How about making Regeneration stack intensity?

[sephiroth.4217]

I think Regen just needs a little boost in healing power if anything otherwise with your suggestion on my Ele I would just spam Aura's with heal and Regen for insane amount of health per second. A bit of boon duration and I could probably maintain a decent amount of Regen stacks.

[Rauderi.8706]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:I feel like this is something that is absolutely needed to add weight to support builds in the game as well as an extra form of condition defense. I support the idea.

@Oglaf.1074 said:That might actually make me at the very least consider going for the healing banners trait on my Warrior.

It might.

So many statements for me to agree with!

A Regen Meta to counter the Condi Meta makes for an interesting tactical balance.

And really, as a Warrior main, I've been sad with the way banners have been treated (too-long cooldown gaps, shortening of effect radius). None of the banner-wielding skills are worth using, and the Regen trait runs into the problem that started the entire thread: Regen-gushing pushing out other, more useful Regen stacks.

To be honest, though, I'd prefer they rebuild Regen so that it can't get out of control. While it would be glorious healing in PvE to have Regen intensity, PvP/WvW works because of boundaries. For the limit of PvP, having one character who can bunker and Regen-spam is a build choice. In WvW..? I dunno.

And for the most part, I think what I detailed earlier would be easier to balance. It has two pieces, rather than worrying about duration/stacks/etc. (Though I guess in that model, Boon Duration would simply add to the Regen value. o_O Hm.)

[Panda.1967]

It absolutely should stack in intensity... stacking in duration is utterly pointless for regen. Regen doesn't give a static value buff to any attributes or anything like most boons, it is functionally a beneficial condition, and as such should behave like one, meaning intensity stacking.

It does not need to be tied in with vitality, it should remain based on Healing Power, how it is now. If anything, the scaling could be reduced, or alternatively various abilities that currently give multiple stacks of Regen can have their stack counts reduced. The suggestions to tie it to vitality all seem to be designed to favor bunker builds and high vitality DPS builds over support builds.

[Glott.7239]

I heard that stacking boons with constantly changing values are very taxing on the servers so maybe it would be better to have it stack not in intensity nor duration but ticks instead. More like stability if you will. 1 stack of regeneration would be 1 heal tick, obviously with a much higher base value. Like this it still be a heal over time but not a permanent think you carry around and not care much about, rather something you would want to spike a lot of on people when you expect or try to recover from a lot of damage.

[Panda.1967]

@Glott.7239 said:I heard that stacking boons with constantly changing values are very taxing on the servers so maybe it would be better to have it stack not in intensity nor duration but ticks instead. More like stability if you will. 1 stack of regeneration would be 1 heal tick, obviously with a much higher base value. Like this it still be a heal over time but not a permanent think you carry around and not care much about, rather something you would want to spike a lot of on people when you expect or try to recover from a lot of damage.

Stacking in ticks, wouldn't really be any different than it is now... that's still just stacking duration when you boil it all down. It's just a different way of stacking duration.

[Glott.7239]

@Panda.1967 said:

@Glott.7239 said:I heard that stacking boons with constantly changing values are very taxing on the servers so maybe it would be better to have it stack not in intensity nor duration but ticks instead. More like stability if you will. 1 stack of regeneration would be 1 heal tick, obviously with a much higher base value. Like this it still be a heal over time but not a permanent think you carry around and not care much about, rather something you would want to spike a lot of on people when you expect or try to recover from a lot of damage.

Stacking in ticks, wouldn't really be any different than it is now... that's still just stacking duration when you boil it all down. It's just a different way of stacking duration.

Exactly, that's why it would't put much more stress on the server but it brings some key benefits. It would cap out at 25 stacks, wich would be equivalent to 25sec. in return you can increase its potency by a fair bit. I don't think that the healing over time nature of it is the problem but that the heal value is very low and that it's way to easy to maintain it. Furthermore, having it displayed as stacks in a buff bar would add more opportunity for counter play in PvP scenarios.

In a lot of way, having it stack intensity, would not behave any different then this. If it caped you on 25 stacks of intensity that would be what people aim for while build crafting. So you would have to nerf the potency of a singel stack in order to prevent it from being OP when caped out. This means organised groups just end up with 25 stacks all the time an nothing changes for them, while singel players care even less about regen because the values they can reach by them self are even lower then now and not even worth to take into account.

[Nyel.1843]

@Panda.1967 said:

@Glott.7239 said:I heard that stacking boons with constantly changing values are very taxing on the servers so maybe it would be better to have it stack not in intensity nor duration but ticks instead. More like stability if you will. 1 stack of regeneration would be 1 heal tick, obviously with a much higher base value. Like this it still be a heal over time but not a permanent think you carry around and not care much about, rather something you would want to spike a lot of on people when you expect or try to recover from a lot of damage.

Stacking in ticks, wouldn't really be any different than it is now... that's still just stacking duration when you boil it all down. It's just a different way of stacking duration.

