Frostweaver

so it only triggers if assault is refreshed, but NOT if it is currently toggled? I didn't even know about 'toggleon' dangit... I should have too, since it's a major part of speed on demand. Cue Mike Meyers and Alice Cooper.

I have yet to find a way to effectively automate assault/ageless without constantly detoggling them. If someone knows a way, this would be a great place to brag/accept worshipful accolades and explain how you did it 🙂

Just for giggles, you should try assigning multiple activations with the combine/eat macros to a mouse button. You may hate it or you may find it speeds you up and takes some of the thinking about powers out of your speed runs, like the OP does. Ranged junk/combines on one, melee junk/combines on the other. almost as good as auto-attack. on my rad I actually have hasten stuck into both, so I don't have to use my auto for it.... it just triggers whenever it's up as part of my natural attack chain. In fact, you can (ahem) use auto to cascade-trigger the two chains (although it doesn't work very well) to walk away from the keyboard and take a leak while your toon unleashes hell on anything that dares come close to you. True idle farming at it's worse. I have an old logitech flight pad that I have plugged in that lets you assign the buttons to automatically rapidly pulse whatever keys you want to set up just by pressing a button. and some gaming mice have software that lets you do the same thing. The ultimate in lazy farming. Just run around the map and your attacks take care of groups for you. It's an old trick used by WoW PVP'ers to do stuff faster than most others can react to.

Well, as explained in the original post, you set up a series of buttons and re-bind the 1-0 keys to both combine all of your inspirations at the same time as they fire powers. In general, the first 4-6 powers in your #1 Tray (usually the one at the very bottom right hand side) will be your 'primary attack chain'. These are the aoe's you will use mostly while you are actually fighting... and you trigger them by using the 1-6 keys at the top of your keyboard. It is much faster than hunting and pressing each button with your mouse, and due to the macros pressing those keys rapidly will also quickly combine and use red inspirations to push you to the damage cap as quickly as possible.... you may 'twitch' the keys a dozen times before they 'catch' and say, burn goes off.. but those twitches are each combining and using a red inspiration, so when it catches your burn goes off with 200% extra damage worth of reds on your buff bar. This method (especially since you don't have to keep track of the mouse icon with tons of special effects flying around the screen making it invisible) can easily increase your attack speed enormously over the hunt-and-click defeault method. Many mice have a number of additional keys on them. You can bind those buttons to press (or rapidly press) the number keys or set up your own binds in options with the mouse keys instead of the number keys. For instance, due to comfort and speed, I use the keyboard to press buttons 1-3 because they are comfortably close to where my left hand rests on the keyboard as I play, and have 4 buttons on the side of my mouse where my right thumb rests that I have replaced bind 4-5, and my right ring or pinky finger can press a mouse button for slot 6 In my button bar itself, on my claws farmer, slots 1-3 are eviscerate, spin, and burn, my primary attack chain. slot 4 and 5 are shockwave and ball lightning, where I can easily trigger them as either part of the attack chain or while I am jumping around collecting aggro, slot 6 is ion judgement, keyboard 7 is a 'flip' macro (something that's hard to explain) that with a few presses will trigger either ageless or consume (Or both if I am excited and rapidly pressing), q activates assault core embodiment, which is button #8 on my bar, E activates firey embrace, and I have the far right enter key, 0, and several other keys assigned to slot ten... which is healing flames, just in case something goes terribly wrong and I get overly excited while at low health. Once I got used to the layout, I can rapidly cycle through my attacks based on their order of refresh, and hover darned close to the brute damage cap (around 530% out of 675% once you account for musculature's damage boost and the damage slotted into the attacks themselves) as quickly as they become available. It is also possible to set up a second series of macros that, triggers the first set of Macros if you are very lazy, that will try to press say, keys 1, 2, 3 every time you press an additional mouse button. and this can be extremely fast, but with the way CoH handles macro power presses sometimes this means that you will 'skip' powers or use a less than optimal attack chain, triggering a slower power more often than your quick damager or failing to say, use firey embrace just before you blow off burn. If you are close to the damage cap already, this means very little, but if you are only at about 325% damage or so due to lack of inspiration drops, this can cost you a couple of seconds worth of heightened damage or make you miss an attack that has a dot effect in the correct order to layer those DOT's... or, as the OP mentioned, accidentally trigger a power under less than optimal conditions, such as blowing off ION judgement when there are only 5 mobs in range. Sometimes I will set up two of my mouse buttons to simply run through keybinds E,1, 2, 3, and then 4,5,6 as quickly as possible so I can be using my left hand to hop around and line up groups or collect aggro at the same time. It can be super efficient, or it can waste scads of damage potential, depending on how you use it. generally, each 'press' of the button will try to activate the first power on the list that is refreshed, and then a second only if it is refreshed within a certain short time period...and of course, meanwhile those macros are busily turning inspirations into red and eating them, so your 'rapid pulsing' mouse button macro when you hold it down will be flickering constantly as it runs through every command, failing the ones that won't work (no insp or not refreshed) and triggering the ones that are active until they are all on cooldown or you release the button.

