I don’t believe there was a topic about HP Regen specifically, especially now that HP Regen has been buffed. The main objective for investigating HP Regen was to do The Hearty Son of Aplia lore challenge for Montana. I intended to write this topic in the Montana section, but who the heck goes there frequently or at all, right?
For the injector, I somehow sold the one with the surviving for 3 minutes effect. Regen when shield is down is just as good in this case only though since your burn through your shield anyway. With the appropriate helix options (9hp/s regen the higher the heat + self-dmg when firing past maximum overheat). The tests conducted were about holding down the fire button for a specified period of time in order to rack up damage on Montana. The times taken are from the moment of the first tick of damage until the specified time.
Loadout 1:
As you can see with this build, you get 28hp/s + 9hp/s from helix for a total of 37hp/s with 14% heal power and 21.8% healing received (37hp/s @ half hp).
I conducted 3 tests with this build: w/ drone, 5 mins w/o drone, 12 mins w/o drone. This was done with Montana at Lv9 with 300 shield and 370X HP (forgot to write it down, but it is irrelevant).
The drone test showed 13824 damage taken within 5 minutes or 46.1 DPS. I used a hold left click macro for 5 minutes which might not have been 5 minutes. Your ability to survive this sustained action was none, you’d die in another minute or two. I did another test on the next life with another healing drone and I only managed to take 7390 damage within about 2 minutes. Base regen @ half hp was 37.8 with the drone bumping it up to 53.8.
The second test and third test were without the drone for a duration of 5 mins and 12 mins. During the 5 minute test the damage taken amounted to 11370 or 37.9 DPS. During the 12 minute test the damage taken amounted to 27050 or 37.6 DPS. Health Regen was bouncing between 30.8 and 37.8 @ half hp.
Loadout 2:
The goal of this loadout was to experiment without the heal power and the extra healing recieved, but with flat HP regen. Potential 35hp/s + 9hp/s (helix) for a total of 44hp/s @ half hp.
As with the first loadout, the same 3 tests were conducted, this time without half-assing the drone one.
The drone test showed 18128 damage taken or 60.4 DPS for a duration of 5 minutes. At half hp, the regen reached 44hp/s at half hp and 60.3hp/s with the drone healing you. Unable to survive for a couple more minutes after this.
In conclusion of the drone testing, the drone increases your damage taken for whatever reason; when it heals you it stops your HP from decreasing and heals you for about 10-20HP possibly due to the healing received effect from your gear; it is impossible to survive by holding down the fire button for any amount of time. The drone only delays your death.
With the second and third tests for 5 minutes and 12 minutes respectively without the drone assisting you, a similar result occurred as with the first loadout. At the 5 minute mark 11330 damage was taken or 37.7 DPS. The 12 minute test showed 27150 damage taken or 37.8 DPS. With this build more focused on flat regen, Montana’s HP was constantly at full health (spiking between 36XX and 370X) and shields depleted.
In conclusion about this test and the test in the first loadout was that 37.8 HP/second is enough to survive indefinitely without a drone assisting you. With 9HP/s from the helix, you only need 28.8 HP/second or 28 HP/second regen on your loadout to survive for the full duration of the mission at Lv9. I assume it is the same at Lv6 which is the bare minimum since your gear does not change and only the Lv5 and Lv6 helix has any impact on damage being taken.
As a side note: I have done another test on Void’s Edge with a drone and Wolf healing you. 100 hp/s regen is possible with a drone and the wolf sentry, it will heal your HP by a couple hundred (300? iirc) during the 30s but once that stops, you start racking up damage again.
For the “The Hearty Son of Aplia” lore challenge, at 37.8 DPS @ damage taken, needing 20 minutes to reach Lv6 as an example, which leaves you with 80 minutes damage taken, 37.8 x 60s x 80m = 181440 damage taken in 80 minutes. You can further increase this number to about 281k if you do this on The Sentinel with the help of spikes at 10-12 lives and then farming with your minigun until time nearly runs out and suiciding during your last life. It is probably faster with another player simply reviving your over and over at the spikes or during a PVP match @ 70-80k? per match. I did not want to bother others for this lore challenge, so this is mostly intended for solo players.
God I hate playing Montana.