First of all, not sure if this is a good idea at all, just a random thought I had.
What if we have 2 different global cooldowns and nothing is inherently off the global cooldown? As an example, I’m going to call it “direct” and “indirect”.
Direct - contains your primary attacks, heals, taunts etc, anything that directly does something. Pretty much what the global cooldown is for now
Indirect - contains things like buffs, trinkets and things that are currently off the GCD, such as Cloak of Shadows or certain other defensives.
This means that you still can’t make macros with 3 sequential buffs, as they still have a cooldown. This also means that you can (in quick succession) buff yourself while not wasting gcds just doing nothing. I’d guess this wouldn’t affect gameplay in much of a negative way, while still bringing a positive gameplay side to the table.
Example:
Trinket + attack
self-buff + second attack
next trinket + third attack
Instead of:
trinket + self-buff
next trinket + attack 1
attack 2
attack 3
You’ll maybe have 1 to 4 skills on there, maybe 5. You might want to macro those skills, maybe you don’t want that. It could be an alternative to the current system
This just sounds overly complicated and nobody really wants it.
It doesn’t solve any issues. The “indirect” abilities are still often chained together, and that’s when it feels rough.
FF14 does it perfectly. I’m not a big FF14 person I prefer WoW, so I’m not just trying to jab at something for the sake of it, but the way FF14 handles 0GCD abilities to me is perfect.
All the abilities that enhance you are off the GCD, and your rotational damaging stuff is on it.
The only issue with FF14 is how slow the actual GCD is, but the way they handle which spells are off the GCD is what I wish WoW would adopt.
Isnt this the same as how it works now except you force attacks instead of letting people multibuff?
Im a firm believer that if people were macroing several buttons into 1 button, then the buttons need changing. I personally see 2 easy solutions
keep gcd as it is, but add an attack / active component to the move. So for example when fire mages pop combustion all targets with ignite would explode for damage, then combustion as normal. Basicly like how priest shadowform works.
or, just combine multiple buffs into 1 button. F it, it sucks to press multiple buffs and it sucks to combine everything to 1 button. So just make the macrobuff, 1 giant button
