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alt title(s): City Of Villains 
City of Heroes is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game based on comic-book style superheroes. Set in and around Paragon City, a fictional Rhode Island metropolis still recovering after a thwarted but still disastrous Alien Invasion, it superbly reproduces the flavor and feel of the superheroic genre.
City of Heroes is complemented and paralleled by a villainous counterpart, City of Villains. The two overlap in select areas, including PvP zones and a no-conflict nightclub in another dimension called "Pocket D". There's another expansion announced, Going Rogue, which will allow characters to change alignment, introduces a mirror universe as a third location, and adds a new archetype.
Some of CoH/CoV's most innovative features are related to character/avatar design. The games provides a truly astounding variety of appearance combinations, which grow with each new version. The power combinations are similarly impressive.
The game is also the first major MMO to include user created content, in the form of its Mission Architect system and player-created story arcs.
Hero archetypes include:
- Tanker (high defense, low-damage melee)
- Scrapper (lower defense, higher-damage melee)
- Controller (specializing in powers that hold or disorient opponents)
- Defender (specializing in powers that aid allies or "debuff" foes)
- Blaster (high-damage ranged and Melee attacks, but no defenses)
There are also two "epic" archeypes, unlocked once one of your heroes reaches level 50; Peacebringers and Warshades. These have unique abilities, such as intrinsic travel powers and shapeshifting. Their powersets are fairly similar, but Warshades tend to play to the strengths of your teammates, while Peacebringers tend to make up for their weaknesses.
Villain archetypes include:
- Brute (medium-defense, medium-damage melee)
- Corruptor (ranged attack with buff/debuff)
- Dominator (control plus damage)
- Stalker (stealth-based "critical-hit" melee)
- Mastermind (commanding and buffing minions)
Just like the heroes, there are two epic archetypes for the villains. Starting out as a member of the Arachnos faction, you take the role of a Wolf Spider (Arachnos Soldier) or Blood Widow (Arachnos Widow), then each have two branches that one can take in powers. The former represent the rank and file soldiers, starting with guns while then adding cybernetic attachments or specialized tech-maces, while the latter start out as pseudo-ninjas and can either stay as such or become a combat psychic. However, regardless of branch, you ultimately play as a damage type with some quirks (and a cool costume).
Going Rogue introduces the ability to change alignment via Face Heel Turn or Heel Face Turn, allowing a hero to become a villain or vice versa. It will also add the new Spy archetype, which will presumably be creatable either as a hero or a villain.
Heroes and villains both choose an origin. Outside of Peacebringer (Natural), Warshade (Science), and the Arachnos archetypes (Natural), there are no limits placed on which origin can be used with what archetype/powers.
- Science — Characters that get their powers via scientific means. Super serums, radiation, experiments gone wrong, etc. Examples include Spider-Man, Marvel's Sandman and the Fantastic Four.
- Mutation — Characters born with their powers that eventually unlock them as they grow older. Generally refers to humans inexplicably born with these features. Most of the characters in X-Men qualify.
- Magic — Characters that get their powers through mystic training or artifacts. Can also refer to characters that get their powers from a patron deity or are a magical creature. Examples include Ghost Rider, Hellboy and Doctor Strange.
- Technology — Characters that get their powers from technology. Where Science characters have been transformed in some way to gain their powers, Technology characters gain theirs through use of power armour, alien weapons, cybernetics, et al. Examples include Iron Man, Doctor Octopus and Robotman.
- Natural — Characters that got where they are through natural training. Can also refer to characters whose species naturally have the abilities. Examples include Superman, Batman, the Punisher and Kingpin.
Heroes defeat NPC villains and foil the plans of various archvillains and nefarious groups out to destroy Paragon/The World/Humanity. Villains carry out missions against NPC heroes or other villain groups to please various factions and power brokers and thereby improve their standing in the underworld. Player-vs-Player combat is limited to restricted areas and is not necessary for game or level progress, although certain bonuses can be gathered by risking yourself in these areas.
There have been two novels based on it, Web of Arachnos and The Freedom Phalanx, as well as two comic book series, one published by Blue King and the other by Dark Horse Comics. A movie based on the game is currently in Development Hell.
