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

[complexxL9]

I think realism of character animations is overrated.
I myself don't even notice those animations, I mean how can you notice them in end-game content, when in encounters there is so much stuff to do, like watching your cooldowns, procs, dots falling of enemies, your self buffs ending, avoiding aoes and other kind of abilities and reacting to all kind of stuff..

Animation realism of your character at that point doesn't really matter, as you rarely are watching your own character in encounter. Of course beautiful animations are nice to have, but they should never impact gameplay negatively, and they do now.

[Kantide]

I think realism of character animations is overrated.
I myself don't even notice those animations, I mean how can you notice them in end-game content, when in encounters there is so much stuff to do, like watching your cooldowns, procs, dots falling of enemies, your self buffs ending, avoiding aoes and other kind of abilities and reacting to all kind of stuff..

Animation realism of your character at that point doesn't really matter, as you rarely are watching your own character in encounter. Of course beautiful animations are nice to have, but they should never impact gameplay negatively, and they do now.

We may as well be playing a text based MUD then 8P. Also, try telling this to the people who complained about the inertia animations being removed.

Also, I don't think the issue is the animations themselves as much as the timeframe in which the server checks your position/button press. I have noticed for example on SMN when I cast something like Fester which is off the GCD and then immediately cast Ruin or another spell with a cast timer, the cast begins right away even though the animation doesn't due to the animation from fester still being ongoing, causing the animation of the overall cast of Ruin to be shorter and ending as it should. The conclusion this gives me is that there is delay from when you press a button and when the server acknowledges it and sends a response back to the client to start a cast/activate a buff rather than the client saying "oh this animation is still happening, better wait to activate this next ability".