Mille Marteaux
Empress of Light
that's right buddies its another autoswing thread i hope you're ready for this
This is a thread of known information, meant to bring it all together in one place so we have a single link we can all cite and correct if mechanics change, save time explaining it for future discussions, etc. I will be including a lot of short clips with input displays as references to make understanding the text explanations easier for visual learners.
What is Autoswing?
Autoswing is a flag set on equipment (specifically, the [autoReuse] paremeter) that allows you to hold the Fire button and continue re-using the item without any delay.
In other words, you hold the attack button and you get to keep attacking.
Weapons that do not have this ability will simply be used once per Fire press, no matter how long you hold the Fire key.
To attack again, you will need to release the Fire key after the swing animation has finished and press Fire again.
Mashing the Fire key will not always result in swinging again, especially if you press the Fire key again during the swing animation.
Example of using a Wooden Sword, a weapon that does not have Autoswing.
Note that even while mashing or holding the key, you don't attack again until releasing the button and pressing it again when the weapon's attack animation is finished.
What is Autofire?
Autofire is an accessibility option added in Version 1.4.4.
It changes how weapons without Autoswing work, allowing you to hold the button to keep using them.
While this functionally adds Autoswing to all equipment in the game, there is an extremely important distinction to be made:
Items without native Autoswing are, by default, one frame slower than items that have it.
There is a single frame of animation between item uses where you return to your default standing state.
This is easiest to see with weapons such as the Amethyst Staff and Handgun, where the item gets put away before being reused.
Items with Autoswing by default do not have this one frame of delay, so if two items have a use time of 20, but only one of them has Autoswing natively, the native Autoswing item will be slightly faster.
Example: Frame by frame of one swing of a Wooden Sword and a Bee Keeper.
The weapons take the same time to finish their swing, but there is a quick delay.
Further example: swinging an autofired Wooden Sword and a Bee Keeper 19 times in a row.
Note that the longer you continue to attack, the further Wooden Sword technically falls behind.
However, while technically slower, this single frame difference ends up being extremely important. As of writing this post (1.4.4.9), this single frame influences how weapon swapping works.
If you are using a native Autoswing weapon and you try to swap weapons, the swap will not go through until you have released the Fire button and the most recent attack animation has finished.
Example with an Autofire-enabled Amethyst Staff and a Diamond Staff.
Amethyst Staff does not natively have Autoswing, so the swap to the Diamond staff happens immediately upon an animation ending despite holding the fire button.
However, once the Diamond Staff is equipped, the Fire button has to be released and a fire animation has to end before the game swaps back to the Amethyst Staff.
This applies to any and all weapons that natively have the autoReuse flag set, so a full inventory of Autoswing weapons can end up feeling very sticky.
Example: Watch how it can take a while for the swap to occur depending on the timing of releasing the Fire key.
This means that if you like to do Ichor swaps, you honestly may wish to swap to a weapon that doesn't have Autoswing just to ensure you get back to your main weapon easier.
Also, this is little quirk is partially what makes Whip stacking function as well as it does. Currently, no whips have the autoReuse ability, meaning you can quickly swap between them and the primary things holding you back are your dexterity, mastery over your control device, and your attack speed. (You could theoretically "nerf" whip stacking by making it inconvenient to do if every whip had autoReuse enabled.. but this wouldn't actually be fun, nor would it add anything positive to the experience.)
Example of what the inputs involved for whip stacking look like. In other words, wheeeeeee
for some reason this isn't embedding in the post preview but it works everywhere else i go so i'm gonna click post and send it
So, what about Feral Claws?
The Feral Claws accessory has gotten a bad reputation recently, despite being a respectable damage boost at the stage of the game you get it at.
It gives 12% Melee attack speed, and it enables Autofire for basic melee weapons and Whips that do not have the autoReuse flag set.
You may notice that I specified it adds Autofire, not Autoswing.
Equipping the Feral Claws does not remove the single frame between uses of non-Autoswing weapons, thus in a vacuum there is no mechanical difference in performance between using three Violent reforged accessories with Autofire enabled compared to using Feral Claws.
This leads to the recent question of "why use Feral Claws when Autofire exists in the options?" and the answer may surprise you. Hold on to your seat for this one.
... It gives you 12% melee attack speed. At the stage of the game you would be using this accessory, that is a fairly large bonus.
That is the value of three Violent reforges that do not cost you reforge slots. You attack faster, thus you deal more damage, and you have access to three extra reforges worth of stats up to your preference.
Of course, this may not always have an immediately obvious benefit due to the nature of melee speed bonuses, but.. it still boosts your damage.
On average, the increase to your overall damage deal output can range from about 7% to 15%.
What do I do with this information?
Whatever you want. In practice it doesn't really matter much, and it isn't my job to tell you how to play.
While enabling the Autofire setting is slightly more efficient due to human error, Autoswing weapons have similar issues with weapon swapping when playing quickly.
Ultimately, turn Autofire on and chill if you want to, leave it off if you like pressing the button manually, and don't be afraid of using Feral Claws just because you have Autofire on. I hope I've at least cleared up some of the weird mechanical jank between Autoswing and Autofire, and if you already knew these things I hope you're just happy to see that it has all been compiled in one place so we can easily reference it (or look back on it fondly if 1.4.5 just entirely changes how Autoswing works to begin with).
I personally recommend turning Autofire on just because it's much easier on your wrist. You start getting access to Autoswing weapons very quickly and any important weapons that don't have Autoswing are typically used alongside one of the Feral Claws tinkers anyway because of the attack range increase that comes from them.. or because you enjoy using Whips.
