Timing CA's with Auto Attack

[ChuMann]

<p>After being gone from the game for about a year and rerolling a new class (this will be my new main) I'm curious on the community's take on timing out your Combat Arts with your auto attack.  Reason I ask is because I see a few threads mentioning the benefits of it, and I have a few questions.</p><p>1)  Back in the day, I originally thought that you wouldn't auto attack only if you were casting a spell when your auto attack was suposed to trigger.  You would however auto attack as normal if you were using a combat art (hence the distinguishing of a combat art vs. a spell).  Was this changed, or has it always been this way and I was misinformed?</p><p>2)  How much benefit does it provide?  I can see it provide some benefit if it's true that an auto attack will only trigger once a check has been made to see if you're casting.  But I can't see it provide more than maybe 50 dps even with the STA/STR AA's, if that much because the cast time on our CAs is so quick.  And especially if going down the INT line with stacking raid haste buffs, gear haste procs/buffs, it would seem dam near impossible to time all your CA's in between an auto attack.</p><p>3)  How many raid tanks try to do time out your CAs?  I've never been a hotbar "spammer", but if I did this, I would have to have a seperate chat window setup to only record my auto attack swings to do this properly.  That sounds ridiculous to me.</p><p>Anyway, thanks for any input you guys have.</p>

[einar4]

<p> I am pretty sure there is a detailed explanation of this on some thread somewhere, but... </p><p> The idea is that because there is a casting time(before) and a recovery time(after) with any combat art, there is a time slice with each CA where auto-attacks will not be happening.  So to keep the damage output steady, you have to have enough recovery time between CAs to allow for autoattacks, else your damage output would be primarily CAs, and any benefits from haste items or buffs will be lost.   With higher delay weapons, which is mainly going to be fabled or 2 handers, this is less of an issue than with the usual 1.2 - 1.6 delay weapons you usually find. </p><p> In my opion, CAs may be a good source of damage output, but the CAs for me are debuffs, stuns, interrupts, etc. as well as high damage spikes.  They are used for a purpose, and I use them as appropriate during a fight.  Of course I _do_ use them and they usually get used as fast as they recycle.  So even with a fast delay weapon, I end up having enough spacing to allow for the auto attacks to provide steady damage output.  </p>

[Freydinessa]

I've thought about this and checked with the mystic class - and between Macroed spells (i.e. one straight after the other, with one button press) there was an auto attack recorded. Also, both spells had a chance to proc my weapon as well, something that others have posted as untrue/not possible. I'll have to check this again with my Guardian though. If/when i do, i'll let you know how it goes, but i'm guessing it will be a similar thing.

[ChuMann]

I hate to be "that guy" but I'd really like to hear some more opinions about this.  Come on guys, spill the infoz!

[Freydinessa]

I've checked this out now, and yes they do auto attack better CAs when 'spamming' and macroing CAs together. I'm pretty sure you don't auto attack while preparing (casting) a combat art though. So in theory if you time is exactly to put your CAs between your Auto attacks then you might get a little dps bonus, but just the effort to correlate this and 'wait' in battle for the moment to start a CA would negate any bonus. In any event i'm in no was using combat arts all the time - i'd say in battle it's 30/70 combat arts to auto attack (time wise).

[Tybr]

<p>This is my method...</p><p> As soon as a button refreshes I punch it back down.  </p><p>Vola~</p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(I'm a Guardian what did you expect?)</span></p>

[Weco]

<cite>Tybr wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>This is my method...</p><p> As soon as a button refreshes I punch it back down.  </p><p>Vola~</p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(I'm a Guardian what did you expect?)</span></p></blockquote>This works for me as well.  I even have all my CA attacks ordered so I just go down the line, start over and go down again.  If I get a melee attack in, thats a bonus.  I'm more focused on keeping aggro on me, the higher DPS folks can take the mobs down, I'll take the hits for em.  Nice trade off.

