So you thought it could not go further downhill for us?

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...ns-on-the-gcd/

tldr version: offensive cooldowns AND offensive trinkets will be put on GCD, while defensive cooldowns stay off gcd. Regardless if you are into arena or world pvp, this change is so terrible I don't even have words for it. The game basically turns from oneshot macro into oneshot opponent to Ascendance - 1. gcd, bloodfury - 2nd gcd, trinket - 3rd gcd - windstrike - oh opponent backpedaled 30 yard away already.

Fyi when i played quadruple enhance in 5v5 in mop or triple enhance in 3s, legion, most losses I had were due to random cc that hit between ascendance pop and stormblast/winstrike cast that were like 0.1 sec apart.

I'm generally in favor of getting rid of too much CD stacking that leads to insta-gibbing opponents out of nowhere, even without the help of the focus-fire of multiboxing. I also always prefered a control style of gameplay in arena, but I suppose that's just that personal preference.

However it does seem a bit excessive for it to take 3-4 globals just to get your cooldowns running for most players. If this includes every offensive CD, a troll boomkin might take 5 globals (berserking, incarnation, celestial alignment, trinket, Warrior of Elune) to get everything up. That's 7.5 seconds of just standing there powering up. Last I checked this was not DBZ... That in arena is an eternity and makes burst outside of full CC lock downs a whole lot easier to avoid.

Seems like the change is a rather substantial nerf to the troll and orc racials and especially in late game might not make them worth using over using the GCD on a damaging ability.

From a beta point if view a lot of offensive CD (well most of them) are talents there setup in 3 "rows" of how hard it is to add in the rotation and i have to say... you end up doing more dps with passive talents then you do with going for the "new" row 3 lets fcuk it and add everyone on GCD!!!!!

so they need to do something about this to be fair its not playing nice at all atm..

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Originally Posted by Wubsie

I'm generally in favor of getting rid of too much CD stacking that leads to insta-gibbing opponents out of nowhere, even without the help of the focus-fire of multiboxing. I also always prefered a control style of gameplay in arena, but I suppose that's just that personal preference.

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I agree that the cooldown stacking went out of control somewhere at cata and beyond but adding those abilites on gcd is complete nonsense as it its more a nerf to certain classes than for others, lets say a dotlock who doesnt rely on burst wont feel this at all compared to elemental/enhance shaman...atleast in their current state

Before breaking out the pitchforks I'd read this blue post if you haven't: https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...ns-on-the-gcd/

Looks like this is something they're rethinking as a whole, which they admit is a jarring change for longtime players. The second sentence of the post: "This set of changes reflects an experiment in the latest Alpha build." - Remember they like to throw pretty crazy stuff at Alpha builds that never make it to beta, let alone live.

I'm eager to see what this means for tanks specifically because I'm a bear tank at heart.

Also if this stops fire mages from being able to nuke me out of middair I'm all for it.

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Originally Posted by Svpernova09

Before breaking out the pitchforks I'd read this blue post if you haven't: https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...ns-on-the-gcd/

Looks like this is something they're rethinking as a whole, which they admit is a jarring change for longtime players. The second sentence of the post: "This set of changes reflects an experiment in the latest Alpha build." - Remember they like to throw pretty crazy stuff at Alpha builds that never make it to beta, let alone live.

I'm eager to see what this means for tanks specifically because I'm a bear tank at heart.

Also if this stops fire mages from being able to nuke me out of middair I'm all for it.

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yes but it still scares me that, like 5 years too late, they recognized that at some point things went out of control with oneshot macros and the longer they think about it the more they realize how stupid it actually is to have a 255 character oneshot macro (no shit in mop mine was at 250 which included a symbiosis ability)
ofc it gives in turn multiboxers more surviveability but at some point we also have to start killing stuff and with plenty of aoe cc that wont be easy then especially when you face >5 opponents

I view this as a good thing. This was the way it was pre-mop and was the best of times.

I have been messing around the Alpha and there are a number of classes that have capability. Also, pvp talent changes havent been released yet, so I would wait for those.

CC'd times have been drastically reduced by longer cooldowns. Which means more up time, which means more focused fire means alot more than cooldowns. It seems that they are slowing down the game, which in our case focus fire benefits greatly.

