not short on power slots and the power in question does more than provide RDR.

[lemming]

With my regen tanker, I've noted better survivability by maxing out my HP/sec and resistance is more worthwhile than defense since you actually want some hits.

When I have everything going at once, I'm at 350 hp/sec+ which mitigates a lot.    -regen I don't see as often, but slow effects are worse I find.

 

My regen Brute is a little more fragile, but I slotted differently and they never stay down even if taken out.   Similar with my Scrapper.

 

Generally, if I can pause damage for a second or two on occasion, I don't have an issue.  It's a bit more active compared to some of the other defense sets, and my attack set seems to do better if I have knockdowns available.  (Foot Stomp, Dragon's Tail, and Mass Levitate for some...)

[tidge]

20 hours ago, aethereal said:

Okay, so here's what I'd like to say to people contemplating the new Regen:

 

The idea that Regen has a big problem with regeneration debuff resistance is based on nothing.  It's a giant game of forum telephone, where someone at some point said, "Super Reflexes has 95% DDR, so Regen should have 95% RDR," 

 

Slow down there partner... why aren't you entertaining the idea of +50% Absorb for nuRegen?

[Spaghetti Betty]

On 8/21/2025 at 8:04 PM, aethereal said:

The problem that Regeneration has -- both the original set and the revamped one -- is with damage.  Using only the powers in the set, it has weaker mitigation than most armor sets.  Spaghetti Betty and others have realized that you can plug this hole by essentially playing "Moment of Glory, Rune of Power, Hybrid Melee, and Barrier defense," and then having the other powers in Regeneration serve as an additional layer of mitigation on top of basically playing a maxed def or resistance character.  This is in fact powerful, because most sets have nowhere to go once they max their def or res, but the big virtue of regeneration is that it's a whole different layer of mitigation that stacks well with def/res.

Finally, someone gets it!

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Finally, someone gets it!

 

Whoaaaaa now. They sorta get it.

 

On 8/21/2025 at 6:04 PM, aethereal said:

Spaghetti Betty and others have realized that you can plug this hole by essentially playing "Moment of Glory, Rune of Power, Hybrid Melee, and Barrier defense," and then having the other powers in Regeneration serve as an additional layer of mitigation on top of basically playing a maxed def or resistance character.

On 8/21/2025 at 6:04 PM, aethereal said:

However, if you don't continuously keep yourself in god mode with MoG + non-regen powers -- whether because that's not a style of play you enjoy or for concept reasons or whatever else -- you're going to struggle not with regeneration debuffs but with totally ordinary damage that is done not by 1% of the game but by 100% of enemies.

 

Folks use a rotation of powers outside Regeneration for +4/8 and the hardest content, mostly solo. 

For regular game play and especially while teaming it is simply not necessary. The old set with 2 heals and Instant Healing, it was rare to use all three in regular content. On big, league oriented content it is laughable how little of the tool box is used. Regeneration gobbles up team buffs in a way that some other armors don't.

 

Moment of Glory (15s), Instant Healing (90s), Rune of Protection (60s), Shadow Meld (15s), Demonic Aura (60s) can all be had before Incarnates. Other ATs can also take advantage of similar tactics. 

I also use Darkest Night (-ToHit/-Dam) on Brutes with the bonus of keeping things aggro'd.

[aethereal]

7 hours ago, Troo said:

Folks use a rotation of powers outside Regeneration for +4/8 and the hardest content, mostly solo. 

For regular game play and especially while teaming it is simply not necessary.

 

I mean, sure.  Anyone can play +0/x1 while taking only one power from their armor set, as always.  Or if you play in 8-man teams against most content in the game you can do literally whatever and be fine (including staying by the door).  And yes, if you're in a league so you have maxed def and probably also resist you again have this layer of additional mitigation that other armors don't, just like if you rotate god mode on yourself.

[Troo]

4 minutes ago, aethereal said:

 

I mean, sure.  Anyone can play +0/x1 while taking only one power from their armor set, as always.  Or if you play in 8-man teams against most content in the game you can do literally whatever and be fine (including staying by the door).  And yes, if you're in a league so you have maxed def and probably also resist you again have this layer of additional mitigation that other armors don't, just like if you rotate god mode on yourself.

 

That's fair.

Just don't want to mislead anyone not doing +4/8.

[Maelwys]

On 8/22/2025 at 2:04 AM, aethereal said:

However, if you don't continuously keep yourself in god mode with MoG + non-regen powers -- whether because that's not a style of play you enjoy or for concept reasons or whatever else -- you're going to struggle not with regeneration debuffs but with totally ordinary damage that is done not by 1% of the game but by 100% of enemies. 