[Geckownage]

I have been taught that timing of melee swings in between CA's is the best way to maximize damage and secure agro. You need to make it a habit to time your melee in between CAs! I believe Advanced Combat Tracker (parse program, look it up if you don't have it) has a feature that "dings" when your delay is up and cue's you to use your CAs or pause for melee. I learned how to time it with my 1.6 delay sword so I know that in order to make it work, simply do not cue up the next button. Take your time, and pace yourself. You will hold mobs better and parse higher if you be patient and time your melee with CA use. If you sport any weapon with 2.0 delay or higher, go get ACT and get the timer figured out. It will rock. Hope this helps.

[Tybr]

<cite>Geckownage wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have been taught that timing of melee swings in between CA's is the best way to maximize damage and secure agro. You need to make it a habit to time your melee in between CAs! I believe Advanced Combat Tracker (parse program, look it up if you don't have it) has a feature that "dings" when your delay is up and cue's you to use your CAs or pause for melee. I learned how to time it with my 1.6 delay sword so I know that in order to make it work, simply do not cue up the next button. Take your time, and pace yourself. You will hold mobs better and parse higher if you be patient and time your melee with CA use. If you sport any weapon with 2.0 delay or higher, go get ACT and get the timer figured out. It will rock. Hope this helps. </blockquote><p>Ohhhhh thats what your talking about....Ok I get it. </p><p>Yea I do this as well I "generaly" do not que up a attack unless I'm in PvP mode or being lazy. </p>

[Emo]

do people realise that auto attack is where you aggro comes from? just parse it, your autoattack swings does more dmg than your CA you would be very unwise to not time your autoattack and miss swings. /weapon in game will give you the delay of your weapon, from here on calculate how many CA you can squeeze in between auto attack.

[danmuntz]

Ding!  Emoec is the winner!

[Permanent]

<cite>Emoec wrote:</cite><blockquote>do people realise that auto attack is where you aggro comes from?just parse it, your autoattack swings does more dmg than your CA you would be very unwise to not time your autoattack and miss swings./weapon in game will give you the delay of your weapon, from here on calculate how many CA you can squeeze in between auto attack.</blockquote><p><span style="color: #cc0000;">QFE</span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000;">Just by understanding this principle you can double+ your current DPS (dps = hate). It also makes or breaks a high dps scout so why shouldn't we use it? <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></span></p><p><img src="http://mysite.verizon.net/hn1/Gowsig.jpg" border="0" alt="" width="400" height="145" /></p>

[Raahl]

<p>So let me get this straight.</p><p>To maximize DPS and hate you:</p><ol><li>Hit a CA</li><li>Wait for melee swing</li><li>Hit a CA</li><li>Wait for melee swing</li><li>Rinse repeat</li></ol><p>I'm very interested in figuring this out, cause my DPS is a bit low for my taste.</p><p>I'm the type that punches the buttons as they come up.  To me it sounds like this is a bad strategy.</p><p>Can we get a little more details on what a typical fight is like?</p>

[Figfore]

It depends on weapon delay and time to cast CA. I pull mob taunt with single taunt with hit that also turns on auto attack. Swing then using delay i cant use 2 to 5 CA between swings. Check casting speed. One other thing is never start with your biggest hit. Wait for mobs to be debuffed. This helps build larger aggro when the paper cannons and squishes start to really unload. But the timing is the key and auto attack with crit should double your dps and save you some mana if your a CA spammer.

[Raahl]

<cite>Figfore wrote:</cite><blockquote>It depends on weapon delay and time to cast CA. I pull mob taunt with single taunt with hit that also turns on auto attack. Swing then using delay i cant use 2 to 5 CA between swings. Check casting speed. One other thing is never start with your biggest hit. Wait for mobs to be debuffed. This helps build larger aggro when the paper cannons and squishes start to really unload. But the timing is the key and auto attack with crit should double your dps and save you some mana if your a CA spammer.</blockquote><p>I am a horrible CA spammer.  </p><p>Ok so if I am using a 4 sec delay weapon.</p><ol><li>Taunt (Add "Autoattack On" as part pf a macro to all my taunts without attacks)</li><li>Auto Attack</li><li>Cast CA's that have a combined cast time of less than 4 seconds.</li><li>Auto Attack</li><li>Cast CA's that have a combined cast time of less than 4 seconds.</li><li>Auto Attack</li></ol><p>Do I have that right now?</p>

