The great cdr/cde whine

To some players every problem in gameplay derive from cd extension and cd reduction mechanics.

Not enough burst? Cdr fault, not enough damage? Cdr fault, gameplay bad? cdr fault, no matter the argument it’s always the fault of cdr or cde.

Even going as far as to say that every spec where cdr/cde mechanics were removed made the spec better, and then they cherry pick examples which usually don’t even make sense, like the recently changed havoc dh.

Was fury warrior better when ravager wasn’t on anger management? How about outlaw? After the rework it has more cdr and it’s even better than before, grand warlock design? Especially on destro? Now it’s just a static cd reduction, and it’s objectively worse than before. Not just in terms of rotation, but damage too.

What’s the solution? Oh just do a billion damage inside your cd! Genius! Not likely at all to be nerfed!

And really, most specs that have some form of cdr/cde, their burst isn’t as bad as they wanna make it out to be, it’s just them making the problem seem bigger than it actually is.

Havoc, cde on meta got reduced, max possible uptime now is around 70%, which is still a lot by the way. Dh is better, coincidence? See cdr is bad!

Yea except the reason why it’s better is because of better pathing between talents, and the fact that they nerfed shattered destiny until other builds were better. That doesn’t tell you anything about how cdr/cde is bad, that only tells you that if you nerf something enough, other options will be better. Oh my what a realization! it’s almost like it’s obvious.

So let me get this straight, the real problem here is not cdr, or cde, almost every mechanic that adds complexity usually has a requirement, and when something has a requirement, that generally means you actually have to do something, whether it’s attacking a boss, or healing someone or whatever, which means that downtime will still affect you.

You’re just singling out cdr/cde because YOU don’t personally like it. And instead of having an honest conversation, you’re just trying to cherry pick arguments that suit your point without actually thinking about them.

The real issue is badly designed mechanics. I usually like cdr and cde mechanics, but i don’t like breath of Sindragosa. I think breath is a badly designed cde mechanic. Mostly because it’s a static 2 min cd, but you wanna keep it up almost perma. With demonic if you lose uptime and lose the meta buff, you lost like 20 seconds. In 20 seconds you will have it back up, not a big deal. If you lose breath you lose 2 min. That’s the difference.

As for something like infernal, not even comparable. Infernal does damage by itself, and if you lose uptime and can’t cast anything you lose at most a couple of soul shard fragments, not your entire damage window.

I get it, you don’t like cdr/cde because you wanna hyper min max everything down to the last %.

Sucks to be you, to not being able to enjoy a nice rotational feedback because you’re so hyperfocused on performance.

Spoken by someone who regularly gets purple/orange parses, on any class i play. So you don’t even have the privilege of calling me a noob, because i’m just not.

if you follow this logic to it’s conclusion you would get specs with little to no interactions at all, boring static garbage. Hopefully blizzard doesn’t listen to these people.

And this is frankly why just being a good player doesn’t mean you know a damn thing about design.

It’s also ironic to complain about downtime and cdr/cde interactions, but then burstier profiles which is the goal for these people are also more affected by downtime, even more than specs with high cdr/cde. Make up your damn mind! You’re just a lazy thinker.

I hate it when people instead of trying to have an honest conversation, they just start with a certain belief and try to fit arguments that suit their points without thinking about them in depth.

2 Likes

Burstier profiles are explicitly less impacted by downtime than sustained ones. That is the entire justification for the value of burst damage…

If you have to do a mechanic inside your cd you will lose far more damage than a sustained profile.

You lose your entire damage window, or part of it, so this is strictly FALSE.

There is a degree of skill to this, but if you get picked for a mechanic and you are inside your cd, sucks to be you.

Just play your burst window around the mechanic so you don’t do it during it? This is the whole point of burst classes.

Sustain classes are 10x worse with downtime than burst classes.

Or you could idk… apply more than 2 brain cells to the situation and not pop cds until you are aware you aren’t going to have to handle a mechanic? Delaying cds only matters if you lose a use over the duration of the fight, which would require you to delay them an enormous amount of time to have happen.

This isn’t a call to remove sustained dps though, to be clear. Sustain damage specs have their place, can be fun, and well designed, however the problem is when you create a sustain damage spec using CDR / CDE mechanics you make them absolutely pitiful outside of those cds, so if they drop / fail to reduce them sufficiently for whatever reason they absolutely suck until they get them back.

Instead of making sustained damage specs using CDR / CDE, bliz should be making the baseline rotation / gameplay interesting and arguably just not giving said spec impactful / major cds at all. You get the same result but the gameplay doesn’t just completely fall apart if they ever lose uptime on said CD.

