Auto-attack is a step backward.

[Rhen]

I don't see how auto attack would benefit a class like archer at all. If anything, it will gimp the job.

Don't believe me? Look at arc's skillset, you won't be able to use Multishot to it's full potential because you will always fire before you have a chance to stack the full effect. Raging Strike, Hawk's Eye, Quelling Strike, and Scavenge will also be affected, as you will not be able to stack any of those skills like you can at present. When you are soloing, filling a target with arrows is the last thing you want to do when you are trying to bind a target, so the overall usefullness of Close shot and Shadowbind is gone, as you will unbind the target as soon as you auto attack.

In addition, arcs are heavily dependant on ammunition, once your quiver runs out, you are down to throwing rocks, which is only slightly better than doing no damage at all. As such, there may be times when you do not want to fire, such as when you have excess hate, or are hit with blindness, or another accuracy-down effect. Auto attack will just waste ammuntion, and with arrow prices as they are, it could make the cost of playing arc prohibitive on some servers.

I'm sure the pro-auto camp will say something like "they can set up arc like rng in FFXI." Unfortunately, that will not work because in FFXI, Rangers used either knives or axes as their main weapons, with the bow, crossbow, or gun treated as a sub-weapon. In FFXIV, your bow is your one and only weapon by default, meaning that it is subject to the same rules that govern melee weapons, which will include auto-attack once they add it. They may say "they can switch the bow to a sub-weapon." However, the class would no longer be an archer if they did that. It could also be that the developers intend to make ranged classes exempt from the feature, but I'm doubtful of that, since no mention of such was presented in Mr. Matsui's battle notes, or in yesterday's letter from Yoshi-P.

In the end, I'll have to wait and see how the devs set up the new battle engine, and whether or not it can do so without destroying archer's ability to solo or deal damage. I'm not so sure it can be done however.

Simple solution: auto-attack toggle. If you want to play like the old way, you can (especially in the case of arc), if you want to use auto attack (which really is more useful to melee) you can. Don't see how that would add anything detrimental to the game at all.