This is a thread of known information, meant to bring it all together in one place so we have a single link we can all cite and correct if mechanics change, save time explaining it for future discussions, etc. I will be including a lot of short clips with input displays as references to make understanding the text explanations easier for visual learners.
What is Autoswing?
Autoswing is a flag set on equipment (specifically, the [autoReuse] paremeter) that allows you to hold the Fire button and continue re-using the item without any delay.
In other words, you hold the attack button and you get to keep attacking.
Weapons that do not have this ability will simply be used once per Fire press, no matter how long you hold the Fire key.
To attack again, you will need to release the Fire key after the swing animation has finished and press Fire again.
Mashing the Fire key will not always result in swinging again, especially if you press the Fire key again during the swing animation.
Example of using a Wooden Sword, a weapon that does not have Autoswing.
Note that even while mashing or holding the key, you don't attack again until releasing the button and pressing it again when the weapon's attack animation is finished.
What is Autofire?
Autofire is an accessibility option added in Version 1.4.4.
It changes how weapons without Autoswing work, allowing you to hold the button to keep using them.
While this functionally adds Autoswing to all equipment in the game, there is an extremely important distinction to be made:
Items without native Autoswing are, by default, one frame slower than items that have it.
There is a single frame of animation between item uses where you return to your default standing state.
This is easiest to see with weapons such as the Amethyst Staff and Handgun, where the item gets put away before being reused.
Items with Autoswing by default do not have this one frame of delay, so if two items have a use time of 20, but only one of them has Autoswing natively, the native Autoswing item will be slightly faster.
Example: Frame by frame of one swing of a Wooden Sword and a Bee Keeper.
The weapons take the same time to finish their swing, but there is a quick delay.
Further example: swinging an autofired Wooden Sword and a Bee Keeper 19 times in a row.
Note that the longer you continue to attack, the further Wooden Sword technically falls behind.
However, while technically slower, this single frame difference ends up being extremely important. As of writing this post (1.4.4.9), this single frame influences how weapon swapping works.
If you are using a native Autoswing weapon and you try to swap weapons, the swap will not go through until you have released the Fire button and the most recent attack animation has finished.
Example with an Autofire-enabled Amethyst Staff and a Diamond Staff.
Amethyst Staff does not natively have Autoswing, so the swap to the Diamond staff happens immediately upon an animation ending despite holding the fire button.
However, once the Diamond Staff is equipped, the Fire button has to be released and a fire animation has to end before the game swaps back to the Amethyst Staff.
This applies to any and all weapons that natively have the autoReuse flag set, so a full inventory of Autoswing weapons can end up feeling very sticky.
Example: Watch how it can take a while for the swap to occur depending on the timing of releasing the Fire key.
This means that if you like to do Ichor swaps, you honestly may wish to swap to a weapon that doesn't have Autoswing just to ensure you get back to your main weapon easier.
Also, this is little quirk is partially what makes Whip stacking function as well as it does. Currently, no whips have the autoReuse ability, meaning you can quickly swap between them and the primary things holding you back are your dexterity, mastery over your control device, and your attack speed. (You could theoretically "nerf" whip stacking by making it inconvenient to do if every whip had autoReuse enabled.. but this wouldn't actually be fun, nor would it add anything positive to the experience.)
Example of what the inputs involved for whip stacking look like. In other words, wheeeeeee
for some reason this isn't embedding in the post preview but it works everywhere else i go so i'm gonna click post and send it
So, what about Feral Claws?
The Feral Claws accessory has gotten a bad reputation recently, despite being a respectable damage boost at the stage of the game you get it at.
It gives 12% Melee attack speed, and it enables Autofire for basic melee weapons and Whips that do not have the autoReuse flag set.
You may notice that I specified it adds Autofire, not Autoswing.
Equipping the Feral Claws does not remove the single frame between uses of non-Autoswing weapons, thus in a vacuum there is no mechanical difference in performance between using three Violent reforged accessories with Autofire enabled compared to using Feral Claws.
This leads to the recent question of "why use Feral Claws when Autofire exists in the options?" and the answer may surprise you. Hold on to your seat for this one.
... It gives you 12% melee attack speed. At the stage of the game you would be using this accessory, that is a fairly large bonus.
That is the value of three Violent reforges that do not cost you reforge slots. You attack faster, thus you deal more damage, and you have access to three extra reforges worth of stats up to your preference.
Of course, this may not always have an immediately obvious benefit due to the nature of melee speed bonuses, but.. it still boosts your damage.
On average, the increase to your overall damage deal output can range from about 7% to 15%.
What do I do with this information?
Whatever you want. In practice it doesn't really matter much, and it isn't my job to tell you how to play.
While enabling the Autofire setting is slightly more efficient due to human error, Autoswing weapons have similar issues with weapon swapping when playing quickly.
Ultimately, turn Autofire on and chill if you want to, leave it off if you like pressing the button manually, and don't be afraid of using Feral Claws just because you have Autofire on. I hope I've at least cleared up some of the weird mechanical jank between Autoswing and Autofire, and if you already knew these things I hope you're just happy to see that it has all been compiled in one place so we can easily reference it (or look back on it fondly if 1.4.5 just entirely changes how Autoswing works to begin with).
I personally recommend turning Autofire on just because it's much easier on your wrist. You start getting access to Autoswing weapons very quickly and any important weapons that don't have Autoswing are typically used alongside one of the Feral Claws tinkers anyway because of the attack range increase that comes from them.. or because you enjoy using Whips.
