Farm fresh builds! *Farming focused builds and tips*

[DarknessEternal]

I never understood what you guys were talking about with macro attack chains and mouse wheel who sits.  I just put powers on the buttons and push them.

 

Can you give me a first grade summary of what you’re even doing?

[Frostweaver]

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.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Frostweaver

[macskull]

1 minute ago, Frostweaver said:

<snip>

I have a G600 so I've got 12 side buttons but I only ever really use 4 or 5 of them in practice. On my Rad/Fire and Spines/Fire I've got a button for combining reds, a button for chugging reds, a button for Burn, and a button for Healing Flames. Everything else in my chain is in my first power tray in a convenient slot to use with my left hand (1-6 basically). I didn't use a mouse with extra buttons back on live but it is super nice.

[Frostweaver]

12 minutes ago, macskull said:

I have a G600 so I've got 12 side buttons but I only ever really use 4 or 5 of them in practice. On my Rad/Fire and Spines/Fire I've got a button for combining reds, a button for chugging reds, a button for Burn, and a button for Healing Flames. Everything else in my chain is in my first power tray in a convenient slot to use with my left hand (1-6 basically). I didn't use a mouse with extra buttons back on live but it is super nice.

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.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Frostweaver

[macskull]

It's not too bad for me right now. I keep an eye on my insp tray and tap the button for combining pretty much every time something new shows up in the tray. As reds drop I just pop those too. I'm normally running 4ish minutes on the asteroid map, sometimes less if spawn placement is good, sometimes more if it's not. Duoing with another Rad/Fire brings that time down to 2-2.5 minutes.

Edited September 17, 2019 by macskull

[Frostweaver]

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 🙂

 

[Warlawk]

4 hours ago, CrimsonOne said:

@Warlawk you mention that your rotation for Rad/Fire is Ball Lightning, Burn, Electrifying Fences, and Atom Smasher, which would be the first 4 slots of Tray 1. What else do you put in Tray 1 to use with the /bind keys you setup to run powers and macros? 

The Rad only uses 9 of 10 slots, in order as follows

Hasten

Ageless Destiny

Fiery Embrace

Ionize

Blank

Ball Lightning

Burn

Fences

Atom Smasher

Ion Judgement

 

This order interacts with my macro in that Ion is last so if I click the macro but do not repeat it will end on the judgement and I can be sure to fire it regardless of its position on the list because it will be the last power clicked.

 

Frostweaver did a pretty good summary there of how the macros work. Mine is very simple and straightforward. Press 1, wait 100ms, press 2, wait 100 MS etc for 1 through 10 and then repeat.

49 minutes ago, macskull said:

I have a G600 so I've got 12 side buttons but I only ever really use 4 or 5 of them in practice. On my Rad/Fire and Spines/Fire I've got a button for combining reds, a button for chugging reds, a button for Burn, and a button for Healing Flames. Everything else in my chain is in my first power tray in a convenient slot to use with my left hand (1-6 basically). I didn't use a mouse with extra buttons back on live but it is super nice.

This is the same mouse I use and it's a great little guy! I do wish it was a bit physically larger like the G700 that I had before because I have large hands... but other than that (and that's clearly user error! ) I have absolutely no complaints. I love that it has a third primary click/button, it was strange at first but I really came to like having it. So it has Left Click, Right Click, and a thinner More-to-the-right Click. I've actually bound that to Ctrl+0 to activate 0 tray 3 and starting putting my heal there for all of my characters.

I use another for buffs that I always fire in pair such as Power Boost and Farsight, it will cast tray3 slot8, delay 2 seconds, then cast Tray3 slot9. I actually have two of these.

I use one to trigger my travel power toggle macro. (Will include below)

I use three more to send numpad keystrokes in conjunction with the Mastermind Numpad controls listed in my signature so I have my most commonly used pet commands at the touch of a thumb!

 

With a programmable mouse and CoH's bind/macro system you can do a LOT to make things convenient for yourself.

 

Spoiler

/macro Travel "powexec_name Combat Jumping$$powexec_name Ninja Run"
/macro Travel "powexec_name Fly$$powexec_name Hover"
/macro Travel "powexec_toggleoff Sprint$$powexec_name Super Jump$$powexec_name Combat Jumping"
 

The power listed second in the order will have priority, so depending if you want to guarantee your combat movement or your travel movement that would dictate your order. You can just replace the power names with whatever you use. I like having the one button control to switch between the two.

 

EDIT:

31 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

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 🙂

 

Ageless is a clickie so no need to worry about detoggling that, I have it on my bar to be triggered along with everything else, but I would love a trick for including Assault in the order without detoggling as well!

