 The Paragon Wiki Archive documents the state of City of Heroes/Villains as it existed on December 1, 2012.
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Recharge
Definition
Recharge refers to the time, in seconds, between two uses of a given power. This length of time may be shortened in several ways:
- slot one or more Recharge Rate Enhancements in a power;
- use another power (such as Hasten) or an Accolade Power (such as Geas of the Kind Ones);
- receive a buff (such as Speed Boost or Accelerate Metabolism);
- utilize Invention Origin Enhancement Sets that grant recharge bonuses;
or any combination of these.
Reductions to recharge rate do not apply intuitively. A recharge rate buff of +100% or more does not make the power recharge instantly. Instead, use this formula:
RechargeTime = BaseRechargeTime / ( 100% + Buffs - Debuffs )
where Buffs includes all bonuses mentioned above. A 100% enhancement thus cuts the recharge time in half. A 200% enhancement cuts it by two thirds. Since the enhancement is in the denominator, it is subject to diminishing returns — the more you add, the less each new amount helps.
y-axis * BaseRechargeTime = RechargeTime
Recharge rates are subject to minimum and maximum limits.
Categories
The long text descriptions of powers rate their base recharge time in one of six broad categories. The following table is a rough approximation of the time, in seconds, covered by these categories.
| Very Fast | Less than 3 seconds |
|---|---|
| Fast | 3 to 4 seconds |
| Moderate | 4 to 10 seconds |
| Slow | 10 to 60 seconds |
| Long | 60 to 240 seconds |
| Very Long | More than 240 seconds |
Recharge Shuffle
Because a recharge buff may end before a power is finished recharging, calculating how long a power takes to recharge can be confusing. For example, Hasten has a 450s recharge, but it grants a 120s recharge buff.
One way to visualize this, as given by DrMike2000 on the official forums:
- The best way to think about it is that Hasten (and all powers) recover 1 point per second. Hasten needs 450 points to recharge.
- Recharge buffs change the number of points you accumulate every second, so with hasten active, you get 1.7 points back per second for each power that's recharging.
- So, click Hasten. For the next 120 seconds you accumulate 120*1.7 = 204 points
- You still need another 246 points for Hasten to recharge, and will have to wait 246 seconds for them to accumulate at 1 point per second.
- So the total recharge time will be 120 + 246 = [366] seconds.
