Mage/Priest: Switching from melee auto attack to ranged everytime we cast a spell

[kelvmor]

<p>Every time a mage or priest casts a spell, it immediately changes the auto attack to ranged. This is very inconvienent, and just plain stupid. I have heard tales of, in the past two weeks, wizards casting Fusion only for a mob behind them to force them to turn directions because of the ranged auto attack, thusly causing the Fusion to be cast into thin air, a wasted spell.</p><p>As a level five Defiler, everytime I cast a spell, even if I have the melee attack option on, it will switch to the ranged weapon automatically. This is really, really annoying. Please fix this.</p>

[Rijacki]

<p>Do you have a wand equipped in your RANGED slot? If so, that's why.</p>

[Pixiewrath]

<p>Yes, try to avoid using ranged weapons and use symbols or similar instead.Can't figure out who thought auto attack for mages was a good idea...</p>

[Brigh]

I started an inq and what an annoying wand. It looks really stupid with that gentle 'tap' animation...ooooh fear the gently tapping wand monsters (instead of the giant spiked club) !

[Amitee]

<p>I enjoy auto-attack on my healer, thank you.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Golbezz]

<p><cite>Ugreth@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Every time a mage or priest casts a spell, it immediately changes the auto attack to ranged. This is very inconvienent, and just plain stupid. I have heard tales of, in the past two weeks, wizards casting Fusion only for a mob behind them to force them to turn directions because of the ranged auto attack, thusly causing the Fusion to be cast into thin air, a wasted spell. </p><p>As a level five Defiler, everytime I cast a spell, even if I have the melee attack option on, it will switch to the ranged weapon automatically. This is really, really annoying. Please fix this.</p></blockquote><p>I don't use these wands on my alts because of this. My healers and chanter alt at 90 are using raid symbol items rather than wands in the ranged slot until this is fixed.</p><p>It would be as easy as allowing players to choose the type of auto-attack that starts when a spell or combat art is used, or even choosing not to have it start.</p><p>Something like this would work where a player could select 1 of the following:[ ] Disable all autoattack when spell or combat art is used.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when CA is used, ranged when spell is used, <- This is current setting.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when either CA or spell is used (melee priests setting).[ ] Enable ranged autoattack when either CA or spell is used (ranger/non-melee priests/mages setting).</p>

[Nynaeve]

<p>cant it be turned off to automatically face the target in auto attack?</p>

[feldon30]

<p><cite>Nynaeve wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>cant it be turned off to automatically face the target in auto attack?</p></blockquote><p>Facing the target is not the issue. The issue is that if you have a Ranged/Focus wand equipped, then you are doing Spell Autoattack rather than Melee Autoattack.</p><p>First, Spell Autoattack does a pittance of damage.</p><p>Second, Clerics, Druids, Shamans, and Enchanters all have AA lines which greatly benefit from doing melee attacks (mob debuffs, etc.), or improve the damage of melee attacks.</p><p><a href="http://eq2wire.com/2011/11/10/what-you-dont-know-about-autoattack-could-cost-you/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2wire.com/2011/11/10/what-...could-cost-you/</a></p>

[Flobdeth]

<p>LOL</p><p>Welcome to the world of the ranger, you could always macro /auto1 or /auto 0 to every spell same as rangers need to macro /auto 2 to every CA since forever</p>

[Onorem]

<p><cite>Flobdeth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>LOL</p><p>Welcome to the world of the ranger, you could always macro /auto1 or /auto 0 to every spell same as rangers need to macro /auto 2 to every CA since forever</p></blockquote><p>That doesn't work with the caster ranged items. The autoattack switch doesn't happen until the spell is done casting.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Why is this so hard?  If you don't want to use Priest / Mage ranged Auto attack *DONT EQUIP THE WAND*.</p><p>There are very, very few of these available in game!  Most of the itemization is just standard symbols!  USE ONE!</p>

[DuneWarrior]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Why is this so hard?  If you don't want to use Priest / Mage ranged Auto attack *DONT EQUIP THE WAND*.</p><p>There are very, very few of these available in game!  Most of the itemization is just standard symbols!  USE ONE!</p></blockquote><p>Except of course.. the Wands are so OP'ed stats wise vs. the Symbols.</p><p>Also it is infuriating how some totally messed up attempt at trying to make a mechanics totally removes choice from the player, best part.. this have been pointed out again and again and again and again ever since it was TESTED...</p><p>(yes, i dont equip a wand on my Inq either)</p>

[WanyenII]

