training unarmed

[Ynir]

Spangles is a lvl 60 defense warrior. She trains melee weapons at Sorrow Hill, near Chillwind Camp in West Plague. The mobs there (lvl 51) are durable enough to put up a fight, but can be reliably defeated no matter how low the weapon skill. The drops are good: runecloth, Avenger Dawn stones, and the occasional green.

Recently she donned her Gargoyle Talon Shredders (fist weapon) and set out to max her unarmed skill. Under these circumstances only the "1" key, "attack", and her shouts were active. Attack is always set to "auto".

After engaging several mobs my hand was tired from whamming the "1" key, so I just stopped all keyboard action in the middle of a fight. To my surprise, the fighting continued.

Not only that, Spangles was fighting much better without me. Her hit rate went way up, the Fiery Weapon enchantment on the fist procced madly, and the mob was demolished instead of being whittled away.

She immediatly ran over to the next mob with rage maxed, engaged it, and I removed my hands from the keyboard. Same effect: the game took over, and it was like watching a kung fu movie.

I had never seen this effect before, and I tried to find out what triggers it. If Spangles simply walks up to a mob from a cold start, swats it, and I stop playing, she stands there passively while the mob beats on her.

Rage level doesn't seem to trigger the movie. Filling the keystroke buffer? What keystroke buffer? My guess is that it is a syncronization effect: if the characters trade blows for a while at the right frequency the game will take over.

Is this remarkable to anyone else? Or just another factoid that everyone knows but me?

_________________

[Treesh]

If your 1 key is the same attack as the game starts you with, you do not have to spam it. You hit it once and you will attack your target and continue to attack it. If you hit it again, you will stop attacking. It's a toggle for auto-melee attack. Hitting the T key does the exact same thing. Hit once to turn on, hit again to turn it off. Right clicking a hostile target will also activate the auto-attack. If you hit either T or the autoattack after right clicking a target, you will shut off auto-attack.

Edit: All references to "auto-attack" mean auto melee attacks and not auto ranged attacks. Just for clarification sake.

[Mirajj]

Um...I've never mashed a straight attack. I use autoshot, and let the game fire it...or when I go melee I let the game slice and dice for me. It might be a right click/left click thing. I usually right click to attack, and that seems to provide a 'repeat last action until unrepeatable' phase.

[Skandranon]

Is this remarkable to anyone else? Or just another factoid that everyone knows but me?

With Auto Attack selected, hitting the "attack" key, or simply right-clicking the target, puts you into auto attack mode where you'll keep attacking the enemy until it's dead.

If you've been hammering away at the "attack" key, you've been turning your attack repeatedly on and off, which would certainly slow your attack rate.

[Bolty]

Is this remarkable to anyone else? Or just another factoid that everyone knows but me?[right][snapback]74687[/snapback][/right]

Ynir,

Please understand that I mean this with as LITTLE offense as possible. I am very much just chuckling and not meaning to demean you in any way.

That being said, how did you get to level 60 without knowing this? Are you saying that from the moment you first started playing the game until just now, you've attacked the enemy by slamming the '1' key as fast as you could, Diablo-style? Basically you were telling your character, "attack!" "No, wait, stop!" "Ok, attack!" "Stop again!" Etc.

I'm honestly confused - either your client is buggy in some way, or somehow amazingly you have never just pressed '1' and had your character fight. Until you were level 60. Wow!

This is definitely one of the funniest posts I've seen in this forum. :) Again, please don't take offense to that, but you can see where I'm coming from here. If you had posted this in the general Blizzard forums, you'd have had a thousand "OMG n00b" replies by now. :)

Still, I think back through the game and I don't know if there's any spot in which this is pointed out to the player. Most every other ability I can think of (sans auto-shot) is a one-click-and-done ability, except Attack. It's just that getting to level 60 without "discovering" this blows my mind!

-Bolty

[Quark]

Somewhat related, after switching to a non-Rogue class I had the hardest time getting used to Auto-attack. As a rogue, hitting any skill will automatically select Auto-attack. Not the same with other classes.

[Kevin]

Somewhat related, after switching to a non-Rogue class I had the hardest time getting used to Auto-attack.  As a rogue, hitting any skill will automatically select Auto-attack.  Not the same with other classes.
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Pretty much all the hunter melee skills will. I usually start my melee auto-attack by using raptor strike. Charge and several other trigger it for warriors as well. Actually anyone with a special melee attack can turn on auto-attack with it.

[Ynir]

No offense taken, none at all. I asked a question, and got useful answers.

I started WoW the day retail began, capped early February, and have been raiding daily ever since. And, until today when I get home from work, I have been playing with one hand tied behind my back, so to speak.

You guessed why it happened: I played D1/D2/LOD for eight years previously, and no other online game, ever. I tested the key functions when I began WoW, and, coincidentally, saw results that made me think I had to spam the "1" key to attack.

This ongoing mistake has had profound consequences. My warrior build was traditional berserker until level 50+, when I decided that I was playing so poorly that I would respec defense, if only to save my reputation.