This game provides examples of:
- Abandoned Warehouse (Everywhere, at least in the earlier parts of the game. There are zones where you can't swing a dead Rikti without hitting an abandoned warehouse. And there are supervillains in every freaking one.)
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer (Missions set in the sewers, the Sewer Network, the Abandoned Sewer Network...)
- Between the huge sewers, the everpresent caves, and the underground city of Oranbega, it's a wonder Paragon City hasn't collapsed into the ground.
- You haven't been to Faultline or The Hollows yet? It has.
- Yes, but all of that's justified by supervillains with Earthquake machines and other such comic tropes...The (skyscraper full) centre of town, including multiple 50-foot metal statues, all stand fine.
- AI Roulette (Found in more recent Mooks.)
- Alien Invasion (The Rikti, although they're actually forcibly-mutated humans from Another Dimension.)
- Alt-itis (With all the power and costume options, it's not unusual for one person to have 20 or more characters.)
- Given 584 possible archetype/powerset combinations, 20 is little.
- Alternate Character Interpretation (Nemesis is either a brilliant schemer with a hand in friggin' everything, or an egotistical blowhard who keeps trying to take credit for other people's work.)
- Alternate Company Equivalent
- Statesman is basically a fusion of Superman and Captain America, though his origin has a little Captain Marvel.
- Positron is a radioactive Iron Man.
- Manticore is Batman with the fighting style of Green Arrow. (So basically, Batman.)
- Sister Psyche heavily resembles Jean Grey, down to being a redhead.
- Synapse, the token speedster, is generally considered an equivalent to The Flash.
- Back Alley Brawler seems to have a little of Luke Cage, and/or Wildcat.
- An Adventurer Is You
- An Interior Designer Is You
- Animal Wrongs Group (The Devouring Earth, who take it to the next level by going One Winged Angel and turning into part-scientific, part-magical Eldritch Abominations with the ability to bring plants, fungi, and minerals to life as their minions. )
- Another Dimension
- Asteroids Monster (Some Devouring Earth, Clockwork Princes)
- Attack Of The 50 Foot Whatever (Giant octopus, giant robots, giant amoebas, giant giants, giant walking plants...)
- Badass Normal (Malta humans, Knives of Artemis, Family, Paragon City Police, and a fair number of Natural-origin human heroes.)
- Bad Guy Bar
- The Baroness (Countess Crey)
- Beneath The Earth
- Bizarro Universe (Praetoria, where all the heroes are evil and all the villains are good.)
- Black Cloak (The Circle of Thorns)
- Bragging Rights Reward
- The Cape
- Cardboard Prison (Ziggursky Penitentiary, AKA "The Ziggurat" or "The Zig")
- Card Carrying Villain (Subverted. They're actually less evil then the Knight Templar and Villain With Good Publicity groups, apart from (maybe) the Circle of Thorns.)
- Cat Girl (Mynx and her Alternate Universe counterpart Bobcat. And a metric ton of player characters, to the point where swinging a dead catgirl referring to there being something extremely common is now a commonly accepted joke on most servers.)
- Cement Shoes (You occasionally run into a group of Family goons fitting someone with these. if you attack them, the victim will try to hop away.)
- Charles Atlas Superpower (PPD Psi-Cops, and again, many players)
- Chest Insignia (Dozens of selectable ones!)
- Cherry Tapping
- The Chessmaster (Nemesis. For a lark, browse ParagonWiki
 for a bit and pick out the number of times the phrase "mysterious benefactor" comes up. It's always Nemesis.)
- It comes up exactly once. To be fair, that one
probably is.
- With issue 12, City Of Heroes introduced messages for instance mission loading screens. One is "Not everything is a Nemesis plot"; another is "It's all a Nemesis plot."
- And with issue 14, which allows players to create their own missions, a new one has appeared: "If it's not already a Nemesis plot, you can use the Mission Architect to make it one."
- The Chosen One (Framing device in City of Villains. Your character is broken out of the Zig due to his potential of being the Destined One. Turns out you are the Destined One. And so is everyone else. But by the end of the story arc, you aren't anymore. So Yeah.