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

I agree that the cooldown stacking went out of control somewhere at cata and beyond but adding those abilites on gcd is complete nonsense as it its more a nerf to certain classes than for others, lets say a dotlock who doesnt rely on burst wont feel this at all compared to elemental/enhance shaman...atleast in their current state

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As someone that used to watch resto shamans just walk off with 15 dots on them, I don't find this a compelling negative. ;)

I don't think this should apply to multiboxing at all. Because at a certain point what's the use? 10 MM can wreck someone in a single global and 10 affliction takes a lot more time to do the same. Discrepancies like this will always be around. Most of these design changes negatively affect single boxers, too.

The GCD change is something very few people support. Because it adds clunky in a bad way. This is a seriously bad design decision. The good change would have been to limit each class/spec to one on-use offensive cooldown and make everything else passive.

The bad trend in class design since WoD is that they've made so many classes unusable to me, clunky and not fun. The change they are proposing is going to make even more classes no fun to play.

They should be making classes less clunky, not more clunky. One way to do that is to get rid of this absurd need to drop fire on a mouse click, switch most offensive cooldowns to passives and move most of every offensive spell to [@target] and [@focus] capable.

If it's easy for us, it's easy for a single player. That's a good design approach for them. Yeah not everyone likes RNG in their DPS. That can be solved though too by just changing how passives work.

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Originally Posted by MadMilitia

I don't think this should apply to multiboxing at all. Because at a certain point what's the use? 10 MM can wreck someone in a single global and 10 affliction takes a lot more time to do the same. Discrepancies like this will always be around. Most of these design changes negatively affect single boxers, too.

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ofc you can always add more toons to compensate for a less burst game but for 5 boxing it makes quite a difference especially shamans aint doing that great in legion outside ascendance (well atleast for boxing). The major advantage for this comp over the past years was being able to oneshot 1-2 people very fast so you could take up more people, with that going away Im not sure multiboxers are able to win fights against an equally sized group of people.

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

... with that going away Im not sure multiboxers are able to win fights against an equally sized group of people.

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While this of course limits what one could hope to achieve while multiboxing, I'm not entirely convinced that we should be able to win against an equal group of organized and presumably competent players. The game is not designed with us in mind and it seems to me that just bursting the same target to 100-0% them before they have a chance to react being a viable strategy to be competitive is not a very healthy state of gameplay. Granted most groups could not achieve the pinpoint burst multiboxing can offer under the right circumstances.

Yes, the change might hurt us, but if the common player is better off with the change, they're probably doing the right thing. In this context we're irrelevant in a way and it would not really be fair to judge Blizz based on how changes affect us.

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Originally Posted by Wubsie

... I'm not entirely convinced that we should be able to win against an equal group of organized and presumably competent players. The game is not designed with us in mind ...

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If the game is not designed with us in mind then why shouldnt we be able to beat an equally sized group of good players if the boxer is good aswell? Since there is no one in the dev team that checks if class balance does favour multiboxing for some specs these things eventually happen when you got almost 40? different specs.

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Originally Posted by Wubsie

it seems to me that just bursting the same target to 100-0% them before they have a chance to react being a viable strategy to be competitive is not a very healthy state of gameplay.

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well why not? were not talking about 1v1 here and some specs rely on burst due to lack of cc or other things. And there is a difference between having no chance to react and reacting too slow because if Im smart and I run towards a group of elemental shamans I better not gcd block myself when I see he him targeting me and he starts glowing red and lava bursts flying towards me. As I said already earlier people at 2,2k+ even managed to bubble the mop enhancer oneshot. The problem we get now for example is that in the situation where an enhance shaman could pop ascendance and force a mage to block, the mage can now simply blink away since the enhance is on gcd and disengage behind pillar and wait for ascendance to fade, while prenerf the enhance would've gotten his windstrike out and forced mage block easily. So in the end its a direct nerf to classes who rely on their 3 minute cooldowns to do actual damage.

Wether its for the good or the bad, 3 minute cooldowns would certainly become less attractive with this change and then the game becomes a dps race which boxers usually lose since we cant use cc as effectively.

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Originally Posted by Wubsie

In this context we're irrelevant in a way and it would not really be fair to judge Blizz based on how changes affect us.

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Im ranting about multiboxing viability in the multiboxing forum, seems fine to me.

I'm not trying to start an argument here...

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

If the game is not designed with us in mind then why shouldnt we be able to beat an equally sized group of good players if the boxer is good aswell? Since there is no one in the dev team that checks if class balance does favour multiboxing for some specs these things eventually happen when you got almost 40? different specs.

