Regen vs Max HP

If 2% Resistance is roughly equal to 1% Defense, is there something similar when we compare Regen versus Max HP?

I'm working on a build in Mids (for my DM/SD scrapper) and I'm trying to decide if getting 25% Regen is better than losing 3.4% Max HP...

Regen and maxhp aren't as directly comparable as resistance and defense, so there's no simple rule of thumb for comparing them (and the 2res=1def rule is a pretty poor approximation in most real comparisons, anyway).

Without having seen your particular build, I'd guess that the 25% regen is better, since Siphon Life is your only other source of healing.

It sounds like the 25% regen is better, but what is your current normal HP max? What would 3.4% HP actually get you?

Mid's will show your regen rate as both percentage, and as HP/Sec. I'd plug both the extra 25% to regen in, and then take that out and plug in the +Max HP and see what your actual hp/sec is for your specific build with both of those changes. Take whichever gets you more hp/sec unless it ends up being very close, then I'd probably take the more HP.

A rule of thumb for both HP and Endurance is that having more Max HP and max END is generally better than just increasing Regen/Recov

At least for endurance, for the same recovery rate it will always go from 0 to full in the same time regardless of your current max endurance. Therefore, if you have a higher amount of endurance, your recovered endurance per second is increased as well as having the benefits of those extra points.

If HP and regen work the same way, you will still regenerate more points per second by having a higher max HP.

I've pondered this same question...

Base regen is a percentage of your health back every x seconds. Regen works by decreasing the time between these regen ticks.
+HP increases the amount of HP each tick heals.

The way I reasoned it was by taking a time period (say 10 seconds) and working out how many HP I could heal over that time. That gives you some idea of how the balance between HP & Regen works.

(Bad) Example:

In ten seconds you can either :

Have 5 ticks of 100HP (lots of regen) or
Have 3 ticks of 112HP (lots of +HP Bonusses)

That is a wild and arbitrary example, but it illustrates the difference. As to which is better... Well, it might be obvious in my example, but you'd need to take into account your defences. If you get hit big once in a fight, but everything else misses (Def build for example) you might prefer to have a bigger heal less often, rather than more ticks of a smaller amount. If you're constantly taking damage (Res/Regen build) you might prefer more ticks at the expense of less health healed per tick.

I wrote a guide on Regen here. (Image copied below for illustration)



By changing the stuff in columns F & K (or just copy what Mids says) you can look at B16 & 17 and see how many regen ticks you get and how much each tick heals. HP/sec rates can be misleading because you don't actually get xhp back every second.

Hope this helps and doesn't confuse further...!

-H

This is very good information, and definitely something I didn't know, but I think in a lot of cases, it's not going to make much practical difference. While looking at HP/sec isn't an exact model of what's happening on an instant by instant basis, it is a very accurate way of measure the cumulative difference over a period of a minute or more.

I don't know for sure, but I'd imagine one or two +Max HPs or one or two +Regens aren't likely yo make a huge difference. It's only if you collect a lot of either that the two start to really diverge. And I'd suspect that people build such they have several of both, as opposed to almost all +HP or all +Regen. I know I do.

It's good to keep mind, and I'd never advocate someone not being more familiar with the underlying system (and I personally appreciate you making me more familiar) but I can't see any situation where I'd choose the less HP/sec option on any real build. Granted, you could perhaps come up with a contrived either/or, but....

The interesting thing is that Max HP affects your regen, but regen does not affect your max HP.

By which I mean when you get more HP, your regen is automatically improved, but getting more regen does not give you more HP.

Actually no.

You still regen the same percentage per tick. The value per tick has increased due to your extra HP but your regen rate, the time between healing ticks, hasn't changed.

Regen simply reduces the time between healing ticks. It doesn't care how much HP you have.

Also, more HP acts as extra resistance (you can take more hits with more hp). So along with a higher HP/sec regened you also have the ability to take a bigger hit. All in all +HP is almost always better than +regen.

Without knowing the actual formulas, I would expect that you would get a better return from increasing your Regen rate. Since the "ticks" ar always the same (based on Max HP), the faster you get your ticks the more you will regen, and I suspect that the increase in tick speed will be greater than the increased HP per tick with +Max Hp. The +Max HP set bonuses tend to be rather small for most ATs (tanks possibly excluded).

I would think that the number cruchers among us would have determined the best way to get the most out of it, and if there was one method vastly superior to another then it would be rather well known by now.

I would suggest getting your +regen as high as you can while also attempting to increase your max HP when possible.

Another way of looking at it.

You have two characters, one with 1000HP, one with 1200HP. Both are down 500HP. The one with the higher max HP will regen that 500HP because the amount of HP per regen tick will be higher. However if both characters are down to 1HP, it will take the same amount of time.

Now if the character with 1000HP had 20% improvement to their regen, he would recover that 500HP in the same amount of time as they character with 1200HP. Also he would go from 1 to max HP in less time than the character with 1200HP.