Feldon Some exciting news for players who have been wanting a setting for Autoattack during combat in EQ2! On the Test server, a new option has been added to the Character/Persona/Inventory window under the Options panel:
This option should allow Rangers to set “Forced Ranged” and never need to use kludgy macros to ensure they are always doing ranged autoattacks. A ranger never wants to be doing melee autoattacks and we have relied on macros with the command /auto 2 for years.
Further, this will be a sigh of relief to Mages and Priests who will now be able to use their choice of either Focus/Ranged ‘Wand‘ items or traditional Symbol items and still choose whether they want to use the new Spell Weapon Autoattack, or stick to Melee combat. This change will be of particular benefit to Enchanters, Druids, Mystics, and Clerics, all of whom have Alternate Advancement lines that require melee combat for their best effects to apply. This will also allow healers to work around a bug with some cures and buffs which place them into ‘spell combat’.
From the May 10th, 2012 Test Notes:
COMBAT
Players can now select their preferred method of autoattacking using the /setautoattackmode command (0 for default, 1 for melee, 2 for spell/ranged) or by the drop-down setting in the Character UI options under “Auto Attack Mode”.
very very nice.
Yay! Now can anybody who has tried it confirm it works as intended?
Great, now I gotta re-reforge from spell weapon to haste.
How about a “none” option on autoattack? I’m a mage, and I can’t stand that spell autoattack, but I normally don’t melee autoatack either. I prefer to stand back out of aoe range and just nuke.
If you stand at range, there is no reason why you wouldn’t want to use spell autoattack. It’s free DPS and has no downsides that I can think of. It starts on your first successful hostile spell (priests have reported that some cures and buffs trigger it), runs as long as you are in combat, and stops when combat ends.
Now, as an Enchanter, Shaman, Cleric, or Druid, you absolutely want to be using melee autoattack at all times due to AA lines which only proc (trigger) on melee attacks. Some of these effects debuff the mob, heal the group, etc.
And as a Ranger, naturally we want to be ranged autoattack at all times. Situationally, I can see a few Bards setting theirs to ranged on certain fights, and rangers changing theirs to melee on certain fights.
Thank you SOE for finally putting this in.
@Demerzel
Why would you not want free (albeit very low) damage? Spell autoattack doesn’t require you to do anything, it just does free damage and even has a chance to proc effects.
Demerzel: Why can you not stand spell auto-attack? It’s not like you have to time them.
All I’m going to say is that it took those morons more then 8 years to figure out something players have known since day 1 if not since eq1 days and have continually (in thoughtful, logically, reasonable, unreasonable, angry, and malicious) ways of bringing it up to the devs attention….and five plat says the sh*t will be broke, the day it goes live in traditional SOE model of ineptitude.
There really aren’t too many downsides to spell autoattack if you wouldn’t be doing melee damage, but one that still seems to be occurring on test is that certain spells still trigger spell auto when they shouldn’t. For me it’s the summoner transference AA ability, and also the pet-health-to-power spell essence shift. Both of which can trigger spell auto, and I’m sad to say have pulled mobs on live when the tank has one targeted, and I use one of these abilities. These are rarely used spells while grouping, but it’s still unfortunate that they trigger autoattack at all.
If you stand at range, there is no reason why you wouldn’t want to use spell autoattack.
Mezzes, stuns, roots, snares…there’s a host of things spell auto has been fouling. And it’s a new factor arriving after 7-8 years, forcing us all to rework how we play just to help lazy devs out of the itemization hole they dug themselves.
Add that it’s so easily blocked or otherwise rendered moot (or used to be, anyway) and the whole thing could disappear tomorrow and I’d be happy.
If a mage / priest doesn’t want to have ranged auto attack going they could make their setting forced melee. If they’re standing back nuking / healing they’ll be out of range of the mob. So they won’t be doing auto attacks. Not sure why people wouldn’t want the free DPS but this would be a simple work around to do it.
And as a former / still have an alt ranger it never should have taken 8 years to make this happen. SOE Slackers!
1. It’s practically zero damage (spell auto) so why bother.
2. It makes no sense. What does ‘spell auto-attack’ even mean?
3. Until you fix all your settings, it makes you face the mob and messes with your in-combat movement.
4. If I wanted to auto-attack the mob, I’d roll a melee class.
Senseless, useless, irritating, annoying.
Also, as Feldon pointed out, for AA reasons the only toons who should be spell auto’ing are sorcerers (although even they have combat arts and are often in melee range) and summoners. ALL healers and 1/3 of the mages should always be doing melee damage. So they made this for 4 classes? Again, useless and pointless. Should be removed. And no, I’m not mad, why do you ask? 😛
1. It’s practically zero damage (spell auto) so why bother.
Procs?
