I've played nearly 100 matches now, and I'm finding that regen, Both HP and mana, seems to be patheticely weak. It is usually to the point where stacking health or mana is a better fix than regen, which seems odd, it feels like it should do something. I'll give some examples though, so you can see for yourself what I mean, maybe you can prove me wrong, maybe you'll agree.

Okay, Clarity runes, the oh so popular mana regen runes. If memory serves, they give 0.1 mp regen per five seconds per level, capping at 1.8 mana regen per five seconds. Notice something there? Per five seconds. At level 1, that means, assuming you have nine of them, with a mana regen of 0.9 per five seconds, that means it'd take 6 seconds to regen 1 mana. At max level, of course, it's 18 times this, yes. It equals out to 16.2 per five, which means 3.24 per second. While that is signifigantly better, it's useless by that point in the game, you will have sucha high cap for mana at that point that the small ticks of regen probably won't even be enough to get you another spell.

We also have the Chalice. Not being able to recall the other stats, it gives 1% extra mana regen per 1% missing. This means you regen 50% faster at 50% mana, a reasonable number to work off of. Seeing that regen example from before though, and looking at items, it isn't a lot. Afterall, the Archangel's staff gives 5 mana per second, and it's the best mana regen item int he game.

To give an HP example, look at the Force of Nature. If I recall correctly, the HP per five bonus is 40, so that'd be 8 HP regen per second. Then the passive itself grants 3.5 HP regen per second per 1000 HP. That's surely not going to save you by the time you can afford it.

The Mastery, Perserverance, grants 4% extra health and mana regen. This means for every 25 regen you have, you get one bonus. This makes it almost useless, because as usual, useless early game, and the effects of negligible late game. Meditation grants 1 mana regen per second, that's not bad at all, surprisingly, considering the other options, because you can have it right away. And the Defense mastery that grants 0.3% of your max mana as health regen, this translates to 3 HP regen per second per 1000 mana.

Oh, and of course, poor Mundo's passive does that, except based off of max health, regenerating less than Force of Nature's passive, which I already went over. His only saving grace for a heal, actually, is his ultimate, his passive is terribly weak.

Anyway, I'm sort of wonder what the point of regen is at all, because it's effects for it's cost are so utterly minimal that it seems almost useless, surely higher health and mana caps are simpler and more effective.

Discuss.

I'd have to argue that regen items might be a bit too much in the early game.

Look at Regrowth Pendant early game. That's a whopping 17.5 HP regen at small health pools, and pretty much makes effective harassing very difficult. It gives a lot of leeway in the early game with lane pushing.

Towards the later end of the game, yes, I'd have to agree with you. Regen items are too weak. Part of it is because of the way regen works in WC3 and DoTA. Look at the recent Heart of Tarrasque changes. Regen was too strong there late game, and if someone stacked a huge HP pool with regen and armor they were nigh impossible to kill.

I think it would be better if regen items were mostly a % based number. This would allow them to scale much more effectively in the late game than they do now, while minimizing their impact in the early game.

Ah, but that also takes a full five seconds to get that amount, on a per second basis, that's 3.5 HP regen per second, definitely nice early game, but not enough to truly lay off the pressure, only enough to come back from some harassment with some health intact. Say you lose 100 health to being harassed, it will take you about 30 seconds to regen that witha regrowth pendant. For it's price, not bad. But the other regen options are still quite weak. Meki pendant is another decent one, yes, it provides 1.4 mana regen per second for low cost, making it an effective item early. But I had more to address in my post.

Try Dr.mundo and tell me if regen sucks

You seem to be operating under the assumption that regen is meant to keep you alive in combat, which is not true at all. It's for regenerating between fights. In the early game it's very important to be able to stay in your lane, and in late game it helps a lot to not have to call off a push because you're at 50%. If you're a DPS character HP regen isn't worth much, lifesteal is much better.

Agreed. Regen is not to keep you alive during fights. That's what armor, resistance, and hp are for.

The last thing I'd want to see in this game is a heart of Torrasque type item which brings regen to ridiculous levels.

I pretty much use health/mana regen runes 90% of the time. Regen is fine IMHO, serves its purpose. Hell I wouldn't mind if base regeneration rates were reduced, seems like you can stay in a lane pretty easily while being harassed without buying anything.