I was in the process of editing my post when your snark hit, you might wish to read it.

Lord protect us from humor, for we understand it not. I do appreciate your binds, they have absolutely helped to up my farming game considerably, especially since I no longer have to disable everything but red drops...It helps in both teamed and non-teamed situations. My only implication is that I am pretty sure, that there is probably room for more...established attack chains, that maximize farming potential and help to exploit each set's potential to the fullest. I am in the process of exploring such chains, and would be happy to provide the results of such exploration... at least for the radiation melee and claws sets. based on timing of runs (rather than herostats tests) some of my discoveries that help dramatically increase the speed of runs are...surprising, to say the least. For instance, using your macros results in follow-up actually slowing you down (The damage bonus breaks brute damage caps and is not worth the time out of your aoe chains it takes to use), and there is a rather big question that I am exploring as to the actual utility of both hasten and the patron pools in comparison to more usage of spin and eviscerate...One I am presently happily exploring. Just as soon as I can get herostats working correctly. It is not particularly happy with the current CoH build. Is there any chance you could provide clear times as well as the inf/hour for those of us not having a good time wrestling with herostats, as a baseline for comparison?

usually cut it off. unload my aim+heavy hitters with long timers, and then turn it back on as soon as it pops? It's not really a strategy as much as it is trying to leverage the temporary recharge boost so aim+nuke/heavy will be up for the next spawn. In general, it gets triggered again before the mob stops being affected by it, or at least whatever is still barely clinging to life after you have cycled the big kabooms. I asm not actually certain how long the +rech actually lasts, though... it's just something I do when I have a spare moment. Currently I have it slotted with 3 theft of essence heal and proc, and 3 performance shifter endmod and proc. I changed my slotting when I realized just how much it sucks letting stuff into melee range to utilize the stun procs.

So YOU are the reason winter enhancements drop down to 11 mil occasionally...

Man, some of your attack chains are kinda odd. On my claws, it's like spin-fu-spin-fe-spin-burn wash rinse repeat. Sometimes, even without hasten, it is TOUGH leveraging other attacks in between the awesomemess of spin 😛

It actually would not be a terrible build for a rad/fire farmer, but then Rad focuses more on extra damage in single target attacks to spread contaminated damage rather than utilizing an array of aoes like spines does. maximum recharge for fusion-powered atom smasher to maximize contamination, devastating blow and radioactive smash to 'trigger' contaminated explosions and build-ups , and proc-infused irradiated ground spreading the effects of +recharge and -res to maximise all the delicious contaminated bonus damage is a VERY different methodology from spine's maximizing aoe chains. But for spines it is... a little slow. It's a good start, though. At least it gets you thinking about set synergies.

Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.3 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Technology Defender Primary Power Set: Time Manipulation Secondary Power Set: Electrical Blast Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Fighting Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Time Crawl -- PcnoftheT-Acc/Slow:50(A), PcnoftheT-Acc/EndRdx:50(11) Level 1: Charged Bolts -- SprDfnBst-Acc/Dmg:50(A), SprDfnBst-Dmg/Rchg:50(34), SprDfnBst-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(34), SprDfnBst-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(34), SprDfnBst-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(36), SprDfnBst-Rchg/Heal%:50(36) Level 2: Temporal Mending -- Prv-Heal:50(A), Prv-Heal/EndRdx:40(3), Prv-EndRdx/Rchg:50(3), Prv-Heal/Rchg:50(5), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx:50(5), Prv-Absorb%:50(7) Level 4: Time's Juncture -- DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb:21(A), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/EndRdx:50(36), DarWtcDsp-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx:50(37), DarWtcDsp-ToHitDeb/Rchg:50(37) Level 6: Super Speed -- Clr-Stlth:50(A) Level 8: Temporal Selection -- RgnTss-Heal/Rchg:30(A), DctWnd-Heal/Rchg:50(11), RgnTss-Regen+:30(37), RgnTss-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg:30(40), RgnTss-EndRdx/Rchg:30(40), RgnTss-Heal/EndRdx:30(43) Level 10: Distortion Field -- UnbCns-Hold/Rchg:50(A), UnbCns-Dam%:50(45), UnbCns-Acc/Hold/Rchg:50(46), UnbCns-Acc/Rchg:50(46), UnbCns-EndRdx/Hold:50(46) Level 12: Short Circuit -- PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg:50(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc/Rchg:50(13), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc:50(13), SprVglAss-Acc/Dmg:50(15), SprVglAss-Dmg/Rchg:50(29), SprVglAss-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(45) Level 14: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+:50(A), LucoftheG-Def:50(15) Level 16: Aim -- GssSynFr--Build%:50(A), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg:50(17), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx:50(17) Level 18: Farsight -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+:50(A), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP:50(19), Ksm-ToHit+:30(19), RctRtc-Pcptn:20(25), Rct-Def/Rchg:50(25) Level 20: Zapp -- StnoftheM-Acc/Dmg:50(A), StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx:50(21), StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(21), StnoftheM-Acc/ActRdx/Rng:50(23), StnoftheM-Dmg/ActRdx/Rchg:50(23) Level 22: Super Jump -- Jump-I:50(A) Level 24: Acrobatics -- EndRdx-I:50(A) Level 26: Slowed Response -- ShlBrk-DefDeb/EndRdx/Rchg:30(A), ShlBrk-Acc/DefDeb:30(27), ShlBrk-Acc/Rchg:30(27), ShlBrk-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:30(29) Level 28: Boxing -- Empty(A) Level 30: Tough -- UnbGrd-Max HP%:50(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx:50(31), UnbGrd-ResDam:40(31), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:50(31), GldArm-3defTpProc:50(33), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(33) Level 32: Chrono Shift -- DctWnd-Heal/EndRdx:50(A), DctWnd-EndRdx/Rchg:50(33), DctWnd-Heal/Rchg:50(48), DctWnd-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg:50(50), DctWnd-Rchg:50(50) Level 35: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+:50(A), LucoftheG-Def:50(43) Level 38: Charged Armor -- Ags-Psi/Status:50(A), Ags-ResDam:50(39), Ags-ResDam/EndRdx:50(39), Ags-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:50(39), Ags-ResDam/Rchg:50(40) Level 41: Thunderous Blast -- SprVglAss-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(A), SprVglAss-Rchg/+Absorb:50(42), SprVglAss-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(42), EffAdp-EndMod:50(42), EffAdp-EndMod/Acc/Rchg:50(43) Level 44: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(45) Level 47: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(48) Level 49: Burnout -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(50) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A) Level 1: Vigilance Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 2: Health -- Pnc-Heal/+End:50(A), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+:50(9), Mrc-Rcvry+:40(9) Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I:50(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%:50(A), EndMod-I:50(7), EndMod-I:50(48) Level 2: Swift -- Run-I:50(A) Level 50: Musculature Radial Paragon Level 50: Ion Radial Final Judgement Level 50: Gravitic Radial Flawless Interface Level 50: Banished Pantheon Core Superior Ally Level 50: Support Radial Embodiment Level 50: Ageless Invocation Level 4: Ninja Run ------------ I don't mind my chain being nothing but charged bolts/snipe, but I am still looking to squeak out a little more performance and maybe overlap on buffs... and a little more dps for soloing at 3 am might be nice. I picked electrric because 15 years ago it was actually a nice blast set, and I didn't know how much it fails now when I made the character.... and now it's too late.

