Numerically, why pick Regeneration over Willpower?
By
AgentMountaineer,
Posted on: 2009-07-23 10:12 in Scrappers
for multiple reasons.
Be well, people of CoH.
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Umbral brings up something I forgot. When is /regen ever good without mitigation from the primary?
How do you even make it good if you don't have a super crutch like parry or divine avalanche?
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Super crutch?
Would you call DM's Siphon a super crutch? The current super-scrapper playing DM/SD would not be able to survive without the constant use of SL in their attack chains. What about Follow Up from Claws? Blinding Feint from Dual Blades? Can we even go so far as calling the Invincibility power from Invulnerability it's crutch?
The primaries have different aspects about them. Why does a tool to get additional defense = super crutch, especially when you have to sacrifice a good portion of DPS for it?
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Umbral brings up something I forgot. When is /regen ever good without mitigation from the primary?
How do you even make it good if you don't have a super crutch like parry or divine avalanche?
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Super crutch?
Would you call DM's Siphon a super crutch? The current super-scrapper playing DM/SD would not be able to survive without the constant use of SL in their attack chains. What about Follow Up from Claws? Blinding Feint from Dual Blades? Can we even go so far as calling the Invincibility power from Invulnerability it's crutch?
The primaries have different aspects about them. Why does a tool to get additional defense = super crutch, especially when you have to sacrifice a good portion of DPS for it?
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Logic's a little off on Claws and DB.
If Parry is Broadsword's crutch, then SiphonLife is Dark's, and Shockwave is Claws'.
FU and BF are the buildups of the set.
Beyond that, I'm in agreement with you. DA/Parry are a HUGE benefit. But so are all the other utility powers and secondary effects from every other primary.
Be well, people of CoH.
Coke or Pepsi??? I'm a Coke guy... how about you guys?
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Umbral brings up something I forgot. When is /regen ever good without mitigation from the primary?
How do you even make it good if you don't have a super crutch like parry or divine avalanche?
[/ QUOTE ]
Super crutch?
Would you call DM's Siphon a super crutch? The current super-scrapper playing DM/SD would not be able to survive without the constant use of SL in their attack chains. What about Follow Up from Claws? Blinding Feint from Dual Blades? Can we even go so far as calling the Invincibility power from Invulnerability it's crutch?
The primaries have different aspects about them. Why does a tool to get additional defense = super crutch, especially when you have to sacrifice a good portion of DPS for it?
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Logic's a little off on Claws and DB.
If Parry is Broadsword's crutch, then SiphonLife is Dark's, and Shockwave is Claws'.
FU and BF are the buildups of the set.
Beyond that, I'm in agreement with you. DA/Parry are a HUGE benefit. But so are all the other utility powers and secondary effects from every other primary.
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It depends on your secondary if you're primaries "support" power is going to be hyper-synergistic with it.
Siphon Life is only going to add a boatload of survivability to secondaries that don't have much in the way of damage recovery, which is why */SR, */SD, and */Invuln love synergizing with DM.
DA/Parry is only going to add a boatload of survivability when you're not already softcapped or near enough already. */SR, */SD, and */Invuln all do quite well without it because they've simply got enough native +def that it's pointless to sacrifice their offense for a bit more defense.
The "defensive crutches" for the other primaries are less obvious and less likely to be seen as "crutches" at all. Claws could probably get away with calling Focus and Shockwave "defensive crutches" because of the knockdown and knockback respective though I don't think anyone actually uses them as such. Dual Blades definitely has the Weaken and Sweep combos, though Weaken is just bad honestly making Sweep the only truly effective "defensive crutch". MA and Spines are both equally hard to find a real defensive power that still has synergy with offensive capabilities.
The entire point is that the powers are only "crutches" when applied to specific powersets. Siphon Life is incredible for some sets simply because it gives them an additional 21 hp/sec, nearly quintupling base regen and tripling regen with slotted Health, while ignoring heal slotting. DA/Parry are incredible for powersets and builds without gobs of defense because it can, nearly out of the box, provide softcapped defense to melee and lethal. That's 90% mitigation where most of the sets that benefit significantly would only have 40-50% without huge sacrifices.
The point I was trying to make was that sometimes it's the primary that Werner capitalized less on his */regen skills and moreso on his katana/* skills on that character. It made him quite effective, and I'm not going to downplay what he's done, but it's thanks to a very powerful skill that he was able to leverage very well more than the ability to leverage the uptimes and downtimes of all of his */regen powers.
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Coke or Pepsi??? I'm a Coke guy... how about you guys?
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I was a Coke guy, but now I'm more of a Pepsi guy.
"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
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Coke or Pepsi??? I'm a Coke guy... how about you guys?
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Cherry coke 
"All problems can be solved by throwing enough scrappers at it."
@Riez on Virtue, Protector, Champion, and Exalted server.
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Coke or Pepsi??? I'm a Coke guy... how about you guys?
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I was a Coke guy, but now I'm more of a Pepsi guy.
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I used to be a Pepsi guy, but now I'm a Coke guy...
I challenge you to a duel, sir.
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Claws could probably get away with calling Focus and Shockwave "defensive crutches" because of the knockdown and knockback respective though I don't think anyone actually uses them as such.
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You'd be wrong.
EDIT: At least in my particular case, of course.
