Guild Wars 2

Is there anyone who uses this function?

It’s in “Targeting” section of Control options.

For those who don’t understand that:
It locks(or is called as “Hard target”) on the target which is in center of the screen and has it highlighted(or is called as “Soft target”), showing it’s name and healthbar above the target.
It locks on aslong as you hold the button down.

I haven’t found it very useful,
since my play style is left-handed WASD, ALT to dodge, right-mousebutton turn camera, CTRL to show enemy names, SHIFT to show allied names and targeting buttons that lock on targets.

Though the current targeting bugs have been messing up stuff, like priority of yellow over red and foes behind and near edges of screen are targeted instead.

I didn’t like the automatic functions either (General options: “Autotargeting” and “Promote skill target”), as I didn’t find it very free function, as it limits my skill usage, could accidently lock on and start auto-attack, and cause unwanted aggro, etc.

In my opinion, either make a new function that works like “Lock Autotarget” (Hold to lock your autotarget), which instead just locks on highlighted target with one press of the button “Lock Autotarget” (Lock your autotarget),
or change the current “Lock Autotarget” (Hold to lock your autotarget) into one.

(Edited post to have underlines and bold to hopefully make easier to read)

I honestly never noticed it… that would be nice if it worked the way it says it does for bosses like golem where you lose your target after like 3 seconds every time you reacquire it.

I was playing around with this option for a bit, because with it you can almost emulate the Combat Mod functionality. In the end it’s just not very feasible to have another button to press on top of everything else. If you used a foot paddle maybe …
I also tried rebinding keys in Windows so I can map an additional key to the right mouse button and assign it to the soft lock. Worked partially, but still not too great.

I’d rather have a checkbox in the target options that makes my skills automatically use the soft target if no other target is hard-locked. That would be a dream to play.

Naqaj.6219:

I’d rather have a checkbox in the target options that makes my skills automatically use the soft target if no other target is hard-locked. That would be a dream to play.

Well, there’s “Promote skill target” in General options, which automatically locks and uses skill on “soft target” in the middle of the screen, thus “hard targeting” it.
This doesn’t allow you to break target by soft targeting other foe while you have a hard target.

You can switch target with “Target next” or “Target nearest” (You might have to use the button more to go through all targets in range), or use left mouse button to click on nothing to clear the “hard target” or to select another target
(Which doesn’t work if you have right mouse button held down).

Then we have “Autotargeting”, this promotes soft target, but doesn’t hard lock, which is lost if I move my camera, so that the soft targeted foe is no longer in middle of my screen.

My problem with this is quite same as double tab WASD to dodge, there’s more chance for mistake, I press skill 1, and I accidently lock on and attack wrong monster and get unwanted aggro,
or with dodge, I might accidently doubletap WASD direction, which then spends 50 endurance on nothing.

But that is my style of playing the game, I like to confirm(Lock on desired target) before action(Use skills in bar).
Thus I use left ALT button to execute dodge, so I can freely use WASD+hold down right mouse button for mobility. “Promote skill target” doesn’t work for me, since I either have to use left mouse button or “target xxx” set buttons.

I need to research this as well, I constantly drop targets for uncanny reasons.

Ok, I found a function which locks on button press the “soft target”.

“Target next” (I noticed that the real name of the function is actually “Next enemy” in control options-targeting section)
This button locks on soft target, but will act like normal “Target next” if you don’t clear or kill the current hard target.

However it’s prone to picking wrong target, since it’s two targeting functions in one and seems to be affected by the targeting priority bug (Takes Yellows over reds)…

I would be happy with keybind that cycles targets starting from the center of the screen outwards, resetting once you don’t press it for say, 2 seconds.

Too bad people don’t seem to care about the “Hold to lock autotarget” function at all…

So we don’t know if anyone uses it actually…

Then I should propably consider “Hold to lock autotarget” the most useless function in GW2.
Well, atleast in my play style.