Combat

Overview

Combat is the primary gameplay activity in City of Heroes. It is a very broad and complex topic with a large number of stats, attributes, and mechanics that are abstracted from the player's view. This page will attempt to serve as a master hub of all of the requisite information necessary to fully understand how City of Heroes's combat system works.

Core Mechanics

The following pages outline core mechanics that all combat encounters share.

• Consideration System: Used to identify how strong an enemy is, often referred to as the Con System. Enemies are said to 'con' a specific color.
• Hit Chance Calculations: Outlines the master to-hit formula and the various factors that determine whether or not an attack, or any power that requires an accuracy check hits its target(s)
• Damage: Explains the way damage is calculated and its maximum limits.
• Status Effects or 'Mez': Covers the topic of Status Effects, commonly referred to as mez, and how they are applied and defended against.
• Buffs and Debuffs: Explains the various types of buffs and debuffs in the game. Note these are different from status effects.
• Threat: Outlines the system by which NPCs choose which player to attack.

Combat Stats

These stats and more are present on all characters in City of Heroes, be they player or NPC. All of them can be monitored actively via the Combat Attributes Window

• Health/Hit Points: The way maximum HP is determined for characters.
• Health Regeneration: The rate at which characters regain hit points.
• Endurance: The primary resource used to activate powers.
• Recovery: The rate at which characters regain endurance points.
• Resistance: Covers resistances and how they affect damage, buffs, debuffs, and status effects.
• Defense: Used to reduce the probability of an attack hitting a character.
• To-Hit: Used as the primary factor in determining if an attack hits.
• Accuracy: Used as the secondary factor in determining if an attack hits.
• Status Effect Protection: Protects against status effects in a binary way, different from resistance above.
• Limits: Most stats in City of Heroes can be buffed and debuffed extensively, however there are limits to how far.

Complications

There are a number of notable complications to the above.

• Purple Patch: When two characters of different levels engage in combat many values are affected by a modifier known as the Purple Patch.
• Archvillain Resistance: Many of City of Heroes greatest enemies have a number of additional buffs applied to them.
• Purple Triangles: In addition to greater resistance, many bosses have the 'Purple Triangles' mechanic.
• Giant Monster: City of Heroes has many large monstrous enemies that use a unique level scaling system.