What activates auto fire?

Question

As a hunter, I have a basic attack that will use my weapon for low damage every couple of seconds. I know that if I right click on a hostile, it will start, but are there any other ways to activate it?

Answer 1

Any ability you have that does damage to an enemy will also activate your autoattack, unless it specifically states in the tooltip that it "turns off your attack"; such abilities deactivate your autoattack.

If you want to be able to select targets without attacking them, go into your Interface > Controls options and turn off "Interact on Left Click". You can then left click an enemy to select it without attacking.

Answer 2

Pressing the T key should do it.

Answer 3

What you are referring to is "auto attack"

Using a ability will start your auto attack.

Answer 4

Most of your shots will activate your Autoshot however some of your abilities won't. Especially Pet abilities like A murder of Crows, Stampede and Dire Beast will not start your Autoshot. For some reason Glaive Toss also doesn't start it which makes it an excellent pre-cast ability for Survival Hunters (Glaive Toss has a projectile speed of 18 y/s).

To start attacking a target you have 3 options: You can Right-click it, you can use an ability which triggers your autoshot or you can use a /startattack macro. To turn off your autoattack simply use a /stopattack macro.

There's also some weird behavior with the /stopcasting macros. Examples:

#showtooltip Disengage
/stopcasting
/cast Disengage

Will simply cause you to finish your cast without disengaging and stops your autoattack

#showtooltip Disengage
/stopcasting
/stopcasting 
/cast Disengage

Will instantly interrupt your cast and your will disengage while your autoattack remains active.

I have absolutely no Idea why stopcasting works that way and whether it's intentional or a bug (i guess it's considered a feature now) but it's something many hunters don't know.