FIELD STUDY: Regen VS Reduce the cost of...

TerraPython

Hello there,

tl;dr of below; Reduce cost is significantly more effective than regen for ability spamming.

I have seen threads already that discuss +Regen and -Cost_of, but haven't managed to find any definitive answer for which one is better.
A friend and I went on the PTS today - (PTS for Dark Brotherhood - 2.4.0) - and tested the two to find out which was better.

Test Method
We both created identical characters in terms of;

• Level - 50 + 300CP
• Race - Both Wood Elf - Bonus = +Recovery 21%
• Armor - 5pc Hundings, 2 molag kena
• Jewelery - 3pcs Agility set, robust
• Weapons - Malestrom daggers DW, and Malestrom Bow

The build worked out quite well too, btw.

Champoin Points: For one char, 100 points was spent on reduce the cost of, the other char had 100 points spent on revovery.
Enchantments: For armour, all stamina - for jewelery - one char had all reduce, the other all recovery.

We then started to spam the same spell at the same time to see who ran out of stamina quicker. We spammed Steel Tornado just for the test.

Results
The regen focused char ran out of stamina way before the reduce-cost based char.
The regen build deemed to be 50% less effective as the reduce-cost build.

The regen char ran out of stamina after 24sec of spamming, whereas the reduce-cost char ran out after 52secs of spamming. Hence, an extra 28 sec for the reduce-cost build.

Conclustion
Reduce cost is more effective than regen for ability spamming.

The test was only conducted for a Stamina NB, but I assume that the same will apply for a magicka build.

We focused on the spamming of abilities, like Steel Tornado, which is our play style, especially in dungeons. For players that do not spam abilities, the results may actually prove to be different. It all comes down to your play style.

Let me know your thoughts below, and anything you have noticed with respect to the above findings.
Also - sorry about the writing style of the report - I have just finished writing a dissertation, and cant seem to shake it! haha

Nifty2g

That isn't true.

Cost reduction has diminishing returns.
Regeneration does not.

TerraPython

Nifty2g wrote: »

That isn't true.

Cost reduction has diminishing returns.
Regeneration does not.

Okay @Nifty2g , im not sure exactly what you mean by that. Could you possibly explain your comment a little further?

Im making my conclusion based on actual observations. The stamina on the reduction build lasted >100% longer.

Nifty2g

TerraPython wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

That isn't true.

Cost reduction has diminishing returns.
Regeneration does not.

Okay, im not sure exactly what you mean by that. Could you possibly explain your comment a little further?

Im making my conclusion based on actual observations. The stamina on the reduction build lasted >100% longer.

Cost reduction becomes less effective the more you have, making regeneration the favored choice when you start seeing diminishing returns.
(Max out your cost reduction in your champion points, then do your regeneration. Regeneration on Gylphs tend to give more sustain also. And High Elf Magicka Regeneration is BiS)

It changes per race and class for regeneration and cost reductions based on small things etc but the

TL;DR as CP progresses Regeneration will outdo Cost Reduction, and at the moment it currently is in most circumstances.

ADarklore

You also didn't mention character's race... because Altmer for Magicka and Bosmer for Stamina add bonus racials for regeneration making regen with CP much more effective.

Although, with the changes coming in DB, I've heard that ability costs have increased roughly 5%.

TerraPython

Nifty2g wrote: »

Cost reduction becomes less effective the more you have, making regeneration the favored choice when you start seeing diminishing returns.
(Max out your cost reduction in your champion points, then do your regeneration. Regeneration on Gylphs tend to give more sustain also. And High Elf Magicka Regeneration is BiS)

It changes per race and class for regeneration and cost reductions based on small things etc but the

TL;DR as CP progresses Regeneration will outdo Cost Reduction, and at the moment it currently is in most circumstances.

Okay @Nifty2g - I see what you mean now. As you invest more CP in cost reduction, you get less +% for it.

This IS however the same for regen - as you put more points on, you get less for it.

