Clickies... how can I avoid them?

[kelabb]

Unfortunately, my hands don't have the dexterity of a master trapsmith and finding the right keys and pressing them is just too slow for me. I can almost count on one hand the number of sunders I've landed, and trip is even easier: zip!

Is there a class that is less clicky dependant than others?

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind clicking to cast a spell or achieve a bonus that lasts a while (though I really don't like the Damage or Attack or Armour Class 20 second bonuses). What I detest is the one type wonders that just don't hit, cleave, smite, and yes sunder and trip.

I guess I'm looking for a class that I can swipe away until the bad guy is dead. Does such a class exist?

[mistahnice]

Unfortunately, my hands don't have the dexterity of a master trapsmith and finding the right keys and pressing them is just too slow for me. I can almost count on one hand the number of sunders I've landed, and trip is even easier: zip!

Is there a class that is less clicky dependant than others?

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind clicking to cast a spell or achieve a bonus that lasts a while (though I really don't like the Damage or Attack or Armour Class 20 second bonuses). What I detest is the one type wonders that just don't hit, cleave, smite, and yes sunder and trip.

I guess I'm looking for a class that I can swipe away until the bad guy is dead. Does such a class exist?

Barbarian, hands down. You have to worry about rage (few minutes), frenzy(one minute), attack boost(20s) at the bare minimum. Cleave is pretty dumb anyways, interrupts your attack chain. You can trip if you want, you have a huge strength to back it up, and you can stunning blow eventually.

[gott_ist_tot]

Are you using WSAD keys for movement?


I can almost count on one hand the number of sunders

Map this to the Q key.


trip is even easier: zip!

Map this to E key.
And voila! No stumbling to find the key required.

Yeh, pressing number 7 just in time sucks. Hunt down the keypresses you're fast at performing,
an bind your actions to them. Are you used to writing in text editor? Use crtl+c,x,v. Are you
a programmer? Bind to your IDE's compile/run keystrokes. I have my fastest key (ctrl+space)
dedicated either to healing or to featherfalling gear (if this is swappable on your chasracter, you want
to acces it fast).

The rest of my keystrokes are 1/2/3. alt+(1/2/3), alt+(e,r,t), q,e,f, r, t, g. Just the things i found myself
fast at pressing. May require you to rebind standard UI actions (like the Q button).

P.S. Trip and Sunder only?! Outrageous! Quit whining and try to play a monk :-P

[Khellendros13]

Get a better mouse.

I have a G9, and hotbar slots 4-0 are mapped to it, and the 2nd hotbar has ctrl+4-0, so I have 14 functions on my mouse. I can't imagine playing a caster any other way.

On my melee toons, trip and/or stunning blow are mapped to the 2 thumb buttons normally used to go back or forwards in a web browser. Use 1 for potions, and the rest for weapon sets/clicky abilities like Power Surge, Rage, Haste boost.

Worst case, you can assign those 2 buttons and the middle click. Then you still have E and Q as mentioned.

[sephiroth1084]

Definitely go barbarian, or try using a gamepad (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=153100).

[phalaeo]

I second the better mouse option- it will improve the skills of any character you play.

Example- I'm a 32 year old chick with no previous experience with MMOs. My hand-eye coordination blows and the last time I had any twitch skills was approximately the time I put down Super Mario Brothers sometime in the 80's. I've managed to play a Cleric pretty effectively with a different mouse (according to my own enjoyment and the kind words of people I've played with).

And Clerics have a lot of buttons to push.

Basically, what I did is got a mouse that has ergonomically placed hot buttons on the sides and I key-mapped everything necessary there. Targeting? Flick of a thumb. CC? Ring finger. Heals? Center button.

My mouse was about $40 and I was skeptical at first, but gosh, I do love the thing.

I only play Clerics, so I'm unable to really advise you on how many buttons other classes push on regular cycles.

[Anderei]

On my fighter I just drag the most important skills to the quick bar. From left to right to importance/often used. since those near WASD are easier to hit.

1 .. kick
2 .. sunder
3 .. intimitate
4 .. cleave (not important but since I got it why not use it once in a while, you have to be surrounded by a really big group to make it worthwhile tough)
5 .. haste boost
6 .. attack boost (rarely use it tough, may exchange it to devine power)
7 .. cure potions
8, 9, 10 I put in weapon slots, depending on the quest I may change which weapons come in handy in the quick bar and drag them there

I know how this is, my rogue was also my first toon, and I never had the chance to use uncanny dodge. First you will get confident with the time and have more brainpower left to use clickies, second I think its the rogue class, altough other classes have clickies too, fighting is with them easier, since you have less to fear to squish all the time, worry about your sneak attack, etc. While I got used to hit haste boosts before fights, I still forget about clicking devine power most of the time :-/

Altough caster do get a ton more buttons, I found them easier to play, since you are standing in the back and throw a spell once in a while, less like a DPS melee who is behaving like on crack rushing from mob to mob (at least mine is doing that, the first times I played it I got much more tired than any other char I tried so far)

If you want to keep being a trapmonkey, there are some wonderful splashes:

My favorite newbie advice is this build:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=230165
Cleric with trapmonkey abilities. (Biggest disadvantage at 9-15 lvls, when you die in the trap, who raises you? Otherwise I rolled a lvl 4 now and had quite some fun.)

[kelabb]

Thank you for the constructive suggestions.

