The problem with "Instant OFF GCD" abilities makes combat feel less rewarding.

[CorwinAurilliac]

I use off GCD skills on both BRD and DRG just fine. What I've noticed is you have to wait till half the GCD is done before they will activate. Watch your CD and try when it's half way. I think this is working as intended to prevent popping multiple skills off GCD while still keeping a perfect rotation. If you want more then one you will miss your next GCD. And sometimes it's worth doing that too. I think it's just fine how it is.

[complexxL9]

What I've noticed is you have to wait till half the GCD is done before they will activate. Watch your CD and try when it's half way. I think this is working as intended to prevent popping multiple skills off GCD while still keeping a perfect rotation. If you want more then one you will miss your next GCD. And sometimes it's worth doing that too. I think it's just fine how it is.

They should be called "off-half gcd" then ^^ because that is what they are atm.
Anyway "working as intended" is nothing new, the same response I've got in beta, strangely enough this is put into "duplicate bugs" http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ight-mechanics
So by not making instant off gcd abilities - instant, I guess they will have to nerf the content (if that duplicate bug is going to be addressed).

I wish they would at least consider it for expansion or something like that. Just to be able to see light at the end of the tunnel.

[Lithera]

I haven't been having much trouble on DRG. Most of the time my off GCD abilities are triggerable about halfway thru GCD (Leg Sweep seems to be instant regardless) and they don't delay the next ability whether it's on GCD or not.

[Gunblazer42]

I haven't been having much trouble on DRG. Most of the time my off GCD abilities are triggerable about halfway thru GCD (Leg Sweep seems to be instant regardless) and they don't delay the next ability whether it's on GCD or not.

This. I mean...even if I use an attack, Leg Sweep seems to be instant. And I can pull off Keen Flurry, Foresight (cause Marauder), and that one MRD skill that converts some damage you give out to HP in less than a second altogether for when I suddenly need to tank for a bit. So I can't say I really get what this thread is about.

[Dinosaur]

Need to kill that internal global cooldown if it is that case, it feels like a cheap free to play game with it. It kills the purpose to make real macros, hopefully it improves.

[JDR388]

When I think about this the only instances where this really makes things clunky is instant cast emergency abilities, Benediction being a prime example. I have no issue managing my damage instant casts as one per GCD as a BRD however I have total control over when and how I need to use them. Healers often have issues where the tank is going to go down in the next .3 seconds and they need that instant emergency button but it is useless as the tank dies before the animation completes and they end up wasting the benediction cooldown on themselves.

I don't care if we have to sit on an animation delay for non emergency skills but forcing tanks and healers to consider the delay for abilities that must be used ASAP is regressive and a surprising move when considering what has been pitched to us in the design philosophy for ARR for years now.

[Baratan]

It's really not all that bad when you get used to it. The way I see it is that most abilities trigger a global cooldown, while non global cooldown abilities do not. While the icon animation could and should be implemented for those skills, I've found that GCD abilities have a 2.5 second GCD while non-gcd abilities have a 1 second GCD. You can test this by creating macros with GCD and non-GCD abilities. The one with the non-GCD abilities, such as rampart, fight or flight, convalescence for a gladiator will all trigger sequentially after 1 second wait lines. While GCD abilities will not.

It's not that GCD abilities do not have a cooldown, it's more or less that they're on an invisible 1-second gcd. It would be helpful if the icons animations did display this. WoW went the longest time with a GCD implemented without any indication or mention of it's existence.

[CrstyCaptin]

Instant abilities need to be instant. Not 1-2s later or 1s later then you need to wait through an animation.

Here's a few things that are extremely annoying.
*Adds for ADS pop in turn one. Depending on the add, one of them runs right to ADS. Even if you flash, shield lob, whatever a soon as he pops, the add will take off towards ADS for 2s, turn, then return to you. During this time dps are trying to kill it and you've lost hate by the time it gets back to you.
*Continuing from above, after you loose hate and you hit your halone button and your animation starts, you get halfway through the animation before it's INTERRUPTED because the mob starts to run away and it doesn't fire. Why is it that I press a button and the ANIMATION must finish before the ability actually counts for anything?
*Ifrit stunning. You literally must sit there and do nothing before an eruption in order to stun it otherwise your GCD or non GCD cooldown will block you from getting your stun off before the animation cast bar hits 80%. Why is it that the spell must be stunned by 80% or you automatically fail? What's the point of the extra 20%? Why is battle response time so bad that you literally can't do anything pre eruption because if you are you'll most likely miss the stun?
*Swift cast. Hitting swiftcast and instantly casting any spell will not make that spell instant. You need to wait 1-2 at least before casting your spell after swift cast in order for it to be instant. Again, bad response time.
*About to apply dots as bard after hitting internal release. I hit internal release 15 times and it finally fires halfway through the GCD cooldown, then when I hit my dot skill, I need to mash on that 5 times for it to fire 1-1.5s after my GCD cooldown is up. Again, terrible battle response time.
*Firestarter/Freecure. By the time I see these proc, I'm halfway through my next spell already.

I know half of these(all?) were off topic from OP, but reading this post makes me feel like the Dev's really aren't playing the game like the rest of us are playing the game, or at least those of us that are doing endgame where precision is required to win which simply is a mess because of how bad the response time is for battle. This seriously needs to be addressed.