Shield Binds

...I'm probable mad for asking this, but here goes...

I am considering once again rolling up a Defender. My previous experiences have been... less than ideal. While I chose some pretty versatile primaries, I was in turn overwhelmed by the responsibilities required. Heal X, Debuff A on Target 1, Call for AoE Buff, wait, no, need to debuff Target 2 quick... I can't heal again, it isn't recharged yet!

Yeah, talk about jumping into the deep end... with the sharks, to boot!

So, in response to this, I plan to try one of the Primaries that have less responsibilities. However, those all have one thing in common: They use Shields.

Here's the trick - I use a combination of Mouse and Keyboard when playing... but the way my desk is situated, I can not switch between Mouse and Keypad. To use one of the shield sets, I need a bind that I can activate quickly, without needing to use the keypad. Preferable, I would want something that cycles through my teammates, and applies both shields, with minimal buttons hit.

Has anyone done this? Or a suggestion on how best to go about it?

Thank you.

Actually, if you want a primary that requires less responsibility I'd actually recommend one of the debuffing sets in particular Trick Arrow or Traps. Trick Arrow has debuffs, most of which are AoE which means that you can play more like a Blaster, just pick an appropriate enemy in the middle of the group and let fly with debuffs (ok it's a little more complicated than that but not much). In general the planning comes in recognizing how much debuffing to apply before attacking rather than reacting to combat (although you do need to know when to fire off an Ice Arrow to stop an annoying LT).

Traps is pretty similar, although most of the debuffs are static so positioning is more important. Similarly you need to keep an eye on teammates to try and cover them with the FFG.

Regarding shield powers, I came up with three basic ways to do it back when I was considering making a Thermal (I later changed my mind so no clue how well any of these will work).

The first is to repurpose either the main number keys or the numpad numbers to select the teammate in the relevant position using /team_select then bind another pair of keys to the shields (or use a rotating bind and one key).

The second option was to make a set of 8 bind files containing the following (for file TeamPos{X}.txt):
{key1} "team_select {X-1}&&bind_load_file_silent "{path}\TeamPos{X-1}.txt""
{key2} "team_select {X+1}&&bind_load_file_silent "{path}\TeamPos{X+1}.txt""

Everything in {} is a variable based on the file that it's in but basically it selects the teammate above or below the one that you last selected and then rebinds the keys to select the next set along. Obviously this has a few issues notably that you'll have to press twice to go past yourself and if your team is fewer than 8 you might get lost. This can be partly solved by having a third key act as a reset to select the leader and reset the binds.

The final method was the most complicated of all. It involved a set of 195 bind files using a format similar to the ones above except that you loaded a specific set based on the number of teamates and your numeric position in the team . I wrote a computer program to generate them automatically. Unfortunately I lost the source code so currently they only work if you store them in D:\City of Heroes\BindFiles\TeamTarget because it didn't occur to me to give them a relative path instead (although if you want a copy with that proviso I can provide them)

EDIT: Now that I think about it for shielding only a variant of the second option would probably work the best. Have one key that selects the leader and resets the bind on a second key which selects the next person in line and rebinds itself each time you press it. You lose some flexibility by only being able to cycle in one direction, but you're normally shielding everyone at the same time anyway so it's not a huge issue.

-Adeon

Does your mouse have 5 buttons? Using mouse 4 and 5 bound to the powers via the regular control options (Tray powers 9 and 10) has given me very little hard ship, just click on each teammates name to target and cycle through.

I'm still not quite sure I understand the keyboard issue. Is it that you don't want to move your fingers off "WASD"? Are there any keys (like "G") that you could use?

OK. The basics of a bind are something like this:

/bind g "say gratz!"

bind, then the key, then (in quotes if there are spaces) the actual details.

I use shift-1, shift-2, etc, to select my teammates. Shift-8 is beyond your comfort zone, however. (my whole routine goes shift-1, 6,7,shift-2, 6,7... shift-8,6,7 .) Since I'm playing Force Fields and the force fields ARE the most important part of my job, I don't think that stopping everything to click on FF buttons is unreasonable. However, with things like Sonic and Ice that's not as obvious a decision.

To figure out what people are talking about upthread: You can make a file that contains binds. It'll have a name like "Binds.txt" or "c:\Programs and Files\City of heroes\binds.txt" or "Myclevertrix.txt" or whatever. It will be full of lines like
bind g "say gratz!"
bind f "say I nearly autoran there! Good thing I had a bind."
bind h "powexecname inferno"

(I don't know if I got "h" exactly right. I'm a little out of my depth myself. If I set it up right it will trigger the power "Inferno", as we know and love it.)

You can then, at your keyboard, type in "bind_load Myclevertrix.txt" and it will put all those binds in place at once. You can start a new character, type "Bind_load Myclevertrix.txt" and all the stuff you're used to will work.

These are relatively normal uses for binds, and bind files.

What we're suggesting is gratuitously complex and I myself have only ever done it once. At least three things are happening here:

1) You can bind a key to do more than one thing, as long as only one is a power.
It goes something like this:
bind g "say grats$$/em bow$$powexecname inferno" Which should, in some order I don't understand, say "Grats" AND do a bow AND trigger inferno. Explosive delight!

2) A bind file can load another bind file. So "Myclevertrix.txt" can have a line in it like this:
bind_load Moreclevertrix.txt

3) You can therefore create a text file that does something, then loads another text file to OVERWRITE THAT BEHAVIOR. Some people create "cycling taunts" this way:
tauntfile1.txt has a line in it that says
bind p "say yer mamma$$powexec taunt$$bindload tauntfile2.txt"

tauntfile2.txt has a line in it that says
bind p "say yer daddy,too$$powexec taunt$$bindload tauntfile2.txt"

Assuming those binds work- try 'em first, I'm pretty weak at this-

You set up tauntfile1. When you hit p, you taunt the enemy, while saying "yer mamma" AND you load tauntfile2.txt
tauntfile2.txt overwrites "p". Now, the NEXT time you hit p, you taunt the enemy, while saying "yer daddy, too" and it loads tauntfile1 . It will flip back and forth between those two taunts until you get bored and edit the files. You can have tauntfile2 load tauntfile3, which loads tauntfile1 . Your boredom with grinding out bindfiles (and of course avoiding typos) is the only limit.

Likewise, you can have one key that alternates between (say) using Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield. If you're really cool you can have one key that uses Deflection Shield on character 1, then uses Insulation shield on character 1 and selects character 2, then uses Deflection Shield on character 2, then .... etc. It would take about sixteen bind files.

This is solid in theory. I have never done it myself. I hope someone with more bind experience fixes my mistakes.

Perhaps try:

/bind G targetcustomnext teammate
/bind shift+G targetcustomprev teammate
/bind V powexecname <shield 1>
/bind B powexecname <sheild 2>


Hitting "G" will target the next teammate you can see, V and B cast your shields. This will only work for teammates within visual range, but that's usually good enough for me. Alternatively, you could create an up/down bind to cast both shields on one key, but I don't think there's that much benefit to it.

That's going to fall apart if the teammates move at all while you're cycling through.

What's wrong with clicking on teammates in the team window and clicking on the number key corresponding with the shield power?