Auto attack: A complete battle system

[ChiefCurrahee]

I apologize, I failed to realize that some of the forum users are incapable of rational thought aside from getting thier way. Allow me therefore to enlighten you on why I feel an auto-attack is not necessary:

The first MMO I ever played was Star Wars Galaxies, and that game certainly did not have auto attack of ANY kind. Even after it's developers dumbed down the battle system, it still had no auto attack, subsequently, they dumbed it down to attract more players, and instead alienated thier target market to the point where people quit en masse. Therefore, to defend my previous statement, dumbing down the battle system is more likely to make the game worse than better, especially when that game was not built with an auto attack feature in mind.

You say I didn't put any thought into my previous statement, but let's assume that an auto battle feature were added, using archer as an example, an auto-attack would wreck that job outright. In FFXI, Ranger had melee weapons as main weapons with the ranged weapon as a sub weapon. In XIV, archers have only thier bow as thier main weapon, meaning that it would be subject to auto attack, unfortunately this would make it difficult for an archer to use his/her skills effectively, especially multishot, raging strike, and hawkseye. You would never be able to use all of them all at once, let alone use them for a weaponskill before your character auto attacked and wiped your buffs. As you stated, you could set the attack speed for a long delay, this is true, however, that delay would be so long that you would seriously hamper the job's ability to do damage over time, where archer gets alot of it's damage from. In addition, unlike the other DoW, you have a limited amount of ammunition. Even if you are carrying 2~3 stacks, there will be a point where you will run out of ammunition, and your quiver WILL go dry. If that arc is hit by an accuracy down debuff like blindness, you can bet that you will waste an excessive number of arrows before it wears off. If and when SE introduces Musketeer as a playable job, it will be like wise crippled for the same reasons.

So, gimped skillset, gimped Dot, needlessly wasted ammo. Do I really need to show "how little thought" I put into my statement?

If you reread my OP, and read many others ideas for AA, you have an option to toggle it on/off. For reasons of not breaking crowd control, or by your example to use skills that buff attacks.

Now as a Archer you could start by engaging a mob you press 1 to start your Auto attack rounds. Once you get to a point where you want to use stacked TP skills or other abilities you press 1 again turn AA off use your buffed skills then press 1 to recommence AA.

Or alternately skills can be reworked to a point where AA won't effect buffed skills.
example:
Hawk's Eye: Your eyes gain hawk-like precision, increasing the accuracy of your next attack.
becomes
Hawk's Eye: Your eyes gain hawk-like precision, increasing the accuracy of your next ABILITY

Multishot: Nock an additional arrow for your next attack, up to a maximum of 3.
becomes
Multishot: Nock an additional arrow for your next ABILITY, up to a maximum of 3.