Whilst i agree that the line of thought "Health Regeneration plus Defense and/or Resistance > Health Regeneration" has its merits...
...I'm not convinced that you're going to struggle if you don't continuously rotate 'GodMode' powers.

For the most part my old Regen Scrapper could always get by just fine on +4x8 simply by hitting things hard; using Dull Pain reactively and saving Reconstruction as a secondary top-up heal. Having MoG and Instant Healing to fall back on certainly helped... but it was a very rare occasion where I needed more than a very brief respite from incoming damage (and frankly, in my mind that's what insps are for!). Whilst I do tend to pick up things like Rune of Protection and Shadow Meld on other characters; the former requires three power picks (a tough tax these days on a Regen toon; even if I was to countenance giving up Fast Healing) and the latter's cast time is slooooooow - I can quite literally open my global email, click into one which has a Big Purple Insp attached, claim it and chug it before Shadow Meld's animation completes (and it lasts four times longer!).

Before shutdown; IH would set my Scrapper's HP/Sec to about 160 HP/Sec for 90s roughly every 3mins. These days with Reactive Healing that same Scrapper now passively regenerates ~115-140 HP/Sec (depending on incoming wallops) all the time. Which raises their Immortality Line something shocking. Adding Hardcapped Resists and Softcapped Defenses on top of that might be occasionally useful; but IMO for the vast majority of gameplay it's not worth the required build tradeoffs. Especially if you have an offensive powerset that can situationally add to survivability (Divine Avalanche, Parry, Ice Patch, Storm Kick, Guarded Spin, Defensive Sweep, etc.) or can type "/AH".

All that said; providing someone has the inf and inclination... keeping a "maximum mitigation" alternate build in your back pocket to situationally swap to might be a good idea.
 

Edited August 23 by Maelwys

[Psi-bolt]

Reconstruction can be pretty easily skipped.  Low level, it's helpful, but not up enough to delay attacks or other powers like Tough.  

 

Reconstruction is a good power but once you layer on enough resists, you won't need a burst heal as often.  I usually still take Reconstruction very late in the build because I often run out of powers I want at the 47 and 49 slots.  

[Psi-bolt]

On 8/20/2025 at 1:29 PM, SomeGuy said:

 

 

I actually value what DW gives WAY more than panacea. Yea, DW "only" gives 5% recharge for it's 5pc, but it gives SLFC resistance on the way to that. Panacea doesn't do that.

 

DEF > RES > HP >>>> HP/s. Oh, and if it's dead, it can't hit you. I will NEVER chase HP/s. Ever. Unless it's pre-nerf IH levels of broken, I refuse to chase it. Is it nice? Sure. But it definitely isn't reliable, nor strong enough for the types of stuff I do. 

 

Regen as a set goes completely against what I know works well. 

 

If you've played the game for a while you can tell that Will Power was the first real attempt at fixing the set. Then more changes. And once again, just released a new set...Bio Armor happened. 

 

The added debuff protection is a really good start. And there are some smart changes to the powers. It still needs work and attention though. The set seriously needs some baked in Recharge Debuff protection. It's a pretty big slap in the face it currently doesn't have that considering how recharge dependent the set is.

 

 

This is not a criticism, but I think your post and especially the highlighted statements reflects how much of a change in approach Regen needs over other sets.

 

Everyone has their own playstyle and like I said, I'm not criticizing yours.  But for me Regen is near perfect in its current iteration.  The way I build is to stack as much resistance and regen as possible with additional HP on the side (although I don't build for it).  I always cap out Smashing and Lethal resists and get as far as I can with the reset.  For most of the my regens I ignore defense altogether (although my Scrapper does have an experimental build that does very well.)  I don't think the set is particularly recharge dependent these days.  With SOs maybe, but certainly not with an IO build that layers defensive options.

 

I have a Regen in every AT that allows it, and while most of them have all the powers, I barely have to activate the click powers.  Most of the time I only use MoG when I know I'm dealing with a large amount of non-Smashing, Lethal damage.   My Regen Tanker doesn't even have Reconstruction and I don't miss it.   Even where I do have it, I don't always treat it as a burst heal.  I have one character that has a resist set slotted for the set bonuses.

 

One of the things I love about Regen is that it requires a completely different approach than other sets and it really pays off when you go in a different direction.

[Maelwys]

36 minutes ago, Psi-bolt said:

I don't think the set is particularly recharge dependent these days.  With SOs maybe, but certainly not with an IO build that layers defensive options.

