Severe Delay in Ability Feedback

Support Bug Report
1

Support directed me to make a bug report.

When using an ability, the cast goes off immediately. I am experiencing zero audiovisual input delay, apart from the maybe 5ms inherent to a half decent monitor. However, any feedback from the game it self is severely delayed.

This issue is consistently present across all classes and specs on a fresh install. This includes skyriding abilities, vehicle/playable NPC abilities, and every other instance of a castable ability I’ve found.

It is most noticeable on Outlaw - pressing Pistol Shot with Opportunity up often results in the entire GCD window expiring before the ability is done casting. Pressing Between the Eyes sometimes doesn’t play its audio cue and refund combo points until I’ve already cast my next ability afterwards. Essentially, the game is perpetually behind by an inconsistent amount of time when it comes to resolving my abilities.

Also, the actual GCD timer on my abilities, which should tick down smoothly, usually starts more than halfway complete and often rubberbands back and forth. Under a significant haste bonus like a simultaneous Bloodlust/Heroism and Adrenaline Rush, sometimes the dial never even appears, not only ruining my ability to react to procs but also locking me into pressing my abilities very late over and over for the duration of the buff.

Per PingPlotter, my latency is smooth across my ISP’s end. I’m all the way in TN and the round trip from my ISP’s nearest node to Blizzard’s Los Angeles datacenter is roughly 40ms. However, I’ve identified an aggressively fluctuating spike on the datacenter’s IP that ranges from 80-200ms all the way up to 2003ms at worst.

Others have made similar posts on the topic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1gcqylr/weird_combat_delay_as_of_1105/
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1gto77z/something_is_seriously_wrong_with_the_serverinputs/

29 Likes
2

Bump seeking update from Blizzzzz

4 Likes
3

1200 upvotes, 150 comments on Reddit should count for something. Fix this!

3 Likes
4

I knew it wasn’t me. I knew something was off.

After reading thread after thread about this and seeing video proof, I now know without a doubt that I am experiencing this issue as well. I just didn’t know what it was or how to explain it, but it’s definitely real.

There are other threads from these forums as well that have reported it and fallen on deaf ears it seems:

5

Notice it a lot as a Ret Paladin.

4 Likes
6

Bumping this, glad to see I’m not alone. I play outlaw rogue and we have a GCD of 0.8s for 95-100% of the fight, which is similar to a regular spec with ~90% haste. These issues have made the spec nigh unplayable for me in raid since TWW launched.

I will have random intervals where staring at my bars, I cannot tell what casts will go off or not or where my GCD is. The whole cadence goes away, procs will happen after the gcd has “finished” and the next spell has swung, wasting the proc or resources. Mashing an ability during the “gcd” animation will cause it to fire 2-3 times in a row uncontrollably.

I tried a fresh game install, messing with graphics settings, fresh addon setups/playing with no addons. None of these made any difference.

The only additional info I can give is this issue seems to “build up” over time spent in combat, especially in raid where as few as 3-4 pulls of a prog boss will cause my client to be almost unplayable on high haste classes. Its started cropping up in m+ as well, something I didn’t really notice in s1 meaning its getting worse.

And also of course, I am experiencing no actual lag when these spikes happen. I can move and control my character in real time, my ping is at a steady 60-80 (normal for my connection), my FPS is stable at around 70 fps depending on the fight. Mechanics and dodging abilities all happens in real time, the only delay is my characters GCD.

I never experienced issues like this in dragonflight. I hope someone finds a solution soon.

6 Likes
7

This issue has not resolved as a result of updates in the time since posting. It’s killing the game for me and I’ve unsubscribed, however I am a year-at-a-time subscriber so I intend to keep playing for now. I simply do not intend to spend any more money on this game until it’s fixed.

