World of Warcraft players rejoice: Blizzard is finally rethinking their stance on the global cooldown, also known as the GCD, when it comes to major cooldown abilities in the vein of Arcane Power and Adrenaline Rush. Blizzard announced today that a slew of cooldowns are being removed from the global cooldown in an effort to “avoid hindering smooth combat rotations.”
The way major cooldowns interact with the GCD changed in Battle For Azeroth, and was near universally disliked by the player base, making for slower, clunkier rotations and wasted time. Blizzard was looking to fix the problem of “I win buttons” — that is, mega-macros containing every power-up a player has into one large burst cooldown — because they aren’t interactive or fun, and can even cause you to forget what’s in the macro. But nearly everyone, including now Blizzard, agrees that their approach was not ideal.
Unfortunately, not every cooldown has made the list yet, and there are some glaring omissions like Mana Tea or Frenzied Regeneration, but at least it’s a start.
Here’s a list of all the abilities coming off the GCD in the Shadowlands PTR:
| Class | Abilities coming off the GCD |
|---|---|
| Death Knight | Pillar of Frost, Empower Rune Weapon |
| Druid | Beserk, Celestial Alignment, Incarnation: Chosen of Elune, Incarnation: King of the Jungle, 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 |
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will be playable October 27.
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