Warals

First post so bare with me.

I have read post after post on combat arts, auto attacks, and AA lines and with several discussions with Guards on my server I have about got what i feel is my best set up but I am, and have been confused on two issues.

1. auto attacks- do they happen regardless if you are using a combat art... or do i need a pause at the time they are supposed to go of i.e. (use combat arts for 5.5 secs then wait for the auto attack then back to the combat arts? I have even heard of macroing each attack with an auto attack.

2. attack sequence- Ive read that CA sequence is the key to your dps thus the key to your agro. is there an exact CA order that maximizes dps and if so can anyone share what this sequence is.

Jorn

I too would be interested in knowing if thats true. i do alright when im working offensive/ assisting and not tanking with duel wield

Paikis

Auto-attacks will go off automatically between CAs.

__________________
Paikis, Troubador of Nagafen.
Vae Victis - 'The bait isn't supposed to eat the fish!'

Vormav

Are you sure ? People says on my server that you must time your auto attack to get them because your weapon will not attack if you'r doing CAs..

Personally i'm lost in this, tryed to test but.. not concluent :p Would like to have some advice from Mitichal high end guardian who like to dps better :p

Muraha

Say you have a weapon with a 4 second delay and you have zero haste. What will happen is your auto attack will try to fire every 4 seconds. If you are in the middle of doing a combat art then it will queue until your combat art finishes. If you are continually chaining combat arts then you are not giving your auto attack a chance to fire and hence losing dps.

What you need to do is type /weapon in your chat window and it will tell you the actual delay of your weapon in your current group taking into account haste modifiers. What you do then is work out how many combat arts you squeeze in between these timings. if you do any combination of CAs that takes longer than 2 seconds to complete then you delay your auto attack which is bad.

It gets more complicated when you duel wield weapons wit different delays. They become out of synch and it becomes harder to time CAs in between. It is easier if you have two weapons with the same delay

Then you have to factor in temporary haste buffs like Chime of Blades or when items you are wearing proc haste. You need to know when this is happens and what your delay is during that time so that you can modify your timings accordingly.

There are lots of threads on this already - Read Guard DPS -
Pay particular attention to any posts by Jaraxxx, Saracen or Skel

Good luck

Chumann

The way it works is this...

Let's assume you have a weapon with a 4.0 second delay and no haste is applied. That means you will auto-attack every four seconds. If a combat art is used 2.0 seconds after the last auto attack, and the combat art takes 2.0 seconds or less to cast, you will auto attack again at that 4.0 second interval (based on your weapon).

If you are casting a combat art when the next auto attack should happen, you will auto attack immediately after the casting is completed and the delay will reset to the original 4.0 second interval from the last auto attack. So, it will work like this (again assuming a 4.0 second auto attack delay)...

(for this illustration, the first number is the combat timeline in seconds)
0.0 auto attack
2.0 combat art (.5 second casting time)
3.0 combat art (.5 second casting time)
4.0 auto attack
7.0 combat art (2.0 second casting time)
9.0 auto attack
13.0 auto attack

What you should notice is that you should have auto attacked at 8.0 seconds; you didn't because you were casting. The auto attack lands immediately following the cast and the next auto attack comes 4.0 seconds after the last auto attack.

You will increase your dps if you make a point to keep your auto attacks coming as fast as possible, i.e. not delaying them based on casting timers thus lengthening the time between them.