4 tick auto attack

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Four tick auto-attacking, abbreviated as 4taa, is an exploitation of RuneScape's tick system which is possible due to differences between two-handed and dual wield weapon attack speeds. An auto attack is cast every 4 ticks (2.4 seconds) for a dual wield weapon with "Fastest" attack speed, whereas a two-handed weapon with "Average" attack speed is 6 ticks (3.6 seconds). Four tick auto-attacking allows the player to auto attack with the speed of a dual wield weapon, with the increased damage of the two-handed weapon.

A player demonstrating four tick auto-attacking

A weapon auto-attack will always be based off the speed of the weapon used for the attack prior. For example: a wand is equipped and is auto casting every 4 game ticks, then a staff gets equipped, the staff's first auto attack will be on the 4th tick, and every auto attack following will be every 7 ticks.

With the introduction of the Evolution of Combat, a magic spell can be placed on the action bar. Due to the ability bar not cancelling most player actions, auto-attacks and abilities can be cast on the same tick, despite the 1 tick cooldown between auto attacks and abilities. Auto-attacks and abilities paired together can be very powerful, and four tick auto-attacking can be up to a 5-7% increase in damage per second if done with little error.

Jagex had planned to remove 4 tick auto-attacking by changing the way auto-attacks and ticks interact with abilities, and add a Magic threshold ability that temporarily allows the usage of auto-attacks in between dual-wielded magic abilities. Ranged and Melee were also planned to receive changes that increase combat's actions-per-minute in return for higher damage-per-second. However, these plans were made low priority and made an option in May's Build-A-Backlog poll following the removal of continuous four tick auto-attacking.

Usage

It is recommended to have a mouse with extra buttons, which can be remapped to equip a wand, orb, and staff.

• Place the desired spell on an action bar, and keybind it.
• It's suggested to keybind the spell with a key that is easily accessible, such as V or C.
• Use an ability with dual wield weapons.
• In between the global cooldown swap to a staff.
• After the global cooldown has finished, wait 1 game tick (0.6 seconds) and press the keybound spell and an ability at the same time.

This can be done easier by spam pressing the spell and waiting for the white flash of the ability bar as a signal to use the next ability.

Tips

• Select auto-cast spells with dual-wield weapons equipped, to ensure that an off-hand spell is selected as well. Not having an off-hand spell selected will effectively lower ability damage by 33.3% whenever using dual-wield weapons.
• Have auto-retaliate disabled.
• Using full manual rather than revolution mode will prevent abilities being triggered before the auto-attack is ready.

Continuous 4taa

Continuous four tick auto-attacking

Continuous four tick auto-attacking, abbreviated as c4taa, could be done the same way as normal four tick auto-attacking, but instead of using an ability with a staff, a wand and orb get equipped and an ability is used in the same tick. This allowed a staff auto-attack to be cast every 4 ticks instead of every 7 ticks, increasing damage per second even more, but requiring a lot more actions per ability.

The key action in continuous four tick auto-attacking was the use of an ability with dual-wield weapons, which set the auto-attack delay back to 4 ticks instead of 6. This was determined to be a bug, and was fixed in the update on 21 May 2018. Continuous four tick auto-attacking is no longer possible.

Cost per autocast

Air Surge	Blood Blitz
Input Cost 5 450 Combo runes 5 4,925 5 5,055 5 5,815	Input Cost 51 1,473 Combo runes 15 5,508 15 5,733 15 5,673

Limitations

• It is currently only possible to four tick auto-attack with Magic, as there is no way to auto attack from the ability bar with Melee or Ranged.