- Somewhat subverted in that your "destiny" was to create a future in which Lord Recluse would Take Over The World. The only problem is that when you go into the future to learn how that happened, you find out your assistance created an Enemy Civil War that basically caused The End Of The World As We Know It. Luckily, you were able to Screw Destiny by facing down Lord Recluse at the future moment of his triumph, kicking his ass, and taking his helmet back to the "current day" Lord Recluse.
- Circus Of Fear (The Carnival of Shadows)
- City Guards (The invincible Police and Arbiter drones, as well as Longbow and the Paragon Police Department in City Of Heroes, and some Arachnos members in City of Villains.)
- City Of Adventure
- City Of Canals (Founder's Falls)
- Clock Punk (The Clockwork)
- Cognizant Limbs (Lusca has cognizant tentacles. The Hydra has cognizant tentacles with faces on them. The Hamidon has cognizant mitochondria.)
- Colon Cancer (Rikti communication: in this manner, with the Mark II translators. Mark III translators, the first time they're used, cause the Rikti using it to comment on our adorably primitive causation structures.)
- Colour Coded For Your Convenience (Energy blasts and lightning are all blue for heroes and red for villains; similarly, the "neutral zone" nightclub Pocket D is blue on the heroes' side and red on the villains'. The default (customizable) interface colors also correspond to "blue side" and "red side".)
- Combining Mecha (The Malta Group's Hercules Titans)
- Complete Monster (Westin Phipps definitely qualifies for this title and arguably anyone who gleefully takes on his missions)
- Conspicuously Selective Perception
- Copy And Paste Environments (Each building/cave's rooms and corridors come in several different flavors and with different features. Selection of these features, except for storyline missions, is rather random, so you aren't stuck running around just a couple of different layouts for each type.)
- Corrupt Corporate Executive (The Countess Crey, and Crey Industries in general. Kirk Cage, and the Cage Consortium in general.)
- Cosmetic Award (Badges and costume options)
- Curse Escape Clause (It is possible for a PC in City of Villains to get cursed by the Circle of Thorns to something truly nasty; the curse can be broken by killing the demon intended to finish fulfilling it.)
- Cutscene
- Cyber Punk (The Freakshow)
- Deadly Doctor (Dr. Vahzilok)
- Death Is A Slap On The Wrist (Above level 10, dying results in a certain amount of experience debt, where half of the XP earned goes to paying off that debt, while the other half is used to progress as normal. Also justified in-game, in that all heroes and villains are issued medicom patches that stabilize the wearer and teleport them to a hospital in the case of their vital signs dipping below a certain point.)
- Recent updates have added "patrol XP" which doubles-ish your XP gain for a time proportional to how long you've been logged off — dying while you have any will reduce that time, you won't even accrue debt.
- There's even a "Debt Paid" line of badges, so dying a lot earns you a Cosmetic Award or
three six.
- Degraded Boss
- Demonic Spiders (The Malta Group have been one of the most-loathed enemy groups in the game since they first appeared, generally having the right abilities to eventually hose any PC trying to fight them.)
- While Malta are annoying, the Knives of Artemis are much more deserving of this. Knives can see through stealth, can easily keep player characters stunned permanently, and they stack Caltrops to a ridiculous level, ensuring that most players can barely move while taking damage. Unless there's a character on the team with Speed Boost to free others from Caltrops, teamwipes happen on every single Knives of Artemis mission. Fortunately there aren't that many.
- Development Gag
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu (Ancient goddess rousing her people to revolt and conquer the world? Go beat her up. Alone if you have to. She won't even be as powerful as that one guy possessed by a space alien.)
- Die Chair Die (Mayhem missions in City Of Villains, where you get extra time for destroying scenery.)
- Doomy Dooms Of Doom ("DOOOOOOOOOOOM!!" is actually a fad used among the community to poke fun at the rioting that ensues whenever a major announcement is made.)
- Door To Before (The "Exit Mission" button)
- Down The Drain (Sewer missions)
- Draco In Leather Pants (See: Ghost Widow. Scirocco also gets this occasionally.)