2. It makes no sense. What does ’spell auto-attack’ even mean?
it’s an auto-attack that works like a spell – has range and is magic based. It triggers every few seconds automatically.
Ah good. While i found it strange to discover a wand that my druid could use, I much prefer using melee autoattack because I’m a melee warden.
What I’d like to see is the ability to set a particular spell or attack as your auto attack like they allow in city of heroes. My SK would be putting out a never ending green cloud around them that kills everything slowly. No more bacon Cheddar ranch for her!
@Aaron: yes I know how it works, but it makes no sense to me. So..you’re casting spells automatically even when you’re not casting spells? Melee auto-attack is simply swinging your weapon without using any specially-trained ‘combat arts’…but Spell auto-attack is casting spells without casting spells. I realize we’re moving pixels around in a made-up environment, but I prefer when it has some sort of internal logic.
It’s way easier to understand ranged autoattack in a role playing sense when you’re using a bow; it takes time to ready and draw an arrow (or 6 by today’s numbers), but the best I can think of is we’ve recently found these magical wands with unlimited charges of a weak crushing spell that automatically fire every so often. Oh and the spell misses their intended target at least 20% of the time. 😀
As a temp I’ve found I get more dps albeit lame (I’m a temp remember) from the ranged focus item (interesting side effect intentionally or not is many damage procs/heals (descent of kael anyone) can proc oassively) i.e. throw a nuke to begin the cycle and the shit will keep procing while I focus on heals…I still throw what nukes I have in the mix but even if I dont the shit will proc.
But I agree the ranged focus damage def needs an upward tweak.
@ Veteran81: “and five plat says the sh*t will be broke, the day it goes live in traditional SOE model of ineptitude.”
It’s on Test, go test it yourself and un-bug it 😉
@whilhelmina this has been such a sore topic, needed since they put such heavy emphasis on auto attack, and has been being asked for and bitched about for at least the last six years. Frankly NO ONE should have to log on and test. SOE’s internal should program, test, and launch this unbugged. That’s how the real world works. In my profession if we launched half assed products to our client base as consistently as SOE we would’nt have a client base for long.
It’s on Test, go test it yourself and un-bug it be ignored by the devs
Fixed for accuracy. You must be new to EQ2…
Honestly, what I’d really like is a proximity-based setting. Both of my mains have ample reason to melee but often they need to be in the back for one reason or another. I’d hate to be be doing nothing because I am using “force melee” and need to get out of harm’s way.
So for me the least micro management would be a setting that says “favor melee” meaning I would still spell autoattack when I happen to be out of range but no amount of spellcasting will cause me to switch to spell autoattack when I’m in the mob’s face.
I started playing EQ2 in 2005 and played half time on Test since 2009 and nearly full time since last year. I’m far from new to the game nor new to the testing process.
We all now that SoE relays heavily on testers to unbug the content. They don’t always listen to reports I agree and we had a very bad trend on that point last year. Since the last beta, it seems the bug reports are way more taken into account and fixed.
The thing is, we can’t test everything if nobody bothers to come to test. And THAT’s why I made my previous comment: you all know that stuff goes to test bugged. you all know that bugged stuff gets fixed if players report them but won’t if nobody reports them. It doesn’t stop a fair (or unfair) share of players to blame every single bug on testers who didn’t test “enough” while never bothering to even go once on the Test server to actually help with the testing.
if its facing the mob that botheres u u can always go to options -view options – controll ands uncheck the box for autoface 🙂
And i want a NONE option ! Why when i root do i have to think also to put a macro so that my want do not continue to fire ?
Camelotcrusade’s Idea for settings is nice. Add “favor melee”/”favor range” as option. This would insure you would never miss a autoattack due to range issues.
Agreed, that’s the best idea. It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to implement, I’m going to feedback that later.
“SOE’s internal should program, test, and launch this unbugged. That’s how the real world works.”
Um, Bull-puckie. There is not a single stand-alone, networked, professional, mobile or entertainment application that goes out the door bug free. THAT is the real world.
For that matter the real world itself is not bug free.
@Landin and Gunthor – thanks guys. I brought up this idea right after spell autoattack came out but it didn’t get any traction on the forums. I hadn’t come up with the terms “favor range / favor melee” yet, though.
Feel free to take the idea and run with it on the forums or via /feedback. I’d love to see it be the next evolution of the feature.
Did NOT make it in the patch today …
Why would you NOT want ranged? Because there are mobs in raids that will cast a curse on you, and if you do any damage at all, it blows everyone up around you. This is bad mmmkay? =P