Alright. I give up. What exactly IS "Free Attack"?

Ive been trying to figure it out by reading the forums for a few days now and I thought free attack was when your avatar does something like fire an arrow at a target without you pushing a button, but someone seemed to suggest that was "auto-attack" and was different then "Free Attack".

So what is free attack?

I also heard something about it being tied to the mouse. I use the mouse to rotate my camera and to move forward. (WASD sets off my tendonitus). Is that incompatable? Am I forced to use keyboard to control movement so I c an use free attack? Or can I attach free attack to another key? (Which I could then bind to a button my mouse in windows and minimize my tendonitus hand.)

Thanks!

 

Auto attack is when your weapon is fired off without you doing anything (except initiating with a double-click on the enemy or by pressing T).

Free attack means that your weapon only fires when you tell it to. When you have a target in range, hold down the left mouse button to add oomph to the attack. When you let go, you swing your sword or whatever.

Yes, it is incompatible to moving holding down both mouse buttons. When you have free attack enabled in the settings, you can only move using WASD. Out of combat mode you can move using both mouse buttons.

 

Thank you. Been trying to figure this one out for weeks.

One followup question: Do I have to do something, other than hold the left mouse button, to enable Free Attack mode? e.g. is there a toggle somewhere?

 

As far as I know, you can only toggle free attack mode off by going to the game settings (the gear symbol at the top of the screen) and click "Use Auto Attack".

 

Ah! Thanks Kara!

 

If you open options menu under game options and uncheck auto attack then free attack is set to go. Yes the left click and hold down to see see the timer and hear the clicking. The longer you hold the left mouse the more powerful the hit. You must be close enough to your target and facing your target. You have to use the w key to go forward while attacking because free attack has the forward motion while in combat. Use the z key to get out of combat and walk normally, whereas before enabling free attack kept your forward motion even out of combat, so they fixed it. So now if you are using a bludgeon weapon to free attack it will raise your bludgeons. The system knows the weapon you are using. Anyway that is how I work it. I use free attack all the time and really like it. I have not used archery for a few releases so I haven't tried free attack with that yet though.

 

Majoria - since Free Attack mode has you attacking less often does it decrease the rate of your skill progression?