Free attack

I think we are making the same argument from different directions.
To clarify, Turning on Free Attack effectivlyturns OFF Auto Attack. Free attack allows Skills to be charged.
But other than that your attacks are the same as auto attacks, if you manually attack by clicking on the target.

 

You can charge skills regardless of whether or not you use free attack. What free attack gives you is the ability to charge up your "base" weapon attack. This is particularly powerful for Ranged users, especially when combined with "Flurry" from the light armor tree. People who don't use the light armor tree can use haste potions for a similar effect.

I currently have crits of up to around 730 HP damage with a charged free attack. And because I have flurry GMd, the amount of time it takes me to charge up an attack is negligible.

In fact, free attack is so powerful when you push down the time to charge that the devs made it so that combining flurry with a haste potion got capped (making haste potions generally useless to flurry users).

 

The largest damage bonus from free attack happens in the first sencond of charge. I hold the button and release (rapidly because of Flurry) and get almost the same speed as auto attack with at least double the damage.

It makes me do more damage just using free attack with a bow than using poison with dual daggers spamming thrust rend and doubleslash

In fact i tried to fight a clockwork dragon yesterday and its damage resistance was big enough i couldnt do more than dent it with daggers, but i used a bow with air shield and only use free attack and got it down far enough that it killed me with its shock attack. The bigger one-off hits are way more effective on armored targets than tons of smaller hits are

 

I too found charge-attack bow to be more powerful than blades during beta- When the obsidian potion of unlearning came around I re-spec'd into blades again because I was determined I was doing something wrong. lol. Oops.

 

Well blades are better for clearing close encounters because they hit multiple targets.

But for bosses and single targets bow is far superior

 

Cool thanks.

 

Not sure I agree with this, stacking damage over time seems to be the best bet for high hit point mobs.
Regardless of what the boss does it continues to take damage. Once the damage over time is on a enemy they have no defense to it.

Obviously I'm only talking PvE.

Regards
Spung