Be well, people of CoH.
Jack & Coke?
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Jack & Coke?
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For about a decade. Now I stick with Guinness. Much healthier on da belly!
Be well, people of CoH.
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Jack & Coke?
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Rum and coke. My first legal alchohol purchase at the club and still one my favs. I think ill go to happy hour after work.
"All problems can be solved by throwing enough scrappers at it."
@Riez on Virtue, Protector, Champion, and Exalted server.
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Jack & Coke?
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I was a Crown & Coke but I stop drinking almost 2 years ago.
"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
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Jack & Coke?
[/ QUOTE ] ohhhh that's a good combo right there.
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Jack & Coke?
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I am fond of Windsor & Coke or a good lager.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
<QR>
Beer. Usually Newcastle Brown Ale
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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<QR>
Beer. Usually Newcastle Brown Ale
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That's my choice when I need a light beer. 
How do you feel about Belhaven Scottish Ale?
Be well, people of CoH.
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Coke or Pepsi??? I'm a Coke guy... how about you guys?
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I don't mind either one, but Pepsi tastes better.
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Umbral brings up something I forgot. When is /regen ever good without mitigation from the primary?
How do you even make it good if you don't have a super crutch like parry or divine avalanche?
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"Good" is relative. Way back when (somewhere in the I7-I9 era, but this is definitely a no-invention build) someone suggested many times on the forums that Regen was so weak the burst damage from just one strong boss would kill it "in seconds." So I decided to test that theory with a regen I had that was around level 37. I tank two even Rikti Bosses in melee range (cycling melee and ranged attacks) and a third even level mesmerist boss firing at range.
It takes them about three minutes to kill me while I do not fight back at all (I originally did the test with just the two bosses in melee, but it took too long for them to kill me for a demo video so I added the third ranged boss).
That's obviously not "RWZ Challenge" good, but its plenty good enough for a lot of players. And regen gets that level of power much earlier than most scrappers do.
What people choose to value is a personal preference decision, but Regen's advantages tend to be:
1. Regen gets early QR (for scrappers). This has benefits for soloing speed, and it also eliminates the need to acquire power pools very early in the build to set up stamina (Regen can certainly pick those powers anyway as an option if desirable). This is an especially noticable advantage from about level 10 (when endurance starts to become a higher bottleneck than attack recharge) to about level 20 (when stamina becomes theoretically available to everyone). The advantage lingers subtly (due to the lower power choice cost of QR) probably until 30.
2. Regen tends to start off stronger than most defensive sets. It tends to have a defensive edge against most other melee mitigation powersets until at least the upper 30s.
3. It has an advantage in gaining from recharge buffs, and the primary buffing advantages of Willpower (its closest rival in performance and architecture) can sometimes get saturated away (i.e. Willpower's defensive stacking advantage is only an advantage until there is enough defensive buffing to exceed the situational soft-cap, whereupon Willpower's own intrinsic defenses deliver no additional benefit).
If you are a solo min/maxing build jockey, Willpower or SR will probably give you better maximum potential than Regen (Invuln situationally so). But that doesn't mean Regen will lag Willpower (or any other set) at all times in all circumstances as you are levelling the build.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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Claws could probably get away with calling Focus and Shockwave "defensive crutches" because of the knockdown and knockback respective though I don't think anyone actually uses them as such.
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You'd be wrong.
EDIT: At least in my particular case, of course.
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Bill doesn't use Shockwave as a crutch. Bill uses it like a gold-plated stair lift with a mini bar and an iPod dock.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
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<QR>
Beer. Usually Newcastle Brown Ale
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That would be my choice of drink if we're going that way...
So I guess I like light beers... 
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Coke or Pepsi??? I'm a Coke guy... how about you guys?
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I don't mind either one, but Pepsi tastes better.
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Pepsi??? ohhh yuck!!!
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Jack & Coke?
[/ QUOTE ] If I'm gonna drink whiskey, I would pick Crown myself. But over the past year or so I have grown attached to gin. Mmmmm, Bombay Sapphire.
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It has an advantage in gaining from recharge buffs
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Yeah and too bad it gets debuffed to hell along with it's other primary form of mitigation, regeneration.
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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It has an advantage in gaining from recharge buffs
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Yeah and too bad it gets debuffed to hell along with it's other primary form of mitigation, regeneration.
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The game still sets pet-class base tohit to 75%, not 50% (everything from Frostfire's pets to Malta turrets) which for SR scrappers "immune to defense debuffing" the relative equivalent for Regen would be having an entire class of foe which upon targeting you made all your enhancements vanish.
Everyone's got problems. Overemphasizing one of them suggests a lack of awareness of all the others.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
[ QUOTE ]
Because the snapdragons send banjos on the 4th of July!
Because the two heads combine into a twin shark!
Because the silly topic deserves a silly reply!
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go run into a room full of people who hate me, get knocked down, get back up again, get knocked down again, get back up again, etc. Because I have more fun when I see my health bar do the Dance of the Second (and Third and Fourth and Fifth) Wind.
Wheeeeeeee!
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Agreed. This thread needs to be thrown in front of a team of DB/regen scrappers doing one thousand cuts.
"All problems can be solved by throwing enough scrappers at it."
@Riez on Virtue, Protector, Champion, and Exalted server.