Extra Regen or Healing Rite?

[Midra, Lord of Frenzied Flame]

Isn't Extra Regen just better early game? Passively increases health regen to 6. No cd and no matter if you get hit or not. I'm thinking of switching Rite to Regen.

[SchleifLinG]

play against tiny poke -> extra regen
play against burst -> Healing Rite

[Fawxkitteh]

Regen gives 10% ammo.

Healing Rite gives 3 spirit power, 45 health, +2m/s sprint speed, and can be used on allies.

If you're roaming to take on camps, Healing Rite is good for the sprint and burst healing. The effect isn't interrupted by neutral camps or minions, just enemy heroes or towers.
If you want early spirit power on the vitality tree, it's the second best option.
If you want to support with a team wide heal by transitioning into Healing Nova, it's a good option.

But regen is generally better in lane, especially if you're going to be relying on your gun more.

[Shiro]

Don't forget the third option: Melee Lifesteal. Every 7.5s you melee a trooper and heal for 27 plus 6% of damage dealt (so 31/34 healing for light/heavy melee). This essentially is like having over 4 extra regen per second. While you might not melee every 7.5s exactly, the value is still better than of extra regen, is not interrupted like healing rite, you can increase the healing further by increasing melee dage (with monster rounds for example, or you can rush melee charge), and you also heal much more if you manage to land a hit on an enemy hero. Only drawback is that you must melee often, so be sure you know where enemy is so they don't surprise parry near the trooper you wanted to melee.

There's also fourth option of Restorative Shot which is popular but I myself find pressured to time the hit with it, not sure if you like it. If you pull it off, it's up to 2.5 or 6.67 regen per second, depending on whether you heal off troopers or opposing hero, and it fills orange slot.

Anyway, if I'm forced to choose between Extra Regen and Healing Rite, I'd probably go for the rite, because it provides a bit of speed (important), and can be upgraded into Healing Nova later to work as more reliable heal and also help teammates. (Or sold, but same is trur for all 500s). Extra regen is good vs constant poke but then I would prefer to counterpoke (say w Headshot Booster), acquire regeneration via other items such as Monster Rounds, or just hide and heal.

[Stellar Fox]

healing rite is the better option if you feel like giving up 3 creep waves to the enemy for free during early game, and it also comes with a chance to be a complete waste of souls after someone looks in your general direction

[Null Winter]

Originally posted by Stellar Fox:

healing rite is the better option if you feel like giving up 3 creep waves to the enemy for free during early game, and it also comes with a chance to be a complete waste of souls after someone looks in your general direction

My thoughts on it. Once I see someone duck into their shop nook to huff their Healing Rite cloud, I toss in a Kudzu Bomb to make them cry while my wave whacks their Guardian.

[Shiro]

Originally posted by Null Winter:

Originally posted by Stellar Fox:

healing rite is the better option if you feel like giving up 3 creep waves to the enemy for free during early game, and it also comes with a chance to be a complete waste of souls after someone looks in your general direction

My thoughts on it. Once I see someone duck into their shop nook to huff their Healing Rite cloud, I toss in a Kudzu Bomb to make them cry while my wave whacks their Guardian.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how to bait enemy abilities in order ez dodge and to then heal safely. Tho I'd prefer to simply try to make opponent not even know where I am.

[SharkPlush]

I often add whichever of these I did not grab when a flex slot opens up if I can't afford a T3 or T4 item. Yes sometimes you can cancel healing rite, but if you use it smart it can keep you in the lane even late-game when players start doing the conga line thing, sometimes I'll duck out, hide but not leave, HR up, and gank when the straggler decides to dive.

Both can be valid, HR usually gets replaced anyway bc stuff like large aoe and dot effects cancel it too easily once teamfighting is on.

[Null Winter]

Originally posted by Shiro:

Originally posted by Null Winter:

My thoughts on it. Once I see someone duck into their shop nook to huff their Healing Rite cloud, I toss in a Kudzu Bomb to make them cry while my wave whacks their Guardian.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how to bait enemy abilities in order ez dodge and to then heal safely. Tho I'd prefer to simply try to make opponent not even know where I am.

Yes, "easy dodge" a splash zone that takes two dashes to get out of and the projectile has no warning sound with an instant detonation.

[CheeseEnjoyer776]

rites better if your winning tbh, win a trade with like 60 hp and backing would let them regain the farm loss but healing rite makes that go away.

[Midra, Lord of Frenzied Flame]

Thanks for your insights. It's match dependent like many things in this game.

[Shiro]

Originally posted by Null Winter:

Originally posted by Shiro:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how to bait enemy abilities in order ez dodge and to then heal safely. Tho I'd prefer to simply try to make opponent not even know where I am.

Yes, "easy dodge" a splash zone that takes two dashes to get out of and the projectile has no warning sound with an instant detonation.

You have enough warning in you getting into cover, and opponent seeing that and seeing you got healing rite. Then you just dash-jump. You learned to dash-jump already, haven't you? Very useful to quickly get away from aoes, and when followed by slide can be useful vs warden's anchor too.

[Fawxkitteh]

Originally posted by Stellar Fox:

healing rite is the better option if you feel like giving up 3 creep waves to the enemy for free during early game, and it also comes with a chance to be a complete waste of souls after someone looks in your general direction

Well that's kind of up to you really.

Healing Rite is a worse choice if you're getting absolutely bodied, sure.

But if you're winning the lane and just want to be able to heal up while you clear a neutral so you can keep the pressure on, or if you're roughly even or even losing just a bit, you can easily find time and place to get a good heal in to help you stabilize.
It's not like the shop area is the only place you can heal, it has a back hallway anyway.
Also, minion waves come ever 25 seconds, so even with the recent nerf down to taking 20s for a full healing rite you aren't missing 3 minion waves...

Really, a missed answer is the banner trooper, which heals 40 HP each pulse.
Waves come every 25 seconds.
If you only get one heal every minion wave, that averages to 1.6 per second.
But they carry two charges with a 6 second cooldown between them, so you only need to hug one for 6 seconds for the second heal, which potentially brings the heals up to 3.2.
It's 35 seconds for them to regain a charge, so you're not healing a third time.
But still, that's a possible 80hp every wave that some people are missing out on.

Also, if you're just talking about survivability in general, there are a lot of other options.
Shields or damage mitigation to avoid needing to heal in the first place, or just extra health to make up for the lack of healing.
I mean even Extra Stamina. An extra dodge can save you from a lot of damage sometimes, and it gives a bit more extra health.