Finally had to re-enable auto-attack

I'm wearing cloth armor using mostly ranged spells. I really liked the free attack option because I could switch to manually attacking with my weapon when my focus was low.

I finally re-enabled auto-attack because the free attack mode was too annoying when trying to target a distant enemy. Most of the time, clicking on a distant enemy to target it initiated the manual attack animation. So my avatar was constantly waving her sword at the air. Coupled with the fact that movement cannot be controlled using only the mouse in free-attack combat mode, this problem tipped the scale for me in favor of auto-attack.

The free attack mode would be more useful to me if the attack (and the attack animation) were only initiated if the enemy were in range of the manual attack.

 

In Free Attack mode, the right mouse button can be used for targeting, and the left for attacking. If you click the left button to target you will get a lot of sword waving.

That said, I have been using ranged attacks and love Free Attack mode. However, I tried swapping to a melee character and *hate* it. Everything runs, timing attacks is nearly impossible, and the attack range (at least for my founder's cutlass) is incredibly small. It might work for a stand-up fight, but its useless for fighting frightened creatures, mobs that run, archers that back out of range continuously, and likely in PVP as well. I had to either go back to auto-attack for melee, or go back to ranged, so once again I'm churning through arrows...

 

it's not that great for a standup fight when every hit pushes your opponent back a bit and there's no good indicator for when it's still in range. ...especially when their range is longer than yours, so their hits are still landing.

 

I really, really, really love the free attack. It definitely needs work to a few things in my opinion. Like it doesnt seem like my character totally cooperates with where I am pointing her to attack, plus the going inside the creature or oponent like halfway inside a bears body or else the hits don't connect well. I like that I can free attack, hit, hit, hit quickly with 1, 2, 3 or more ticks for more damage. I cant always use all the ticks since my character could die if nothing else is off cool down, but I love the options this is giving me. The thing that still bothers me is the combos and some may have them set up differently, but I dont like the way they work and I dont really like them. I would rather that with time and skill we got better and combos would kick in and give us a popup on the screen that we could combo and then just do it by us hitting space bar or some other key in combat. I am using my w key and mouse keys to keep my character on the target, I don't need to take my focus back to the bar to drag a combo. I dislike doing this very much, it takes away the fun for me quite a bit. So just feedback so far on what I'm experiencing with combat. it is mostly positive for new improvements to the mechanics, except combos dislike our combo system, and free attack and attack tweaking of the feel of it, and not running through oponents, and of course appropriate sounds, sounds sounds, but those will happen I know. Oh yes and I play a warrior/paladin build with a two handed axe and now a fire axe since a very nice friend made me one. Thank yous for friends

edited

 

I didn't realize that the right mouse button could be used for targeting - trying it out now. Still having problems targeting, though - I sometimes have to click more than once to get the target.

 

This is my problem as well. I still like the free attack, but the range needs to be longer. I get the realism of how far a sword will swing, but lag doesn't exist in real life.