I’m not understanding the reasoning behind having GCD versus not having it at all. Doesn’t it make more sense for people to be able to use their abilities on the fly without an artificial buffer placed in by Blizzard that delays you from being able to make the best available choice in that split-second window you have to make it?
Why do the developers see it as being better that your character dies because the GCD got between you and a life-saving choice?
I think this game could be a lot better with no GCD at all.
Because you could macro your entire rotation into one button. Your presence in a group could be replaced by a drinking bird.
10 Likes
Because imagine putting all of your abilities in a single button and spamming it.
Engaging gameplay.
There’s a fine line for GCDs.
Having none at all is VERY bad.
4 Likes
A single button wouldn’t work in every situation though. Like in PvP you would need to have a offensive and defensive set of abilities in a macro. I get that though it makes sense. Requiring someone to use more buttons makes things more complex but the downside of having GCD is that there’s situations where you could have lived but didn’t because GCD was there to stop you from surviving which doesn’t seem fair imho.
Like if anything I think it’d be interesting to see what the game would look like if all defensives were taken off GCD. I don’t see the issue with people one buttoning defensives into a single macro. Because if they do it wrong there’s cooldowns that prevent you from surviving solely off using the instant no-GCD defensives macro.
Idk, I think they should go lighter on the GCD. Like maybe lowering the time GCD is active for would be a fair compromise. Because as it stands I keep running into situations where I could have survived a PvP/PvE situation but I’m spamming an ability that’s available but the GCD is still walling that ability from activating and saving me.
It’d feel better if they required even better resource management and went lighter on the GCD’s impact on ability up-time.
imagine a warrior in 3’s with no GCD + 100 rage. just… imagine 
That is the best description for that.
90% of defensives including movement abilities are actually off the GCD, there are very few that are on the GCD.
Notable ones are Shield of Vengeance typically because it is used as an offensive ability especially in PvE, and Astral Shift (because why Blizzard? Why do you hate Shamam so much?)
For PvP having everything being able to be activated through a single ability would be broken and it wouldn’t matter how good the defensive options are.
If you think about it this way, in the period of a split second a Paladin would be able use Avenging Wrath, Crusader Strike, Blade of Wrath, Judgement, Divine Toll, Wake of Ashes, Templar’s Verdict, consecration, Hammer of Justice, Final Reckoning, and Hammer of Wrath.
Needless to say that would one shot anyone with literally zero counterplay.
The GCDs is there to throttle what a player can do within an instant encouraging more decision making to occur. Since you can’t just press everything at any time all of a sudden on what button you press and in what order.
It adds a cost onto your actions, did you use that GCD to deal damage, or did you use it to heal?
Etc
Because Shaman aren’t allowed to have nice things. Its to make up for when they could 2 shot with a 2 hander and frost shock back in like vanilla
True, rip Shaman, dead for 13 years after discretions against our lord and saviour Blizzard.
1 Like
nah it doesn’t. remove sweeping strikes from GCD please.
GCD means you cant macro literally every cooldown you have + trinkets into one big one shot?..pretty obvious.
I’ve played like 5-6 MMO’s and each and every one had a built in mechanism to slow down ability usage. Some like Wow and FF14 have a GCD and others like Guild Wars2 use casting animations.
Wow allows an instant cast spell to complete at the beginning of the GCD, you’re just prevented from casting the next ability at the end of the GCD. But once you get close enough to the end of the GCD you can actually activate the next ability and it will queue up and fire off. Which works fantastic in laggy situations.
With the casting animation system there really isn’t an “instant cast”, the shortest animation is 1.2 - 1.5 seconds and the cast only occurs if the animation can be completed. Some have an ability queueing system that allows you to activate your next ability just before the animation finishes and some will actually cancel the original cast and start the new one. That makes you lose time and lose effectivity.
Between the casting animation system and the GCD system I actually prefer how GCDs. The GCD system doesn’t look as cool but its actually far more user friendly.
Imagine a ret pally popping wings, you want to react and hit a defensive to stay alive but he already hit you with every single one of his abilities at the same time and now you are dead.
I wouldn’t mind playing my Ret pally with no gcd. A 1 button macro would give me more time to drink during raids.
Let’s not forget that the GCD also allows multiple people with varying internet connections to have significantly more stable and better feeling play experiences.
2 Likes
I do come from a game with no GCD. Basically a cannoner can come from nowhere and delete you.
It will visually look like a million red cannons hit you. As a result most players stack on damage reduction and abilities that cause players to sleep on attacking (etc). These prefixes take over the meta and suddenly it’s not so fun anymore.
To be honest, I think they could take an FFXIV-like approach of having some attacks be oGCD, some are half-GCD and your main combo based rotation is regular oGCD.
You get way more oGCD things to weave in during your rotation than you do here in WoW. Most oGCD stuff in WoW is just buffs and big cooldowns.
The short answer is you’re wrong, the game would not be better without a GCD.
Yeah, everything everyone’s saying adds up. I just lean towards it being better if they made us manage our resources better (making resource management more difficult and require focus) and cut the GCD back a little to balance the scale a bit. But for sure based off what folks are saying it makes sense to keep the GCD.