- The Dragon (Several for each major villain)
- Lord Recluse has four dragons (Mako, Scirocco, Ghost Widow and Black Scorpion). Each of these villains has a Dragon of their own!
- Dramatic Wind
- Dronejam
- Easter Egg
- Elaborate Underground Base
- The Electric Slide (It is technically possible given that power lines act like any other surface but there's no real point in doing so.)
- Eleventh Hour Superpower (Several of the tier 9 powers are used like this.)
- Elite Mooks (Every evil organization has 'em.)
- Emote Animation
- The End Of The World As We Know It (many, many, many times)
- Enemy Civil War (Warburg breaking off from the Rogue Isles.)
- Enemy Chatter
- Enemy Mine (Heroes and Villains can fight together during various special events in Pocket D, as well as in the Rikti War Zone against the Rikti and in the ancient Roman peninsula of Cimerora.)
- Enemy Without (Inverted: Rularuu the Ravager, a god-like being from Another Dimension, has a Hero Without in the form of Faathim the Kind.)
- Escort Mission (With varying degrees of scrappyness; most of the time the escort-ee cannot actually be attacked, sometimes they are a powerful ally and capable of taking care of themselves, and sometimes they run off and attack every foe in sight like an idiot.)
- Equal Opportunity Evil
- Everything Fades (The devs keep this vague on purpose; the official terminology is "defeat", which leaves the implication that a player can decide what fate his character inflicts on unfortunate opponents, from teleportation to the local Cardboard Prison (Zigursky Federal Penitentiary) to leaving them roughed up but alive to leaving thousands of corpses in your wake.)
- Evil Minions
- Evil Twin: The leaders of the Praetorian dimension are an evil Freedom Phalanx.
- Evil Versus Evil (Much of City of Villains' missions.)
- Expanded Universe (comics, novels)
- Expansion Pack (City of Villains; marketed as an "expanshalone", since it could be played as a separate game. Whether Going Rogue will follow the same model is unknown. The game's major updates (known as Issues) fall in this category as well, happily adding a full pack's worth of content for free each time.)
- Face Heel Turn / Heel Face Turn (The signature gameplay element of the Going Rogue expansion. Its mascots are a succubus who turned good and a heroic Knight Templar superhero who became an insane vigilante.)
- Faceless Eye (Some of the inhabitants of the Shadow Shard)
- Faceless Goons
- Feelies
- Fetch Quest (plenty of them)
- Five Bad Band (The leaders of Arachnos.)
- Flashback (Via the aptly-named Flashback system, complete with sepia tones.)
- Fragile Speedster (Any Blaster with the Speed travel power)
- Friendly Fireproof
- Get On The Boat
- Ghost Planet (Several of the other dimensions you get to visit)
- Glass Cannon (Blasters' tendency to get killed in any particular fight has lead to Blaster players referring to themselves as members of the "Floor inspectors' union".)
- Goddamned Bats (Exactly which enemy type fits the trope depends on the individual player.)
- Going Through The Motions
- Good Bad Bugs (Countless pop up every now and then. From the ability to make illegal but cool outfits, through captives being replaced by harmless killer robots, to ten foot tall robots trying to ma-er, combine with players. And succeeding.)
- Hammerspace (Characters draw their weapons from thin air. Occasionally, enemies already with a weapon will put it away or leave it slung across their back, and draw another, different weapon from nowhere. Valkyrie is the primary example of the latter.)
- Hello Insert Name Here
- He Knows About Timed Hits
- Heroes R Us
- Hide Your Children (Except for Penny Preston and player characters, although the latter is mostly illusory.)
- Hijacked By Ganon (Nemesis, mostly. Requiem's pulled it a couple times too.)
- Homing Boulders (The success of a ranged attack is determined before or just as the attack animation begins, resulting in misses that always travel in straight lines, and hits that chase their targets down and pass unimpeded through solid objects in order to reach them. Also the Trope Namer.)
