BASIC PLAYActivity Button: Not in City of Heroes. Press Z to activate things that a mouse would do in City of Heroes. Z also calls up zone dialog, picks up items and confirms choices in dialogs. If you’re a mouse erudite, an Activity button will appear underneath your character you can click on instead of pressing Z, so relax.
Energy Bars: You know what the colors mean and what Endurance is (Energy in this game.) Notch on the blue bar is the Equilibrium point. When at rest, you recharge rapidly up to the Equilibrium point. The use of high-damage powers too frequently will decrease the Equilibrium point, so understand that it does move around a bit. Collecting energy past the equilibrium point will result in energy loss between fights until you get into another fight, or the equilibrium is reached.
Powers and Fighting: Farewell to City of Heroes and the Dual-Blades/Street Fighting-esque Combo system. But don't worry, in Champions Online, you have a little bit of variety in your play. Some powers you select in this game use Charge-Ups and Sustains. Your primary attack is known as an Energy Builder... and unlike CoH, you can block attacks at will.
- Energy Builder: This light damage attack is repeatable, costs no energy, and even better, recharges your energy after repeated use, even past the equilibrium point (as long as there's a target capable of receiving damage, you can use an Energy Builder). You can have only one energy builder-type of power in your power choices at any given time. For most Archetypes, it's usually your weakest, but quickest-to-use attack. Note that the Energy Builder is a TOGGLE: press the attack button once, and you'll keep attacking over and over until you choose another power, or the enemy falls.
- Charge-Up: An energy meter appears in a Charge-Up when you hold down the power activation button. Let it go for a charged up use of an attack or power. You can also keep pressing it to deliver maximum damage/effect with the Meter filled up. (Timing means nothing: letting it go on the notch marks doesn’t matter.) The higher the charge, the more energy used up on release.
- Sustain: In a Sustain Power, the bar is at maximum and the longer you hold it down, the longer the power persists until the Meter is empty. The longer a sustain is used, the more energy is used in turn for less and less damage over time.
- Block: You can block incoming attacks at-will in Champions Online. Simply press and hold Shift to do so. You will also gain back some energy while blocking, though nowhere as dramatically as when using an Energy Builder.
Charge-Up and Sustain attacks tend to be the more exciting of the two, since these tend to be attached to Cone or AoE type attacks, but ON BOTH Charge-Up and Sustain powers, if you run out of energy, the power discharges and stops immediately, no matter how far up your bar is charged. Also, the Energy Builder attack means that even in a short encounter, endurance drain that was common in City of Heroes doesn't have to be an issue in Champions Online. The strategy in using such an attack is still present, as Energy Builders only return a fixed percentage of your energy per successful hit. This is time your character can be vulnerable to high damage attacks.
Speaking of High Damage Attacks, there's a type of attack from mobs called a "Schtick Attack", where a cartoon bubble, spark or highlight appears in three stages over your character's head, usually ending in a word (like "Bang", "Pow", or some other onomatopoeic expression... yes, that's a word... Google it). When the third part appears, a powerful attack will land on your character at full force. This is a warning to your character that it is indeed time to block. You'll get used to seeing them as you play and acting accordingly, but note that marching all by yourself into a group full of mobs that you know to be capable of those kind of attacks is usually a fool's errand, especially before Level 25.
Finally, note that while blocking, any unactivated or charging powers will cancel until you release the block, and that in PvP there are methods that opponents can use to disable your ability to block temporarily, so know that before going into a fight. Also, block isn't a perfect shield: you will lose SOME HP no matter what you do. Holding Shift down endlessly on a large enough collection of enemies or in a boss fight will still put you in harm's way.
Travel Powers: You get a free one at Level 6 (doesn’t affect power choices). Travel powers are mapped by default to the T key (can be remapped) and works with a little difference from City of Heroes. Each power has three magnitudes of speed: slow (defaults to this when you are attacked just like CoH), medium, and fast. Each mode moves to the next fastest one after 10 seconds of travel without getting hit.
Travel Powers are CHARGE-UPS. Too long to wait to get the hell out of dodge? Press and hold T to charge your travel power and use fast immediately. You can have up to two travel powers on any given character.
How do I quit? Where's the Settings Menu? Can I just log out? Press ESC repeatedly until the Main Menu appears, then choose accordingly. Also, on the Mini-Map, click on the Champions Logo button for a Palette Menu of any window not discussed in this primer. If it has use in the game, it's listed there.
The Exit Button: When done with a mission map, if you can’t find an immediate exit in the boss room, you’ll find yourself running all around to get to the door at times.
Stop that: Just click on Socrates (Tiny blue head in the Mini Map) and choose Exit Mission. This isn't as much of an issue, since the majority of missions are in City Zones and open-air maps. (Adv. Packs/Comics: head back to the Jet, otherwise, Socrates still works.) Remember leaving the map means resetting that Issue or Mission's objectives. The AP Progress is not lost unless you drop the main mission from your list. If you have unfinished mission objectives, leaving the map means you will start over on the completed objectives when you reenter the map.
Dropping a Mission: If you want to remove a mission from your Mission List, press L to open up your Log Window. Click on the Active Tab and locate the mission in the list. Click Drop to drop the mission. It will disappear from your list, and your progress on the mission will be lost. (If it's in an arc, you can talk to the contact to regain it: if it's an AP/CB mission, you will need to start over from the first Issue.)
You will need to drop missions when it is no longer possible to complete it, for example, if you forget to rescue the Kitty in the Intro Mission and still have the mission on your list. Or perhaps you have a holiday event that has expired. Dropping it is all that can be done in these instances.
Concerning Autocomplete: Unless the mission is bugged, there is no Autocomplete feature in Champions Online. Your only recourse is to leave (see above tip) and do something else. If the mission is bugged, access Help (press ESC until you see the Main Menu), then choose Request GM Support. Don't expect a live response: unless your character is stuck and cannot exit (or some variation of that: you are stuck on a map in a manner that logging in and out will not fix, or can't log in after exiting), they will refer it to someone to look at later.
