The WoW developers are removing one of the most annoying changes again. Many abilities are no longer affected by the global cooldown.
During the Battle for Azeroth expansion, the developers of World of Warcraft made some mistakes. One of the biggest was the change to the GCDs, the “Global Cooldowns” of many abilities. Many classes felt off as a result, having weird moments where they couldn’t do anything or felt useless. Some of this is now being reverted with Shadowlands and the Pre-Patch 9.0.
What was the problem? During BfA, Blizzard applied a global cooldown to many abilities that previously did not have one. Particularly powerful cooldowns, such as “Arcane Power” for Arcane Mages were triggered and caused the global cooldown of 1.5 seconds, during which no other spell could be cast.
It was particularly frustrating when multiple strong spells were combined. Then it took several seconds just to cast buffs in sequence that could only take effect much later. This felt bad and was seen as unnecessary by many players.
What is changing: A whole range of abilities will lose their GCD again. This means that they can be activated and the next ability can be used without delay.
- Death Knight: Pillar of Frost, Empower Rune Weapon
- Druid: Berserk, Celestial Alignment, Incarnation: Chosen of Elune, Incarnation: King of the Kungle, Ravenous Frenzy
- Hunter: Aspect of the Wild
- Mage: Arcane Power, Icy Veins
- Monk: Serenity
- Paladin: Avenging Crusader, Avenging Wrath, Crusade, Holy Avenger
- Priest: Spirit Shell
- Rogue: Adrenaline Rush, Shadow Blades, Vendetta
- Shaman: Ancestral Guidance
- Warlock: Dark Soul: Instability, Dark Soul: Misery
- Warrior: Avatar, Recklessness
Why is Blizzard doing this? In a blog post, the developers explained their intent with the big cooldowns and why some of them work well while others do not. They give a positive example in the Void Eruption of the Shadow Priest. Here, both the animation, the visual effect, and the spell’s numbers speak for themselves. It feels good and here a GCD is indeed justified.
For other abilities that merely represent a buff and where the visual components and the direct effect of the ability do not come across positively, it would be unnecessary. Therefore, the cooldown of certain burst abilities will be removed again.
Do you think it’s good that Blizzard is finally reversing this? Or would you have preferred that the abilities instead received a revision to justify a GCD?
You won’t have to wait long for this change, as Shadowlands will be released in October.