Well, if it would work as I suggest stacking in ticks would change something when additional ticks don't increase the Regen duration but reduce the amount of time between ticks. Instead of every 1 second it ticks every 0.9 seconds and in the end we have an additional tick - with more healing power it is reduced to 0.8, 0.7 etc. with 2 or 3 or more ticks added into the usual duration window.

Let me quote myself:

@Nyel.1843 said:

Version 3: Base regeneration is 10.000 over 10 seconds (10 ticks a 1000) - every 5000 Healing Power there will be one additional tick within the timeframe of 10 seconds (11.000 healing over 10 seconds via 11 ticks so the time between ticks is reduced and instead of every 1 second it heals every 0,9 seconds): 1. 1000 - 2. 1000 - 3. 1000 ... - 11. 1000

Verion 5: similar to V3 but with a different approach: instead of adding more ticks you keep the amount of ticks but reduce the duration (instead of 10.000 healing over 10 seconds with 10 ticks it will be 10.000 healing over 9 seconds (with 5000 Healing Power) via 10 ticks etc.)

[Rauderi.8706]

@Glott.7239 said:

Exactly, that's why it would't put much more stress on the server but it brings some key benefits. It would cap out at 25 stacks, wich would be equivalent to 25sec. in return you can increase its potency by a fair bit. I don't think that the healing over time nature of it is the problem but that the heal value is very low and that it's way to easy to maintain it. Furthermore, having it displayed as stacks in a buff bar would add more opportunity for counter play in PvP scenarios.

In a lot of way, having it stack intensity, would not behave any different then this. If it caped you on 25 stacks of intensity that would be what people aim for while build crafting. So you would have to nerf the potency of a single stack in order to prevent it from being OP when caped out. This means organised groups just end up with 25 stacks all the time an nothing changes for them, while single players care even less about regen because the values they can reach by them self are even lower then now and not even worth to take into account.

So this would remove Healing Power as a factor? Or maybe HealPow adds duration? (10 HealPow = 1%, if we look at the current impact of Healing Power on Regen, which is roughly 200% at 1000 HealPow).

But if it is a duration stack with a more potent, static effect (say, 250/ or 300/second), the stacking duration would welcome any source until it hits the duration cap (~30 sec?). Regen sources might need adjustment, especially the ones with an always-on presence: Inspiring Battle Standard and Facet of Light. Regen durations would probably get clipped across the board, but the impact each second has would be much more useful.

I could get behind that overall. It would probably be easier on the servers for its static value, has capped utility to prevent the uber-bunker, while still permitting allies to stack it as a recovery tool.

[Umadusa.5874]

I like the idea but I disagree.Stacking regen could become OP quite easily (at least as it is now). Even if tweaked to be better balanced, it would require a lot of reworks. I don't think it's necessary. My main is a tempest healer and I also have a hybrid healing druid, heal/tank guardian, healing engi and necro. So I LOVE healing.

I think the solutions are

1. Increase healing power coefficient. Keep base power as it is, but make it go even higher to reward those who invest in healing power. If we could get just over 1k HP/s regen in a build with main healing power stats, runes, sigils, maintenance oil, etc. (basically highest possible healing power) that would be perfect. No higher.
2. Prioritize regen according to healing power instead of concentration. That way when mesmer randomly casts SoI, or some zerker class arbitrarily procs a built-in group regen from some skill, it doesn't rewrite the one that's actually valuable.

[Rauderi.8706]

@Umadusa.5874 said:I like the idea but I disagree.Stacking regen could become OP quite easily (at least as it is now). Even if tweaked to be better balanced, it would require a lot of reworks. I don't think it's necessary. My main is a tempest healer and I also have a hybrid healing druid, heal/tank guardian, healing engi and necro. So I LOVE healing.

I think the solutions are

1. Increase healing power coefficient. Keep base power as it is, but make it go even higher to reward those who invest in healing power. If we could get just over 1k HP/s regen in a build with main healing power stats, runes, sigils, maintenance oil, etc. (basically highest possible healing power) that would be perfect. No higher.
2. Prioritize regen according to healing power instead of concentration. That way when mesmer randomly casts SoI, or some zerker class arbitrarily procs a built-in group regen from some skill, it doesn't rewrite the one that's actually valuable.

1. I did some tentative math on healing power coefficients with Regen. 1000 HealPow is enough to double the base, and upping it by much more would make the PvP set wail pretty hard.
2. Part of the problem with the stack overrides is that those who do have spare Regen somewhere either override a more important stack or get no use out of it at all because their Regens aren't as good. If the discussion were limited to Regen's somewhat questionable efficacy, I'd be okay with just a coefficient bump.

It's similar to how conditions used to work, long ago. There was a stack limit of 25, and Poison was duration-stacked. In large events, most condi-users couldn't get damage in because their conditions couldn't be applied to a full stack, or someone else's would shunt theirs off. ANet fixed it (omg thanks!) and now condi is a strong contender in dps across game modes. That's the reason for requesting a Regeneration redesign, so that no one is suppressed or punished for bringing (or someone else bringing) support.

