City of Heroes/Powers

The Role of Powers

Some novice players are confused by the combat system of City of Heroes, because powers don't work quite the same as similar aspects of other MMOGs.

Powers are any sort of action that your character makes to significantly affect gameplay. They are to City of Heroes what skills and spells are to other MMOGs. What makes City of Heroes unique is that - unlike most other MMOGs - there is no "attack" or "autoattack" function; this is because all attacks are themselves powers!

To lend a more exciting, comic-book feel to combat, you do not merely attack; you choose a specific type of attack. After your attack, you choose another. Hence do you send each given attack for a dynamic battle, rather than the same generic attack over and over (with abilities mixed in).

Powers in City of Heroes do not provide specific information, but instead generalize on the power's identity with relation to similar powers. As a result, any statistics in the guide, though generally true, may be inaccurate or rendered incorrect after a game patch.

Power Sets

All powers in the game are part of a power set. Such power sets include Super Strength, Flight, and Mind Control. There are four main types of power set:

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Primary Power Sets

A hero's primary set is the defining set that the hero makes the most use of. There are 9 powers in primary sets, of which either of the first two may be selected at character creation, with others becoming available as the hero gains levels.

Secondary Power Sets

The secondary set holds significant sway in a hero's style of play, though less so than the primary set. The secondary set also has 9 powers, however, you are required to choose the first power in the set (instead of one of the first 2) at character creation, and subsequent powers become available at higher levels than primary sets. Additionally, secondary powers are only 80% as effective as primary powers. For this reason, players that want to do one thing and do it very well will only get a few powers form their secondary set, while players that want a more dynamic and adaptive character will get many powers from their secondary set.

Power Pool Sets

The power pool has powers that any character, regardless of archetype, may have. It is organized into 10 sets of 4 powers each. Unlike other power sets, power pool sets have pre-requisites in addition to minimum level: To get the third power in a pool set, you must have either of the first two powers, and to get the fourth power in the set, you must have any 2 of the other three powers. A hero may have powers from 0-4 pools; they are forbidden from having more than four power pools.

This is probably to prevent a player from making a hero too weak, because pool powers are generally weaker than primary and even secondary powers. Just as secondary powers are weaker, but important to round out a character, so are power pool even weaker, but with a huge potential to round out your character. Additionally, four of the powers pools have a "travel power" which greatly increases a hero's movement speed when used, one of which nearly all heroes have. Many players even consider a travel power a necessity, to be obtained as early as possible. (The travel powers are Fly in the Flight set, Super Jump in the Leaping set, Super Speed in the Speed set, and Teleport in the Teleportation set.) Because power pools can make a player so well-rounded, many have less effectiveness when used by archetypes that are known for lacking such powers. (Notably the Fighting and Leadership sets.

Also note that most players refer to power pool sets as "pools". Although it is technically a misnomer, it is used more commonly and should be considered a synonym.

Tertiary Power Pool Sets

Tertiary sets are an addition to City of Heroes made after release. Like primary and secondary sets, tertiary sets are also dependent on the hero's archetype. They have four powers each, mostly out of primary and secondary sets not available to the given archetype, but some only found in tertiary sets. These are far more effective than powers from the power pool, and are powers that significantly counteract the archetype's shortcomings.

The tertiary power pools become available at level 41. They have the same limitations as the normal power pool regarding obtaining the third and fourth powers in the sets. Each hero may only have powers from one tertiary pool, and may choose not to have any tertiary pool. The tertiary pool does not count against the 4-set maximum of the regular power pool, and similarly having 4 sets out of the regular power pool does not prevent one from obtaining a tertiary set.

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There are two power sets which do not fit into the above categories:

The Inherent set is a set of powers that the hero automatically has, without selecting them. These powers help the hero to perform in the early game, when it has few powers otherwise. Most heroes will find the inherent powers of very little use (but still some) as they expand their catalogue of powers.

With the exception of one power dependent on your archetype, the powers in the inherent set are the same for all characters on a game account. Through very rare circumstances, an account can gain inherent powers that most accounts don't have; these are then inherent for all heroes belonging to that account.

Temporary Powers are powers that the hero can not count on having forever. These are often given as rewards for completing missions, but can be obtained in many ways. Depending on the power, the hero will lose it after one of the following:

• It has seen a specific amount of use.
• It has been in the posession of the hero for a certain amount of time played.
• It has been in the posession of the hero for a certain amount of real time (even if the player is offline).

The power's description should say how and after what degree a power will be lost.

Additionally, each hero recieves a temporary inherent power, which the hero has unlimited use of until it reaches level 10. Which power this is depends on the hero's origin.