First of all, keep Brawl in that attack chain. Auto'd if necessary, it's a nice solid piece of damage with minimal drain.
Secondly, use your environment, don't just stand there waiting to be hit back. Move! 
Thirdly, some combos work better than others, as secondary effects can prevent counter-measures.
Think like a Boxer rather than a Wrestler; short timed jabs followed by devastating right hooks. If you just cycle Hooks all the time; it's far too easy to counter, even for the dumb AI
As weasel said, move all the time. Without a doubt the best travelpower for a blapper is superspeed, slotted with a couple of endurance reduction enhancements so that it can be run 24/7.
Also, remember that you're not limited to melee attacks, also take, slot and use your stronger ranged attacks and fill the gaps in your chain with them.
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First of all, keep Brawl in that attack chain. Auto'd if necessary, it's a nice solid piece of damage with minimal drain.
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Brawl sucks no point in using it after lvl 6 or so. Use ranged attacks to fill in the gaps.
I need to know your secondary and primary to give you some hints about chains. But for energy: energy punch --> Power Thrust --> Bonesmasher followed by your ranged attacks is a pretty good chain. Sometimes its better to soften the target up with ranged attacks first.
Total Focus is situational and can easily get you killed cause of the long animation. I generally only use it by kiting or on a target that is held or stunned or to finish the last minion. Total Focus can sometimes be a good opener against bosses, where you kite the boss and hope for a stun.
In PvP it can be much much more complicated cause it really depends on what your trying to bring down. Fx when fighting another blaster I usually delay power thrust so I can knock someone down and get attacks powered with defiance. Its also pretty darn good against ninjitsu stalkers without acrobatics.
As said before I really need your primary and secondary to help you chain, just remember that all chains are situational and you need to switch them depending on what your fighting.
A normal solo mission for me on invinc against 4 minions would go like this; Build UP or AIM( I cycle them in PvE), then ice blast and bitter ice blast against the first minion, this will take him down. (if they are red and I use AIM its a bit different, cause AIM and bitter ice blast and ice blast cant take a red minion, so I need to get power thrust in there) Then I use a hold against the next one, then I finish off the next minion with nrg punch and bonesmasher and got for total focus against the target that isnt held. Now my attacks will have a small delay while the next attack comes up, unless hasten is up. In this delay Ill get ready to finish the target I just hit with total focus while getting ready to use my hold on the held minion when it gets back up. This normally takes about 1/3 -1/2 of my health after which I use powerboost and aid self and is getting ready for next mob.
In teams I just go for the most annoying a sapper or the boss or a nasty ltd like rikti mesmerisers.
50s
controllers: Ill rad , grav rad, fire kin, ice kin
blaster: ice em
scrapper: spines sr
Just a few little pointers that help me out.
Love the Auto. Select one of your melee (i always use the weakest, fastest recharging, so Energy Punch or Charged Brawl) and set it to auto, now anytime some1 is in range it'll give them a good bump on the noggin, good for kiting and helps speed up your chain no end.
Go to Menu. Then Options. Then Control tab. The default TURN SPEED is set to 300%, stick it up to about 500%. It's an added boost of speed and can be essential when in the middle of a mob trying to blap away, trust me, it feels good.
Blapping full-time is gunna b tough, you'll have to work out an alpha strike if you're solo'in or charging first. Mayb consider the concealment pool to help u get into position. Use KB if ur NRG, and holds etc if you ice. Crowd control and fast kills are what's gunna keep u alive.
Shnyet AWAY
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First of all, keep Brawl in that attack chain. Auto'd if necessary, it's a nice solid piece of damage with minimal drain.
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Brawl sucks no point in using it after lvl 6 or so. Use ranged attacks to fill in the gaps.
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The only time I'd remotely advocate using Brawl in a Blapper attack chain is against enemies with toggles in PvP - other than that, it's a chronic waste of time. Even then, I'd not use it except against someone with a huge number of toggles - it's easier just to plough through their toggles, 9 times out of 10, although it is sometimes handy to keep plinking the status protection off in protracted battles.
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
Well, I'm built to blap En/En I can take out a +1 mob with 3 hits when solo, Aim, Build up, bonesmasher, Power burst, Power Punch, I use thrust and power push as crowd control to get people away from me if there are a couple to many. I use hasten when its up to get my hits flying fast and I cycle around the mob in order to keep them down, if there is a mob left standing. I use ranged attacks (well my one ranged attack) as a follow up to a knockback attack, it does little damage at the moment but the speed of recharge makes it a very handy tool, plus with Power Boost on it almost always knocks back further therefore buying a little time, the biggest mobs I can solo comfortably are 6 +1s because I will have taken 3 of them out in the first 3 hits.
I have brawl in there but only as a cover incase everything else goes down and I need to throw out an extra hit, also useful for finishing a severly weakened opponent because it means that you need not worry about wasting a big hit on them.
