Is PVE going strategic? Is GCD reduction coming?

[OreoLover]

With GCD growing, I get the impression PVE is opening up room for strategic timing, versus action-rotation. WoW is a bit of a button-masher MMO compared to FFXIV, for instance. Perhaps now, bosses will have more frequent, less punishing windows of when to use your DPS/survival cooldowns, rather than stacking them.

Is there any indication GCD reduction (items/talents) might come with the changes?

Are we headed toward a more "thinking and timing" sort of combat, away from "execute the rotation?"

[Nayami]

A lot of games can look like button-mashers in comparison to FFXIV with that long ass gcd... This is just another way for blizzard to try and keep newer / generally bad players because having spells like Death Grip off the GCD is too damn complicated lmfao.

[Rylalai]

This is just another way for blizzard to try and keep newer / generally bad players because having spells like Death Grip off the GCD is too damn complicated lmfao.

Nonono! You see, GCDs make everything totally tactical and way more skillful!! Because.. uhm.. Sorry, I can't keep up the act! I can't understand the couple of guys on mmo-c who defend this changes using those "arguments"..

I guess, soon I can play wow again as I did back in classic when I still was an ability clicker..

[delocx]

Nonono! You see, GCDs make everything totally tactical and way more skillful!! Because.. uhm.. Sorry, I can't keep up the act! I can't understand the couple of guys on mmo-c who defend this changes using those "arguments"..

There is maybe, possibly, just a little bit of a case for damage buff CD being tactical, but for reactionary cooldowns like disengage or damage reduction, I don't buy that for a second!

The example I always fall back on is kicks. They used to be on the GCD. If you missed them, bad things happened. For a lot of defensives, if you miss them, bad things happen. To compensate, you literally just stopped doing anything before you needed to kick to make sure it wasn't GCD locked. This wasn't an "interesting choice" or a "strategic play," it just caused you to fail when you knew for a fact you pressed that button but unfortunately 0.95 seconds before, you had pressed a damage ability.

The fact that stacking cooldowns and mindlessly blowing them as frequently as they become available is optimal play has nothing to do with them being off GCD and everything to do with them being designed to function optimally that way (deliberately or not). Redesign cooldowns such that stacking them is less impactful or even detrimental, and they will be less likely to just get macro'd into your rotation (less likely, not completely non-viable).

There was a time when popping a cooldown was a "Big Deal". You held on to them to use them at the right part of a fight. With how short they now are, and how many of them are made even shorter through talents or other modifiers, they're up so often that there isn't really a downside to hitting them as often as possible.

As far as "wasting" part of a cooldown is concerned, if that wasted 1 second of GCD time is causing you to fall behind, the "fix" (from Blizzard's perspective) is to increase the duration 1 second or increase the magnitude of the cooldown to compensate. Numbers being always open to tweaks, having DPS cooldowns on GCD is pretty low impact if you're balancing around total DPS, so concerns about having crippled damage are senseless. That to me isn't the real problem. The real problem is standing around for 1 GCD (or more if you stack CDs) doing no damage - that feels really not cool from a gameplay perspective!

[Daffan]

A lot of games can look like button-mashers in comparison to FFXIV with that long ass gcd... This is just another way for blizzard to try and keep newer / generally bad players because having spells like Death Grip off the GCD is too damn complicated lmfao.

Guess you never played FFXIV then

[Cosmic Janitor]

WoW's combat being more fluid than dried bubble gum is probably one of the biggest advantages it has over other mmos.

- - - Updated - - -

Nonono! You see, GCDs make everything totally tactical and way more skillful!! Because.. uhm.. Sorry, I can't keep up the act! I can't understand the couple of guys on mmo-c who defend this changes using those "arguments"..

I guess, soon I can play wow again as I did back in classic when I still was an ability clicker..

A bunch of geriatric clickers, that is all it boils down to. And if not in body, then in mind.

[Critical92]

Some abilities are ok on the gcd and others play just horrible on the gcd.
You can argue about def cds on the gcd, but why is a heal ability that heals for 30% hp as a hot on the gcd?
That skill "crimson vial" cost 30 energy and doesn't even heal instantly.

I think blizz put abilities on a wheel and throw darts on them.

The good old example is rogue.
Assa rogues do not notice a difference in their normal rotation outside their def cds (feint was always on the gcd). The slow pace of assa handles the cds on the gcd very well.

