Staying in the green

City of Heroes has a terrific gear system, perhaps because the game doesn't really have gear as such.

There's no gear in CoH in the classic MMO sense of the word – and I can't imagine having to equip an item that altered the look of your character would ever go down well with this game's playerbase. Even the visual effects of your own defensive powers can be toned down or turned off, which is helpful since otherwise a character's carefully crafted look can be lost under layers of particle effects.

(Most powers, but not all. I've had to use a couple of slash commands to turn off the visuals of Tempter's defensive auras – they're still visible to anyone else, but don't show up on my screen. So far I haven't, lacking the visual reminder, forgot to turn them on. I usually do at some point...)

What CoH has instead of gear is enhancements, which can be slotted into individual powers to boost some aspect of that power such as damage, accuracy, endurance usage or recharge rate. Later on it's possible to craft superior enhancements that offer better or multiple boosts as well as additional bonuses if you equip a full set. It's a terrific system, since even the basic enhancements offer plenty of scope to customise your build.

It's an ongoing process, allowing you to reprioritize depending on how your character is performing at any given level; such as by slotting for accuracy or to counter the dreaded endurance issues of the late 10s and early 20s. I suppose it is possible to level up without slotting, but unless you're being carried through team content (or AE farms) or running on minimum difficulty settings I can't imagine why you would. The difference even basic slotting make to a character's performance is massive, as I noticed when I'd neglected to do so for a level or two and started really struggling in some encounters.

Enhancements have their own level and the non-crafted ones diminish in effectiveness as your character levels past them. It's not unusual to come out of a task force where you've gained a couple of levels and discover that half your slots are red – i.e. no longer providing any benefit at all – and depending on where you are in the levelling journey it can be costly to keep them all in the green. The transition from dual origin enhancements to single origins at level 22 is where this hits hardest. SOs are significantly better than DOs, but they're also significantly more expensive.

There used to be a lower tier of enhancements as well, weaker than DOs, but the Homecoming team patched them out a while ago, allowing dual origins to be slotted earlier on. It's a small change that subtly improves the early game experience, and like most of the tweaks made by Homecoming it feels like something that would have probably been done on the live game sooner or later anyway. Another new feature, that allows you to raise all of your slotted enhancements to the current level at the touch of a button (and at no small cost) is another good addition.