There's a lot of competition in the superhero MMOG market this year. With DC Universe Online fresh out of the launch gate and Champions Online slated to go free-to-play next week, City of Heroes has not given either game any ground. To start the year off, Paragon Studios revealed plans for its 7th year anniversary rewards with the Vanguard Booster Pack. And to keep the momentum flowing, today Powers Designer Tim “Black Scorpion” Sweeney detailed the new Strike Pack update for Issue 19 scheduled to deploy in early February.

The update will introduce a new "Weekly Strike Target" (WST) that will consist on one Task Force and one Strike Force mission that will give increased rewards for that week. After completing it once, you'll have earned your rewards for that week, but there is an incentive to help others complete the missions.

Weekly Strike Target: Every week, we will announce one Task Force and one Strike Force (or instead one Co-Op Task Force) that will give increased rewards for that week. The first time a character completes the Weekly Strike Target in the week, they receive double merits and a bunch of additional XP. Even if you “go rogue” and do the other side’s Weekly Strike Target as well, you’ll only get that reward for your first in a given week. After running it once, your character can earn progress toward some brand new badges for helping others by running it as many times as you like. Of course, you can run the WST on as many characters as you have the inclination for and get the increased rewards on each. The Weekly Strike Target will change every Tuesday morning.

The update will also expand the Alpha Powers slot to the "rare" and "very rare" tiers, allowing more advancement for the Alpha Slot powers. Additionally, running WST missions on an Incarnate-enabled character is a good way to earn needed components for your rare Alpha Slot powers. A solid release date has yet to be announced, so stay tuned and we'll update you when we have more.

You can read Black Scorpion's full post on the official City of Heroes forums.