Thank you for the feedback。 This set of changes reflects an experiment in the latest Alpha build。 Some context and explanation follows。
The “global cooldown” was so named because it originally was nearly universal。 In the early days of WoW, virtually all abilities were on the GCD, with some of the only exceptions being “on next swing” attacks like the old Heroic Strike and Maul, which didn‘t have an immediate effect when activated。 For melee players especially, with mostly instant abilities, the global cooldown was the metronome that governed the rhythm and pacing of WoW combat, including the agile Rogue being able to act more quickly than others。 But over the years, more and more abilities have been taken off the GCD, to the point that, depending on class, spec, and talent choice, it’s possible in Legion for someone to have 10+ abilities in their spellbook that ignore the “global” cooldown。
这个机制之所以叫公共cd是因为在最开始的时候它几乎是无所不在的。在wow早期,几乎所有技能都有gcd,只有那些“应用在下一次近战攻击”的技能比如最早的英勇打击和重殴没有gcd,因为它们不会立马产生效果。特别是对于近战职业,公共cd控制了它们游戏的节奏,因为近战大多是技能都是瞬发的。(包括盗贼之所以能比别的职业“顺手”也是因为gcd短的原因)。但是这些年来,很多技能都开始忽略gcd了:正式服目前的版本,有些职业专精天赋下,甚至有10+个技能忽略gcd。
Recently, we took a step back and surveyed the landscape of what did and didn‘t respect the GCD, looking to justify each of these decisions anew。 This process is still ongoing, and further changes may come。
最近,我们开始考虑那些忽略gcd的技能,看他们没有gcd的原因是不是还成立。这个过程仍在进行中,并且可能会有进一步的变化。
Aside from setting the overall pacing of combat, abilities being on the global cooldown can create potentially interesting choices: If you‘re in an arena match and are low on health being melee attacked, but so is your target on the enemy team, do you use your next GCD to try to finish off your opponent, or to get yourself out of harm’s way? That‘s a nuanced decision, where a skilled and experienced player is more likely to intuitively make the right read of the situation。 If your defensive/escape tool is off the GCD, then there is no decision: You simply do both。
除了影响整体战斗的节奏外,因为gcd的存在有时候可以让玩家面临潜(有趣的)选择:如果你处于竞技场比赛中,自己血量不高被近战粘着,但是你的对手也是同样的情况,那么你是使用你的下一个GCD试图杀死你的对手,或者让自己摆脱伤害? 这是一个细微的决定,一个熟练和经验丰富的选手更可能直观地正确判断情况。 如果你的防守/移动技能不用GCD,那么就不需要做出选择:你可以同时都做。
But on the other hand, taking something off the GCD improves responsiveness, and opens up avenues of reactive gameplay。 Until Wrath of the Lich King, most spell interrupts were on the global cooldown。 Back then, someone tasked with interrupting a boss (Reliquary of Souls in Black Temple was notorious in this regard) would often stop using any abilities at all when it was their turn in the rotation, lest they find themselves on cooldown and unable to interrupt。 That‘s technically a decision, but more of a nuisance than a satisfying choice。 Similarly, trying to use Lay on Hands to save the day in response to a sudden dip in your tank’s health, only to have the spell fail to cast because you‘d executed a standard part of your rotation a half-second prior, simply felt bad。 We have no plans to put either of those abilities back on the GCD。
但另一方面,一些技能忽视gcd可以提高瞬间反应的潜力。 在巫妖王之怒之前,大部分法术中断都有gcd。 那时候,负责打断boss的人(在这个方面臭名昭着的bt三脸)在轮到他们时会经常会停止使用任何技能,为了防止处于gcd冷却期并且无法打断。 这理论上是一个“选择”,但更多的是令人讨厌而不是令人满意的选择。 同样,如果在试图使用圣疗拯救坦克突然血喷的时候,却因为在半秒钟之前用了其他技能而触发了gcd而没放出技能,会让人感到失败。 我们没有计划把这些技能都重新加上GCD。
This brings us to a broad category of abilities that are off the GCD in Legion: Offensive burst cooldowns。 These are almost always pre-planned and not generally used in response to an unexpected situation。 With them off the GCD, talenting into such abilities often just becomes a matter of adding another line to a burst macro without any additional gameplay as a result。 In endgame raid and dungeon situations, stacking all possible cooldowns has an outsized impact on someone‘s total performance, while in PvP, the fact that major damage amplifiers can be applied simultaneously with an outgoing damage ability (e.g。 Battle Cry/ Recklessness -> Avatar -> Mortal Strike) heavily limits counterplay and makes worst-case burst damage more severe。
另外,我们看现在没有gcd的的一类技能:爆发技能。 这些几乎总是预先计划好的,并且通常不会用于应对意外情况。他们没有gcd以后,他们的存在感只是在爆发宏中增加一行命令,所以不会给游戏玩法增加额外的乐趣。 在团队副本和地下城的时候,同时使用所有的技能会对某人的总体表现产生巨大影响,而在PvP中,因为所有的爆发技能可以同时使用,造成成吨的伤害(例如:战吼/鲁莽 - >天神下凡 - > 致死打击),这种情况严重限制了pvp的对抗,并使得爆发伤害更加严重。
Thus, we‘re putting most activated offensive cooldowns, along with On Use offensive trinkets, back on the GCD。 We will tune these effects around this change (see, for example, the increase to the duration of Recklessness in the latest Alpha build)。 Abilities like the Elemental shaman’s Static Overload have demonstrated that an offensive cooldown that takes the place of another spell (and even has a cast time) can still feel very potent。
因此,我们将大部分主动使用的dps向爆发技能,以及爆发饰品放回GCD。 我们将围绕这一变化调整这些效果(例如,请参阅最新Alpha版本中鲁莽持续时间的增加)。 像元素萨满的静电过载的例子已经证明,有gcd(甚至有施法时间)的爆发技能仍然可以让人感觉到非常强大。
Finally, while we wouldn‘t make a gameplay change solely for this reason, there is some additional upside to being able to better telegraph the activation of a major cooldown via animation and visuals。 For example, Battle Cry/ Recklessness has a warcry animation associated with it, but in practice that visual is virtually never seen, since it’s usually overriden by an attack animation milliseconds later。
最后,虽然我们不会仅仅因为这个原因而改变游戏的玩法,但是放回gcd以后,我们可以更好地通过动画和视觉效果传达主要技能的开启。比如,战吼 /鲁莽有一个与之相关的动画,但实际上这种视觉效果从未被看到过,因为它通常在毫秒后被攻击动画覆盖。
When you‘re used to a specific ability being off the GCD, there is some learned muscle memory that will make for a jarring experience when that changes。 Or abilities that have always been macroed together may now need to be split out into two separate keybinds。 Thus, we realize that initial reactions to the change are likely to be mixed at best。 But we’re making these changes with an eye towards long-term improvement to the pacing and feel of combat, as outlined above。
当你习惯了一些技能没有GCD以后,会有形成一些肌肉记忆。当这种变化发生时,会产生不好的的体验。 或者一直一来用宏绑定的两个技能,现在可能需要分别设置两个单独的按键。 因此,我们认识到,对这些改动的最初反馈,最好的也是有好有坏。 但正如上面所述,我们正在对这些变化进行长期的改进,以便对战斗和节奏感进行改进。
Please play around with these changes, and let us know what you think: Are there any specific offensive cooldowns that we‘ve changed in this build that feel especially bad? Are there any abilities that are still off the GCD but don’t need to be?
最后,希望能收到你们的反馈。
作者:AK-48