Tell you what Jmeister, instead of giving advice, i'll do visual instead. Come on a mission with me and just watch, it's a lot easier than you think, and the animations are very defined so you'll know exactly what powers are being executed 
The key to maintaining a solid mele attack chain is knowing when not to use them.
The best advice I can give is to learn the relative damage outputs of your mele attacks so you can judge by looking at a bad guys health bar what's going to drop him. Don't ever waste a big hitting mele attack on something that could be finished of with, say, fire blast (I think I remember you're fire/energy?). Likewise you don't want to use Total Focus/Thunder Strike if Charged Brawl/Enegy Punch would finish the guy off and it's recharged.
I don't personally like to auto any power for exactly that reason, my blapper is elec secondary but I think the principal holds true no matter what. I personally believe a large part of blapping well is simply due to being able to make a quick decision as to the best power to use in any given situation.
Wyx.
brawl, ROFL, i know ur not joking weasel, but sheesh, have u even seen the melee attack damage of blasters?
other than that, what they said, especially Wyx, and the comments about using the 500% turn speed option (i use like 650%), use ctrl+tab to target near enemies, use follow, use range if theres no need to run to them, dont think the melees are slow, they have good activation times imo, if u feel u can then slot swift or such like (on test my blapper runs perma sprint, combat jumping, has swift and hurdle (not health) and moves very well in the air). if u happen to b elec primary get the drains in, or ice use the stuns etc, Aoe control 1st is a good idea, if ur energy primary then a radial AoE KB is prolly the best thing u have so aim to one side of the mob (assuming the mob is big enough to warrant it and not just purepwnage).
other than that go see duolos or del on union, or myslef or captain freon on defiant, win.
Plight
Uhmm.....
I think I haven't explained myself well enough:
Do you click the melee attacks on the Tray to use them or do you have any other key with a bind?
I've seen the tactics, I just need to know how to get them out faster than clicking them on the tray and in a reliable and fast way xD
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Do you click the melee attacks on the Tray to use them or do you have any other key with a bind?
I've seen the tactics, I just need to know how to get them out faster than clicking them on the tray and in a reliable and fast way xD
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1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0
alt+1,alt+2,alt+3,alt+4,alt+5,alt+6,alt+7,alt+8,al t+9,alt+0
Profit. 
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
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Go to Menu. Then Options. Then Control tab. The default TURN SPEED is set to 300%, stick it up to about 500%. It's an added boost of speed and can be essential when in the middle of a mob trying to blap away, trust me, it feels good.
[/ QUOTE ]Heh, some people actually keep it at 300? I turn it to 800% as soon as I make a new char
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use ctrl+tab to target near enemies
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Actually, I never really thought about saying this, but it occurred to me when I read that.
I bind nearest target to a mouse thumb button to allow me to keep my right hand over WASD and the power pressing keys most of the time. I think I picked up the habbit of getting as much on my mouse as possible from playing FPS games, I like to have everything I want either on the mouse or an easily reachable keyboard button. Control + tab just feels awkward to me.
Ctrl + Tab is a bit random for my liking, so i have a bind on 'F' to $$Targetenemy_near or something like that? Ask Plight about it, but this is definately extremely useful
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Uhmm.....
I think I haven't explained myself well enough:
Do you click the melee attacks on the Tray to use them or do you have any other key with a bind?
I've seen the tactics, I just need to know how to get them out faster than clicking them on the tray and in a reliable and fast way xD
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Blappers have to move all the time IMO. I use W,A,S,D and the follow button (f) for movement. Powers dont activate faster cause you use binds and I have more than enough time to sellect the next attack while the animation of the previous is playing.
Im a clicker. I always use the mouse thou some powers are really good to bind (Im thinking teleport, but there are lots more).
Left hand; movement and targetting
Right hand; sellect powers and looking up/down/arround with the mouse.
Captain Freon is one of the fastest blappers I know and he is a pure clicker too.
A Paragon Defender
I got Tab on 'nearest enemy' and ¬ on 'next enemy' on my Blapper. Works quite well.
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Do you click the melee attacks on the Tray to use them or do you have any other key with a bind?
I've seen the tactics, I just need to know how to get them out faster than clicking them on the tray and in a reliable and fast way xD
[/ QUOTE ]
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0
alt+1,alt+2,alt+3,alt+4,alt+5,alt+6,alt+7,alt+8,al t+9,alt+0
Profit.
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Same with me. I try to keep my main attacks on the 1-6 keys...easier to reach from WASD.
Sometimes I bind an attack to another key in easy reach (I have Frost Breath bound to V I think).
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Do you click the melee attacks on the Tray to use them or do you have any other key with a bind?
I've seen the tactics, I just need to know how to get them out faster than clicking them on the tray and in a reliable and fast way xD
[/ QUOTE ]
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0
alt+1,alt+2,alt+3,alt+4,alt+5,alt+6,alt+7,alt+8,al t+9,alt+0
Profit.