Enhance/outlaw etc, feel pretty damn good to use.

Cdr/cde is a great mechanic when designed properly. In fact most classes that have some form of cdr/cde are usually quite great for gameplay.

The only outlier i can think is breath of sindragosa.

It can be, yes, but the spec has to be designed around it and in the case of Enh / Outlaw have so much of it that the fail case of “You lost uptime wait X seconds until you have relevant damage again” is rare or nonexistent.

CDR / CDE mechanics aren’t however a bandaid fix to a spec lacking complexity.

2 Likes

I can agree to that.

A good spec isn’t just about those mechanics.

But the constant whining about cde and cdr from certain players is just…

Completely unnecessary, and usually flat out wrong. Aside a few cases.

Many specs greatly benefitted in terms of gameplay by getting back their cds faster, and burst can always be provided in different ways.

You could theoretically have 100% uptime on shadow dance, and still have burst through shadow blades for example.

Outlaw has almost perma uptime on rush, and still decent burst with crackshot window.

Using this specific example, the concern is when through one misfortune or another dance ends / you aren’t in dance and the next dance is 20-30 seconds away. You’re spending 20-30 seconds doing an amount of damage your spec isn’t designed / tuned to do because the tuning assumes near 100% uptime. Those windows that CDR / CDE implemented poorly can create are why some people dislike the mechanic so much.

If a spec was designed around having 100%~ uptime of X cd and the cdr was not also an interesting part of its kit, I’d rather just bake whatever that cd was doing into the base spec and have that spec not have a cd.

20 seconds is not a big deal, like it isn’t for demonic.

20 seconds is a big deal if your spec isn’t tuned / supposed to ever not have the cd up. You just feel like you’re playing a neutered spec until you can start playing the game again

This is specifically in your case of 100% uptime cds.

The ultimate CDE mechanic spec was ToS → Antorus Shadow Priest. Missing the minute cycle felt AWFUL and bliz shouldn’t be designing gameplay loops with that as a possibility.

No it isn’t.

We’re not talking about breath which is 2 min, we are talking about 20 seconds.

People always exaggerate the problem because THEY do not like cdr or cde.

Losing a single demonic window is not a big deal.

I’m not talking about demonic, I’m talking about the hypothetical scenario you created.

I pointed out demonic because it’s exactly like the scenario you said about my hypothetical scenario.

If you were to lose 20 seconds of shadow dance in that hypothetical scenario, it would be similar to losing a demonic window before the rework when meta was up almost 100%. Which was not a super big deal contrary to what people wanted to say.

On average no, but it wasn’t much fun to sit around waiting. Especially if that cooldown that is supposed to have near 100% uptime has some form of transformative or positive impact on gameplay.

Point being if a spec is designed around having near 100% uptime on cd, the question should be asked of why does that cd exist?

Well, you win some, you lose some, life is all about tradeoffs.

Make a spec with no cdr, no cde, no other mechanics whatsoever which could punish you for downtime, and what do you get? You get a boring spec that has no depth at all.

For me, most cdr/cde mechanics are worth the tradeoff, aside breath of sindragosa.

For others it’s not, but i mean… 20 seconds dude…

That implies the only way to provide depth is CDR / CDE, which given blizzard’s recent tendency to use it to bandaid every spec’s problems isn’t the most baseless assumption.

I just think blizzard can do better / have more variety.

No, almost every mechanic that add complexity and fun to a rotation requires some form of condition.

Proccing brain freeze/fingers of frost cannot happen if you don’t cast abilities that proc those, which means you are punished for downtime. Yet these are not cdr or cde mechanics, just normal procs.

The reason why some single out cdr and cde is because THEY do not like cdr and cde.

But the argument can still be applied basically anything.

So where does it stop? If you follow the logical conclusion, you would have specs with little to no interactions.

This is why i pointed out lazy thinking in my original comment. it’s just people who do not like those mechanics for whatever reasons, but the argument can be applied to basically anything. So where does it stop? When is the possibility of being punished for downtime, less important than gameplay?

Id say that breath of sindragosa is that point.

When did I say conditions are bad, or even that cdr is inherently bad. Just that blizzard need to use a bit more tact with designs that involve them and it’d be nice if some specs could find ways to be nuanced or interesting without them.

I’m not saying you. I’m talking in third person, because iv’e seen these argument from many players.

Especially above average/great players.

This is why i also say that just being a good player is not a good baseline for determining whether you would be a good designer or not.

There is some overlap yes, but iv’e seen some horrible ideas from good players.