Personally the only thing on the Regen side that I like stacking Recharge Debuff resistance for now is MoG.

Reconstruction is definitely still in my builds; but since it's now resistable I find myself thinking a bit less of it. Moving the bulk of the +MaxHP from to Ailment Resistance has resulted in Dull Pain Second Wind uptime being much less of an issue than before. Resistance to REGENERATION RATE debuffs is very important though; but Regen gets enough of that by default that it isn't a huge issue and Running Ageless Radial is merely icing on the cake.

However on the offensive side of the house... it definitely makes my life easier whenever my attack chain keeps ticking along regardless of the recharge debuffage.

My own approach to Regen is Decent Healing/Regeneration Rate -> Capped HP -> Reasonable Defence/Resistance -> High Healing/Regeneration Rate. I don't like "overfocussing" on Resistance or Defense for my solo baseline survivability; as Team buffs and Insps (and the odd power from offensive powersets) commonly shore those up. And I'd also much rather aim for "good enough" survivability and devote the bulk of my build's attention to damage output than make multiple build compromises in order to hit the defense/resistance cap(s) and/or rotate godmode abilities.
 

The above thread shows where my old Katana/Regen landed immediately after i28p2; although they've since been tweaked to get another ~11HP/Sec before Reactive stacks.

Scrapper - Kat_Regen IOed.mbd
 

Edited Friday at 04:47 PM by Maelwys

[Psi-bolt]

2 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

My own approach to Regen is Decent Healing/Regeneration Rate -> Capped HP -> Reasonable Defence/Resistance -> High Healing/Regeneration Rate. I don't like "overfocussing" on Resistance or Defense for my solo baseline survivability; as Team buffs and Insps (and the odd power from offensive powersets) commonly shore those up. And I'd also much rather aim for "good enough" survivability and devote the bulk of my build's attention to damage output than make multiple build compromises in order to hit the defense/resistance cap(s) and/or rotate godmode abilities.
 

 

I more or less agree with this statement.  I will say that stacking Smashing and Lethal resists to max is usually extremely easy and doesn't require any significant build sacrifices.   Just doing that, I find that I'm around 30-40% resists in everything else without trying to be.   

[Maelwys]

1 minute ago, Psi-bolt said:

stacking Smashing and Lethal resists to max is usually extremely easy and doesn't require any significant build sacrifices.

I agree that it's easy to hit the S/L Resistance caps (especially on Tankers); but I've yet to see any builds where they haven't made significant build sacrifices to achieve it.

IIRC the path of least resistance is alternating Rune of Protection and MoG; but there's a gap that can only realistically be filled with Melee Hybrid (in which case you're sacrificing Assault Hybrid) and/or the Eye of the Magus Accolade (long recharge time). Some swear by Shadowmeld; but that's got a cast time measured in eons and is +Def not +Res.
You can take Tough and then chase Set Bonuses via 5-piece Numina/Mako/Touch of Death/Gladiator's Strike and/or 6x Superior Scrappers Strike ATOs; but that means less Global Recharge (Heals) or Procbombing (Attacks) and/or a very poor ATO2 proc activation rate.

I find about 50% (on Scrappers at least) is the sweet spot. Beyond that you start having to make too many offensive sacrifices for my liking.

[Psi-bolt]

11 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

I agree that it's easy to hit the S/L Resistance caps (especially on Tankers); but I've yet to see any builds where they haven't made significant build sacrifices to achieve it.

IIRC the path of least resistance is alternating Rune of Protection and MoG; but there's a gap that can only realistically be filled with Melee Hybrid (in which case you're sacrificing Assault Hybrid) and/or the Eye of the Magus Accolade (long recharge time). Some swear by Shadowmeld; but that's got a cast time measured in eons and is +Def not +Res.
You can take Tough and then chase Set Bonuses via 5-piece Numina/Mako/Touch of Death/Gladiator's Strike and/or 6x Superior Scrappers Strike ATOs; but that means less Global Recharge (Heals) or Procbombing (Attacks) and/or a very poor ATO2 proc activation rate.

I find about 50% (on Scrappers at least) is the sweet spot. Beyond that you start having to make too many offensive sacrifices for my liking.

 I guess it depends on what folks consider a significant build sacrifice.  I usually don't spend a lot of time min-maxing for proc activation rates to be honest, so I might be leaving some offense on the table.  I usually find the sacrifices needed to stack recharge very high to be more distasteful, recognizing that recharge helps both offensively and defensively.