- Humongous Mecha (Malta Titans, especially the Kronos Class Titan. Depending on the definition, the Clockwork giant monsters may also apply. Also the Giant Zenith Mech from the last mission in the Hess Task Force on Striga Isle, although it's more properly part of the setting rather than an opponent.)
- Idle Animation (The character cycles between several stances, including standing boldly with chest outthrust, crossing his/her arms, and placing their hands on their hips.)
- Also happens for NP Cs. The default is punching a fist into a palm and the odd "bring it on!" gesture, but some enemy groups have their own, like standing at attention, sitting on boxes and cleaning weapons, or reading books and making tea.
- I Got A Rock (Shout Out: during the Halloween events, one of the "treats" you can get is a rock. Description: "You got a rock". Deals minor damage, and is prized by some for Cherry Tapping.)
- Impossibly Low Neckline
- Inescapable Ambush
- Inn Between The Worlds
- Instant Death Radius (Anything based on fire.)
- Invisible Wall (Averted: City Of Heroes has very visible War Walls. City Of Villains has the same blue force fields, but mysteriously unexplained.)
- Invulnerable Civilians
- Item Crafting (The Invention system.)
- Jump Physics
- Kick The Dog (overlaps with Unpleasable Fanbase in the contact Westin Phipps, whose missions has you kidnapping families, poisoning food meant for the homeless, and other monstrous things for no reason but For The Evulz. Some players think he's too evil. Other players think he's not evil enough.)
- Killer Space Monkey (Rikti monkeys)
- Knight Templar (Scirocco embodies this during his Patron arc, and Longbow sometimes indulges in tendencies like this. Malta, without a doubt, is made of these.)
- Kryptonite Factor
- Large Ham (Romulus Augustus' transformation, right down to larger font.)
- Laughably Evil (Dr. Thaddeous Aeon. His scatterbrained megalomania is just so cute!)
- Leaked Experience
- Leeroy Jenkins (as a Shout Out, no less)
- And far, far too many players in bad pick up groups to count.
- Leet Lingo (The Freakshow tend to speak in l33t. Nobody really knows how they can pronounce it. Lampshaded on a regular basis.)
- Legacy Character (the current Manticore took up his father's role after his murder)
- Level Five Onix
- Level Grinding (Used to be really bad, but the devs have recently made great efforts to avoid this, especially by actually having content to play from level 1)
- Lex Luthor Security
- Limited Special Collectors Ultimate Edition (Standard editions, DVD Collector's Editions, Good vs. Evil pack...)
- Load Bearing Boss
- Lost Forever (Formerly the badges from the tutorial missions. Ouroboros was added to the game for the explicit purpose of averting this trope; today, only the anniversary badges can truly be considered to be Lost Forever.)
- Nope, you can get the anniversary badges of previous years from the Winter Event now!
- Love It Or Hate It (sometimes seems this way, you see people either gushing over it or complaining about it for the exact same reasons.)
- Mac Guffin
- Mad Scientist (Several of them, from the Praetorian Anti-Matter to Dr. Aeon.)
- Magikarp Power
- Mana Meter (Called "Endurance" here)
- Meta Origin
- Mecha-Mooks (The Clockwork are an entire faction of these; in addition, The Council, the 5th Column, Arachnos, Nemesis, Malta, and the Sky Raiders all have their own punchable robots.)
- Also, Mastermind villain PCs can have mecha-mooks of their own, with the Robots powerset.
- Memetic Badass (Blue Steel is responsible for so many Deus Ex Machina rescues in City Of Villains that fans hail him as a Super Super Hero. He has a fact list similar to "Chuck Norris" facts.)
- Until recently, his shield-based powerset was impossible to show in game, making him even more awesome.
- Memetic Mutation (Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls. Sadly, seems to have been almost forgotten as of the last time this troper logged in.)
- Also, it's all a Nemesis plot.
- Freem!
- Mighty Glacier (Stone Tankers and Brutes. As well, Ice Tankers can usually move as fast as anybody else — except when using the tier 9 power, Hibernate, which renders you immobile, invulnerable, and incapable of attacking, but boosts your regen and recovery.)
