Gilia

Yeah, that's the general idea. I believe /unbind is SUPPOSED to do the same thing, but I've never had luck with that command. Go figure!

In addition to what you listed you'd need to do other things you tried
/bind shift+click ""
/bind lshift+lclick ""
/bind shift+lclick ""
/bind shift+lbutton ""

I think that's all of them, but if it's not..
/bindsavefile "C:\binds.txt"
Then open up that text file. Assuming you're in Windows, just go to (My) Computer, then C:\, then find the file named "binds.txt" All the binds you've typed in will be listed there, so look through / search for things you might have tried or "Shadow Step." Then you will know exactly what to unbind.

This is a bit different than all the other suggestions, but more in line with what you suggested...

Instead of #2, where the movement keys activate the powers (which would interupt anything else you were doing) have them set auto!

It'd be kind of complicated but you could do something like this.

/bind w "+forward $$ powexecauto Rage"
/bind s "+backward $$ powexecauto Practiced Brawler"

Then while you're moving forward, not activating powers, it'd fire off rage. If you're moving backward, not activating powers, it'd fire off PB.

With this method, they'd be auto ONLY while you're moving with w/s.

If you want something to go off while you're idle you could hook 'em up to your number keys. This gets a bit more complicated. If you simply attach a powexecauto command to say "1" then it'll turn on and off the auto status of that power. To make sure it always sets it on you have to set TWO powers to auto fire.

I apologize if that sounds confusing. I will clarify a bit below.
What I'm suggesting now is you do something like this:
/bind 1 "powexecslot 1 $$ powexecauto brawl $$ powexecauto Rage"
/bind 2 "powexecslot 2 $$ powexecauto brawl $$ powexecauto "Practiced Brawler""
/bind 3 "powexecslot 3 $$ powexecauto brawl $$ powexecauto Hasten" (if you have hasten)
You would change the powers to the powers in your attack chain, then as you cycle through attacks they would change which was auto'd. Doing BOTH ideas would keep them constantly changing which was auto'd.

The confusing part I said I'd clarify?
If you do /bind 1 "powexecslot 1 $$ powexecauto Rage" then every time you hit 1 Rage will either be set to auto or (if it's already auto'd) it will be unset. Having it set Brawl first ensures that when the command finishes Rage will be set. I chose Brawl simply because it's the only power I can think of that every character has (Sprint and Rest won't work because they are Toggled / Interuptable).

I hope that fits your original question and builds on your own ideas. I was trying to respond without criticizing your playstyle or trying to tell you how to manage different powers... it's more of a general response for having ANY set of powers "auto fire."

Soooo like, all the names that could have the word "Winter" in them are taken? Even "Winter Fire?" cause that'd blow my mind if that was taken on all the servers.

This is what I was talking about!
Save your bind file, and *remove* all those binds by replacing the /command with "", then reload them. Any thing with "shift" or "lclick" still bound will cause the reticle to pop up an extra time. The bind you're trying to will ONLY work with lshift+lbutton.

The extra quotes (powexecname "Shadow Step" instead of powexecname Shadow Step) is a good idea -- but it's not going to cause the problem you're having.

Also, what's with the extra poster who haven't read what came before? I mean, Novella admited it at least, but Justaris just didn't read the bind you posted... That's a lot of such a short thread...

I have another theory. Save your keybinds (uh /bindsavefile C:\binds.txt or something) and open that file up. I would guess you have a bind in there like SHIFT powexecname "Shadow Step" or LSHIFT+LCLICK powexecname "Shadow Step"

In other words, an attempt to create the proper bind with the wrong terminology. Those forms I mentioned would result in when you hit shift, the reticle appears. LSHIFT+LBUTTON does not make it appear.

If you have done that, simply do /bind LSHIFT+LCLICK ""
(Or whatever other form it was bound to)

I agree with the general sentiment that it's silly that ice depends on a knockdown power that is negated by most AoE Immobilizes, including its own, but this above is why I still love it. Run in when the Brute taunts, put an ice slick on his feet, and turn on Arctic Air. It's more than enough damage mitigation. Even when it's not effective to the point that you're team is now undamaged, I'm not sure there's anything that resists knockback, fear, confuse, and -recharge so much that you aren't making a noticeable impact.

I think really people underrate the -recharge on ice, too. Yeah taking alphas sucks when THATS what you're going for -- cause the first hit will go off just the same, but if whoever takes the alpha survives it, -recharge can make you golden.

On that note, you "take the alpha" as an ice control by placing an ice slick without LoS. It doesn't work everywhere or against all mobs, but it will work in the majority of circumstances. Ice Slick out of sight, go in, Shiver, go in the middle, AA.