[Raahl]

<p>Tanking last night my DPS increased a good chunk.  I was trying to time my CA's so that my Auto Attacks would fire off the most.</p><p>I probably saw a 25-30% on average increase in my DPS.   My highest DPS for a fight to date happened last night at 1550'ish.  Though I did have a few fights that were below 700 (Deaths, quick fights or some other oddity).</p><p>Now I tweaked a few other things:</p><ul><li>Started using a higher delay weapon.</li><li>Changed my spec to drop the 10% hate gain from STR and add some of the INT line to increase my haste.</li></ul><p>I'll continue experimenting with this and let you know what I find.</p><p>Next raid I will try and use a short delay weapon and try and get it to fire off an auto attack between every CA.  </p>

[Freydinessa]

<span style="font-size: small;">The short answer is: </span><span style="font-size: small;color: #66ff00;"><u><b>Trying to combine Combat Arts in between auto attacks is a BIG waste of time. It has ZERO effect.</b></u></span>My Guardian has a two-handed sword with a delay of 2.5 seconds.<u>First Battles</u>She ran around killing Magma Drakes at the start of Lavastorm. 1 vs 1 combat.She killed 9 drakes doing nothing but auto attacks.In brief she took an average auto attack swing every <i>2.29 </i>seconds, with a variation in swing rate of <i>3.98%</i> between the 9 battles.<u>Second Battles</u>She then ran around killing Magma Drakes at the start of Lavastorm. 1 vs 1 combat.She killed 9 drakes using all her combat arts continually, there were no breaks at all waiting for them to recharge (i.e. Spamming)In brief, she took an average auto attack swing every <i>2.31 </i>seconds, again with a variation in swing rate of <i>4.03%</i> between the 9 battles.There was an average swing rate decrease of <i>0.02</i> seconds between the two sets of battles. Which equals a percentage decrease of <i>1.18%</i>.<span style="color: #ccff66;"></span><span style="color: #ccff66;"><span>A variation of <b>1.18%</b> between the two styles of battles, which in themselves contain a <b>4%</b> variation in swing rate equals, <b><i>no difference what so ever</i></b>.</span><b></b></span>There are a few important things to note.- This null effect would only apply to classes that use combat arts.- Mirtai has a base haste rate of +8%, hence the 2.5 second sword, hitting every 2.3 seconds.<span style="color: #ff0033;"><u><b></b></u></span><span style="font-size: small;color: #66ff00;"><span style="color: #ff0033;"><u><b>Take home message</b></u></span>: Either spamming combat arts, doing nothing but auto-attacks, or trying to time them all together, will lead to no difference in your <i>auto attack</i> swing frequency.</span> 

[Naglfar]

<p>It's not because you're typing in a bold green style that lies become truth...</p><p>60 to 70% of guard dps should come from his auto attack. Timing CA is mandatory to be efficient during a raid. The amount of DPS gained is awesome, and if you want to test it you should try during a raid, or at least with a dirge buffing you.</p>

[Geckownage]

Lavastorm, eh? I'll put my money on the fact you area a T5 warrior who has not raided with his Guardian in any EQ2 raid zone and went to his writ grind looking to test it himself! Naglfar is right, get yourself raid buffed with an appropriate group-1 make-up and a nice fabled 1-h (doesn't even have to be the buckler combo, but even moreso proof) and tell me your auto-attacks don't equal or exceed your CA damage. But hey, it's your raids and your choice. Rock that 2-hander how you see fit, but do not bother trying to disprove this one.To the OP:Glad to help out!

