GCDs – What Are They?

Simply speaking, Global Cooldowns are the pauses between your special attacks that stop you from emptying your energy bar in less than a second. Without them, WoW would become a game where the winner would be the person who could press their buttons the fastest (think of a Mage machine-gunning Ice Lances at you). However, not all of your abilities trigger this GCD so it’s possible to chain together any of these in one macro. You can also include one attack/ability that does have a GCD in the same macro without any issues.

Abilities that don’t trigger the GCD

Rogue Specific

Cold Blood
Evasion
Preparation
Sprint
Vanish

Racials/Equipment (not a complete list)

Battlemaster Trinkets
Every Man for Himself
Hand Mounted Pyro Rockets
PVP Trinkets
Will of the Forsaken

GCDs in Macros

The least situational example of what you can do involves Preparation. This is an old favorite of many a rogue as it stops you wasting unused cooldowns when you’re forced to use Preparation early.

#showtooltip preparation
/cast [nostealth] evasion
/cast sprint
/cast preparation

Another macro that might be of use is this anti-BladeStorm one;

#showtooltip evasion
/cast evasion
/cast feint

You’re best off experimenting with other combos and finding out what is useful and what isn’t. Your only real limitation is the number of free spaces on your toolbars!