- Mirror Universe (Praetorian Earth)
- Mook Promotion (The basis for the Arachnos player character plot line)
- Money Spider (Especially since the introduction of Inventions.)
- Monty Haul (Some players design their Mission Architect arcs like this, much to the developers' dismay.)
- Most Common Super Power (It's still impossible to make a flat-chested female character.)
- Nebulous Evil Organisation (Malta, Arachnos, the Council, the Nemesis Army...)
- News Travels Fast (Even backwards in time)
- Nintendo Hard (The MA critters will go to extremes to teach you exactly how broken player powers are, and that's not even factoring in the bugged powers.)
- Non Lethal KO
- No OSHA Compliance
- No Swastikas (The 5th Column, while explicitly said to be a fascist villain group left over from Nazi Germany, use a skull with the Roman numeral V behind it as their logo. The release of Issue 3 replaced all 5th Column content in the game with the Council, who are an Italian fascist villain group plus space aliens who co-opted the 5th Column in a hostile takeover. The 5th Column have been reappearing in select stories in recent updates, however, and officially returned in the Issue 15.)
- As one of the developers explained they still "have to avoid certain symbols" and themes.
- Not The Fall That Kills You
- Notice This (Inanimate mission targets glow pulsatingly and emit a distinctive sound.)
- Our Vampires Are Different (The Council and 5th Column's Vampyri are explained as being the pinnacle of a super-soldier program rather than a bite-transmitted disease. However, players love to both embrace and avert the trope. With the advent of player-created Custom Critters in the Mission Architect tools, a player can make "Vampires" that do pretty much anything.)
- Painted On Pants
- Patchwork Map
- Perpetual Molt (For burned wings; this is more like perpetual smoke. The straight version was meant to be put in but was pulled due to hardware limitations)
- Pick Up Group
- Pre Order Bonus
- Product Placement (The recently introduced "Optional In-Game Advertising" has thus far advertised Nike and T-Mobile products)
- Punch Clock Villain
- Purely Aesthetic Gender (Male, female, and "huge". While there are no statistic differences, some costume options, like skirts, are unique to the bodytype.)
- Ragdoll Physics
- Randomly Drops
- Recurring Boss
- The Remnant (The Rikti, after their failed Alien Invasion; specifically, the Reconstructionist faction.)
- Rival Turned Evil (Statesman and Lord Recluse)
- Robe And Wizard Hat (The Cabal. With the release of the Magic Booster pack, players can join in.)
- Roofhopping
- Run Dont Walk
- Run The Gauntlet (In a couple of story arcs)
- Saving The World (Several different ways, as many times as you like. One such mission even awards you with a "Saved the World" badge!)
- Scary Dogmatic Aliens
- Scrappy Level (Certain mission tilesets, including the "layer cake" room in several caves and the Circle of Thorns' city, Oranbega. The Shadow Shard consists of four entire zones of scrappyness and are all but deserted nowadays.)
- Screw Destiny (In fact, screw Operation: Destiny!)
- Scunthorpe Problem (Somewhat averted in that the chat filter can be disabled when it gets too ridiculous.)
- Back in force in the Mission Architect, which for quite a while banned such words as 'nip' (as in 'nip in the bud') or God.
- Even more ridiculous when you remember that one of the first enemy boss types are called "Damned".
- Sealed Evil In A Can
- Sequential Boss
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong (The definitions of "right" and "wrong" may be subjective. Happens occasionally in City of Villains, to the point of Dis Continuity on the part of some players, mostly due to Status Quo Is God.)
- Shout Out
- Sliding Scale Of Idealism Vs Cynicism (City of Heroes is generally pegged firmly on the Idealism end of the scale — villains get their comeuppance and stopped, and only the lowest, cruelest sorts firmly over the Moral Event Horizon aren't Genre Blind. City of Villains is generally more cynical, with everyone (with a few exceptions) generally being unpleasant at the very least, and the closest characters to idealism being a demon hunter whose major pleasure in life is inflicting pain upon demons, and a Knight Templar whose aspirations involve brainwashing every villain in the world into being good. Going Rogue looks to give players the ability to move along the scale as they see fit.)
