I both love and hate GCD locked characters. Playing a Holy Paladin for 2 years is the very definition of GCD lock, because all gearing and spell decisions surrounding that class/spec combo ultimately came down to "How does this effect my GCD?" Seriously, the class had certain Haste targets that would get the GCD to an optimal value to maximize healing throughput.
Many early, pre-Wrath criticisms of the class changes Blizzard was planning were actually centered around the number of utility abilities they were designing that stole GCDs from healing, and how bad that was for a class that had no ability to heal when not living from GCD to GCD.
Even today, Paladins are still like this, but the inter-class mechanics somewhat gloss over this issue.
It certainly is a high-demand playstyle, but, as the article points out, it leaves no room to expand the dynamics of a class. During early attempts at Trial of the Grand Crusader or Heroic Ulduar, stopping for just one heal to use a potion or refresh utility spells meant absolute death for the tank, regardless of that tank's class.
I don't see the enjoyability of having to stack haste for your character to be very playable. But then, I'm also used to my cat which has a 1 second GCD.
Comments
Sorry, but your fisher price RPG has mechanics like this for a reason.
Loltroll.
Many early, pre-Wrath criticisms of the class changes Blizzard was planning were actually centered around the number of utility abilities they were designing that stole GCDs from healing, and how bad that was for a class that had no ability to heal when not living from GCD to GCD.
Even today, Paladins are still like this, but the inter-class mechanics somewhat gloss over this issue.
It certainly is a high-demand playstyle, but, as the article points out, it leaves no room to expand the dynamics of a class. During early attempts at Trial of the Grand Crusader or Heroic Ulduar, stopping for just one heal to use a potion or refresh utility spells meant absolute death for the tank, regardless of that tank's class.
I'm torn.
I have an 80 Holy Pally healer and I'm pretty good. At least while I was playing WoW, I haven't touched it much since Starcraft 2 came out.