Melee get auto-attack which they can turn on and just stand there to dps. Of course to do optimal damage they have to do AA abilities during the fight and maybe reposition. On my mage though I have to cast between 30-40 damage spells over a minute or more to kill a monster. The closest thing we casters get to auto-attack is creating a "weave." This is where 4-5 spells are mapped to the same key, then we just press that one key repeatedly and the next spell in the weave that is ready is cast. I would like it if there was an auto-weave similar to auto-attack that would cast this weave for my during a fight.
eh, melee have to worry about positioning, so I'd say it's fair. Now, if they gave melee an auto-positioning ability...
Casters also melee... cough. hdex for the win. Just use one key to bind and get trigger happy with it. Melee have to do the same if they are disc dependent or hybrid.
Make a macro: /pause xx, /cast 1 /pause yy, /cast 2 /pause zz, /cast 3 /pause xxa, /cast 4 /pause yya, /cast 5 As a mage you need to cast the swarm pet for extra dps boost, so the macro is timed around swarm pet refresh timer, which is 18 secs iirc. So, when boxing a mage - switch to the toon and hit the macro again every 18 secs, easy to box.
It would be kind of cool to have a "melody" equivalent for casters instead of having to make a social/macro, figure out all the timings and hope you're not going to experience lag.
If this is something that they want to do, then they could make wands fit in ranged slot and work with autofire.
If the melee you are grouping with simply 'turn on autoattack and stand there' then I suggest you find some other melee to group with. Melee classes are constantly going through discs and abilities, worrying about positioning an=d mob placement, oh and this little thing called getting hit! So, sure, give casters 'auto-nuke', so long as it can only be used within melee range of the mob!
I think Force of will/ice/flame was supposed to be a "kind of" auto-attack for wizards, back when they were mana free. you still had to manually spam them though.
Angahran nailed it. Auto attack is nice but unless you are mashing all your abilities you are only going to be doing about 1/4 of your total DPS ... like your pet.
Bingo. They were mana-free by design for this exact purpose. Then a mana cost was added for reasons unknown.
Hate to break it to you but casters get auto-attack also. Many have bad habits and want to only cast spells from across the zone at the target and not use their full potential is a them problem. I still see casters and healers standing well away from mobs and with their backs to them, learn to play better.
Many do this due to the lag, when spells won't cast we have very little choice other than look away from the mobs or do pitiful damage, caster melee damage is meh even with spell haste.
Hybrids of even pure melee all get some spell casting stuff. Instant cast stuff, lower amounts but nuke or dot critical rate and nuke or dot critical modifiers, many get the same base skills at a lower rate like alteration, twincast, channeling, etc. Outside of shaman I don’t think any healers or casters get any skills like double attack, triple attack, flurry, or melee critical rate or critical modifiers. No offense or accuracy or attack at lower levels just none at all.
I always thought they stayed out of melee range to give the healers a break. When casters take rampage thats far more costly in healer time and mana than the caster did in melee damage.
When you have lots of AE and group heals flying around having them stay out of range of those heals can make it harder for the healers.