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I'm not saying the game should be made such that you can not win as a boxer. I am saying that it's very unlikely that one person controlling X amount of characters is able to get the same level of efficiency and "correct" gameplay out of them compared to a group of individual players. This would then suggest that the group of individual players should be at an advantage and therefore more likely to win. If you can however turn it in to a 5v4/3, with coordinated burst, then of course the odds are vastly better. My point was that being able to do so might not be ideal from a purely game design perspective.

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

Im ranting about multiboxing viability in the multiboxing forum, seems fine to me.

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And do carry on, by all means. I'm merely commenting that there is a difference between a bad choise in game design (which I think the GCD change is) and a choise in game design that is bad for us.

Naw...

I would absolutely take BC/Wotlk pvp over any other time in the game. gcd was on almost everything including interrupts. If damage isnt enough to kill then they will increase it or add more kill shot/execute mechanisms again.

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Originally Posted by Fat Tire

Naw...

I would absolutely take BC/Wotlk pvp over any other time in the game. gcd was on almost everything including interrupts. If damage isnt enough to kill then they will increase it or add more kill shot/execute mechanisms again.

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Gcd on interrupts went away with wotlk and in BC you could even go as far as stacking healing and dps on-use trinkets to maximize damage (30% of healingpower went into spellpower). Other than that I dont know which offensive abilities you mean that had gcd? Remember aelli oneshoting everything with em ns trinket chainlight. These days were so good because a) no gcd on offensive stuff and b) lack of aoe cc in pvp. The gcd on interrupts in tbc was good but if that one is about to come back then you would also have to remove all those instant 0->100% hp heals.

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Originally Posted by Wubsie

I am saying that it's very unlikely that one person controlling X amount of characters is able to get the same level of efficiency and "correct" gameplay out of them compared to a group of individual players. This would then suggest that the group of individual players should be at an advantage and therefore more likely to win. If you can however turn it in to a 5v4/3, with coordinated burst, then of course the odds are vastly better. My point was that being able to do so might not be ideal from a purely game design perspective.

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Thats the problem when you have a spec in the game which is purely designed around burst damage in pvp at the cost of having zero cc.

The problem is if you start putting gcd on offensive stuff now while keeping all those differenct spec designs as they are, then you just create a massive imbalance depending on how much each spec relies on his cooldowns to do damage

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Originally Posted by Kruschpakx4

ofc you can always add more toons to compensate for a less burst game but for 5 boxing it makes quite a difference especially shamans aint doing that great in legion outside ascendance (well atleast for boxing). The major advantage for this comp over the past years was being able to oneshot 1-2 people very fast so you could take up more people, with that going away Im not sure multiboxers are able to win fights against an equally sized group of people.

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I hear ya. It does impact us in a way the other team isn't impacted. But it does force you to reconsider the effectiveness of the class.

We don't need to 1 shot people to win though. You can go with a CC-orientated group and do just fine. The difference for us is we have to get off first. Always. just like in damage. If we fall behind we're toast.

I stopped playing my hunters for this reason. Great damage yes but their toolkit is so garbage for multiboxing. Warlocks thus far have been superior with all the CC they have and utility.

I never felt like 2s or 3s were out of reach. I just never put the time in to be any good at them. Yes there will always be positioning problems. Gotta play around that weakness to get the strengths that work. Like CC chaining. Nobody can do it like we do. One mind knows better how to rotate DRs than three minds.

instead of 2s and 3s, well they might work, but i would rather look forward to 6v6 RBG, even without follow if the map designs are small and made around one objective then interact with target could be suifficient to be succesfull at it. The reason i would prefer RBG then is because oneshots arent as powerful there anyway since its not about just winning one fight, so maybe the dk+ret combo gets its comeback after all.

Funny thought I had today was brought up again questing in Argus. When on a new 5 box team someone thought they would gank me. Tried to ambush me a few times group stun and cooldowns. Dealt with every time just setup CC and DoT.

This seems to happen every time I'm in the world doing something. Someone gets the idea being 30 or so ilvls above the group I'm running means they'll get 5 free kills. I don't know how familiar Blizzard is with this but from my experience I'm far more likely to be attacked than to be attacking someone else. Then of course our issues go unnoticed and we get penalized for basically being attacked and defending ourselves. Go figure.