<p><cite>Golbezz wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ugreth@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Every time a mage or priest casts a spell, it immediately changes the auto attack to ranged. This is very inconvienent, and just plain stupid. I have heard tales of, in the past two weeks, wizards casting Fusion only for a mob behind them to force them to turn directions because of the ranged auto attack, thusly causing the Fusion to be cast into thin air, a wasted spell. </p><p>As a level five Defiler, everytime I cast a spell, even if I have the melee attack option on, it will switch to the ranged weapon automatically. This is really, really annoying. Please fix this.</p></blockquote><p>I don't use these wands on my alts because of this. My healers and chanter alt at 90 are using raid symbol items rather than wands in the ranged slot until this is fixed.</p><p>It would be as easy as allowing players to choose the type of auto-attack that starts when a spell or combat art is used, or even choosing not to have it start.</p><p>Something like this would work where a player could select 1 of the following:[ ] Disable all autoattack when spell or combat art is used.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when CA is used, ranged when spell is used, <- This is current setting.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when either CA or spell is used (melee priests setting).[ ] Enable ranged autoattack when either CA or spell is used (ranger/non-melee priests/mages setting).</p></blockquote><p>Is it just a matter that the 'range from target' check is not adequate? And I would prefer to have range sensative auto-attack, as predominately an assassin and playstyle; unless I explicitly press or activate the 'Melee' or 'Ranged' attacks.  Perhaps the transition window needs to be player tunable (with an always available default/sane reset value).</p><p>Range Sensative Auto-Attack:  If outside melee autoattack range by more than, some random amount of appropriate units, use/switch to ranged, if within use/switch to melee.  (Preference to melee over ranged when in a transition window where the character is close to the max melee range threshhold of the encounter, because I want to be using melee weapons on the encounter, but I also need to know when I am just a little too far away; if I am a lot too far away, I probably intended it so go ahead and use ranged attacks).</p>

[Talathion]

<p>When you switch to ranged autoattack it stops melee autoattack and makes you do ranged, however if you spell autoattack and try to switch to melee, it does not do that, it waits until the spell is cast, then goes melee, then if you cast a spell again it forces you back into spell.</p><p>Solution: Use weaker symbols with no spell autoattack...</p>

[Nrgy]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Why is this so hard?  If you don't want to use Priest / Mage ranged Auto attack *DONT EQUIP THE WAND*.</p><p>There are very, very few of these available in game!  Most of the itemization is just standard symbols!  USE ONE!</p></blockquote><p>Forcing exclusion is not a solution it is a "work around" or "Band Aid".  Broken mechanic is Broken!</p><p>I don't care so much on my Necro, but its a pain in the keaster on my Inquisitor and Deadly on my Chanter when trying to Mezz.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Broken?  Since when did SOE decide to start fixing broken things?</p>

[Golbezz]

<p><cite>WanyenII wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Is it just a matter that the 'range from target' check is not adequate? And I would prefer to have range sensative auto-attack, as predominately an assassin and playstyle; unless I explicitly press or activate the 'Melee' or 'Ranged' attacks.  Perhaps the transition window needs to be player tunable (with an always available default/sane reset value).</p><p>Range Sensative Auto-Attack:  If outside melee autoattack range by more than, some random amount of appropriate units, use/switch to ranged, if within use/switch to melee.  (Preference to melee over ranged when in a transition window where the character is close to the max melee range threshhold of the encounter, because I want to be using melee weapons on the encounter, but I also need to know when I am just a little too far away; if I am a lot too far away, I probably intended it so go ahead and use ranged attacks). </p></blockquote><p>It probably could be done, I was just listing options that would be linked to using a combat art or spell and activiting autoattack at the same time. I'm pretty sure that there used to be an option a while back that allowed a player to not activate auto-attack when a combat art was used.</p><p>Range sensitive would probably be a bit too open to abuse by bot groups, assuming it would even work right in the first place.</p>

[Golbezz]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Broken?  Since when did SOE decide to start fixing broken things?</p></blockquote><p>I hear broken things get fixed fast if they are related to the marketplace.</p>

[zzvalarzz]

<p>I totally agree this is SUPER annoying and it also looks stupid as your character constantly switches weapons during a fight.</p>

[Daalilama]