I've done some keymapping changes and being playing a bard all morning. I had to make a few alterations, and when I was under pressure I kept hitting my old hotkeys! lol!

I usually play melees, but this thread came out of trying to use smite on my paladin, and I was/am frustrated at never landing those one-hits. Not so concerned with the boosts, it's the smite, trip, cleaves of the game that I'm just not landing. And I hate having to take a feat when I know I can't use it!

Is there any way of saving a key map to import to another toon?

Cheers and good hunting.

[Kaervas]

Sounds like you want a tempest ranger.
It's just an unending chain of melee attacks which do steady damage and don't rely on short-term boosts (when pure, they don't even get haste boost enhancements, though they can pick it up by taking specific 18/2 or 18/1/1 splits or one of the many 6/??/?? splits which just obtain tempest 1).
They won't be able to get very viable DCs for trip without excessive sacrifice, and are too feat-starved to spare the feat for improved trip/stunning blow (and the same DC issue applies). Not saying it's impossible but the cost is crazy high and the DCs of your tactical moves still end up behind a fighter or barbarian.
They don't have anything fancy to time like smites.
They don't need to THF twitch as they use TWF.

They do have Manyshot every couple minutes but that's boost-like in it's usage, switch to a bow, trigger Manyshot and just go nuts for 20 seconds loosing streams of enemy-piercing arrows with Improved Precise Shot (which you get for free).
You can get away with not using this, it's fairly situational. Plus when you use it, you pull out a bow, so you won't have the same issues you currently have with smite/trip/etc not landing.

They have some buffs but they are spell type and once you have some levels under your belt they'll start lasting long enough to not be an issue.

Consider a multiclass to take advantage of tempest, while gaining some useful boosts or bonus feats, and increased performance.
Your trip/stunning blow will still be a shadow of what a fighter or barbarian can pull off, so you don't need to bother with it (dual weighted 5% warhammers are your "stunning blow").
You won't need or take cleave (it's horrible anyways).

It's just straight-up beating the stuffing out of things until they die.
The downside is you may end up getting bored in combat because there's nothing engaging to do aside from making sure you're hitting the right target.

[kelabb]

Sounds like you want a tempest ranger.
It's just an unending chain of melee attacks which do steady damage and don't rely on short-term boosts (when pure, they don't even get haste boost enhancements, though they can pick it up by taking specific 18/2 or 18/1/1 splits or one of the many 6/??/?? splits which just obtain tempest 1).
They won't be able to get very viable DCs for trip without excessive sacrifice, and are too feat-starved to spare the feat for improved trip/stunning blow (and the same DC issue applies). Not saying it's impossible but the cost is crazy high and the DCs of your tactical moves still end up behind a fighter or barbarian.
They don't have anything fancy to time like smites.
They don't need to THF twitch as they use TWF.

They do have Manyshot every couple minutes but that's boost-like in it's usage, switch to a bow, trigger Manyshot and just go nuts for 20 seconds loosing streams of enemy-piercing arrows with Improved Precise Shot (which you get for free).
You can get away with not using this, it's fairly situational. Plus when you use it, you pull out a bow, so you won't have the same issues you currently have with smite/trip/etc not landing.

They have some buffs but they are spell type and once you have some levels under your belt they'll start lasting long enough to not be an issue.

Consider a multiclass to take advantage of tempest, while gaining some useful boosts or bonus feats, and increased performance.
Your trip/stunning blow will still be a shadow of what a fighter or barbarian can pull off, so you don't need to bother with it (dual weighted 5% warhammers are your "stunning blow").
You won't need or take cleave (it's horrible anyways).

It's just straight-up beating the stuffing out of things until they die.
The downside is you may end up getting bored in combat because there's nothing engaging to do aside from making sure you're hitting the right target.

Thanks for the tips. I've started Rangers a few times but for one reason or another felt gimped. Probably because I had too little STR and too many stats in other areas. I was enjoying one but then I became vip and bought 32 point builds so my 28 pointer seemed gimped already.

I decided I'd go back to my fighter and level him all the way to 20 (just turned 7) complete with Human Versatility and Attack buffs. I've keymapped all the keys around WASD and I reckon by the time he's capped the muscle memory will be such that it will all be automatic.

Then, I'm thinking of a Ranger... and then a Barbarian... and then a Paladin. (I've experimented with a few bards so I'll probably have one to act as hagglebot.)

Cheers

[FuzzyDuck81]

P.S. Trip and Sunder only?! Outrageous! Quit whining and try to play a monk :-P

gods yes.. monk is like playing a piano, i have 10 hotkeys just for the various attacks & a few other things with my multiclassed monk builds that i have to switch between regularly, not counting things on other hotbars, plus movement etc.

playing my new fighter-based toon is like banging away at a tambourine in comparison :)

[MalkavianX]

I have the exact same problem. More often than not I find myself scrambling to push the right buttons. I have an old school G15 keyboard with 18 extra function keys to the left, but still I scramble. This should help. As soon as I can distract the wife long enough so she doesn't notice me buying it, I'll go with this mouse. If you get one it should reduce some of your finger woes.

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/227/razernagagallery1.jpg http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/635/razernagagallery5.jpg


It's got 17 MMO-optimized buttons! 17! Right at your finger tips! Now the problem for me will be remembering which button does what... O.o

[MalkavianX]

Ack! Double post! Run! My bad, sorry bout that.