 

EDIT2: I found a way, experimenting with it a bit now. At the most basic level

/Macro Atom "Powexecname Atom Smasher$$powexec_toggleon Assault Core Embodiment"

 

The first press will toggle on Assault, any subsequent presses will use Atom Smasher. I'm going to experiment a little with combining this into one of the existing bind files along with the inspiration functions.

 

@Frostweaver

EDIT3: Ok, so it works as part of the bind files, purely as example because I had an empty slot there on the rad melee I used 5 and changed the bind to

/bind 5 "powexec_slot 5$$powexec_toggleon Assault Core Embodiment$$powexec_tray 5 6$$powexec_tray 4 6$$powexec_tray 3 6$$powexec_tray 2 6$$powexec_tray 1 6"

It will combine and eat reds as normal, if Assault is available to be started it will toggle it on and if none of those things happen, it will trigger the power in slot 5.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Warlawk

[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.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Frostweaver

[Warlawk]

5 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

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.

If only I looked that young and vital

[Frostweaver]

Yeah, I guess us old farts have to have some edge over the twitch-happy twenty year olds.

I sorta see now why your builds are set up the way they are, since some advantages, such as Rad's explosion damage, can be extremely difficult to exploit effectively in a bind-heavy setup, to the point where it would actually slow you down over using cages/ball, considering how necessary fusion timing is to getting the extra damage. Although I am trying to figure out a way to combine a build and binds together to give maximum rad throughput, I suspect you could wring about another 10-20% speed out of it.

At first I didn't 'get it' because my clear speeds as a rad/fire already exceeded spines/fire and I was using that as my basis for comparison, but now, I am seriously considering trying to see what is possible with nested and chain binds to take it a step further. Of course, that also means I might have to go ahead and pl a spine/fire and apply the same tricks in order to get a baseline 😛

[Warlawk]

Well, part of the reason that I automate as much as I do with just running a straightforward macro like this is medical. I suffer severe chronic vertigo and when I'm spinning it's often tough to maintain focus well enough to run traditional missions so I started tinkering with farming and ended up making a project out of it. 

 

I know a lot of people who farm when they're not feeling well, or watching a movie or other such distracted distracted states. I absolutely welcome the peak efficiency type tips and am happy to see them in the thread but part of the goal was to establish a baseline of numbers that are realistic for anyone to attain. Snapshot perfect rotations with error margins in the milliseconds just isn't a good representation of how most people are going to farm. It's great for pylon time tests and such, but most people just don't give a damn. It can be really frustrating to see someone pull AREALLYBIGNUMBER and then when you actually run the build you can't get close to that. Using the mouse macro to just repeat right down the numberline should produce a fairly attainable expectation for farming and leave room for people to improve as they find the farmer that they enjoy and really perfect the playstyle.

 

For instance, as you said Claws has more potential than indicated by these numbers by leveraging Spin better. I think that Savage Melee might actually have the highest potential for someone interested in really micromanaging the blood stacks and developing their expertise with the set.

 

TL;DR, I love seeing the really precise tips and information and knowledge is power, but that wasn't specifically my goal here.

[Frostweaver]

Oh, I get it completely. I have an old rotator cuff injury that keeps me from playing nearly as much as I like (usually an hour a night, max) but now you have me interested...

A bindfile, with everything set up, and a build designed to maximize farming. two-button farming as a preset. all you do is create the build, load the bindfile, put the buttons in the correct place, and viola! instant (almost) top-tier fire farmer. Heck, it could even have binds for instructions on how to use it most effectively.

Still, if it's possible to leverage savage over and above current builds, I REALLY want to see if it works out.

Grr. one project at a time. I am a huge fan of finding out how to overcome 'conventional wisdom', but I guess people like me are where 'conventional wisdom' comes from in the first place.

[DarknessEternal]

This will take awhile to process.  Thanks though.

 

Edit: going well so far.  Do awakens not combine or have I messed something up?

Edited September 17, 2019 by DarknessEternal

[Vampphreak]

8 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

This will take awhile to process.  Thanks though.

 

Edit: going well so far.  Do awakens not combine or have I messed something up?

First things first, visit that stern looking P2W lady and tell her to knock if off with the Wakies and the Breakies. Rez and Break Free inspirations are a waste of space to you as a farmer.

[DarknessEternal]

6 hours ago, Vampphreak said:

First things first, visit that stern looking P2W lady and tell her to knock if off with the Wakies and the Breakies. Rez and Break Free inspirations are a waste of space to you as a farmer.

Well, they're all useless except for damage.  Why not just turn everything off except red?

[Warlawk]

1 hour ago, DarknessEternal said:

Well, they're all useless except for damage.  Why not just turn everything off except red?

You actually want them dropping so that you can convert them to reds.