I would like to personally vouch for Thugs/Nature (ie, Poison Ivy usually seems to have a horde of goons serving her). Do you know how disgustingly OP Gang war becomes with 2 +def, 2 +res somewhere in your build, added to Nature's truly outstanding (and fast!) buffs? I tear up AV's at high levels. Of course, the usual +accuracy requirements apply for +4 content I have taken great advantage of 5 slotting purple sets. Usually the io you 'drop' from arma or the like is damage, because you hit ED caps without it. However, I add that into something else because it has the highest damage bonus in the game, at 55% 'default'. Much higher than a common damage IO. To be honest, I don't know how to make overgrowth perma, though... even with agility incarnate core, I still have 6 seconds of downtime. If I didn't know better, I would suspect that the recharge time (255 seconds? where the hell did that weird number come from? why not 240 like other 'long' buffs?) was specifically designed to make it incredibly difficult to perma even with incarnates. I have call thugs frankenslotted for pet defense/resist, with soulbound allegiance's +dam (+4) for 66.2%, and a second spot in expedient for acc/dam and the set resistance. call enforce is 5 slotted with the rest of soulbound, and has a LOTG 7.5% in it. Gang war has mark of supremacy 6 slotted, and of course bruiser has superior command 5 slotted with an accel kb to kd unique in it. But I am working on a new build, to run much cheaper, much more powerfully, that exploits mark of supremacy's 2-slot !0% recharge so I could get 30% recharge and skip the craptastic bonuses from some of the purple sets altogether.... Once I bang it out and test it, I'd be happy to share the results of that testing. Banged out build: Weird. going for a 'cheaper' build actually wound up with a superior end product. It's not 'cheap' because it does, in fact, have a single very rare set... but it's a whole lot cheaper than most of my builds. This is absolutely not a 'tankermind' build, no taunting. But it does have empty clips, in order to soak an alpha. It only has about 3 seconds downtime on overgrowth, but If you are not comfortable with the accuracy, you can always swap out assault for Tactics. Or if you want to bail on empty clips, you could always rearrang things to slip in entangling aura instead. I tried to put in as much recharge, s/l defense, hp, recovery, and damage+ as I could, but I won't pretend someone else couldn't do better.

Hide is for stalkers, superior invisibility is for controllers. To be fair, it is more thematic than functional, since PA is much better defense than Superior Hide in a fight, So they don't really compare anyway. Plus, concealment +stealth IO gives pretty much everyone a much cheaper version of illusion's 'trick'. Functionally, Hide due to stalker inherent is vastly superior to superior invisibility, but it's kind of comparing apples and engine blocks.

Technically you can put 6 procs in it, although +accuracy might make 5 plus incarnate better. I am not positive what the proc chance tables are and whether it is affected by the aura's recharge (4 seconds) or the aura's pulse timer, but in general, IG has a pretty decent proc chance per 5 second slice. I usually slot it for achilles heel proc, fury of the gladiator proc (I know they don't stack but they do both tend to affect almost everything) for -res, armageddon-damage+5 (I never use all 5 of a purple set, and usually ditch the damage in the set cause it goes way over ED...the rest of the set in mine is slotted into atom smasher) because it gives +66%, lady gray neg proc, shield breaker lethal proc, and obliteration smashing proc. Since swapping around sets to make it a proc monster, it has improved my idle farming by a good 20%. So I KNOW it has a real effect. I haven't noticed an increase on my active farming speed since I was slotted solely with fury -res proc and the shield breaker set, that may be because I am wired tightly for darned fine DPS and I am not really timing stuff right now. or maybe the procs fade into the background compared to 600% damage and standard attacks. But the -res procs sure as heck aren't drowned out.

well, if enemies are smoked your clicking out of cloak, unless you are literally nose-to-nose with them, will keep them from detecting you. The cloak+smoke, of course, will let you pass too close to the group without being detected, but if you walked through the middle of them right after you click the glowie but before you were re-hidden, you would likely be detected.

