Crowd Control (MMORPG) - City of Heroes and City of Villains

City of Heroes and City of Villains

In City of Heroes and its expansion, City of Villains, the Controller archetype is the primary provider of crowd control effects. Controllers, depending on their primary power set, have a variety of options for crowd control—essentially all of the effects in the above list—but the most commonly used effect is the Hold, which prevents an opponent from attacking or moving at all for a time. Dominators, a City of Villains archetype, share the Controllers' crowd control abilities, but with substantially reduced duration under most circumstances. To balance this limitation, a Dominator has access to an inherent power called "Domination." After a Dominator has inflicted enough damage with his or her attacks, this power can be activated, which doubles the duration and "magnitude" of his crowd control effects for a short time. Domination allows the Dominator, when it is most needed, to provide considerable crowd control and damage.

However, while Controllers and Dominators are designed to provide crowd control, all other archetypes have access to some crowd control effects; for instance, all Blasters have access to Immobilization effects in their secondary power sets. Crowd control in City of Heroes is generally very short in duration and not particularly effective on large groups of opponents or powerful opponents (such as Bosses, Archvillains, and Giant Monsters), in keeping with the game's design principles. This limitation is a function of "magnitude," which can be circumvented to a degree by using multiple crowd control effects or by augmenting magnitude using Domination. Because of these problems, crowd control is not considered an essential function in City of Heroes, and many groups operate effectively without a Controller or any appreciable use of crowd control effects by simply overwhelming their opponents with massive force. In Issue 5, all crowd control was substantially weakened by reducing the duration and increasing the recharge of powers that offer it, especially if those powers could affect multiple targets. This has further deemphasized its role in gameplay.

As in EverQuest, crowd control can also be provided by having a sufficiently resistant character, such as a Tanker, Scrapper, or Brute archetype character, keep the opponents occupied by "tanking" them. Tankers and Brutes are intended to be much more effective in this role, and it is not unheard of for a Tanker to "tank" upwards of 10 opponents at once and survive. Tankers, Scrappers, and Brutes all have powers that Taunt, which makes this task easier, but changes to the game in Issue 5 limit the number of targets that can be effectively controlled in this fashion, and the overall reduction in character defense makes tanking more dangerous. As of Issue 7, the Mastermind archetype has an inherent power called "Bodyguard" that, under specific circumstances, allows him to redistribute damage taken to his pets. Despite his limited hit points, a Mastermind can act as a "tank" using this power if carefully played.

In City of Heroes PvP combat, Controllers and Dominators who successfully Hold an opponent inflict triple normal damage with their powers. In Issue 5, Controllers gained a similar version of this advantage in the rest of the game through a new inherent power called "Containment." This power allows a Controller to inflict double damage against any target that is suffering from a Hold, Immobilize, Sleep, or Disorient effect. A similar version of Containment is part of the inherent power of Stalkers, Assassination. These characters have a chance to land a critical hit for double damage against any target under a Hold or Sleep effect in both PvP and PvE combat.