Combat Mechanics
The combat mechanics of Ship of Heroes start out simple and become complex. You start out with just a few powers to click or toggle. As your character advances through the ranks, and as you choose how to make your character more powerful, the game becomes much more complex.
At level one, every character gets just a few super-powers. As you level up, more powers become available. Choosing among the hundreds of powers becomes strategic and you want to have a plan. Your character will evolve over time, becoming more powerful and beset by more challenging enemies.
You have options for how to make your character more powerful. Augments allow you to emphasize some aspects of your powers. Infusions temporarily strengthen your stats. Choices are not just about total damage; buff, debuff, and defense can be powerful. And temp powers let you experiment or customize for specific missions.
Classes – Go beyond the Trinity
Tanker
Tankers take hits for the team by using their melee powers to taunt enemies into attacking them instead of their more fragile teammates. Tankers have offensive powersets and secondary powersets. They do moderate damage and are very tough.
Brawler
Brawlers wade into fights and deal large amounts of melee damage to groups of enemies. Brawlers have offensive primaries and defensive secondaries, the reverse of Tanks. They do high damage and are moderately tough.
Devastator
Devastators launch powerful range attacks at enemies while remaining out of range of enemy retribution. Devastators have offensive primaries and support secondaries. They do the highest damage and have moderately effectctive buffs designed to give them the ability to survive short but very intense fights.
Support
Support characters are quite varied: they heal and buff their teammates from a distance, keeping themselves out of range of powerful enemies. Support characters have support primaries and offensive secondaries. They do moderate damage and are excellent at making their allies more powerful, keeping a team alive.
Controller
Controllers specialize in controlling and manipulating those around them through mesmerization, stuns and other mechanisms. Controller powers are control and status effects, different from the powers of other archetypes.
Choose Your Powers
Your character will have a primary set of powers (the strongest powers), and a secondary set of powers (usually about 75% as powerful as the primary powers).
Each power set has multiple powers to select from. Combinations of those can produce a balanced character for solo playing, or a character with variable degrees of specialization suitable for team play.
New characters start by selecting two powers each in the primary and secondary power sets they have chosen.
Powers gained as the player levels up are generally stronger than early powers.
Every class gets one quick firing medium damage attack power. Every character also gets a pistol. So no matter what, you can always do some damage. Other powers fill in your style and make the game fun.
Fast travel powers, and flight, are available by default. You might want to master them. Do not think fight or flight. Think fight in flight!
Customize your Build
Power Augments
Augments are additions that permanently enhance your powers. You will not only select your powers, you will choose which powers you want to invest in with Augments, to make them perform as you will it to be. You will deploy Augments to enhance some powers more than others. You will choose which kinds of Augments to install, and you will search for better Augments to increase your powers even further.
Each power starts with one Augment slot. You select which power(s) to augment further by giving them additional Augment slots then placing Augments in these slots.
Infusion Vendors look like Vending Machines
Infusions
Don’t ignore infusions. These simple, temporary boosters last only 60 seconds. There are small, medium, and large infusions and they come in many forms. small and medium infusions are cheap and commonplace and can even be acquired from fallen enemies. You can also buy them from infusion vendors located around the game, including in the middle of battle.
Large infusions are crafted or purchased in the Ivars & Sons Auction House.
You can see infusions in action in this video.
Rise to the Challenge
MMOs tend to evolve in the same way. They start out with very difficult combat, and the game just gets easier and easier over the years. At this point, most MMOs are really easy to play. Combat in SoH is not that easy, but we give players a choice about how hard they want their fights to be. Players can adjust the difficulty of missions up or down before beginning. Of course, rewards also go up and down in response. But if you just can’t finish a mission or beat a boss, you can always add a few teammates, or lower the mission difficulty, or perhaps buy a few temp powers to carry you past the big-bad.
Suggestions for Selecting your First Archetype
Any choice can be fun, so don’t stress over it. Just choose something that sounds fun and roll with it.
If you want a
melee damage dealer
to run in and stab or slash enemies to death, try a
Brawler
If you prefer to
blast enemies at range
choose a
Devastator
who can also do a bit of healing or buffing
If you want to
heal and buff your team
we recommend the
Support
archetype. But to play solo, a Devastator might work better.
If you want to
taunt enemies
choose
Tanker
But to play mostly solo, choose Brawler – You’ll do more damage and still be pretty tough.
If you have
transferable skills from other games
consider a
Controller
This is a skill class with low damage, high buff, or high debuff and optional fighting pets