Because I’m still playing for now, I’ve been trying to help figure this out. Here’s more data. After further troubleshooting:

  1. I still experience this bug on the PTR and on all realms.
  2. I still experience this bug after a fresh reinstall of my operating system.
  3. I experience this bug with more intensity during high population events (Nightfall).
  4. I experience this bug with more intensity during high NPC casting activity content (Underpin ?? Difficulty, M+)
  5. This bug is not reflected in the combat log (other than player-side missed timing as a result of the bug) - procs are logged as having resolved with the same timestamp as the cast that caused or spent them, despite severely delayed feedback on the UI.
  6. This bug is still occurs when using addon replacements for the default UI, IE full class weakauras with ability tracking.
  7. This bug is reflected in the new cooldown manager.
  8. This bug occurs on every class in the game, but becomes significantly more common as the number of talent points spent increases.
  9. This bug’s rate of occurrence is strongly correlated to haste and random procs.
2 Likes
8

Can confirm that I still have this issue! Please fix this already :frowning:

1 Like
9

Feels like mega rat cheeks on any high haste spec, real cringe.

2 Likes
10

Returning to update:

I am on different internet hardware now, with my own setup for a modem, switch, and router. Absolutely nothing has changed in WoW since.

Various viral, but likely placebo “fixes” devised by the community, such as using the Iron Boot Flask to play with an older model do nothing to alleviate this issue.

11.2 also does nothing to alleviate this issue.

1 Like
11

This has been happening all expansion long for me. Countless back and forths with Blizzard has amounted to nothing.

At first, I was given a ticket response on May 29 2025, with the below written:

I totally get how frustrating it must be to deal with those GCD and input delays, especially when you’re trying to enjoy the game. It’s really disheartening when everything else feels smooth, but your abilities just aren’t firing off as they should.
I want you to know that this issue is definitely on Blizzard’s radar. Many players have reported similar experiences, particularly during intense moments like Bloodlust, and the team is actively investigating it. While I can’t provide a specific timeline for a fix, your feedback is super important, and it’s being taken seriously.

Clearly nothing has been done about this, and nothing has changed. Every subsequent response / ticket I open just results in the "GM"s suggesting fixes that I already state have been tried, such as

  • adjusting the spell queue window. I’ve tried testing this on 0 spellqueue and it still occurs
  • running the game with 0 addons
  • trying different operating systems (I’ve tried both W10 and W11, clean installation on both)
  • resetting to default my in-game options AND all of my CVars
  • enabled IPv6 on my network adapter settings, and selecting “Enable IPV6 when available”
  • disabling the IPv6 settings above
  • enabling “Optimize Network for Speed”
  • disabling “Optimize Network for Speed”
  • using different ISPs by installing WoW on other computers
  • repairing the game
  • turning down the graphics to lowest on all settings

and probably many other things that I am forgetting to list.

To add onto the many video clips across various reddit clips, here’s mine. I’m hitting the “C” keybind, a 0 cost spammable button, and to keep stuff simple you can just look at the “3” keybind (2 squares above my C button on my UI), and look at how the GCD swipe looks like.

https://www.twitch.tv/im_rz/clip/GeniusPiliableFinchThisIsSparta-fHzbig0XPTGlH_NS
clip 1 shows issue prevalent in my full raid gear, at around 28.5% haste or so

https://www.twitch.tv/im_rz/clip/SillyTalentedJayKappaRoss-V6bQB8zc2PZ_OA7Q
clip 2 shows issue even at around 2.5% haste

Just to clarify: the issue is when the entire swipe doesn’t show. Normally, it should begin at the 12 o’clock position, when the GCD starts, and end at the 12 o’clock position, when the GCD is back up. A lot of the time when the issue occurs, the swipe starts from around the 4 or 5 oclock position.
However, sometimes the swipe can be as bad as starting from from the 6 or 7 o’clock position. For example, start watching at 0:30 on the first clip. It happens once at around 0:32

Lastly, I know for fact that it is a server side problem because I played the entirety of the most recent tier of Season of Discovery and never had this issue occur in my gameplay a single time, across multiple characters/classes.

For those of you actively following this issue on the forums, have there been any responses from Blizzard regarding this issue at all?

6 Likes
12

Bump. I have the same issue and know many others that also have it. Have not been able to find any threads with response from blizzard.

Normally, it would happen a few times for some seconds to a minute in each m+ run. Some days rarely happen at all.
It has been way worse for me since 11.2, basically happening on/off on ALL pulls. Its crazy. I feel like it has to be the servers that have some issues. Playing on EU Kazzak. But would be nice to at least get a response from blizzard that it could be the cause.

