City of Hero's : General Tactics

Ok , I bought the game City of Heros / City of Villians for my computer. It's an online game with like thousands of players all in the same game world, running into each other , yelling and screaming at each other ...great fun.

This is my general guide , for those that are thinking of picking it up.

Defence 1 : Attack

When you get your charactar , you get like one attack. You attack. You wait. You wait. You wait. You think..jeesh , how long does it take for this to recharge ? And then you attack again. If you had a second attack ... you could probably attack a second time while the first one was recharging...

Exactly. You want to get to three or four attacks reasonably quickly. You also want some defence , so I hesitate to say take four attacks right away ... but you want them right quick. How many ? Three or four ? Well... if after three attacks you still feel you have time to sneak in a fourth while the other three are recharging, then get a fourth. If there's little or no down time between attacks..leave it at three.

Defence 2 : Temporary Defences.

Temporary defences , you turn them on , you forget about them, they stay on forever. Why are they called temporary ?

Because if you get stunned or put to sleep , even for a few seconds, all your temporary powers turn off. And if you forget to turn them back on ...you're dog meat. Hot key those temporary defences so you can turn them on quick, and keep an eye on them , especially when you get stunned / slept.

The Level 8 Dilema :

Somewhere around 7 or 8 , the baddies start using fire and ice and lightning and what not on you. You'll notice most of your defences say they're good against "Lethal" or "Smashing" (bullets and clubs) , and say nothing about fire. And that guy throwing fire at you seems to be handing you your butt quite efficiently.

Need to pick up some elemental defence.

Why is this obvious statement a problem ? Because around level 6 , certain secondary powers, like hovering , or stealth , or what not , apear for you to choose from. And so you can "waste" a power on something non combat , or even two powers (the one at 6th , and the one at 8th ..you get a power every even level). At which point.. .you didn't buy up your elemental defences ! And your charactar dead ends and you discover you can't fight your way out of a paper bag.

yeah , don't do that. No "travel" powers or other stuff until 14ish ..or even later.

The Elevator Trick.

Hostages you rescue will follow you through an elevator. Thugs and villians will not. And this includes the entrance to the "mission" in the first place. Feel free to run for the door and step outside for some fresh air ! The tactic of running in , offing one of them (you can't say Kill , you're a super hero , you're jsut arresting them) and then fleeing to rest up and do it again, actually works very well.

Clear the bottom area first.

How many times did I run up to the main boss of the mish , and he knockes me over the railing and down to the lower floor. Right into the middle of a second mob of thugs. And then he jumps down and follows me , and now I'm injured and fighting two mobs instead of just one ? I'm toast !

Yeah ... if an area has several levels, clear the bottom ones out first ,just in case you get knocked down there. That way you only face the one mob , that will chase you donw there, and you don't wind up doubling your problems.

Read the Paper.

If you type /e newspaper in the chat window, your charactar will pull out a newspaper and start reading it. It looks cool. And if you're down to half health and less endurance , you dont want to go picking a fight with the next mob. You want to wait a few moments while you recover. Not charge into the next battle ! So if you're low on health ... read the paper. Relax. Take it easy a few minutes.

Don't build a stupid Charactar !

It seems obvious, but I've seen people do it. They build some cool looking charactar (the system for making costumes is awsome in this game by the way, you should try it out) and then at level one they assign him web grenade (to hold an apponent still) and some kind of life drain , which heals you while doing no damage to the enemey.

Thats right. They build a charactar with *NO* attack powers. How did you plan on fighting crime again ? Politely asking them to surrender ? Pretty please ?

The system will let you build a stupid charactar that can't fight his way out of a paper bag. Amusing as a joke, but you only get experiance for defeating your foes. That charactars going no where.

I need one more attack / def but there's none in my pool at my level !

The combat pool . You can take a kick or a punch as soon as you hit 6th.
And the defence ? An extra attack means your enemey goes down a little quicker, means he has a little less time to throw damage at you. So an extra attack *IS* an extra defence.

Minions and Lieutenants
When you go on a mission , all the enemies are about your level. No matter what level you are. But they are broken into two kinds. Minions (very weak) and Lieutenants.

Minions and Lieutenants put out about the same amount of damage. Even worse, the Lieutenant usually has some kind of power that helps the minions do more damage to you. Minions can be beaten in one or two rounds of combat. Lieutenants take much longer. 5-8 is pretty common.

Always kill the minions first. The lieutenant does about as much as the minion and takes a lot longer to get rid of. Take the minion down first , and thats less damage being thrown at you very quickly. The overall damage you take in the life time of a fight drops like a rock if you take out the minions first, rather than let them live a long , long time while you do the lieutenant first and then go chasing them.