Sell me on Regen.....

I've just never been able to bring myself to play a character that uses it, I mean, if you've no way of lessening damage or evading it, you're always going to get hit and for full amount, I mean....fill me in?

It's all a question of getting addicted to getting hurt ;D Seriously though, you kinda underestimate Regen it seems. Sure, we don't have resistance (much, you can get 15 % res to all with resilience) and we don't have an ability to evade enemy hits, but really, had Regen got those things, I'd say it could be some of the strongest kind of armor in the whole game!

It's all a question about making sure not to get too much damage, or to make sure that you are able to regenerate whatever damage gets to you, which often isn't that difficult.

That said, I haven't tried using Regen against very big mobs (x5+) solo, so YMMV.

It isn't the strongest set in most cases but it's different and it's fun both conceptually and clicktacularly. It does soak mad debuffz, yo, but if you build it for defense it can be just about as sturdy as anything. The fact that it doesn't really do anything for your offense (besides endurance alleviation early on) is in my view its weakest trait, but it's not unique in that.

However, one of my two justices of the street peace thus far is also my first brute, using regen. Why? Well the brute version has a taunt aura and in general benefits from regen's tools of sturdiness more than most secondaries do, and also it's a set I hadn't played in ages. It's kind of self-inflicted hard mode but in an easy game you need to take matters into your own hands at some point. Plus it makes you extremely glowy.

As a note on its overall strongitude, I made an Elec/Regen scrapper when electric melee was proliferated and built for melee defense for some freaking reason. That character can solo most things on 2x8.

I'll tell you one thing... Regeneration sucks on Stalker! Yup, there I said it.

Why? Stalker has low HP Cap (you don't even need Regen to get to the HP Cap, Accolades will do) and Stalker's HP is low so the +regen effect is not as potent as being on Brute. Oh and Stalker Regen doesn't have Quick Recovery. :P

Regeneration is one of those sets that gets ported to Stalker but never really get "adjusted" to Stalker's needs.

If I recall, Stalker Regen doesn't have better +resistance. It's just overall a bad design for a squishy AT.

To be honest, I don't think regen is good. I've played it several times into the late 30s/ early 40s, and always felt ridiculously weak for a melee AT.

Regen is basically all about situational awareness. Because your going to get hit, and its going to hurt.

You then have to decide if its worth it to pop your t9 (which is fast recharging) to soak the alpha, or prevent that AV from landing a hit. Reconstruction is up often enough that you can literally heal over 50% of your HP every 15 seconds, dull pain even on SOs, if up often enough to not just heal about 80% of your HP, but it boosts your HP cap by about 40%, giving you not just a very nice heal, but boosting your overall regen in the process. Have a ton of minion/Lts mobs pounding your face? Hit Instant Healing, and watch them never get your HP below 80%.

Thats where regen benefits, from high situational awareness, You have to judge when would be a good time to use your clicks, and how to juggle your offensive powers with your defensive powers.

Basically the saying is, if you can't kill a regen in the first 10 seconds, you'll never kill a regen.

I never really enjoyed it, feels very fragile in that any significant burst damage can take you down (e.g. taking alpha) if you're not careful.

That said, if you build up defense with IOs, it can fare pretty good, I hear. Someone made a soft cap Kat/Regen Brute build over on our boards (if I recall correctly).

It isn't just about being able to reach the "survival line," either. Upon further consideration, my favorite thing about regen is that unlike most sets, which have cascade failure of one sort or another, regen has cascade success. Can you just coast through most fights on your passives and toggle alone? Well, actually, yes. Often you can't, though, and so you begin to hit your clicks.

Oh, nice alpha strike, *recon* I think I'll have another. Oh really? You had another, did you? *DP* You were saying something about damage?

Throw in IH and MoG and you kind of have to work to find situations you can't somehow survive. Giant regen debuffs are one, yes, but that pretty much ruins anyone's day aside from SR and SD, since they tend to avoid them. Defense debuffs? Again, regen is hardly alone in its vulnerability there.

In addition to the fact that it doesn't boost your offense, its other main weakness is that so many clicks equals a lot of redraw on weapon sets. Play a weaponless set with regen and you are good to go. It's certainly worth a shot if you haven't before.

Heals mean you don't care about damage types. Many people care if damage gets out of the s/l range into energy or psi or cold or whatever. To a regen, damage is damage and is just there to be healed.

But as others have said, it is too bad it is not adjusted for the HP cap of the AT playing it, so that stalkers effectively have a gimp regen. Further gimping them is that they don't have quick recovery. I view this as a result of the "I hate stalker" days back when CoV was first introduced and people were angry about stalkers ganking them in pvp.

Regen: because a real man doesn't prance around dodging hits.

Basically, if you can survive 15 seconds, you'll survive forever. If something or someone is going to drop you, they'll do it fast. Alpha strikes are the set's big weakness, although there are a few tools (MoG, IH, DP) for dealing with those.