I would venture a guess that for almost any style there's another primary that's more suited, so I don't think I could say it's the best even if it's my favorite. I don't think it's the worst though. I would have to give that to Gravity, and not based on much other than how much I hate having a teammate who uses Telekinesis and Wormhole and horrendously stupid times.

(1) You're going to struggle with AVs no matter how well you build this guy. I would take Aid Self and anything else you think could be a necessity.

(2) Aim. The same reason given above (Targetting Drone is over kill)

(3) Fistfull is a much better power. Don't skip Blazing if you can. If you're taking Ranged Shot for Manticore, drop it and put Blazing Arrow instead.

(4) Time Bomb's not really bad, it's just really not team friendly. If you Cloak/Smoke/Time Bomb you can remove mobs the same way a PBAoE nuke would. However, once you're IOed out, you can Rain of Arrows twice in the time it takes to Time Bomb, so its value slowly moves away from efficiency and towards "just fun."

This thread is still going on?

Fulmens had the answer right there, though it come up in some form a few times.

CoH is a team-based game. Different ATs offer different things. No AT is totally immune to Mez, nor is any totally susceptible to it. If you can't handle it, play something easier, play with a team, or get better.

If any of my blasters had mez protection there'd be absolutely no reason to play anything else for me. All the damage, none of the draw back? MMm, yeah then I probably wouldn't play at all. Are you TRYING to ruin the game for ME?

I actually use Explosive Arrow every mob when I'm farming Archery/Energy. I have 5 pieces of Posi's in it, and Force Feedback Chance for +Recharge. I line up RoA, with someone near the middle of the mob targeted, and then queue Explosive Arrow. Even the stuff that's about to get torn to shreds gets targeted by Explosive Arrow, and I proc almost every mob. The end result is without any purples I still average firing RoA every 21 seconds.

I never fight AVs on mine, at least not solo, so I don't have/need anything purple slotted. Posi's, Decimation, Kinetic Crash, Basilisk's Gaze, and Doctored Wounds for global recharge and I'm golden. I haven't found a use for getting any defense at all because BR+BU+Aim+RoA+Explosive ends everything but bosses, and 1-3 bosses isn't an issue.

That's (hopefully) just because it's your first character. An experienced player (at least Blaster-player) will not have these issues.

Just a note or two on your build:
Don't take Explosive Blast over Energy Torrent. Energy Torrent does more damage, has quicker recharge, and with Boost Range it covers over twice the area. The kicker? Lowed endurance cost, too. It's a better power. If you can't pick up both, the one you should have is definitely Torrent.

Don't wait so long on Power Bolt. It's moot since you've both out leveled it, but with /Energy or /Devices you are already down one ranged defiance attack when you're mezzed (even if it's less common). Power Burst isn't going to help you anymore in other circumstances anyway.

I'm a little nervous about using Air Superiority for holding down a single target when you could have taken Power Push or Stun. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, it just always throws me when someone elects to use a power pool choice instead of their power sets. It does quite a bit more damage, at least.

Resuscitate?

The nice thing about Energy/Energy is it's so simple. I think you'll find it was a lot of people's first 50, or at least first level 50 blaster, because it's hard to mess up really bad.

Yeah that's really all there is to it. It's not a bad rule of thumb to always pick up your long range AoEs, but not every build is going to need them. Heck, not every build will even use them. Once I IO'd out my energy/energy blaster, I have Static Discharge or Energy Torrent up almost all the time, both of which out damage Explosive Blast. This is just compounded by the fact that they cover a huge area with boost range up.

I still have Explosive Blast, but that's just for Kinetic Combat. The only time it ever gets fired is if I'm hit with some serious -recharge.


On a side note, the illusion that Explosive Blast (or Explosive Arrow, M30 Grenade, etc) has a radial knockback comes from widespread mobs. If you hit the center of a line of enemies (lined perpendicular to your line of fire) the ones on the far left will be knocked slightly to the left, and the ones on the right will go slightly to the right. It's not because your explosive blast was to their left/right though, it's because YOU are. If you hit a line of guys who are aligned over your line of sight, they will all fly in a straight direction away from you.
In other words, they're always knocked directly away from you, which sometimes means they scatter, sometimes it doesn't.

Most of the Blaster powers are normalized across the sets. Flares if an obvious exception, but Neutrino Beam is comparable to the tier 1 in Electrical, Psychic, Ice, and Energy. What's missing? Sonic, Archery, Assault Rifle, and Fire. Why do those recharge faster / do more damage? The first set have debuffs / mitigation as their secondary. The second set just do more damage. Yeah, Sonic is a fuzzy one cause it's a debuff that lets it do more damage, that's why it's only *slightly* better than the first set.

It's not about nerfing the powers, it's about fitting Radiation to the Blaster model. The same thing happened with Psychic Blast, and with Claws on Brutes.

