What if: There Was No Global Cooldown.

Have you ever been on a character and you are waiting to use an ability and waiting on the global cooldown.  It seems like it is taking forever.  While playing on a leveling hunter and using that 2 second steady shot I feel like I can get up and make a coffee in the time it takes to cast it compared to my 90.  Heck, even the difference between a 1.7 second cast and a 1.6 second cast seems like a year and a day.  While it is only a second or fraction thereof, like the time of a global, it seems like forever.

I am a button spammer, somewhat reformed, and I like to just spam my keys while I am waiting for the abilities.  Kind of annoying for some classes, extremely annoying for others, and I swear I am never going to roll a male goblin again because his voice makes me want to kill someone annoying.

It made me wonder what life would be like without the global cooldown.  Button spammers of the world would jump in joy world wide, or would they?  What if there were no such thing as a global cooldown.

For the sake of this what if there will actually still be a global cooldown.  There has to be for mechanics reasons otherwise you could just put all your spells in one macro and hit everything at once.  So we will call the "no global cooldown" actually a 0.1 second global cooldown. 

Basically this would mean you can still only do one ability at a time and your performance would be limited to how fast your fingers can move, how good your connection is, how you manage your resources and of course, the skill factor. 

For this what if there will also be one more change.  There are no longer be any spells that are "off the global cooldown" or any spells that "do not trigger a global cooldown".  So nothing can be macroed.  Each ability needs to be hit on its own.  Now lets get to the what if.

Which classes would benefit the most from that what if scenario?

I did not need to spend too long to figure out my opinion on which classes would benefit the most from this no global what if.  It was actually quite obvious in my opinion.  Being classes would now be limited by their resources more than anything else the classes with a way to constantly refill their resources would benefit the most.

Enter warriors, hunters and bear tanks.  All three of these have ability that charge up their resources and abilities that use their resources.  In the world of what if warriors and hunters are the gods of DPS and warrior and druid tanks are masters of their world.

One of the biggest draw backs to a no global world would be that you would run out of resources sooner.  Those classes would then reflect that and adjust their rotations to make the best out of it instead of needing to wait for resources.

Energy users, as in rogue and feral druids, would actually be a lot more fluid but even with the global cooldown as it is many times their rotation comes down to waiting until they have the energy to do what they need to do.  A no global world would really just be a quality of life adjustment for them.  It would allow for tighter burst during high energy phases because they are not restricted by the global but all other times their rotation would most likely remain unchanged because they are lining things up or waiting on their resource.

Mana users are the ones that would basically be up shits creek in my opinion when it comes to changes like this.  No globals would mean that they could burn through their mana pool really fast so they would need to learn to behave themselves or become the wrath version of an arcane mage.  Burn everything, wait on mana to regenerate, burn everything, wait on mana to regenerate.

As the other tanks go, paladins would be close up there with warriors as mana is not really an issue for them but death knights and monks would go mostly unchanged as their abilities are already limited by resource generation.  While having no global would help them, it would help them only in the sense that it does the energy users.  To some extend, but then they would be back to waiting on resources.

Healers, oh poor healers.  You think you oom fast now if you spam instants?  You can only imagine how fast you will oom when not restricted by a global to slow you down on those instant heals.  While the very skilled healers will be able to compensate and benefit greatly from the no global world, most healers would just oom themselves 30 seconds into a fight because of a lack of self discipline.  If anything, a no global healer, would be the absolute hardest class in the game to play because you would need to use your abilities smarter instead of just spamming abilities like all other classes will do in the no global world.  Finding a good healer in the no global world will be like finding a needle in a haystack.

In a world with no global cooldowns the warriors,and bear tanks would rule and hunters would be not very far behind but the mana users would be screwed.  Everyone else would fall neatly in the middle.  At least as I see it, what is your take?

How would the no global world effect PvP?

Well, no one is going to "kill you in one global" any more being there is no real global.  But if you thought that people could burn you fast before imagine what they can do now.

The classes that would benefit the most here are the mana classes, in my opinion.  Sure they would burn through mana really fast but that is what PvP is about.  Unlike in a PvE environment where your mana pool needs to last you 5, 8, 10 or more minutes, if burning thought all your mana in 30 seconds means you win the arena, then it is worth burning through all your mana in 30 seconds.

A mana user can effectively cast 10 instants in one second if their fingers and connection where fast enough.  Or perhaps a mage can slow and spam even a soft hitting instant in massive amounts before you can get anywhere close to them.

Imagine a disc priest covering your entire 5 man arena team with bubbles in half a second instead of 5 seconds if their skill and connection allowed?  Or a melee vs melee fight where whomever hits the disarm first wins because in a matter of one second they could disarm and land 9 blows.

This would once again mean that rage machines are beastly.  So warriors rule PvE and PvP in this no global world.  Bear tanks too of course.  But the other resource generating class, hunters, would be left in the dust.  For as much as they would be hugely powerful in PvE with no global in PvE being their focus regeneration tool has a cast time, unlike warriors and bears that can spam theirs 10 times a second, and only generates a small amount of focus, they would not be able to match the burst that other classes would have.  So they come from being up there with warriors in PvE to also rans in PvP.

Now back to tanks in PvP.  Already mentioned warriors and druids, our rage monsters, would be gods among those who walk the battlefield but while no global would not really help death knights and monks as they are restricted by their resources it would help paladins.

Paladin tanks rarely if ever have to worry about mana which means mana will not hold them back like it does other mana users.  Or would it?  Not exactly sure if spamming abilities might actually cause mana issues, but lets play pretend, being that is what we are doing anyway, and say it doesn't.  Could you imagine 3 holy power every 0.3 seconds?  Yeah, that is sick.  In PvE and PvP but it would mean so much more in PvP.

How would questing be effected by the no global world?

I believe that every class would benefit, some greatly, from the no global world when it came to questing.  The fact that you can spam 10 abilities in a second and nothing in the modern questing world would last much longer than that; for most classes questing will become even more trivial than it already is.

Some classes, as mentioned already, that are limited by their own resources, predominantly energy users, would maybe pick up a tiny bit of speed to questing here and there, but over all it would be mostly the same experience for them as they wait on resources.

Hunters would be in the same boat as energy users here.  Being they never really had much issue questing, and most mobs will die before even doing one or two focus regeneration abilities, the fact that they have unlimited resources would never matter as nothing would live long enough for them to take advantage of it.

Mana users might reign supreme here because they can build up a big hit and then spam a flurry of instants.  Even while instants generally hit for less, these are quest mobs, so they should die in short time.  You regenerate mana fast enough out of battle that you can go hog wild while questing so nothing lives all that long.  Imagine interrupts, slows, crowd control, all on the fly in 0.1 seconds between cast times.  A really good caster can have a bang up time having fun with questing and no globals.

But while mana users might seem to reign supreme, we have to look back to our new friends of the no global world for the example of who I believe would be the tops in questing like they have been in everything else so far.  Warrior and bear tanks.   With tank abilities, and effectively unlimited rage and abilities like frenzied regeneration rage tanks could really pull entire zones. 

Thanks to vengeance and said rage generation at insane intervals, this could be really fun.  I would love to just play with it for a while to see what it would be like.  Imagine your bear doing 10 mangles a second for rage while rolling frenzied regeneration to remain at full health all the time and building vengeance.  It would bring the slang "that's sick" to an entirely new level when talking about what the rage monsters could do.  That's beyond sick.

How do you think the classes would do with no global cooldown?  Which classes would rise to the top and which would be left in the dust.  What is your opinion?

As I see it, what is currently the weakest class, in my opinion, warriors would be the best class in the no global world.  What about you, what do you think?