<p><cite>Golbezz wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ugreth@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Every time a mage or priest casts a spell, it immediately changes the auto attack to ranged. This is very inconvienent, and just plain stupid. I have heard tales of, in the past two weeks, wizards casting Fusion only for a mob behind them to force them to turn directions because of the ranged auto attack, thusly causing the Fusion to be cast into thin air, a wasted spell. </p><p>As a level five Defiler, everytime I cast a spell, even if I have the melee attack option on, it will switch to the ranged weapon automatically. This is really, really annoying. Please fix this.</p></blockquote><p>I don't use these wands on my alts because of this. My healers and chanter alt at 90 are using raid symbol items rather than wands in the ranged slot until this is fixed.</p><p>It would be as easy as allowing players to choose the type of auto-attack that starts when a spell or combat art is used, or even choosing not to have it start.</p><p>Something like this would work where a player could select 1 of the following:[ ] Disable all autoattack when spell or combat art is used.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when CA is used, ranged when spell is used, <- This is current setting.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when either CA or spell is used (melee priests setting).[ ] Enable ranged autoattack when either CA or spell is used (ranger/non-melee priests/mages setting).</p></blockquote><p>This....</p><p>I use both a symbol and the ranged focus wand in my ranged slot swappin in for various scripts....do like the passive damage procs and dps albeit minimal from the ranged but as a temp I'm not looking for hyper dps still would be nice if the wand had an option as suggested above like the pets do to change its primary mechanic</p>

[Masako]

<p><cite>Zaktull@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Why is this so hard?  If you don't want to use Priest / Mage ranged Auto attack *DONT EQUIP THE WAND*.</p><p>There are very, very few of these available in game!  Most of the itemization is just standard symbols!  USE ONE!</p></blockquote><p><strong>Except of course.. the Wands are so OP'ed stats wise vs. the Symbols.</strong></p></blockquote><p>Thiiiiis. When gearing up my mage, a wand dropped that I would have been dumb <em>not </em>to take since the stats on it were a huge upgrade. Would I like to have a symbol instead? YES. Or at least I'd like a symbol I could swap to for some fights anyway. I'm stuck with this wand until a symbol drops however. This just means in the meantime I've got to be stupidly careful about the auto-attack, especially on certain raid fights.</p>

[Gilli]

<p>I don't understand why I can shoot my wand point blank but on my ranger he needs a special talent to do that (point blank shot).  Now, I havent' played that dusty ranger alt in a year, but that's how it used to be anyway. </p><p>Here's my goal: I always want to be autoattacking, but my melee is better so I want to use that whenever possible.  When it's ranged option or nothing, I want to be shooting.</p><p>Would any of the options suggested so far achieve this?  To me, the above example is what makes autoattack truly "auto."  It knows what you want to do, and it does it.</p>

[Noviets]

<p><cite>Golbezz wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Something like this would work where a player could select 1 of the following:[ ] Disable all autoattack when spell or combat art is used.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when CA is used, ranged when spell is used, <- This is current setting.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when either CA or spell is used (melee priests setting).[ ] Enable ranged autoattack when either CA or spell is used (ranger/non-melee priests/mages setting).</p></blockquote><p>This</p>

[Jaffa Tamarin]

<p><cite>Noviets wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Golbezz wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Something like this would work where a player could select 1 of the following:[ ] Disable all autoattack when spell or combat art is used.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when CA is used, ranged when spell is used, <- This is current setting.[ ] Enable melee autoattack when either CA or spell is used (melee priests setting).[ ] Enable ranged autoattack when either CA or spell is used (ranger/non-melee priests/mages setting).</p></blockquote><p>This</p></blockquote><p>+1</p><p>Even just give me the option to disable it and I'll happily put in macros to turn on whatever sort of autoattack I want.</p>

[kelvmor]

<p>Bump, this is still an issue</p>

[Gilli]

<p>Any progress here?   Now that I can reforge Spell Weapon autoattack and Spell Weapon AE to regular multiattack, I am really wanting this resolved.</p><p>I wouldn't mind a button that says "lock atutoattack ranged" and "lock autoattack melee."  I'd put them both on my bar and push the ranged one when I am jousting or can't fight the mobs up close, and I'd push the other one for all other situations.  I'd prefer that to something I have to dig through menus to adjust on the fly. </p>

[SpineDoc]

<p>My alzheimers is catching up to me, but I swore I read somewhere you could buy something to turn spell auto attack off from your class trainer.  Anyone else remember this, or am I going nuts?</p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>SpineDoc wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My alzheimers is catching up to me, but I swore I read somewhere you could buy something to turn spell auto attack off from your class trainer.  Anyone else remember this, or am I going nuts?</p></blockquote><p>You can buy something from your class trainer to disable AoE autoattack.</p>

[Mermut]