- Soaperizing (In the Show Within A Show)
- Sorting Algorithm Of Evil
- Slippy Slidey Ice World (The Frostfire Mission)
- Status Buff
- Status Quo Is God (Averted somewhat, since several areas, such as Faultline and the Rikti War Zone, have seen permanent changes. However, almost every mission that was ever available to do is still available; a notable exception is the Calvin Scott Task Force. Also embraced mercilessly by at least a couple story arcs in City of Villains, sometimes to the point of Set Right What Once Went Wrong.)
- Steam Punk (Nemesis)
- Stock Sound Effects
- Stop Having Fun Guys (see the example in that article for more detail)
- Stupid Jetpack Hitler (The 5th Column)
- Summoning Ritual (The Circle of Thorns are almost always seen doing this.)
- Supervillain Lair (Though the feature was introduced with City of Villains, both Villains and Heroes can make lairs/bases for their Super Group. Of course, you also assault a fair number of NPC lairs.)
- Super Power Meltdown (Subverted with the origin of the Siren's Call zone; played straight at first glance in the origin of Faultline.)
- Super Registration Act (Established in the backstory, and generally not seen as a bad thing.)
- That One Boss (Which boss is That One depends on the PC's powers — Malta Gunslingers and Carnie Master Illusionists tend to be much-hated.)
- Thou Shalt Not Kill
- Thriving Ghost Town (Literally, in Dark Astoria!)
- Time Keeps On Slipping
- Time Travel
- Timed Mission
- Timey Wimey Ball
- Tomato In The Mirror (Subverted: you're real, but your contact is an automaton.)
- Totally Radical (played for laughs with a certain famous Nemesis quote)
- Training Boss
- Training Dummy (The disabled Rikti drones.)
- Transformation Sequence (Available in the Magic Booster Pack as of Spring 2009)
- Underground Level
- Unobtainium (An actual MacGuffin, made from Nonesuchium.)
- Unpleasable Fanbase (Like just about every other MMORPG, players will complain about everything.)
- Emphasis on everything. More ludicrous examples include a universal experience increase/death penalty decrease, the ability to customize your own weapons, the ability to make your own missions, and the fact that you have to pay money to play the game. As a rule, whenever there is a major announcement, there will be
rioting cries of "DOOOOOOM!"
- Up Up And Away (After flight poses were added.)
- Valley Girl (Becky the Tarantula Mistress.)
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon (Featured in several story arcs, and usually with their own custom tilesets.)
- Videogame Historical Revisionism
- Villain With Good Publicity: Crey Industries, which is responsible for rebuilding much of Paragon City after the First Rikti War, is run by an evil mastermind who is using this clout to cover up many evil projects, including one to clone dead and kidnapped supers so they can brainwash the clones and use them for their own purposes
- Subverted in Cityof Villains with Aeon Corp, who built a power plant fueled by a bound demon. As this is on the Villain side, it's never really hidden that Aeon is up to something suspicious, Aeon's offices on Cap Au Diable is constantly being protested by a group of militant activists called The Luddites.
- The Virus (The Will Of The Earth)
- Warp Whistle
- We Buy Anything (Partially Subverted, in that non-matching stores won't give you your full price)
- When All You Have Is A Hammer (Almost every mission in the game involves punching (or shooting or stabbing) someone in the face.)
- The World Is Not Ready (Subverted, to an extent. There's proof that high technology/super science is relatively common amongst the populace of the Cities' world; however, many players tend to embrace this trope with Technology origin characters.)
- Xanatos Roulette (Nemesis)
- You Mean Xmas (The blandly-named Holiday Events, complete with snowballs, presents that give Status Buffs, and giant snow monsters.)
- Zombie Apocalypse (The Halloween 2008 special event, in which the city is beseiged by waves of zombies even tougher than the usual, everyday Vahzilok and Banished Pantheon varieties. This has since become a recurring hazard, like the Rikti invasions.)
The powers the game offers to players provide examples of:
- An Axe To Grind (The Battle Axe powerset.)
