Tray Management

I've recently discovered an issue on my mind/trick arrow that I have never experienced before and it completely baffles me!

I dont have enough slots in tray 1 to use all my powers when I want to!

Let me explain:

In the past I have made toons that usually end up with four or five useful attack powers and they end up in slots 1 - 5 of tray 1. The other five slots are taken by powers that are useful but not used as much - buffs etc. Toggles are normally stored in tray 2 (accessed via CTRL) with travel powers and tray 3 takes up miscellaneous powers that come in handy at times (accessed via ALT).

On my other toons this has been fine. BUT on my mind/trick arrow I have too many REALLY useful powers. And they're all clickies!

So I thought I would rearrange my trays so that group lockdown powers (mass hypnosis, total domination, mass confusion, emp arrow) are stored in tray 1, debuffs (glue arrow, acid arrow, poison gas arrow etc) are stored in tray 2 and finishing moves (mesmerise, dominate, leviatate etc) are stored in tray 3 and use macros to switch between the three. This works OK but gets REALLY confusing in fast paced missions what with all the tray switching and stuff!

I suppose half the problem is that I am used to keyboard playing rather than using the mouse but my mouse is unreliable at best (one of those crappy laptop ones). I am probably over-thinking everything but in my build I will have about 18 / 20 powers that I need to access quickly and I have no idea how to do it!

Does anyone else have problems like this? Can anyone suggest a solution?

I have that issue on nearly all of my toons. On so many even that it hasn't struck me as an issue in a long time now, it's quite normal.
On my ice/kin corr for instance I have 13-14 clickies which I all spam in different directions in the heat of the fight.
And spamming you can take literally with at least 11 of them being under 10 second recharge.

The solution: I tend to go no further than 1-5 on the primary either, but I bind these powers to all keys directly around the directional keys. If it's not enough I bind them all in combination with ALT as well...
Additionally, I still sometimes need to use certain powers through ALT+[number] as I put them on the second tray because even if I put them elsewhere on another tray and bind them to keys like Q, E, F, Z, X, C, V, etc... it isn't always enough.

My setup :
I stack my tray with my click powers 1-5 on trays one, two, and three, accessed with 1-5, shift+1-5, and alt+1-5. Sometimes I have click powers spill over the 6 slot.

Generally,
1-5 is ST attacks (though 1 is sometimes a targeted heal)
shift + 1-5 are AOE attacks
alt + 1-5 are self-buff powers like buildup, self-heal, +end powers.

I always bind travel power to "f" key (sometimes hover/combatjumping to "e").

Toggles all sit at the edge of my trays as I don't need to click them very often.

Also, I often bind special single target buffs, like shields and speed boost.

I'm a clicker, and I keep at least 4 trays open always.

I use 1-5, alt+1-5, qef, and alt+qef for click powers. I also have a ninja run <-> combat jumping bind on c and Sprint on alt+c on most characters. Anything else, I just click.

The only character I have trouble with is my MM, who uses up a whole lot of button real estate with /petcom binds.

After some experimenting with tray placement and style I've found that the following works best for me:

Trays 1-3 stacked at the bottom-right of the screen as usual. Numbers 1-5 are the typical attack chain. 1-5 in Tray 2 is usually Toggles. For Tanks/Scraps/Brutes this overflows into Tray 3 as well. Tray 4 is set in a 4X3 next to the Insp Tray and holds Macros for team communication (Resting, Incoming danger and so on) and rarely used powers like Self-destruct or Invis Temp power. Tray 5 is vertical along the right hand side of the screen and holds obscure stuff like WW port, Base port, Mission port, Pocket D and so on.

The big thing for me (also a keyboard player) is that I arrange the Numpad to fire up to a dozen powers. I sometimes have trouble remembering what goes where so I arrange the 7-9 buttons on trays 1-3 to resemble the Numpad 1-9. So Numpad 1 is Tray 1, button 7. Numpad 2 is Tray 1, button 8 and so on. Glancing at the trays tells me which button to push. If I need more I can use /, Multiply and - along the top in similar fashion.

If I didn't do it this way I'd never be able to play a Blaster. Having more than a dozen attacks to manage would be a nightmare.

I think I have the weirdest set-up of anyone. Since I set it up so my movement is controlled by the Numpad (blame my first MMO as a kid, FFXI. Seriously, what the hell, FFXI!? No customizable controls? ****** *******....) so turn left is Num4, right is Num6, forward is Num8, etc. Strafe is the arrow keys (used by the thumb), jump is Num0, down flight is Num5...

My other hand is my powers hand. I either use the mouse to click powers manually or use 1-0 with this hand. However, it awkward to use something like Alt/Ctrl+8 so anything between 6-0 on tray 2 and 3 are mapped to other keys.

On tray 3, powers 7-0 are mapped to NumLock, Num/, Num* and Num-. Tilde is power 1 in this tray and 2-6 are Ctrl+1-5.

On tray 2, powers 6-9 are mapped to Alt+ the above with power 0 being mapped to Num+. So Alt+1-5 are the first 5 slots.

Which powers go where is variable by character. But any self-click used the most often always goes into Num+ (usually mez protection clicks or click heals), Ninja Run/Beast Run always goes in Num-, toggles go in 8,9 and 0, and any other clicks go wherever I enjoy placing them for that character ^_^

It usually gives me around *counts on fingers* around 30 easy access key press combinations if I ever have that many powers I just need access to (which is never, so far).