It's all about the clicking, which can be annoying with a weapon set due to redraw. It's the one set where you can actually screw up. Mis-time Reconstruction or Dull Pain and you'll be eating pavement, but if you can get a handle on the timing you get a ridiculously survivable set with just one toggle to run, and Quick Recovery to boot (ha! suck it DA!).

Fun, but not for everyone.

Honestly, if you need to be convinced to play Regen, it's not the set for you.

We could go on 'til we're blue in the face, but if you just don't like it, well, you just don't like it.

I know how awesome Stone tanks and Masterminds are, but nothing anyone says is going to convince me to play them, because I just don't like the way they play. That's exactly why the game has so many options of things you can play. What I like, the next guy might hate, what I hate might be someone else's most awesome thing ever. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Regen is very survivable.

However, it relies on great human reaction time...a good computer...and +recharge.

The oldest toon I have is a BS/regen scrapper. I wouldn't suggest regen to anybody, unless it was only for PvP. Like mentioned, +def is the only thing that saves it, along with as much recharge as possible.

It's definitely the weakest secondary set out of all my melee toons. But situationally it can be very good. And BS or katana helps a lot.

A /Regen should be built adding in two things from pools and sets: recharge and defence. If you can get Hasten at or near perma, then the amount of HP added from it will be enough to handle almost any nuke you're likely to face. If you're the type to jump into a crazy-large crowd, you either jump in and immediately hit DP as you start taking damage or hit it before jumping in, depending on situation.

You also get 2 crashless god modes. No other set can boast that. Instant Healing, beyond dealing with the aforementioned alpha-strikes, lets you regen so fast, it doesn't matter what hits you (and can do this against a single target, as opposed to WP needing to saturate its aura RttC), and then there's the now aptly named Moment of Glory.

Moment of Glory will make you, for all intents and purposes, completely invincible for 15 seconds (minus the long 3 second animation, the power though, takes effect immediately), and with good recharge can be up a quarter of the time, possibly more. That's right, a crashless god mode available for a quarter of your uptime.

At level 40, when things are actually starting to become challenging, you have a power that can be used to completely mitigate pretty much every alpha with enough time to demolish a large portion of enemies to ease the fight enough for your natural regen to handle.

A typical fight when leading the charge for a team will usually either be: lead with MoG or DP up to absorb the alpha, smashsmashsmash, maybe use Reconstruction if for some odd reason, there's enough damage to overtake your regen, if facing a really big problem (AV or multiple tough Bosses), hit Instant Healing, smashsmashsmash, by then you've got MoG and DP up again, especially if Hastened.

Regen is a very different set from other sets. It compares favourably to WP in all facets except for the fact that you actually have to be active and alert. Its peak protection surpasses WP in all ways if played with forethought. However, if hit with massive amounts of slows, or just played sloppily, you're going to make use of that other power common to both sets: the self rez.

Especially now after the Kheld changes, Regen vs. WP feels very much like Warshade vs. Peacebringer: higher potential vs. steadier play, a lot of clicking and active play vs. a few long-term buffs and/or toggles.

I have faced challenges with Regen that have been impossible with WP. It's a fact that it can out-mitigate its newer sibling. But it takes planning. And unlike WP, as much recharge as you can muster.

I was able to get damage badges on the 2 regens I've taken to 50 (scrap & stalker) faster than for any other character I've made. No damage farming needed.

I find regen an interesting set. You walk around with almost no toggles and feel kinda 'naked' - on my elec/regen stalker I was level 32 with only CJ, the mez protection and Tough (The final build would have Weave+Maneuvers after a respec, IOs, etc) compared to my /EA and /DA toons who had 6 toggles by that level (mez protection, two res or def toggles, damage aura/weave in the case of EA, the stealth cloak, Tough).

I gave up on the Stalker because of the Dull Pain thing (funnily enough the new shiny for Stalkers, Ice Armor, has a clone that is also hindered by the stupid hp cap - c'mon devs...) - I didn't have much trouble surviving, and thought it was an interesting set, I never felt powerful while on SOs but I liked the playstyle, although I usually play squishies and there's also the fact Stalkers usually draw less aggro than Scrappers and especially Brutes. I remember using inspirations as liberally as I do my human form PB tho (she's still 30ish too, I like her a lot, I have a thing for squishies - not saying that regen was squishy, it just felt like while leveling to 32 on my stalk but somehow I always found out a way to survive, with insps or clicks - btw keybinds for your clicks are essential for /regen imo).

Anyway I found the playstyle interesting and dynamic enough that I want to roll a Scrapper or Brute, probably with katana since I barely played melee weapon sets, haven't rolled one yet because iirc Titan Weapons will also have a Parry clone, I think there was one in the Titan weapon power screenshots someone posted sometime ago, so it'll be a good chance to try the non-gimp version of Regen (with full use of DP and Quick Recovery) with a new primary powerset.