[Umadusa.5874]

@Rauderi.8706 said:

@Umadusa.5874 said:I like the idea but I disagree.Stacking regen could become OP quite easily (at least as it is now). Even if tweaked to be better balanced, it would require a lot of reworks. I don't think it's necessary. My main is a tempest healer and I also have a hybrid healing druid, heal/tank guardian, healing engi and necro. So I LOVE healing.

I think the solutions are

1. Increase healing power coefficient. Keep base power as it is, but make it go even higher to reward those who invest in healing power. If we could get just over 1k HP/s regen in a build with main healing power stats, runes, sigils, maintenance oil, etc. (basically highest possible healing power) that would be perfect. No higher.
2. Prioritize regen according to healing power instead of concentration. That way when mesmer randomly casts SoI, or some zerker class arbitrarily procs a built-in group regen from some skill, it doesn't rewrite the one that's actually valuable.

1. I did some tentative math on healing power coefficients with Regen. 1000 HealPow is enough to double the base, and upping it by much more would make the PvP set wail pretty hard.
2. Part of the problem with the stack overrides is that those who
   do
   have spare Regen somewhere either override a more important stack
   or get no use out of it at all
   because their Regens aren't as good. If the discussion were limited to Regen's somewhat questionable efficacy, I'd be okay with just a coefficient bump.

It's similar to how conditions used to work, long ago. There was a stack limit of 25, and Poison was duration-stacked. In large events, most condi-users couldn't get damage in because their conditions couldn't be applied to a full stack, or someone else's would shunt theirs off. ANet fixed it (omg thanks!) and now condi is a strong contender in dps across game modes. That's the reason for requesting a Regeneration redesign, so that no one is suppressed or punished for bringing (or someone else bringing) support.

I see your point! Either way I'd be happy with ANY type of rework that actually makes regen a boon that healers consciously cast and keep up. Ya know...because it'll finally be worth something :(

[Toolbox.9375]

@Umadusa.5874 said:I like the idea but I disagree.Stacking regen could become OP quite easily (at least as it is now). Even if tweaked to be better balanced, it would require a lot of reworks. I don't think it's necessary. My main is a tempest healer and I also have a hybrid healing druid, heal/tank guardian, healing engi and necro. So I LOVE healing.

I don't think it would take much/any reworking, myself. All of the builds I've thrown together thus far seem entirely reasonable, to me, where it's either a minimal impact, or takes a tremendous amount of sacrifice and focus to make it powerful. Is there any build in particular that has you concerned? Could you link it, if so? o.o

[Rauderi.8706]

@Toolbox.9375 said:

@Umadusa.5874 said:I like the idea but I disagree.Stacking regen could become OP quite easily (at least as it is now). Even if tweaked to be better balanced, it would require a lot of reworks. I don't think it's necessary. My main is a tempest healer and I also have a hybrid healing druid, heal/tank guardian, healing engi and necro. So I LOVE healing.

I don't think it would take much/any reworking, myself. All of the builds I've thrown together thus far seem entirely reasonable, to me, where it's either a minimal impact, or takes a tremendous amount of sacrifice and focus to make it powerful. Is there any build in particular that has you concerned? Could you link it, if so? o.o

I think part of the issue is that if stacking were unlimited or too high (5? 10??), it wouldn't take a dedicated healer to get absurd results. Sure, one healer in a 5-man dungeon or for a raid wouldn't break anything, but a coordinated PvP team with one skill each that gives Regen? I can see a vector for abuse, or at least significantly longer encounter times.

If a redesign is going to work, it needs satisfactory upper and lower bounds without punishing minor contributions. I'm less certain that can happen with just modifying stacks. Though I suppose a raw test case would be leave Regen values as they are, stack max of 3, and just see where it goes. If dedicated healers get all three stacks, that could be 800+/second for a few seconds, which means a pretty big burst.

[ITheNormalPerson.9275]

There's nothing preventing stacks of regeneration corrupting into equal stacks of poison. If you don't have any cleanses up, getting a burst of regeneration corrupted into a burst of poison could really hurt. I'm definitely in support of this idea, as long as they go through and lower the duration of sources of regen currently, making it something that has to be focused on in order to stack it, as opposed to how it is now, where people rarely even think about it.

[Toolbox.9375]

@ITheNormalPerson.9275 said:There's nothing preventing stacks of regeneration corrupting into equal stacks of poison. If you don't have any cleanses up, getting a burst of regeneration corrupted into a burst of poison could really hurt. I'm definitely in support of this idea, as long as they go through and lower the duration of sources of regen currently, making it something that has to be focused on in order to stack it, as opposed to how it is now, where people rarely even think about it.

I don't know that doing a balance sweep is actually necessary, really. It all seems like it'd be pretty balanced right out of the gate. The only trait I'd really be concerned about is Mesmer's Illusionary Inspiration, as it means a 300% uptime just on its own... But that's only really an issue in PvE, as you're not going to have all three Phantasms up very reliably in PvP scenarios. Only other concern is Runes of the Defender given its lack of an internal cooldown with Regeneration-on-Block, and even that is only really a problem when running through an enemy zerg in WvW.