I think what my post was meant to show is that for someone with a spam style of play, priortising cost-reduction would be the most efficent way.

Im not saying that regen is completley redundant here, as I still get some regen from my set bonuses etc, and any CP above 100 will go into regen. Its just that you to get way more Steel Tornado for your Stamina when you focus on cost reduction.

Ive been playing regen focus builds forever on ESO, and didnt actually understand the bonus of reduce cost until today.
Ill certinaly be changed my 100points into reduce cost, and the others into regen, but each and every player should do what suits them

TerraPython

ADarklore wrote: »

You also didn't mention character's race... because Altmer for Magicka and Bosmer for Stamina add bonus racials for regeneration making regen with CP much more effective.

Although, with the changes coming in DB, I've heard that ability costs have increased roughly 5%.

Hi @ADarklore , both races were Wood Elf to keep them the same. Ill edit the above to note this.

Plus the testing was carried out on the PTS - so the increase has already been taken into account.

ADarklore

TerraPython wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Cost reduction becomes less effective the more you have, making regeneration the favored choice when you start seeing diminishing returns.
(Max out your cost reduction in your champion points, then do your regeneration. Regeneration on Gylphs tend to give more sustain also. And High Elf Magicka Regeneration is BiS)

It changes per race and class for regeneration and cost reductions based on small things etc but the

TL;DR as CP progresses Regeneration will outdo Cost Reduction, and at the moment it currently is in most circumstances.

Okay @Nifty2g - I see what you mean now. As you invest more CP in cost reduction, you get less +% for it.

This IS however the same for regen - as you put more points on, you get less for it.

I think what my post was meant to show is that for someone with a spam style of play, priortising cost-reduction would be the most efficent way.

Im not saying that regen is completley redundant here, as I still get some regen from my set bonuses etc, and any CP above 100 will go into regen. Its just that you to get way more Steel Tornado for your Stamina when you focus on cost reduction.

Ive been playing regen focus builds forever on ESO, and didnt actually understand the bonus of reduce cost until today.
Ill certinaly be changed my 100points into reduce cost, and the others into regen, but each and every player should do what suits them

However, the rate of diminished returns is higher for cost reduction than regen... so you essentially reach the 1:1 ratio with reduction far sooner than you do with regeneration. Also, IMO, the bonuses you receive in the regen constellation are worth more than reduction tree.

susmitds

TerraPython wrote: »

Hello there,

tl;dr of below; Reduce cost is significantly more effective than regen for ability spamming.

I have seen threads already that discuss +Regen and -Cost_of, but haven't managed to find any definitive answer for which one is better.
A friend and I went on the PTS today - (PTS for Dark Brotherhood - 2.4.0) - and tested the two to find out which was better.

Test Method
We both created identical characters in terms of;

• Level - 50 + 300CP
• Armor - 5pc Hundings, 2 molag kena
• Jewelery - 3pcs Agility set, robust
• Weapons - Malestrom daggers DW, and Malestrom Bow

The build worked out quite well too, btw.

Champoin Points: For one char, 100 points was spent on reduce the cost of, the other char had 100 points spent on revovery.
Enchantments: For armour, all stamina - for jewelery - one char had all reduce, the other all recovery.

We then started to spam the same spell at the same time to see who ran out of stamina quicker. We spammed Steel Tornado just for the test.

Results
The regen focused char ran out of stamina way before the reduce-cost based char.
The regen build deemed to be 50% less effective as the reduce-cost build.

The regen char ran out of stamina after 24sec of spamming, whereas the reduce-cost char ran out after 52secs of spamming. Hence, an extra 28 sec for the reduce-cost build.

Conclustion
Reduce cost is more effective than regen for ability spamming.

The test was only conducted for a Stamina NB, but I assume that the same will apply for a magicka build.

We focused on the spamming of abilities, like Steel Tornado, which is our play style, especially in dungeons. For players that do not spam abilities, the results may actually prove to be different. It all comes down to your play style.