Yeah, it never has. Then again, with it's 5 second pulse, It's a friggin awesome proc mule. I cannot see why you wouldn't frankenslot the heck out of it.

all clickies drop stealth powers. Even stalker hide. The difference is, stalkers usually have the defense to not get interrupted while the glowie cycles. Superior invis IS fairly powerful, it's like a much more end-intensive form of stalker hide (end intensive like hotfeet. jeesh. seriously over-end compared to a hide io in sprint and concealment) and USED to be the only 'real' invisibility in the game that didn't disable your powers, until IO sets and CoV came along. And discovered, it still gives you like 5 points of enhanced defense. compared to 4 points for stalker hide. (That is AT bonuses, though) and 4 points discovered concealment. This is the only defense you get from a controller primary, although some give various flavors of -to-hit. It may not seem like a whole lot, but unless you have defense in your secondary, this can go a VERY long way towards cranking up your defense to softcaps. And yes, you can pluck one out of a spawn with relative impunity. With Range attacks. If you are not within melee aggro range, the rest of the spawn (unless they have enhanced perception) will quite literally ignore it (usually) as long as you pull them far enough away that your presence, discovered, does not aggro them. I used to PvP with an illusion controller, (before at proliferation) and that 50 feet DOES make a difference... especially when you are hunting stalkers.

Nope, Rad/, Claws/, spines/, ss/, staff/, db/, and TW/, /fire, /dark, /bio, /electric, /EA, /ice and /SD all make decent 6 minute farmers. of course it takes a /fire (usually) to make a 5 minute farmer, and claws/ spines/ or /rad (usually) to make a 4 minute farmer. Heck, my wife is playing a 6 minute farmer that is a fire/fire TANKER. And of course, various flavors of scrapper, blaster, dominator, controller, sentinel, Kheld, and soldier can make decent farmers as well, although they often run it at less than +4/8. I watched a dominator yesterday clear comicon s/l at +3/8 in 3:03. I mean, yes, it was at +3 instead of +4, but it was still darned fast and impressive. She ripped through a custom cave s/l patrol mission in like a quarter of the time my brute takes (once she popped permadom). And good old fire/kins are still farming machines, albeit on lower levels. No, farming is not the exclusive province of spines/fire or rad/fire Brutes. It is simply that they are the easiest to get started and the easiest (but not the cheapest) to build for it. Some at's/builds can outperform them but it is vastly more difficult and has a much higher risk factor. Also virtually any brute, scrapper, or tanker can be built to idle-farm at +4/8 (except maybe the pure defense sets) and the /fire brutes can do it without making build compromises. Which is a point in their favor... farming can be super boring, and falling asleep while farming won't kill most brutes. You wake up from your ten minute nap with an aching wrist and a handprint on the side of your face and the level is cleared.

My personal wishlist for mastermind: An IO set that can slotted into ranged AOE's that procs 'gauntlet'. Oh, and customizeable humanoids.

Electric/traps doesn't seem to be terribly well favored either, and it is a brutal combo, especially with all the -resist and -regen combined with electric's affinity for procs...those prrocs do a LOT more damage. And Thematically? Perfect for a tech hero or a Wizard-style villain.

Like hopeling said, I played around with it on my bs/bio, it doesn't force a crit. Kinda lackluster, to be honest.

I was actually kind of liking it. It boosts an otherwise somewhat lackluster set.

I agree, I don't think it was ever inferred negatively. It was like Tankermind, or blastroller.... simply referring to a build/playstyle which was, while often more dangerous, just as often very effective. Now, terms like 'blastermind', and 'scraptroller' were very clearly derogatory, because they referred to playstyles which basically sacrificed playability for theme. Some pre-oi builds, such as energy/energy, were simply vastly more effective when played in melee range or hovering slightly above it. nrg/nrg was often considered a blapper by default. Playing it as a pure ranged blaster was considered to be detrimental to a team. (It might still be?)

I turn reaction time on and off constantly for the 40% recharge bonus... so I tend to frankenslot it a bit with absorption and the stun proc.

remember that 'well rounded' for a blaster just means "Staying alive long enough to lay waste to everything in sight in the most efficient possible manner'