If you're only using fly over short distances, not having it would be a lot like using Raptor Pack instead. If you happen to have picked up GvE, it would mean throwing Jump Pack up at the same time and flying at max speed, too.

Concept reasons make sense. I dare say even preferred play style and good old fashion "I enjoy having two/three travel powers" are good enough reasons, too. I just would put it off for a bit in a build that's lacking so many awesome powers. Taking two, three, even four travel powers is a common misuse of power picks with newer players, and I find it safer to say you should do that for no reason, then when you reconsider/respec your build and start dropping stuff, then you pick up the redundant/useless powers that would be fun.

It's not a black and white thing for me either. I have plenty of characters with more than one way to get around, I just don't see Fly as worthy early power pick in this case.

/Ice is awesome for soloing. Almost every power in the set is designed to mitigate a small mob.

However, with the possibility that you will ever end up on a team or perhaps want to set your difficulty in such a way that you face larger mobs, I might consider /Energy.

Sonic is sort of cone-heavy and Boost Range with cones is just great. Just great.
There's also synergy in Power Boost + Siren's Song.

Power Sink is the only thing that /Electric has that you might have rather had in /Energy, but I don't think it would mix as well anyway.

QFT! Super truth. Farming solo the AoE knockback blasts are awesome. Teaming with someone whose better off when you don't knock, yeah you can keep that explosive arrow in its quiver.

In regards to the OP, Archery/MM or possibly even Archery/Energy will out farm Fire/MM. Drain Psyche's awesome and everything, but there's not enough there to rival a fire/kin.

Or stand over them, right click the awaken, and click the "Give to..." with their name. It's a submenu I believe.


I think you're underrating Self Destruct's damage capabilities. Using it solo is in fact pretty pointless. I typically see it kill the minions in a mob, but not take down the Lts and Bosses.

Yet on a team? Oh boy oh boy! The presence of any -resistance, someone to take advantage of them flopping around, and suitable damage before and after? Yes, please.

Figure a level 50 blaster can do about 300 with rain of arrows, on of my defender's psychic wail does 350, and for both of them SD does about 580. It really is nuke-type damage if you look at it through different lenses. Bearing in mind of course that you can BuildUp+Aim / Fulcrum Shift before doing the first two, to consistently do the same level of damage SD does.

My favorite late game use is probably when I'm hurt, to jump as best I can into a group that hasn't been touched yet, then self destruct. When they scramble back to me after standing up, use Rise of the Phoenix. Then you just have to kill the stunned boss(s).

That's a good point. I did not consider AVs, etc. I've soloed quite a bit human form though, and I always ended up using Radiant Strike like it was Energy Thrust on an /Energy Blapper. I'd use it to shew someone away if they got too close for comfort. When it came time to just dousing a single target that was left though, that was the last thing I'd use.

I also should have been more specific too. I meant much later levels where on large teams (sans AV teams) I would much prefer cycling through the AoEs (which PBs have a good amount of) rather than chasing around one guy.

On a purely "subjective" side of it, I have tried a purely melee human form and a purely range/AoE build, and I much much prefer the ranged. I feel more potent and safer. Bearing in mind, however, that Solar Flare also causes knockback (melee knockback gets really old really fast for me), and that this is probably more a matter of my style. Number crunching or how you prefer to play may lead you elsewhere.

Yes, it should be soon. But ticket farming on a blaster is going to get better, not worse.

You can set your missions to 8-players, and still no bosses. I've been on there just to play around with it. Boost Range + Build Up or Aim + Rain of Arrows + Explosive Arrow. Wait 21 seconds, repeat.

If you're into a change of pace and plan to do any solo farming, you were on the right track. A scrapper would work, too, it would just be much much slower. Since you already have a controller set up to farm on teams, you could just decide who to play on based on team availability and such.

If you haven't seen this, you should: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sH-ro9JkG8
It's not very expensive to make a build capable of this pace either.

I would drop Sniper Shot, not Aim. You'll need Aim sooner or later, and unless you put the "Sting of the Manticore" in Sniper Shot, it's not a very good power.

Honestly, it's fun kind of hopping in and out, but I would probably choose between blapping (using melee attacks primarily) or blasting with ranged attacks.

If you're using melee a lot, you could drop Hover for Air Superiority and round out your attack chain. It's got a knock down effect which is great for minimizing the damage you're taking if you're fighting smaller groups. Lightning Field's not a bad idea if you're meleeing either.

If you're going to go ranged, drop Lightning Field for sure, and stick with Hover. I would recommend you drop most of the melee attacks in Electric (besides Thunder Strike and Power Sink). They're good attacks, but your ranged stuff can knock back, making it doubley hard to then run up and smack them.

Slot the heck out of Power Bolt, Power Blast, and Electric Fence. You can use them mezzed, they're all good attacks, and you will have a solid attack chain. I would do this whatever your build is going to be.