Expanded City of Heroes Archetype Reference Chart

An Accomplished Alt-A-Holic's Archetype Reference Chart:

Important Note: General reference only. Certain power sets and powers, such as Kinetics and Fulcrum Shift, may produce unusual results.

Archetype: Blaster
Offensive Power:
Highest, thanks in part to ease of application. "Defiance" can boost damage considerably, but is rarely used due to inherent risk.
Defensive Power:
Weakest, but varies. Some sets have more mitigation and control than others and these are easier to solo.

Archetype: Scrapper
Offensive Power:
Blaster base with 5-15% chance for double damage "critical hit" depending on the attack. Would be highest overall, but is difficult to apply due to melee range limitations.
Defensive Power:
Self-Sufficient, about 25-75%+ of Tanker depending on situation and powers used. Weak taunting potential, usually skipped in favor of additional damage doing focus.

Archetype: Defender
Offensive Power:
Approximately 66% of Blaster and also fairly easy to apply, further enhanced by debuffs/buffs that can also benefit others.
Defensive Power:
Powerful damage mitigation and (sometimes) healing. Note that many, but not all, Primary sets are focused on mostly benefiting others.

Archetype: Tank
Offensive Power:
Approx 66% of Scrapper without the critical hits. As difficult to apply due to melee range limitation.
Defensive Power:
Highest self-applicable defensive power. Deliberately focused to bring the enemies' aggression to them and live. However, not immortal, and some situations may require outside help for survival.

Archetype: Controller
Offensive Power:
Weakest. Even with pets and "containment" (double damage) maybe 25-50% of Blaster. (Results may vary depending on situation and secondary set taken.)
Defensive Power:
Extreme - Can be neigh unkillable when selecting ample control powers and/or buffs/debuffs. Though buffs/debuffs are less effective than than the Defender versions, this archetype often the best at damage mitigation.

Archetype: Kheldian (Either Warshade or Peacebringer).
Offensive Power:
Special - Multiple forms and influenced by team makeup.
Defensive Power:
Special - Multiple forms and influenced by team makeup.

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Archetype: Scrapper
Offensive Power:
Blaster base with 5-15% chance for double damage "critical hit" depending on the attack. Would be highest overall, but is difficult to apply due to melee range limitations.
Defensive Power:
Self-Sufficient, about 25-75%+ of Tanker depending on situation and powers used.


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They're at 112.5% of blaster base, but effectively do less damage vs well built blasters because blasters have 2 offensive sets, and faster animation times. It would be more accurate to say their defense is 25-150%, since the two most survivable scrapper sets (Regen, DA) are a great deal more survivable than weak tank sets (/FA, /Inv).

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Archetype: Defender
Offensive Power:
Approximately 66% of Blaster and also fairly easy to apply, further enhanced by debuffs/buffs that can also benefit others.
Defensive Power:
Powerful damage mitigation and (sometimes) healing. Note that many, but not all, Primary sets are focused on mostly benefiting others.

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Defender offense is nowhere NEAR 66% of a Blaster unless you're averaging in debuffs. Defenders have no blaps, no access to the two best blast sets, no Build Up, and even the base damage is 62.5%.

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Archetype: Tank
Offensive Power:
Approx 66% of Scrapper without the critical hits. As difficult to apply due to melee range limitation.
Defensive Power:
Highest self-applicable defensive power. Deliberately focused to bring the enemies' aggression to them and live. However, not immortal, and some situations may require outside help for survival.


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66%? Tanks do 80% of scraper damage, base; several have damage auras. Some have other boosting attacks (ie, Fiery Embrace), and they have access to harder-hitting, faster-activating sets. (to wit: Energy Melee. Find me a Scrapper attack that keeps up with BU+FE+Energy Transfer). 85% is probably a better guess.

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Archetype: Controller
Offensive Power:
Weakest. Even with pets and "containment" (double damage) maybe 25-50% of Blaster. (Results may vary depending on situation and secondary set taken.)
Defensive Power:
Extreme - Can be neigh unkillable when selecting ample control powers and/or buffs/debuffs.

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Drastically underestimates damage from high-output controllers, especially at epic levels. Combination of AoE blasts, pets, and containment can raise some controller sets (esp fire, due to Hot Feet) to blaster-like damage levels; when debuffs and controls are added in, Controllers are fairly godlike. Stronger Controller builds easily outdamage weaker blaster builds.

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Archetype: Kheldian
Offensive Power:
Special - Multiple forms and influenced by team makeup.
Defensive Power:
Special - Multiple forms and influenced by team makeup.

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Special - greatly influenced by player ability.

Good feedback, thanks.

I don't think I'm going to get universal agreement out of this though. I did use some DPS calculations and Red Tomax stats in generating these figures, but eventually just settled for approximations because I realized there's a lot of room for debate here. The disclaimer on the top is intended to warn everybody that City of Heroes is a game of many exceptions to the rule.

Thus, I tried to shy away from extreme examples: /Dark Scrapper versus Invuln/ Tank in a psychic fight, a Fire Tank's damage output, a Fire/Kinetics Controller, the impact of certain Epic powers, ect. If you go in there with those expectations, you'll find yourself disappointed that your Illusion/Storm Controller isn't doing Blastery damage like a Fire/Kinetics Controller may, or that your Defender doesn't get Build Up until level 41.

By avoiding the extremes, this chart reflects what a given archetype can be expected to do. This chart is intended to simplify, not complicate, with just enough details to transcend the character generation screen in the CoH executable. It's not all-inclusive, but for good reason.

Keep em' coming, though. I'm sure those interested would appreciate the added detail. Consider this an "open reference," especially considering who knows what Issue 10 and beyond will bring?