Just adding similar findings as others in this thread. I have tried to play on different internet connections in Dornogal on dummies. Wired and non-wired and two different providers. Ping is 25ms, fps is 90-110 when testing. Have tried with and without spellqueue no difference. Also, it can happen on the first ability click, not necessarily when queuing like sometimes suggested in other places. If it happens more often on queued spells I cannot say. Also happens for off-gcd abilities so I imagine not. Same with haste, it may simply feel worse due to the gcd delay being a bigger percentage of the total gcd with high haste.

I can record if beneficial, but I believe the issue has been well shown and explained already.

Really hyped for season 3, but trying to tank m+ and most pulls start off with abilities being 1/3 - 1/2 GCD delayed (not overexagerrating, its often around 1/2 especially today), makes it really frustrating to do big pulls that requires grouping and threat and defensives all on tight timings. Might be it for me if it does not get any solutions.

2 Likes
13

I play a Frost Mage and it’s extermely frustrating having to deal with this lack of responsiveness issue.

By using the Quartz addon sometimes i get 500-800 ms delay for casting a Glacial Spike. Frostbolt gets up to 400 ms.

Needless to say it hurts gameplay a lot, especially in M+. Can’t touch PVP.

Happens everywhere, the only place it sometimes doesn’t happen in delves.

In delves the responsiveness is so much better I actually enjoy playing the game.

Seems to really be a server issue, having tried everything (wired, no addons, different isp, etc).

Almost quitting because playing like this is disheartening.

3 Likes
14

Bump. I have been having this exact issue for MONTHS now. I have tried from multiple different computers, ISP’s, No addons, Fresh install, and no luck.

I play a Frost Mage in TWW and the latency is awful on all my casts. I have 37 ms in game and I have casts around 400-500ms. I notice when I use Icy Veins and have high haste, I actually miss even more GCD’s. Please fix this issue because I can not play the game!!

3 Likes
15

Bump. Same issue, has been happening since mid dragonflight for me, including on both NA and EU accounts

1 Like
16

I don’t usually bump my own topics, but with Midnight looming and combat addons staring down the barrel, I’d like to reiterate that this is still ongoing.

Killing combat addons will kill the few ways to work around this issue. None of them resolve it, but they’re still far preferable to going vanilla. If combat addons are going, fixing this issue needs to be a high priority.

1 Like
17

Bump

This has been going on since season 2 pre patch for me. Built a new pc, got a different isp provider, new everything and its still the same thing. So i can say that its not us, its blizzard. Customer support is a joke, tech mvp are a joke as they just blame the issue on us. Its like there isnt thousands of reports of this issue floating around, but in reality there is and probably way more.

This should be a top priority vs a cosmetic skin of a mount as this is game breaking for a lot of subscribers, that are on the verge of canceling our subscription.

5 Likes
18

this would be nice to see addressed

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Yes, it really would be nice to see it addressed. As it stands I’m stuck skipping out while my guild sets up the raid team for Midnight. It’s nearly been a year now, and the fact this bug hasn’t even received a blue post in reply is telling. We must be acceptable losses.

20

I’ve been experiencing this regularly and consistently since late DF, around the Emerald Dream patch.

I hasn’t improved at all over TWW, and trying the Midnight beta hasn’t been an improvement or change either.

I’ll press Arcane Shot or Kill Command, and while the GCD keeps rolling, the animation of the GCD doesn’t trigger until almost halfway through the cast. This also effects procs, such as cooldown reductions or my monk’s ability procs. I won’t get the information of the reductions or procs until my gcd’s already half over.

I’m hovering consistently around 55 ms. I’ve even moved during TWW, and still experience the delay the exact same. This happens with and without add-ons, during both busy and quiet hours…

It makes the combat feel so sluggish and like I’m walking through mud. I just direly want a fix so I can keep playing the game, as right now I begin to feel discouraged from doing anything because it feels like my own character’s resisting me.

Edit: I felt it worth mentioning. I ONLY feel this in combat. I don’t feel it when I’m flying, those buttons react immediately.

3 Likes