Let me know your thoughts below, and anything you have noticed with respect to the above findings.
Also - sorry about the writing style of the report - I have just finished writing a dissertation, and cant seem to shake it! haha

You are not taking into consideration the fact reduce cost decreases a relative amount of costs of skills. But regen returns a relative amount of stamina which affects everything including CC BREAK and DODGE ROLL.

TerraPython

@susmitds - Yeah actually you are right. Regen is still needed for that, so maybe thats where the extra 64 points go - regen.

Or maybe only 80 in cost reduction, and the rest in regen.

The point is still that I would rather focus on reduce cost, than regen. Personally, I dont dodge roll more than a few times a boss fight, and again break is only a few times a fight - at MOST.

The solution here could be the Serpant mundus stone. That provides a flat increase to Regen We never used mundus stones in the test cause they were too far away, and no wayshrines! hehe

susmitds

TerraPython wrote: »

@susmitds - Yeah actually you are right. Regen is still needed for that, so maybe thats where the extra 64 points go - regen.

Or maybe only 80 in cost reduction, and the rest in regen.

The point is still that I would rather focus on reduce cost, than regen. Personally, I dont dodge roll more than a few times a boss fight, and again break is only a few times a fight - at MOST.

The solution here could be the Serpant mundus stone. That provides a flat increase to Regen We never used mundus stones in the test cause they were too far away, and no wayshrines! hehe

Same here for me too, especially in PvE. However, in PvP, it is a different story altogether with snares, CC, AoE, siege and high damage attacks all around. There, regen has a much more value due to the fact that without mobility, it is very hard to survive especially as a stamina user.

Mojmir

cool read and insight,but spamming itself is very inefficient. I run a khajit NB, resource management is fine if you know the characters limits.

me_ming

Nifty2g wrote: »

That isn't true.

Cost reduction has diminishing returns.
Regeneration does not.

@Nifty2g I understand that this may differ from race to race, but I was wondering if there is a specific percentage/number when reduced cost already has diminishing returns? I always worry about when to stop putting points on my reduction cost on both magicka and stamina.

Nifty2g

me_ming wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

That isn't true.

Cost reduction has diminishing returns.
Regeneration does not.

@Nifty2g I understand that this may differ from race to race, but I was wondering if there is a specific percentage/number when reduced cost already has diminishing returns? I always worry about when to stop putting points on my reduction cost on both magicka and stamina.

I believe @Asayre has the specifics

Cryptical

Then, the

leepalmer95

Your also missing out, blocking, dodge rolling using your other pool for utility etc...

Reduce cost may be better for just sitting there spamming, but in a actual fight your not going to do that. If you dodge roll your won't get any benefit for reduced cost, if your use magicka you won't get any sustain from the stamina cost reduction.

Plus like people have explained the more reduction you have the less effective it is.
The more regen you have the more effective it is.

Plus some class/races just favour regen.

A stam nightblade whose a redguard, uses 7x medium armour and is a ww or vamp would 100% want to stack regen.

15% + 9% + 28% = 15% or 10% etc...

Egonieser

Were your tests done in combat our out of combat? Don't forget, your regen is much higher out of combat which would ultimately allow you to spam a skill for a very long time even with low regen because regen bonuses affect "in-combat" only. That is not the case once you enter combat state, thus make the test results inaccurate.
Once in combat - you will see that cost reduction<regen and that's a fact because what you saw was OOC regeneration together with reduction.

lolo_01b16_ESO

You can't just claim cost reduction being better than recovery because you did a single test. It was better for your special testing setup, but this won't be true for every situation. From my personal experience and the math I did, I can tell you that you should always split your cp between recovery and cost reduction and in many situations recovery enchants will be the better choice for sustain.

Acrolas

Too many basic numbers omitted. Nobody can replicate your experiment without guesswork, which is just one indicator of...

Sharee

Of course reduction is better than regen when you still have resources left for spam.

X regen = gain X resource every 2 seconds

X reduction = 'gain' X resource everytime you use an ability. Use ability once per second(spam) = twice the 'gain' of regen while pool lasts.