But even having Parry, I don't expect the toon to be a 'god on SOs' like kat/WP - I dislike /WP and /SR because they're too boring, so it's a matter of how you like to play too (my fav melee toon is my DM/DA scrapper because of all the shenanigans - mez aura, active playstyle, endurance management - there was no +end proc for dark regen when I leveled her - so I like active secondaries and regen certainly fits in for me, that's why I'll still make one despite being let down by the Stalker, but it was more because of lack of QR/semi-useless Dull Pain than anything else).

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect Honestly, if you need to be convinced to play Regen, it's not the set for you. We could go on 'til we're blue in the face, but if you just don't like it, well, you just don't like it.

The OP didn't say he doesn't like it, calm down dude. He's asking why people play the set and he isn't exactly wrong in his assumptions - I had to get to 22 to start 'feeling' Regen, when I finally got DP and Recon to recharge in somewhat decent timers (SOs). He didn't post 'OMG I HAET REGIN WHY Y PLAY IT?'. As you can see most repliers understood he's curious about the reasons, not saying it's a bad set. And what if he wants to see if people can convince him? People do that all the time, 'Why is X powerset good? What are the positives and negatives of set Y?'. Hell I made a thread about being disappointed with Dual Pistols on a blaster not long ago and I was kinda bitter about the set, the replies were very useful and helpful, and in my third DP/ toon attempt I found out I liked the set (but on a corr), I'd probably given up if people didn't 'sell' me the good points (and the bad ones) of the set.

OTOH I actually had to get a Elec/Stone brute to 50 to realize I dislike Stone Armor, so experience is the best way imo, but I see no harm in asking why others like or dislike the set, regen or whatever else.

I liked Regen back when Instant Healing was a toggle and I could largely ignore all the annoying clicks. It actually felt like a Regeneration set that way.

These days, Willpower feels more like a Regeneration set to me than Regeneration does.

But the idea is that, rather than evading or resisting damage you recover from it so quickly that it is largely irrelevant.

I gotta wonder, though: why do you want to be sold on Regen? If you don't like the idea behind it, don't play it. There are plenty of other fish in the sea, so to speak.

Regen is an active secondary, which is why I like it. Some secondaries bore me to tears, and regen keeps my attention. Think of Regen like a resistance set, and it starts to make more sense.

The true downfall I've always seen with regen is how susceptible it is to -recharge and -regen. Thankfully they've added some regen debuff resistance to the set, but frankly you really do rely on your click heals are large amount to deal with spike damage or even large amounts of steady damage.

There are a lot of tools that you can get to help such a Moment of Glory, Instant Healing, Dull Pain, Reconstruction, Shadow Meld, Barrier, Rebirth, etc. that can help you with your survival, but the one downfall with all (Excluding the incarnate powers) are heavily effected by -recharge. Not having these powers recharge when you absolutely need them leaves you relying on teammates and inspirations to keep you alive. If you don't have either of those you're probably out of luck.

This, I think, would be less of an issue if -recharge wasn't such an ever present debuff in the game. Most groups seem to have a set or some ability that affects your recharge rate. I cannot possibly name them all, but most psi powers, kin powers, time powers (Not sure any mobs have these yet, other than clones), some storm powers, earth powers, some toxic powers (Vaz I recall the best) and the list goes on.

It's not crippling, but it is certainly a pain that is easier dealt with by sets that have more passive defenses than regen can offer.

If a reasonable amount of recharge debuff resistance had been added to regen, I would have been more apt to play more /regen characters. I had a plan for a DM/Regen and/or a KM/Regen that I was really interested in, but I felt that that I was simply working much harder for the same effect in terms of survivability that many other sets already had.

Hmmm...does Instant Healing stack?

Click [Instant Healing] then click on [Burnout] for even MORE REGEN!

I think regen's fall from 'top dog' has jaded people's perception of the set. For the majority of the game, it functions very well; It is only when you start trying to do crazy things like solo AV's that it begins to lag behind the performance of other sets who have the advantage of possessing natural defense within their builds.

My own Regen characters have gotten a significant buff with the Incarnate system in that Spiritual allows me to achieve perma-hasten with much greater ease. This allows me to ease off the purple sets and their global recharge, and instead slot most of my attacks with Kinetic Combat to add significant amounts of S/L defense. I'm perfectly capable of achieving around 35% defense to smashing, lethal, and melee defense.

For the best regen experience I suggest rolling a Brute. The higher HP cap will really help you get the most out of your powers, Dull Pain specifically. You can also pick up Darkest Night to help reduce the damage of an AV to a point manageable by your click-heals, and reduce the accuracy of most normal enemies to the point where you are nigh-untouchable provided you've bothered to invest in personal defense.