Sub rogues on the other hand are about that shadowdance burst and tend to switch to spaming dance like pre 7.2 in bfa thanks to these changes.
The dmg cd is a 30 sec cd, 15% dmg and 40 energy spell. The duration is longer than 1 dance but 2 dances with the right talents are longer. With the gcd change you always want to use it pre dance to avoid precious dance time loss. Sub is almost gcd locked inside dance. On live you can use it between gcds for the sweet energy gain. With bfa the use of that spell is heavily limited in regards to live.
On live sub is about planning and reacting to all possible situations.
Imagine the current sub spec with 1 sec gcd on sod. You press sod, get 40 energy, wait 1 sec and reg 10 energy again before being able to use dfa. The current sub rogue needs even some legendary adjustments when the gcd changes happen with the pre patch. Subs st legy, the 2 sec buff after sod that gives 5 cps, needs a duration buff after the gcd change.

Sounds and plays very wrong.

[Niwes]

WoW's combat being more fluid than dried bubble gum is probably one of the biggest advantages it has over other mmos.

Sign that. Imo i would be happy about a 1s gcd overall. 1,5s is already too slow for me and feels clunky and tough as chewing gum, instead „in a flow“, for my „brain timing“.

[seleri]

I haven't really been keeping up. Are they just adding some items/abilities to the GCD or are they also increasing the GCD?
Because if it's the former, I'll survive and easily adjust. I've been playing from the beginning so I remember the dark times when interrupts were on the GCD. If it's the latter and they're slowing down all combat in general, I guess I need to finally download the alpha so I can voice my feedback.

[Swalload]

With GCD growing, I get the impression PVE is opening up room for strategic timing, versus action-rotation. WoW is a bit of a button-masher MMO compared to FFXIV, for instance. Perhaps now, bosses will have more frequent, less punishing windows of when to use your DPS/survival cooldowns, rather than stacking them.

Is there any indication GCD reduction (items/talents) might come with the changes?

Are we headed toward a more "thinking and timing" sort of combat, away from "execute the rotation?"

That's what they said many times before in prevous xpacks, but then they give people endless upgrades and never force people to make good use of them, allowed max rewards from doing toddler runs in easymode +15 and shits like that. I doubt they'll ever do anything to force people to play the game at a respectable level, shit will always have a pleb mode to please people who haven't learned anything in 13 years.

[Nihilan]

Slowing WoW down to the place of FF14 is probably one of the relatively few things that would genuinely make me quit for good. FF14 feels absolutely awful to play after playing at WoWs pace for 14 years.

Spastic hyperbole aside, I think they are aiming for more late vanilla/tbc pacing with abilities. People will adjust. And in a year only the most diehard nerds will even care.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Sign that. Imo i would be happy about a 1s gcd overall. 1,5s is already too slow for me and feels clunky and tough as chewing gum, instead „in a flow“, for my „brain timing“.

I still get teary eyes when someone mentions unholy presence .

[OreoLover]

I think the idea of a late Vanilla/TBC pace isn't a bad place for the game to return.

That said, if they walk back the pace enough, I feel like GCD reduction / talents to increase play speed become viable.

Talents along the lines of "Increase the frequency your abilities are available, but reduce effects of abilities" (they've done small versions often enough).

[Niwes]

I still get teary eyes when someone mentions unholy presence .

better times...

i get pew pew eyes when i think about smashy survival hunter in MoP or some bashy enhancment shaman specs in older xpacs.

overall, especially class mechanics wise, that game became more and more slow, boring and tough as old chewing gum. sometimes i ask myself, what of this 2 cases is happening at blizz hq:

1)
they are old. they sit in meeting room with glasses, rollators, canes and deaf-aids and go like: „this game is too fast! yeah, you all agree. i cant find my keys. everything to fast! we must slow that fast youth shit down!“.

2)
they think that every millenial is a completely retarded ADD kid that can not handle fast gameplay without completely freakin out.

i dont know. but classes (besides fury warrior) saw better times in that game...

all hail chad nervig (celestalon). since that guy is on classes everything fucked up. even when i think you need a complete team to fuck shit up that heavy as classes were fucked up.

[Riistov]

Spastic hyperbole aside, I think they are aiming for more late vanilla/tbc pacing with abilities. People will adjust. And in a year only the most diehard nerds will even care.

I think you're right. I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry about a Final Fantasy/SWTOR hours long gcd.. pretty sure they're aiming more for that BC era feel.

[OreoLover]

I wonder if they've thought about making CD's less stack-happy?

Locking you out of similar effects, like EMFH?

Removing buffs with Arcane Torrent might be more meaningful if they can't stack.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

*Starts activating everything at 9 seconds from countdown timer, in a specific order, including the pot*

STRATEGIC PVE!!!

[OreoLover]

*Starts activating everything at 9 seconds from countdown timer, in a specific order, including the pot*

STRATEGIC PVE!!!

Yeah, that's why I wonder if they would move towards reducing stacking, instead.

Could discourage it with more enemies having abilities which steal/cleanse your buffs, especially on pulls.