I always hear how much trouble people have playing stalkers and getting AS off, but it's like child's play in most any situation with my ability to move and click powers using separate hands.

I find that my short fingers make it hard for me to use the alt+# and ctrl+# defaults for powers in the second and third tray, so I use a custom bind that swaps my active tray while button 4 on my mouse is held, then swaps back when released. There are times where latency will cause one of the binds to get stuck on the wrong tray, so I also have a macro that reverts to tray 1, and reloads the proper starting bind file.

Both files are saved in my \piggs directory since I'm too lazy to put path names in the bind.

alttray1.txt

button4 "+$$gototray 8$$bindloadfilesilent alttray2.txt"

button4 "+$$gototray 1$$bindloadfilesilent alttray1.txt"

For me:

1-6 are number keys, but after that I start wrapping around the keyboard.
R is 7, and is often reserved for ranged attacks on melee, or snipes on ranged attackers.
F is 8, and is often one of my movement toggles (e.g. Hover)
V is 9
C is 0

With Alt and Ctrl modifying things to the second and third tray as desired. I find it works well.

It sounds like you just need to bind some more keys.

Me, I hate clicking things. My first tray binds are 1-5, A, D, C, Z and tilde. Second tray is alt+1-3, shift+1-3, and shift+A, D, C, and Z. Third tray is four button mouse binds and some other esoteric ones that I don't use in combat (ouro portal, fortune, etc.)

I use WASD for movement, and most used attacks in 1 thru 5 or 6. Then everything else is a click. I keep 3 trays open on the bottom, then a 4th I have vertical on the RH side of the screen, to use for stuff like Base TP, WW TP, rest, Gather the team, Reveal. Non battle related clicks.

I'd say either keybind things or get real quick with ctrl+number or alt+number. I learned how to play this game way back in the day on a laptop so I detest the mouse. All my attacks/debuffs go on tray one, all my toggles go on tray two and keybinds that go on my numpad are on row three(if I don't have alot of other stuff then it goes to the next available tray) to remind me whats what. For useful temps and other fluff stuff I use occasionally go on trays 4-6. I have made use of all the trays on a few toons.

I run into this a lot... I have characters with more than 10 attacks, before even counting toggles (Blasters with most of their secondary used too). My solution: I cheat. I use a Merc Stealth gaming keyboard and have 15 buttons I can reach without moving my hand assigned to various tray slots, plus CTRL or ALT + a key for the rest. That's usually enough for the click powers I use regularly, though I swear one character has so many I considered getting a Razer Naga mouse too.

(I actually bought the keyboard for FPS gaming, but it's great in MMOs too.)

I run three trays, stacked in the right corner as per default. The first tray has attack chain goodies (1-6) and commonly-used click powers (7-0). Second tray has toggles and less-commonly used powers. Third tray has movement powers and temps. I'm in the process of changing all my toggles over to a single popmenu macro, which will free up a lot of real estate in that second tray.

The numberpad always has shift+4, shift+5 and shift+6 mapped to Pocket D VIP Pass, Ouroboros Portal and Rest, respectively. On non-buffing characters, 7-9 will be mapped to 7-9 on the second tray. On buffing characters, numpad 1-8 will be mapped to teamselect binds and divide, multiply, and subtract will be mapped to buffs. Numpad 1-3 are usually mapped to inspcombine chains. Add is reserved for targeting binds.

Tilde is always target_enemy_near, with follow for melee characters.

All that said, I'm thinking about buying a Razer Naga...

Ominously, the trend seems to be to add even more clickable powers (Incarnate Judgement, for example). Personally, I'm concerned about mindshare being overloaded, let alone space on the interface. I sure wish some of the upcoming additions to the game would take this into account, and either be passive or be improvements to clickies you already have (like the Alpha Incarnate slot) instead of entirely new clickies competing for already-filled tray slots and already-busy user attention span.

I rarely have this issue, I keep my toggles and ancillary powers in 1-2 "3x4" trays next to the main three, with my attack chain in the first few slots of tray 1, clicky powers with longer recharges like self heals (usually the first slot), BU, Rage, Dom, etc etc in tray two, and the top tray with movement powers, teleporters and the like.

Get up c'mon get down with the clickness!

9 trays
all 4 chat tabs
every window open
lots of binds and macros but I don't bind powers
And I monitor a bunch of stuff (defense, damage bonus, stealth)

I use a Fang and mouse to move and fight and the keyboard is for chatting

Might seem cluttered but works out ok after messing with the window and font scales

Long ago, in the self-interest of quick responsiveness, I ditched WASD and changed to DSCF instead (with strafe keys X and V). That gives me the Q-P row for tray 1; 1-0 for tray 2, and SHIFT+[1-0] for tray 3 (along with being more ergonomic). Swapping between primary movement powers is bound to Tab (Fly/Hover, SJ/CJ, SS toggle); Sprint toggle is bound to SHIFT+Tab. (Enemy_next is G; enemy_near is B; friend_next is A; friend_near is Z.) I wish the game would allow key assignments to all trays, but this gets me by.

I also now have a large enough monitor to get all 9 trays displayed without taking up too much of my view. I place tray 4 just to the left of tray 1, and this is where I put my "important" rare-use click powers, such as Eye of the Magus. I keep my most-used offensive powers in Q-T; most-used defensive toggles or lesser-used click powers in Y-P, going up in Tray 2-3 for each category.