<p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SpineDoc wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My alzheimers is catching up to me, but I swore I read somewhere you could buy something to turn spell auto attack off from your class trainer.  Anyone else remember this, or am I going nuts?</p></blockquote><p>You can buy something from your class trainer to disable AoE autoattack.</p></blockquote><p>Spell Auto-attack has nothing to do with AE autoattack. Spell auto-attack is similar to ranged auto-attack, only worse. The only way to 'turn off' spell auto-attack is to not equip a focus item in your ranged slot. Unfortunately, the developers seems to have stopped making good symbol items in favor of good focus items. As a melee priest my choice is 'worse stats with my melee auto-attack as my first or second most damage' or 'better stats with my ranged auto-attack doing maybe 3% of my total damage'. Especially my group stays alive better when I melee due to procs from AA, it is painful to see the disparity in the two types of items since it is practically impossible to melee with a focus item equipped. The spell-auto attack doesn't start until AFTER the spell finishes casting so we can't even use the ranger trick of putting the auto-attack swap in the macro since spells take significally longer to 'cast' then combat arts.</p>

[Gilli]

<p><cite>Mermut wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><p><cite></cite>Spell Auto-attack has nothing to do with AE autoattack. Spell auto-attack is similar to ranged auto-attack, only worse. The only way to 'turn off' spell auto-attack is to not equip a focus item in your ranged slot. Unfortunately, the developers seems to have stopped making good symbol items in favor of good focus items. As a melee priest my choice is 'worse stats with my melee auto-attack as my first or second most damage' or 'better stats with my ranged auto-attack doing maybe 3% of my total damage'. Especially my group stays alive better when I melee due to procs from AA, it is painful to see the disparity in the two types of items since it is practically impossible to melee with a focus item equipped. The spell-auto attack doesn't start until AFTER the spell finishes casting so we can't even use the ranger trick of putting the auto-attack swap in the macro since spells take significally longer to 'cast' then combat arts.</p></blockquote><p>Exactly.  My comment about spell AE autoattack wasn't meant to confuse anything, I just said that because you can reforge it into *tons* of regular multiattack.  Like 13 --> 30.  I would put 30 multiattack on my gear instead except all I do is shoot my wand.  I only have a handful of combat arts and a lot more spells (I'm doing that enchanter spell blade thing), so I find I am pretty much always using my wand even when I don't want to.  And heaven forbid I pull with a spell, then I'm stuck on the ranged autoattack timer even if I jam on a combat art next... and by then I've already cast another spell, so it's back to ranged. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>So like I said, I'd like to have control over locking melee/ranged autoattack, preferably in a way that I could change on the fly (e.g., button on my bar I can toggle) in addition to whatever UI settings I pick.</p>

[Alenna]

<p><cite>Gilli@Blackburrow wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't understand why I can shoot my wand point blank but on my ranger he needs a special talent to do that (point blank shot).  Now, I havent' played that dusty ranger alt in a year, but that's how it used to be anyway. </p><p>Here's my goal: I always want to be autoattacking, but my melee is better so I want to use that whenever possible.  When it's ranged option or nothing, I want to be shooting.</p><p>Would any of the options suggested so far achieve this?  To me, the above example is what makes autoattack truly "auto."  It knows what you want to do, and it does it.</p></blockquote><p>make a macro for your spells cast spell then /auto1</p>

[SpineDoc]

<p><cite>Mermut wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SpineDoc wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My alzheimers is catching up to me, but I swore I read somewhere you could buy something to turn spell auto attack off from your class trainer.  Anyone else remember this, or am I going nuts?</p></blockquote><p>You can buy something from your class trainer to disable AoE autoattack.</p></blockquote><p>Spell Auto-attack has nothing to do with AE autoattack. Spell auto-attack is similar to ranged auto-attack, only worse. The only way to 'turn off' spell auto-attack is to not equip a focus item in your ranged slot. Unfortunately, the developers seems to have stopped making good symbol items in favor of good focus items. As a melee priest my choice is 'worse stats with my melee auto-attack as my first or second most damage' or 'better stats with my ranged auto-attack doing maybe 3% of my total damage'. Especially my group stays alive better when I melee due to procs from AA, it is painful to see the disparity in the two types of items since it is practically impossible to melee with a focus item equipped. The spell-auto attack doesn't start until AFTER the spell finishes casting so we can't even use the ranger trick of putting the auto-attack swap in the macro since spells take significally longer to 'cast' then combat arts.</p></blockquote><p>Wow that's nuts that they haven't addressed this yet.</p>

[DuneWarrior]