I had no idea how to set up a defense warrior, so I started a thread in this forum to find out. You can read my original complaint here:

http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index...topic=5146

I read every reply very carefully, respecced accordingly, and decided that I was born to be a defense warrior. You can read the summary of my experience here:

http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.p...st=&#entry72808

These events conspired to mask the problem longer, since one expects to trade DPS for durability when speccing defense, and because the damage output of a tank doesn't matter in a raid. Warriors are scarce and defense warriors are scarcer, so I don't get to discuss tradecraft very much.

Jeez Louize. I have never won a duel. Maybe I will, someday, now that I have another hand to use.

[playingtokrush]

Good lord, you're going to have carpal tunnel.

[Chesspiece_face]

on a side note, I've found that occasionally when the server is having a lot of lag problems IE you can't loot or harvest from nodes cause it freezes, that many times you will still be able to initiate combat but it will automatically go out of auto-attack much like what you are describing. It's quite possible that at release there was more problems with server lag and it really was putting you out of combat mode after every attack.

This just happened to me today, ironically right after i read this thread. I logged out and back in and it fixed it. But like everyone else has said, once you initiate auto attack you shouldn't have to hit attack again unless your target dies or you turn off attack.

[Olon97]

On a related note, does anyone have a short bit of code/macro that would give an "attack" command that's not a toggle?

Something like:
if( not AlreadyAttackingMyTarget() ) then
attack();
else
-- leave it be, nothing else to do
end

There have definitely been times in combat where I've gotten mixed up and managed to toggle auto attack off. Often a question of not keeping straight whether I initially right clicked or left clicked a mob and not being sure whether or not I need to hit the "T" key. I always feel terribly embarassed when a mixup happens and I'm standing idle in the middle of combat.

Having a button labeled "attack" perform a function of "stop attacking" was poor UI design on Blizzard's part, IMO. The icon could at least tranform into a big stop sign while you're targetting a mob that you're already auto-attacking.

[vor_lord]

On a related note, does anyone have a short bit of code/macro that would give an "attack" command that's not a toggle?

Something like:
if( not AlreadyAttackingMyTarget() ) then
  attack();
else
  -- leave it be, nothing else to do
end

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A quick glance through the World Of Warcraft API didn't turn up anything that looked like it would indicate whether or not you were attacking.

But I did have an idea. Check the box which is Attack On Assist in your interface options, then write a macro like this one:

/script AssistUnit("player")

This would assist yourself, and attack on assist might do the trick (assuming of course you have a valid target before you hit the macro).

It is at least worth a try.

edit: redundant wording

[Thawwing Light]

Pretty much all the hunter melee skills will.  I usually start my melee auto-attack by using raptor strike.  Charge and several other trigger it for warriors as well.  Actually anyone with a special melee attack can turn on auto-attack with it.
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I can confirm Sunder Armor triggers auto attack - I tend to use that instead of any attack key, unless I charge.

I'm pretty sure Rend triggers it as well.

[Ynir]

I hurried home from work yesterday to see how uber Spangles might suddenly become if I played the game correctly.

I had one hour before our UBRS raid. Practice has made this run routine, but it still is too dangerous a venue for casual experimentation. Spangles went to Sorrow Hill and tried to not spam the attack button in an effort to work out a plan.

She donned her fists and cut through the mobs like butter. However, after spamming the "1" key for eight years of Diablo and five months of Wow, my hands were cramping from denied reflex. Also, I couldn't help accidentally turning off the attack.

So I moved the attack button to a hotbar and put Taunt in the "1" position. Wunderbar. I spam Taunt whenever it lights up, and this arrangement made it easier to do so.

The raid did not go smoothly for me, although my colleages didn't notice. I kept forgetting where I was, astonished at how much of the game simply played itself, and watching the movie.

Got my very first Honor Kill later. It's a whole new game, folks.

[Baajikiil]

I kept forgetting where I was, astonished at how much of the game simply played itself, and watching the movie.

This game might be for you.

:) It's one of my favorites :)

[Xanthix]

On a related note, does anyone have a short bit of code/macro that would give an "attack" command that's not a toggle?
[right][snapback]74750[/snapback][/right]

You might want to check out DefendYourself:
http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=213

[Darian]

I can confirm Sunder Armor triggers auto attack - I tend to use that instead of any attack key, unless I charge.
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Ditto -- especially when I'm engaging a sheeped/shackled/sapped mob, as simply hitting the mob isn't enough to transfer aggro from the mage/priest/rogue to me whereas opening with Sunder usually does the trick.

(And it's why I get twitchy if anyone but me breaks the control...)

I'm pretty sure Rend triggers it as well.

It does. I'm unable to think of a warrior physical attack skill which does not trigger auto-attack, actually.

[Olon97]

You might want to check out DefendYourself:
http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=213

Defend yourself is hardly a short snippet of code, but I can likely find what I'm looking for somewhere in its lua script. Wouldn't use the whole mod because it crosses my personal border of "playing the game for you" standards. Sheep defender (a splinter mod based on defend yourself) is a bit tempting though, gotta protect those sheep!

[vor_lord]

But I did have an idea.  Check the box which is Attack On Assist in your interface options, then write a macro like this one:

/script AssistUnit("player")

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I just tested this. It works perfectly -- spam this to your heart's content (I think I'll replace the '1' key with this macro).

[Ynir]

This game might be for you.

:) It's one of my favorites :)
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I can see why. I've placated the Dwarves, and not lost a minute from work. :lol: