Looking for a Regen fix! But what to do?

I haven't actually seriously played a Regen character in... well, the better part of forever really. But recently, after taking an SS/WP to 50 I've started getting the urge to give Regen a whirl again. Now I know it's considered by some to have some issues, but there's something about its style that just draws me to it. Also the fact there seems to be very few Regen characters right now is kind of a plus too.

However I haven't thought about playing it for so long that I'm not really sure what to do with it. One of the obvious thoughts is something like BS/Regen or Katana/Regen, as I understand those add a ton of survivability to a frankly slightly squishy secondary. But I'm not sure what the other powersets could bring to Regeneration. I'd certainly like to be hard to kill though.

There's also the matter of AT. Not really being a Stalker person, that would have make this decision a no-brainer except for Brutes now having it too, which is something I'm kind of torn on. On the one hand, higher max HP means Regen should be more awesome, but I did try an StJ/Regen to 18 and the idea of mixing a taunt aura with Regen seems... well, faceplant heavy to say the least. Even with the higher max HP. Plus Scrappers get Shadow Meld. But Brutes get Darkest Night. So that's kind of a hard decision too.

So I don't suppose some of the people still active with Regen could give me some tips or direction? I'd love to play a Regen that doesn't keel over at the slightest sign of aggression.

Broooooooooooooot.

Seriously, brute!

Yes, the taunt aura can occasionally work against you in the low and mid levels, but at high level, guess what, you get to keep the taunt aura and scrappers don't. You get more hitpoints to work with so less investment equals more result. You do a little less damage, but whatever, just pair the /regen with a set like, oh, I don't know, street justice as you said, and get ready for some unctuous pugilism! Damn!

Really it's pretty hard to go wrong with brute regen, and why not enjoy a sassy new melee set along side?

I've played it to 50 twice, once as a BS/Regen and once as a Spines/Regen. Yes, it's squishier than Shield (my other 50 scrapper) but it isn't bad. The Spine/Regen tends to carry LOTS of purple candy for tough spots... the BS/Regen is considerably more survivable.

Both of them were fun to play, but I leveled both up in the pre-IO era, the BS/Regen dinged 50 in issue 5 and the Spine/Regen dinged in issue 8. I've played them a bit recently and with good IO builds I found them quite capable. The BS is soft capped to melee while the Spine reaches roughly 30% to all three.

I've leveled a MA, Claws, StJ, and Katana/Regen to 50. And truthfully, none of them seem as survivalable as a lot of the other secondaries.

Regen is a fun set to play, but it does give one the feeling of being willing to die. Mind you, I haven't tried the S/L Defense route or the OMG UBER Recharge route on any of the Regens when it comes to IOs yet. But getting 22% to all positional defenses didn't seem to make much of a difference either.

Going the sword route helps quite a bit, with the ability to stack the +Defense to Melee.

The way I look at it is that (without IOs) Regen is a bit below average in survivability in pretty much every situation. However, it is only a bit below average in pretty much every situation... most sets are great against some things but have significant holes in their defenses. Regen doesn't care what type of damage you take, or how much to-hit the enemy has, or even if the damage is unresistable. All it cares about is whether you are regen debuffed (a fairly uncommon debuff) and whether you have any -heal on you (probably the rarest debuff in the game). You can use IOs to boost its performance in certain areas but unless you are fighting things that floor regen and have -heal your minimum performance is going to be decent even if you have no set bonuses or accolades / temp powers covering that situation.

The drawback is that you won't reach the extremes of performance more focused sets do when playing to their strengths, so it's kind of a question of whether you want to be almost immortal to some enemies and squishy to others, or reasonably tough to all?

(Note that the above comparison does not include Willpower, since that set is basically a watered down version of old-school non-clicky Regen with resists thrown in. In other words, kind of like Regen but better in almost every way. Sigh. )

The other problem with WP is that unless you have sleep resistance in real life you are liable to spend most of your time incapacitated. I'm thinking about going Titan Weapons/WP just because it looks like it might be the melee set that finally is in itself active enough to make up for how eye-shuttingly boring WP is. Regen absolutely does not have that problem.

Hmm... thinking about it more, I think I'll keep trying my luck with a Brute then, although with a different primary. It's kind of a toss-up between Katana and Claws. Kat/Regen seems like a classic, but I've heard amazing things about what Claws can do. I've given a little thought to SS too, but I already have an SS Brute at 50 so that seems a little redundant.

One of the counterpoints to suggesting a Brute is that you're going to get aggro even if you might not like it. Scrappers and Stalkers (especially) don't really have that problem. A Regen Scrapper running into a spawn next to teammates (especially on a league) isn't going to taunt nearby foes onto you, where it might on a Brute if no one else is taunting the baddies. It's not that taunting foes onto a Regen is specifically bad, but one of Regen's main strengths is the ability to step back briefly after taking too much damage, then come back mostly or fully healed. This is more challenging in a team context if all the foes are determined to keep you as their target.

That's mostly a moot point if the goal is solo play, where all the enemies focus on you any way. But depending on how you set your missions, there might be fewer foes to focus on you in your solo missions.

Under an SO paradigm, Arcanaville's seminal Scrapper Secondary analysis had Regen as one of the most survivable secondaries out there. With IOs things change, mostly because of defense stacking. Two of the biggest IO benefits you can give a Regen are +recharge and +defense, probably in that order. Because Regen doesn't have any in-powerset +defense, a Regen can't reach the same peak levels of mitigation that some other sets can by reaching the defense softcap. However, you can still get quite high levels of +defense (high 30s) with a sufficiently expensive build, without considering any powers from your primary that might add +defense (such as Parry/DA). If your build cannot in fact cap at least melee defense, you probably will get the most mileage out of focusing on high recharge (60-70% range) first and defense (25-35% for at least melee and hopefully also ranged) second. I prefer positional defense to typed defense for my melee characters, because I do not find I can get enough energy/negative/fire defense in most builds. Lots of ranged attacks have those as their damage type, and I end up with better defense against them even with ranged defense as a secondary focus after melee defense.

One thing that a Scrapper or Stalker can lay hands on that a Brute cannot is Shadow Meld, from the villain Soul Mastery epic pool. This is an amazing power, essentially a mini-MoG that you can activate more often. Its activation time is long, but unlike MoG it can be activated on the move, making it reasonable to click the power, start moving towards foes, and have the activation time finish with you in melee range.

Personally, I consider Scrapper the "optimal" AT for Regen, with a HP (and HP cap) advantage over Stalkers (though I have a Regen Stalker and like it) and freedom from team aggro on a Brute.

Well, and any group that's almost all psionic damage is going to floor most non-regen characters pretty rapidly too. Dark, elec, SR and arguably willpower deal with psi damage better than regen, but that's about it. At least the regen can respond to, say, the clockwork king's alpha with a couple heals and then coast along on IH and integration. Rare is the invuln or fire armor who can survive that alpha in the first place.

UberGuy, I don't disagree with you and I'd be lying if I said I haven't eaten several truckloads of dirt already on my regen brute, but I think that's part of the charm. It'll be a lot easier once I've IOed out, but right now it amuses me to try to balance the aggro with the squishiness. Hell, at level 30 brutes barely have more HP than scrappers. If you can get through this range you're made of some stern stuff indeed.

I'm a big fan of Regen, and I wouldn't want to dissuade anyone from playing it on any AT. I was just pointing out the good with the bad, though I'll admit, looking back at the post, I didn't do so in a rounded way. That's what I get for posting while working.

IMHO: Regen is a weak set. It's less survivable then almost any other set and even if you throw a ton of money at it, you're not going to be all that great. You can be pretty darned good mind you, but in the end WP is basically better in every way and all the other sets have at least one 1 or 2 significant advantages over regen.

If you like the set though, stick with it. It'll be expensive but you can get close enough to other sets defensively to be just fine.

As for Brute or Scrapper? Brute. Usually I'm a huge scrapper fan and I haven't much cared for any of my brutes, but as for regen, brute is the way to go. The entire point of regen is to have 0 downtime, and that works extremely well with Brute's Fury.

I strongly suggest Katana for a primary. The defensive buffs that set gets is absolutely vital to get anywhere near a survivable regen build. I don't suggest Broadsword as heavily as Katana is quicker and makes it easier to stack the +def. It also synergies extremely well with all the +recharge a good regen will have.

This forum post http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=260718 is kinda old, before the resilience buff, but shows you a few ideal builds for a Kat/regen and the exact specific numbers on regen. It's a long read but Werner really knows his stuff and his final build and a cheap version of it are listed on page four. He never did actually make the build I don't believe, but there's nothing stopping you from doing so if you don't want to.

TL;DR Summary: Regen bad. Only barely bad though. Play if you like regen. Page four of link = build.

I knew there was a reason I never cared for that set on my scrappers. :P I edited my post. Thank you BrandX.