The problem is that once you run dry and can no longer spam, the 'gain' of cost reduction takes a sharp dive.

Septimus_Magna

For spamming skills cost reduction is obviously better because you minimize the time to regen.

For overall use Ive found regen to be more effective because its stacks possitively and you dont have diminishing returns.

mistermutiny89

In PVE the case is that most top dps require little recovery. Hovering under 1k magicka recovery is pretty usual.

Now when we look at 100 points in recovery we get 25% buff on 1,000 recovery.. The recovery is so because we have shorter fights and healers with repentance or siphon spirit and synergies running at all times.

When we look at 100 points in cost reduction we get 16% from abilities that cost between 2-3.5k.

So when we do the math it is clear cost reduction is more effective in PVE.

This has been well documented in many top of the line builds for PVE. In pvp's case at least 2,000 recovery is preferred... So you'd get more out of recovery cp.

ADarklore

It's too bad that the bonus passives from the Tower constellation suck in comparison to the Lover. It's tough when you don't have high CP, to look at the constellations and see that if you put points into Tower... well, I don't do any 'bash' attacks, inspiration gain is nice, but I don't care about healing others when I die and who cares about stamina usage with mount. Yet, looking at Lover... chance to increase node harvest, gain 2 Ultimate with Synergy, reduce gathering times by 50%, and 2% increase in speed with faster regen of health/magicka while sprinting.

So sure, decreasing cost reduction is nice, but outside of that... the Tower's constellation bonuses suck IMO. Yet, the bonus passives in Lover will be more of a benefit with other aspects of the game. So for me, I put enough for 10% into Tower for Stamina Reduction and the rest into the Lover tree working to reach the 120 mark. After that, I'll fill out Stamina Reduction more.

khele23eb17_ESO

What Id like to know is.... If you have 160 points to spend is it better to go:

a) 160 - reduction
b) 160 - regen
c) 100 reduction + 60 regen
d) 100 regen + 60 reduction
e) other combination of the above.

Bandit1215

I think your test would've been more accurate if the race you chose didn't have Stam regen. This would make the reduced cost seem WAY worse than regen spec. That's how tests are done. The independent variable (race) should not interfere with the dependant variable (Stam recovery or reduced cost)

FortheloveofKrist

Doesn't this also depend upon how much your fighting style requires that you block, sneak, or roll dodge? Especially since there is no longer any regen while sneaking or blocking. It would seem that cost would be better at than point. Only because the higher regen doesn't help if you are sneaking a lot, because it never has time to kick in (unless you stop entirely and let the regen resume).

Dakrana_Thrazvoth

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

What Id like to know is.... If you have 160 points to spend is it better to go:

a) 160 - reduction
b) 160 - regen
c) 100 reduction + 60 regen
d) 100 regen + 60 reduction
e) other combination of the above.

100 reduction + 60 regen in my opinion.

Kupoking

maxed cost reduction on CP then remaining pts in regen is the way to go for PvE dps races according to my experience (considering rings are damage enchanted)

For PvP however, if I go that way, Ill go out of ressource slower but Ill remain at low ressource for ever in long fights, which is problematic.

Also, I feel like whenever I go with max stats (food) rather than regen (drinks) in PvP I get better results but investing a bit more in reduction cost CP wise (Splitting CP in there 50%-50% in regen/reduction)

Strider_Roshin

As an aggressive player. Reduction works best for me. Regen doesn't even compare. So what's best is dependant on your play style.

Shardaxx

Interesting topic look forward to more evidence and opinions on this as its always something I've wondered about. Cost reduction has always worked for me so I've stuck with it, but wonder if regen would be better.

TheDarkShadow

I think if you are PvE, cost reduct on glyphs and 50-50 in CP is the better, because you will spam skill a lots.
But in PvP, you will have to block, dodge roll, run around rocks to break LOS... You don't have to spam skill that much, so focus on regen is better.