 

When you "turn off" an inspiration at the p2w vendor it doesn't actually change the drops it just refuses them, essentially it deletes the drop before it actually goes into your tray. You won't get more reds just because everything else is turned off, so you want them to actually drop so you can convert them into reds.

 

Wakies and breakies seem to drop with slightly less frequently than the others so they don't convert as fast and have a tendency to clog up your tray. If you don't turn them off you run the risk of having to manually tinker with your tray, slowing things down. My personal settings are to turn off/refuse Wakies, Breakies and Larges. With those settings I never have to touch the tray, it is completely handled by the macro and cannot clog up with a mix of things that won't combine. I tried running with larges on for a while and the tray would clog (in that it was full and did not have any valid combinations) and require manual attention roughly 1 time per asteroid map. In keeping with Statement #1, I found it easiest for me to just shut off larges in addition to wakies and breakies.

[DarknessEternal]

Good explanation.

[Bierfuizl]

Quick question: When playing 2915 on test server I'm set to lvl48. Same setting on live gives me lvl49.

 

Any setting I need to change or just the way it is on test right now?

 

Testing plant/psi/fire dom. In 4:00 range for first mission atm. Not sure what the lvl48 thing does to inf but prolly able to reach at least 100 mil/h with some tweaking.

 

[Warlawk]

16 minutes ago, Bierfuizl said:

Testing plant/psi/fire dom. In 4:00 range for first mission atm. Not sure what the lvl48 thing does to inf but prolly able to reach at least 100 mil/h with some tweaking.

Very cool! Would love to see the build and your times and such when you get done.

I don't *think* that the 48 bit is going to have any real effect on things, I'm not sure if it's just an earlier version of the farm and it wasn't synched on test or something but it's that way for me as well.

[Glowman]

Warlawk,

 

I saw the macro for eating reds - great idea Luka! But you also mention using a macro to fire off your attacks in order.

 

What does that look like? Do you use them in conjunction with combining/eating reds?

 

Very interested to hear from you.

[Warlawk]

4 minutes ago, mikeconqueso said:

Warlawk,

 

I saw the macro for eating reds - great idea Luka! But you also mention using a macro to fire off your attacks in order.

 

What does that look like? Do you use them in conjunction with combining/eating reds?

 

Very interested to hear from you.

This is an instance of two different uses of the same word.

 

The macro to fire off my attacks in order is a macro on my logitech programmable mouse which sends keystrokes to the active window.

[Glowman]

Gotcha. I was curious because smashing buttons for too long causes my hands/wrists to be sore. :P

[Sapphire Lotus]

Running into an issue. Have 2 accounts for PLing, main account has my full T4 Spines/Fire and is able to 49 fire farm, however my SS/Fire on my alternate account, even when set to Earn XP and Double while exemplared still pulls in only 89,713 per boss

Level	Minion	LT	Boss
50	10,251	29,048	89,713
49	14,523	37,592	115,346

 

TLDR; Spines/Fire on main account earns 115,346; SS/Fire on secondary account earns 89,713 = same settings. 

 

How do I fix?

[Vampphreak]

5 hours ago, Sapphire Lotus said:

Running into an issue. Have 2 accounts for PLing, main account has my full T4 Spines/Fire and is able to 49 fire farm, however my SS/Fire on my alternate account, even when set to Earn XP and Double while exemplared still pulls in only 89,713 per boss

Level	Minion	LT	Boss
50	10,251	29,048	89,713
49	14,523	37,592	115,346

 

TLDR; Spines/Fire on main account earns 115,346; SS/Fire on secondary account earns 89,713 = same settings. 

 

How do I fix?

It looks like you're not doing the 49 fire farm on the alternate account.  That would explain the difference.

[Warlawk]

5 hours ago, Sapphire Lotus said:

Running into an issue. Have 2 accounts for PLing, main account has my full T4 Spines/Fire and is able to 49 fire farm, however my SS/Fire on my alternate account, even when set to Earn XP and Double while exemplared still pulls in only 89,713 per boss

Level	Minion	LT	Boss
50	10,251	29,048	89,713
49	14,523	37,592	115,346

 

TLDR; Spines/Fire on main account earns 115,346; SS/Fire on secondary account earns 89,713 = same settings. 

 

How do I fix?

Sometimes... AE is just finicky like that. Everything will be set correctly and it just won't work right, still giving you level 50 numbers. When it does it to me I leave the TF then toggle both the XP and the Exemp XP settings a couple of times, then reset them to where they should be and apply. Completely close the client and relaunch. This usually fixes it, but there have been times it didn't and I just gave up, but then it worked correctly with no adjustment to settings when I log in the next day.

 

I think it's just another example of CoH spaghetti code, I've never seen any concrete reason or foolproof solution to fixing it when it happens.