<p><cite>SpineDoc wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Mermut wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SpineDoc wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My alzheimers is catching up to me, but I swore I read somewhere you could buy something to turn spell auto attack off from your class trainer.  Anyone else remember this, or am I going nuts?</p></blockquote><p>You can buy something from your class trainer to disable AoE autoattack.</p></blockquote><p>Spell Auto-attack has nothing to do with AE autoattack. Spell auto-attack is similar to ranged auto-attack, only worse. The only way to 'turn off' spell auto-attack is to not equip a focus item in your ranged slot. Unfortunately, the developers seems to have stopped making good symbol items in favor of good focus items. As a melee priest my choice is 'worse stats with my melee auto-attack as my first or second most damage' or 'better stats with my ranged auto-attack doing maybe 3% of my total damage'. Especially my group stays alive better when I melee due to procs from AA, it is painful to see the disparity in the two types of items since it is practically impossible to melee with a focus item equipped. The spell-auto attack doesn't start until AFTER the spell finishes casting so we can't even use the ranger trick of putting the auto-attack swap in the macro since spells take significally longer to 'cast' then combat arts.</p></blockquote><p>Wow that's nuts that they haven't addressed this yet.</p></blockquote><p>About par for the course.</p>

[ranga]

<p><cite>SpineDoc wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Mermut wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SpineDoc wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My alzheimers is catching up to me, but I swore I read somewhere you could buy something to turn spell auto attack off from your class trainer.  Anyone else remember this, or am I going nuts?</p></blockquote><p>You can buy something from your class trainer to disable AoE autoattack.</p></blockquote><p>Spell Auto-attack has nothing to do with AE autoattack. Spell auto-attack is similar to ranged auto-attack, only worse. The only way to 'turn off' spell auto-attack is to not equip a focus item in your ranged slot. Unfortunately, the developers seems to have stopped making good symbol items in favor of good focus items. As a melee priest my choice is 'worse stats with my melee auto-attack as my first or second most damage' or 'better stats with my ranged auto-attack doing maybe 3% of my total damage'. Especially my group stays alive better when I melee due to procs from AA, it is painful to see the disparity in the two types of items since it is practically impossible to melee with a focus item equipped. The spell-auto attack doesn't start until AFTER the spell finishes casting so we can't even use the ranger trick of putting the auto-attack swap in the macro since spells take significally longer to 'cast' then combat arts.</p></blockquote><p>Wow that's nuts that they haven't addressed this yet.</p></blockquote><p>This is easy to overcome as long as you actually are in melee range and use macros.</p>

[TheSpin]

<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Auto attack macros do not work for spells like they do for CAs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Wand autoattack is turned on at the end of a spell, so it doesn't matter what your macro tells your auto attack to do at the beginning of a cast.  There is no way to prevent ranged auto from coming on if you have a wand equipped in ranged.</span></p><p>People said this many times in this thread, just have to read.</p>

[TheSpin]

<p><cite>Gilli@Blackburrow wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't understand why I can shoot my wand point blank but on my ranger he needs a special talent to do that (point blank shot).  Now, I havent' played that dusty ranger alt in a year, but that's how it used to be anyway. </p><p>Here's my goal: I always want to be autoattacking, but my melee is better so I want to use that whenever possible.  When it's ranged option or nothing, I want to be shooting.</p><p>Would any of the options suggested so far achieve this?  To me, the above example is what makes autoattack truly "auto."  It knows what you want to do, and it does it.</p></blockquote><p>Rangers do significantly more damage with ranged auto attack than with melee auto attack.  Most rangers make a macro to keep them using ranged auto attack even when using melee CAs.</p><p>They also made it so that you can use your ranged attacks and auto attack closer than before... so you can actually use your ranged attacks on something hitting you.  If it goes red, just take a step back.</p>

[ranga]

<p><cite>TheSpin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Auto attack macros do not work for spells like they do for CAs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Wand autoattack is turned on at the end of a spell, so it doesn't matter what your macro tells your auto attack to do at the beginning of a cast.  There is no way to prevent ranged auto from coming on if you have a wand equipped in ranged.</span></p><p>People said this many times in this thread, just have to read.</p></blockquote><p>lol it works for me just the way I said it does. No need to shout. Try autoattack 1 at the start and end of your regular combat macro AND be in melee range - not outside, not close to, actually INSIDE melee range. Prolly works better for me as a coercer because I have points in inc range but whatever.</p>

[Gilli]

<p><cite>ranga wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>TheSpin wrote:</cite></p><p><cite></cite>lol it works for me just the way I said it does. No need to shout. Try autoattack 1 at the start and end of your regular combat macro AND be in melee range - not outside, not close to, actually INSIDE melee range. Prolly works better for me as a coercer because I have points in inc range but whatever.</p></blockquote><p>Really?  That's good to know.  Still, this means I will have to macro every one of my spells which is quite a hassle.  Would like to see more control without having to go macro crazy just to do something I should be able to do normally.</p>