[Bramwe]

I find myself losing dps if I worry about it...sort of the way dps seems to lower when people worry about heroic opps too much.  I just throw my CA's up and swing away.  I am not going to delay tower of stone or sentry watch so that I can get one more swing off .3 seconds earlier.  I just let my auto attack go off one CA later...maybe my auto attack just misses more than my CA's.  Just do what works best for you.

[Figfore]

<p>Im only a casual raider but need the extra dps to help kill the mob quick. I have gone through several attempts and methods of casting. To hold aggro and keep dps up you have auto attack between cas. Im not full end game fabled or even close but before RoK came out I was hitting 1200 to 1500 zone wide parse. After getting Soulfire this increased to 1500 to 2000. Thats auto attack so you have to do this to max out your cas. Remember to use your CAs wisely. Use the biggest hits after the mob is debuffed. Use the ones that slow mob at the first while mob is being debuffed. Read your spells and follow one that will generate the best result. Get all the plus to crit you can. Take dps from dirge not plus to str. But the timing of ca to auto attack is the biggest gain. If you watch and time this right you can hit with 3 cas ready for any lenth of fight. Thats when you have the big parses and can tell the group to pick it up because a guard just made the top 4 on the parse. Rare but I have done this a few times. </p>

[Freydinessa]

<cite>Naglfar@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>It's not because you're typing in a bold green style that lies become truth...</p><p>60 to 70% of guard dps should come from his auto attack. Timing CA is mandatory to be efficient during a raid. The amount of DPS gained is awesome, and if you want to test it you should try during a raid, or at least with a dirge buffing you.</p></blockquote>This is the truth Naglfar. I'm sorry you can't accept it. Whether on a raid or kill some gray Gnolls in Antonica, the game mechanics stay the same. If you look at what i tested - and not what you think i tested - you'll see that all i did was look at what effect spamming or not spamming CA's had on the frequency of auto-attacks.

[Geckownage]

Easy man, we're all just trying to clarify and help our fellow Guardian with his questions. I was replying to question 3 of the OP, asking for input from raiding warriors. Your test in Lavastorm is not going to be the same as a T7/8 well-equipped warrior with multiple AA's to enhance crit chances, DPS, double-attacks, etc. It is a fact that the auto-attack is essential in generating extra DPS. For your next experiment, take a group and go tackle an even con instance. Compare your results there, and if you get a wild hair, try timing the auto-attacks in between CAs and post us some results. Not that we need them, keep them for yourself if you rather. Didn't mean to offend you and your "45 seasons" of experience with my reply, but seriously, there's more to it. Whats with the comment about my account name? No need to flaunt your ignorance AND your cheap stabs.

[Freydinessa]

<cite>Geckownage wrote:</cite><blockquote>Easy man, we're all just trying to clarify and help our fellow Guardian with his questions. I was replying to question 3 of the OP, asking for input from raiding warriors. <span style="color: #33ff00;">The whole point of the OP's thread is to ask about 'timing' combat arts with your auto-attacks. That is what i'm replying too</span>Your test in Lavastorm is not going to be the same as a T7/8 well-equipped warrior with multiple AA's to enhance crit chances, DPS, double-attacks, etc. <span style="color: #33ff00;">It is going to be exactly the same, unless SOE have changed the way combat art mechanics work as you go up in level, which they have not. It seems to me you are talking about damage, using terms such as DPS. Why? nowhere in my posts have i referred to damage?</span>It is a fact that the auto-attack is essential in generating extra DPS. <span style="color: #33ff00;">Exactly i am in total agreement with this, because - as you say - it is a 'fact'. but once again, i'm not talking about damage. Please read my post.</span>For your next experiment, take a group and go tackle an even con instance. Compare your results there, and if you get a wild hair, try timing the auto-attacks in between CAs and post us some results. Not that we need them, keep them for yourself if you rather. <span style="color: #33ff00;">Unless your auto-attacks somehow increase to a faster rate than what is indicated in your persona when you time them with your CA - which doesn't happen - there is no need to repeat the experiment.</span>Whats with the comment about my account name? No need to flaunt your ignorance AND your cheap stabs. <span style="color: #33ff00;">I was ignorant, like the OP i didn't know for sure either if CA's effected the frequency of your auto-attacks in battle. That is why i did the experiment i did. Granted though, that was a cheap stab at your name. Apologies.</span>Didn't mean to offend you and your "45 seasons" of experience with my reply, but seriously, there's more to it. <span style="color: #33ff00;">lol, you're getting up me for cheap stabbing and then do the same? sounds a little hypocritical to me. But seriously, when it comes to the frequency of auto attacks and any CA's effects, it's as i've put it. There's a common theme here, and it's for you to read what i've written and see that i'm not talking about damage, i'm talking about the frequency of attack. </span></blockquote>

