Guild Wars 2

Can anyone help clarify what seem like inconsistencies regarding auto-attack offhand skills? Why do all skills have that little tooltip, but setting some to auto activates them while others don’t? Is there any rhyme or reason behind it?

Guardian torch 4 (Zealot’s Flame) activates when you have it set to auto-attack, but guardian shield 4 (Shield of Judgement) doesn’t. Neither necro warhorn skill activates when set to auto; Warrior warhorn 4 can auto-attack but 5 can’t.

I admit I’m not seeing a pattern, but just can’t figure out the rationale behind why some offhands can auto-activate but others can’t; and so on.

Can anyone offer insight?

I’m assuming you’re trying to have them activate out of combat? I’ve never heard of any problems with casting anything on AA in combat.

I basically never change my AA settings from the #1 skill, but my guess would be that it has something to do with what type of attack the skill is. Which isn’t to say mainhand or offhand or anything like that, but rather what the skill actually does.

Moves that are 100% self buffs will auto-cast out of combat. But anything that effects enemies in any way, be that with damage or debuffs, will not.

That would fit all the moves you described. Zealot’s Flame doesn’t actually do anything to opponents directly, its the self-buff that it applies to you that causes the burn to enemies, which allows it to work. Everything else you listed as working is a pure buff, while the ones that don’t work have damage or debuff on them.

Thanks for the reply, Electro. Yep: I should’ve specified that this is when out of combat, traveling around, etc. At a glance your distinction between self-buffs and damaging moves makes sense, except (I think?) I have two examples that potentially mess that up.

Ranger axe 5 (Whirling Defense) can auto-activate even when not in combat; it’s technically a buff/boon—retaliation—but can also damage enemies via direct contact within its radius: that “attack” happens regardless of the retaliation, so I would say that’s not a purely self-buff since it can directly damage an enemy. And yet it auto-activates.

And the weirdest one is Ranger’s torch 5 (Bonfire), which is a purely damage-dealing move with no self-interest at all outside the fire field. Going by what you suggest, it shouldn’t auto-activate outside of combat, given that it’s a damaging move. But it does: outside of combat it will auto-activate infinitely once it’s off cooldown. Shouldn’t that not be the case?

See why I’m confused?

Both of those are also PBAoEs.

Khisanth.2948:

Both of those are also PBAoEs.

…and? Not sure what you’re trying to say.

A PBAoE has no need to care about aiming unlike other attacks. Having it work for Whirling Defense is a bit weird since movement would interrupt it.

Khisanth.2948:

Both of those are also PBAoEs.

And for those of us in the studio audience playing along, PBAoE means “Point Blank Area of Effect”, right? I want to make certain we’re all using the same terminology here.

Just tested some more, and ele’s warhorn skills all seem inconsistent as well.

Besides the fact that none of them auto-activate outside of combat, in particular Earth 4 (Sand Squall), water 5 (Water Globe), and fire 4 (Heat Sync) are all non-damaging and non-AOE self/team-buffs that SHOULD auto-activate by the parameters we’re discussing here, right? But they don’t.