- Awesome But Impractical (The high level "nuke" powers for some. Extremely powerful blast, but leaves you unabled to attack again for a goodly while.)
- Though YMMV. Others turn it into a bread-and-butter power.
- Back Stab (Stalkers can land critical hits with any attack, whether in or out of Hidden Status, but using their Assassin's Strike from Hidden status grants a massive critical hit far beyond any other crit in the game.)
- Barrier Warrior (The Force Field powerset.)
- Determinator (The Willpower defense set. Created to represent comic book characters who don't have special defensive abilities; they can take massive amounts of damage because they have enough willpower to keep fighting. Ironically, it's commonly considered one of the strongest defense sets overall.)
- Drop The Hammer (One of the possible looks of the War Mace powerset is a big hammer. Also, Stone Mallet and Heavy Stone Mallet from Stone Melee.)
- Dual Wielding (The Dual Blades powerset.)
- Eye Beams (Including those used by giant eyeballs.)
- Finishing Move (The Dual Blade powerset combo system utilizes these.)
- Flash Step (Shield Rush from the Shield Defense powerset is the rare "attack while stepping" variety)
- Gatling Good (Miniguns used by the Council, Crey, Nemesis, Longbow and... your everyday ordinary bank security.)
- Gotta Get Your Head Together (Standard pose for characters Held psionically.)
- Guns Akimbo (Part of the Thugs powerset for Masterminds, also combined to great effect with Abnormal Ammo and a bit of Improbable Aiming Skills by Malta Gunslingers; one of the most requested powersets is a dedicated Guns Akimbo set.)
- Healing Factor (The Regeneration powerset)
- In A Single Bound (With the Leaping power pool.)
- Instant Runes (Mystic Fortune, Vanguard Sigil.)
- Katanas Are Just Better (Averted. The Katana powerset is a slightly faster, slightly weaker clone of Broadsword. Even the attacks are the same, just the names and animations are different.)
- In fact, at launch, it was an exact clone, down to the animations.
- Kung Fu Sonic Boom (Every. Single. Super Strength power.)
- Limit Break (Domination for Dominators; some NPC enemies also have special powers that trigger upon reaching a certain HP threshold.)
- Make Me Wanna Shout (Sonic Blast and Sonic Resonance)
- Mana Drain (Damn you, Malta Sappers!)
- Megaton Punch (Several attacks qualify, but none can match Super Strength's Knockout Blow, a powerful windup and uppercut which sends the target a dozen feet or so into the air)
- Meteor Move (Air Superiority from the Flight power pool is a Type A if used against a flying target)
- Midair Bobbing
- More Dakka (Gun Drone — Pet Flying Dakka. /Device Blasters and Malta Enigineers get access to these)
- Not Compensating For Anything (The Broadsword powerset.)
- Not Quite Flight (Temporary, buyable or stealable jetpacks)
- Punched Across The Room (Once very prolific, many complaints from the players resulted in much of the knockback melee attacks being turned to knockdown. Still, there are still many examples: Energy Manipulation's Power Thrust, Luminous Blast's Radiant Strike, Battle Axe's Pendulum...)
- Rain Of Arrows (...happens to be the name of the final power in the Archery powerset.)
- Rapid Fire Fisticuffs (Available both in Speed Echoes and darkness flavor, with Flurry from Super Speed and Shadow Maul from Dark Melee)
- Screen Shake (Side effect of various hard-hitting powers. The developers attempted to ramp it up for the Super Strength powerset, but dialed it back after players complained of motion sickness.)
- Self Destruct Mechanism (Used in one of the taskforces, also powers available to some NP Cs and players.)
- Super Speed (a power pool)
- Super Strength (a power set)
- Swiss Army Weapon (The Assault Rifle powerset)
- Sword Beam (Focus and Shockwave from the Claws powerset)
- Tarot Motifs (The "Fortune" power lets players draw a tarot card to buff another player. Only a few of the Major Arcana are represented, however, and none of the Minor Arcana.)
- Vacuum Hurricane Kick (Eagle Claw, the rest of the Martial Arts powerset to a lesser degree)
- Video Game Flight: Superheroes.
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