Despite all the existing frills and upcoming features that will make life in Paragon City more interesting, combat is still the focal point of the gameplay in City of Heroes. Pay no attention to a mission’s background information on rescuing hostages because to level up, because your Hero or Villain’s main activity remains to be bashing a few hundred skulls using his or her incredible powers.

You’ve learned about the many techniques to survive in combat (i.e. pulling, kiting, assisting, and many others). As you play longer, you’ll discover that there’s a sequence of attacks that you follow to maximize your powers, leaving the least amount of recharge time in between. This is usually called your power attack chain.

Power attack chains can be used by any hero, regardless of archetype. You may think that attack chains are used by Scrappers and Blasters more often since they’re both offensive archetypes but this isn’t the case. After all, each character would need some form of attack to fend for themselves—Empaths included.

How important are attack chains?

If you’ve figured out the right combination of attacks for your character, you can shorten the amount of time you wait for your powers to recharge! In-depth knowledge of your powers would remove any downtime, making your lack of endurance or the defeat of all enemies the only reasons to stop attacking.

Take note that attack chains are different for every character, and it’s up to you to figure out what is best. Remember that there are many powers (both primary and secondary) at your disposal, and each combination of these powers will yield a different attack chain. How do you find that attack chain?

Forming your attack chain
The best way to learn the suitable attack chain for your character is through trial and error. During your choosing process, you must take into consideration some important factors that will help you find the best combination. To begin with, the first power in your combo should be the one with the shortest recharge rate. The early powers in your primary powers are usually the fastest at recharging, so it’s a good idea to have a look at these. The next couple of primary powers tends to be the more damaging, and would have a longer recharge rate, so you can add them next in the chain.

This wouldn’t always apply to all characters because archetypes like Controllers and Defenders don’t always have offensive powers lined up consecutively in the set. The trick is to list down all your offensive powers and research the recharge time of each. List them down by order of recharge speed and you’ll have a basic working chain that you can further toy with as you gain familiarity of each.

When you’ve formed your basic list, arrange them in the tray so that you don’t have to remember which has the shortest or longest recharge time.

Number 1 key = first power
Number 2 key = second power
Number 3 key = third power
And so on

When this is done, try activating the attacks one after the other, until you reach the last power. Notice that the first attack in your list is ready to be used even before you reach the final power. Be creative and jumble the activation sequence every so often, as long as you choose the quick-recharge powers first, and the slow ones in the end.

Sample attack chain
This is how my main Blaster’s basic attack chain works:

1) Power Bolt
2) Web Grenade
3) Apprentice Charm
4) Power Blast
5) Power Burst
6) Sniper Blast

While I’ve formed a sequence, this is still subject to change, depending on the situation. I usually interchange the first three attacks and the Sniper Blast. If the enemy starts to get close, I would throw the Web Grenade first to root him before he can throw a melee attack. If the enemy hasn’t seen me and is alone, I go for the Sniper Blast first and switch back to Power Bolt before I reach the end of my combo. I normally don’t use the Sniper Blast at the end of the combo because it can be interrupted, but I placed it last because it has one of the longest recharge times among my attacks.

Of course, when the situation calls for an inspiration like Heal (especially when I’m low on hit points), I prioritize this over the other attacks in the chain.

As you are testing your attack chain, you may find a portion where you have to wait a few moments before the next power is fully recharged. This is downtime and you don’t want this. What do you do to compensate?

Enhance your recharge time
If there’s a gap, it’s time to turn to enhancements. The particular one you’ll be looking for is the Recharge Reduction type, which decreases a power’s recharge time. Once you lower the recharge time of the power in question, your attack chain will be complete and you won’t run into any downtime.

Using my trusty Blaster as your example, his chain would be something like this:

Shoot, chuck (web) grenade, throw (apprentice) charm, shoot, burst…shoot, chuck grenade, throw charm, shoot, burst…shoot.

See that undesirable pause between burst and shoot? If you have a pause in your chain, it’s best that you get rid of it by placing a Recharge Reduction enhancement in the shoot part (in this case, it’s my Power Bolt). You might hesitate and think of the hard-earned damage enhancement (Single Origin!) you already placed in Power Bolt, but consider: in the long run, you’ll be activating more powers at a shorter span of time, potentially increasing your overall damage. If you put in the enhancement, your chain might end up like this:

Shoot, chuck grenade, throw charm, shoot, burst, shoot, chuck grenade, throw charm, shoot, burst, shoot.

In case you haven’t noticed, making more shots overall is more significant than inflicting more damage in one shot. It’s like putting an Accuracy enhancement on your offensive powers. You’ll do less damaging but more accurate shots, which is way better than missing for no damage at all. Remember—the more attacks you can dish out, the more damage potential there is.

Take note that it won’t do you much good if you put in Training enhancements. You will maximize your attack chain if you place Dual Origin and Single Origin enhancements. Why? Let me show you the percentage of increases done by each enhancement:

Training Enhancement: 8.35%
Dual-Origin: 16.66%
Single-Origin: 33.33%

By now, you would also have realized that putting in more Recharge Reduction enhancements will greatly decrease your recharge time. This is called stacking, and it will provide larger bonuses that will result in more devastating attack chains.

Hasten, Hasten, Hasten!
Many consider Hasten to be one of the best powers in the game. Why? Hasten reduces the recharge time for all your powers for 120 seconds. Although Hasten doesn't cost any endurance to activate, you can tire easily because endurance doesn’t recover more quickly. After Hasten wears off, you can become tired and will lose some endurance.

Hasten takes around three minutes to recharge at default, so you won’t really realize this power’s impact until you place six slots for it and insert single-origin enhancements of the Recharge Reduction kind on each. Exactly what does this do? This has been known as perma-Hasten, which will have the power turned on all the time.

Hasten is available starting level six, but you’ll be making use of this power throughout your character’s career.

Attack for longer periods of time
To complete the package, it’s good to keep an eye out for Stamina, another terrific power that will do your character wonders. Stamina will recover your character’s endurance a bit more quickly. This ability is an Auto Power. It doesn’t use endurance and doesn’t need to be activated.

You must be level 20 and have taken any two other powers in the Fitness power pool set to choose Stamina. When you do get it, Stamina will turn your character into an almost-untiring machine. Your downtime will be lessened greatly and you can dish out more attacks longer.

Completing and lengthening your power attack chain will make your character a formidable force in Paragon City, so learning all these things are important. Adventuring with my retired Blaster was never the same when I learned to make a seemingly-endless chain of attacks because battles became easier whether I’m soloing or with a group. I hope it will do the same for you.

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