[/ QUOTE ]
I prefer F1-F10 for the second tray, easy to reach and avoids clashes with other binds I have using ALT combinations.
But even just concentrating hard at the keyboard should work out a bit faster than relying on clicking the trays...
By my 50s shall ye know me:
Tundra, DVM, The Late, Neutrino Ghost, Sir Clanksalot, End Of Days, Prof. Migraine
Howler Monkey
If you use 1,2,3,4, then how can you move at the same time? Maybe its just me that cant press 3 buttons at the same time with my left hand.
How can you press foward (w) and F2 at the same time? Maybe my hand is just too small.
A Paragon Defender
I don't need all the movement keys at any one time though, or need all the power keys at any one time.
Also, you can change target and queue your next attack while the current one is animating, to allow for movement adjustments between times.
I'm not sure I could put powers on the "f" keys too though, I use that for inspirations, but really only f1 and f2 ever get used (respites in the first row and break frees in the second) I mouse click any others I use. I have quite small hands and I find it a bit of a stretch.
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Uhmm.....
I think I haven't explained myself well enough:
Do you click the melee attacks on the Tray to use them or do you have any other key with a bind?
I've seen the tactics, I just need to know how to get them out faster than clicking them on the tray and in a reliable and fast way xD
[/ QUOTE ]
I almost never click powers from my tray with mouse.
I use keys and keybinds that I have bound around my move-around keys, for the logic that I don't have to move my left hand around which could mean misclicks. Like this:
primary attacks: 1,2,3,4,5
tank shields, fly,superspeed etc toggles, snipe: alt+1,alt+2,alt+3 (second power tray)
most important utility powers or extra attacks: z,x,c,v
(these include dull pain, build-up, block of ice for my tank - BU,aim,explosive blast for blaster - domination, deceive etc for my dominator). These keys are easily pressed with my thumb while using movement keys at same time.
r,t or f,g
certain extra powers or similar,
F is taunt on my tank and teleport for my dominator. When i had it, I had provoke bound on G. Unstoppable is on t, quickly accessible but not easily misclicked cause its further 'out'. R is usually autorun.
In certain special cases when normal binds are not enough I have bound powers on numpad keys as well, nova form attacks in case of my PB, minion controls for my mastermind, or emotes for other characters.
Heres how I do it. I don't use follow almost ever, btw.
/bind key "powexec_name powername"
All this depends on what kind of keyboard you have. I noticed this when trying out some other keyboards. I have even tried ZBoard special gaming keyboard but that was decent for controlling character but bad for typing messages so i switched back to my trusted logitech.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I do use mouse for clicking inspirations. I don't see them so time-critical that I can't use mouse for them.
I'm all clicking. I play at 300% whatever it is cause I've never changed it, sounds a bit technical for me! When soloing Blapper I've never died in mission, hunts, loads of times, teams, LOADS of times but never soloing on mission (except for an unfortunate incident with Hercules which I ran into not realising he was in the room and I didn't have aim and build up ready.)
My general attack pattern is fast as fluid.
1. hit power boost
2. hit aim
3. start running towards the group
4. hit build up
5. line up bone smasher on target
6. select next target and unleash power burst as bone smasher is firing
7. then while that is firing off energy punch the next foe.
8. if anything else needs doing use other attacks to bring them down.
Oh yeah, and I have hasten, if its up then I fire it off, when I get SS then I should be able to release and alpha like snipe AND hit the mob before they respond.
I have swift but ALWAYS have sprint, CJ and Acrobatics on, keeps me alive...
Pulling when there are too many enemies in close proximity is a must. do this best with any low damage non AoE attack you have, shoot hide behind the nearest wall and hit build up as soon as the first member of the mob comes in view.
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Uhmm.....
I think I haven't explained myself well enough:
Do you click the melee attacks on the Tray to use them or do you have any other key with a bind?
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I'm sorry, but you have two level 50s and several higher level toons, and STILL you CLICK your power-tray? hmmm.
I almost got annoyed when my newbie friend was doing this. Each power slot in the tray has the corresponding key number written on it. how hard can it be?
Maybe the click-on-power works if your character is a Charles Xavier ripoff but without the powers, but for any Hero/Villain with a tad of self dignity, it's just s l o w.
Sorry for being a bit aggressive here, but lvling a couple 50's should teach you a good way to play, but obviously not. Makes you wonder really, what's the world coming to?
I'm slowly leveling up my blapper, but I noticed that i can't get my punches out fast enough for them to be useful, so I would like to know and get some tips on how you you managed to make those Energy/Havoc Punch, Bone Smasher, Thunder Strike and Total Focus work well!
Thanks for any advice, I already set up some binds near the key I usually use for movement but they don't seem to be fast enough yet