[Tyrion]

<p>Only necessary when using our AoE attacks, Temp Buffs, or any CA/Buff that takes more than half a second to cast. So in the long run, not often.</p>

[Figfore]

Try the test in a fight that takes longer than a min for the kill.  If you are spamming the CA's you should always have one qued as one is firing which would cancel an autoattack. Yes I will agree in short fights where the npc can be killed before I run out of cas it really doesnt matter if you spam cas or time them. You will get close to the same result on dps. Its the long kills where you will max out dps. The thing that I cant understand is how you where able to spam the cas and still autoattack. Only thing i can see is you are just hitting icons before one can be qued which lets you fire off an autoattack. I could be wrong here but would like know how you are able to do this and autoattack? Im not that old of a dog that i cant be taught new tricks.

[MaCloud1032]

<p>Auto attack is never cancled unless you turn it off.  If you spam all of your CAs at somepoint a auto attack will still get in.  It Q's up just as if you are spamming your CAs.  </p><p>Qing up your attacks is not the optimum for dps but the change from holding out are a minimul gain.  You will only delay your auto attack from comming in.  With warrior CAs being on fast cast times you can load up 3 or 4 before you auto attack.  Me on the other hand as a SK get about 2 casts before my auto attack comes in.Also if you are buckler specked you would want my auto attack to coem in more often for the double attack.  That spec alone will change up how you or when you mash buttons.  Basicaly as i was saying before i rambled is even if you are Qing your CAs up thru next week you auto attack will hit.  You cant interupt auto attack my hitting a spell.</p>

[Freydinessa]

<cite>Figfore wrote:</cite><blockquote>Try the test in a fight that takes longer than a min for the kill.  If you are spamming the CA's you should always have one qued as one is firing which would cancel an autoattack. <span style="color: #33ff00;">As was stated directly below your post, even with qued CAs you'll still get your auto-attacks in. Indeed, this is how i did my attacks for my test and what i understand as 'spamming'. The easiest way to check this is to watch your combat test while you fight. You'll see the auto-attacks fire off.</span>Yes I will agree in short fights where the npc can be killed before I run out of cas it really doesnt matter if you spam cas or time them. You will get close to the same result on dps. Its the long kills where you will max out dps. The thing that I cant understand is how you where able to spam the cas and still autoattack. Only thing i can see is you are just hitting icons before one can be qued which lets you fire off an autoattack. I could be wrong here but would like know how you are able to do this and autoattack? Im not that old of a dog that i cant be taught new tricks. <span style="color: #33ff00;">Infact i've even noticed a graphic that seems to occur on/just near the enemies, only when they are hit with an auto-attack. Granted, this is sometimes impossible to see with all the other action going on, but also could possibly be used as 'indicator' or landing a AA.</span></blockquote>Just as a side point. From the test i did i also noticed that my auto-attack makes up around 33% of my total damage. When only using auto-attacks my dps was around 90, though when 'spamming' combat arts, my dps increased to around 260, with my auto attack still contributing around 90 dps to the total. As Figfore touches on above, in longer battles this contribution by auto-attack would/could only increase as recovery time of combat arts becomes limiting. In addition, attacking many enemies at once - and having them all positioned properly in front of you, and with having such abilities as "Dragoon's Cyclone" - your dps contribution from your auto-attack could easily increase to over 50-60% of total dps. As has already been touched upon in a previous post.