Hi, first post here o/
Currently, GCD is automatic and it's defined with your personnal ingame ping because it's the "Auto-bias" option enabled that manages it. More precisely your personnal GCD is automaticaly calculated with your ten first hits in the game. Before, the default GCD value was indicated in the XML at "100 ms" and game used this as a "skill speed limit" for everyone ; it was the latency value managed on client side.
There weren't any differences for those who played with an equal or lower ingame ping at 100 ms because they were able to use skills as faster as the game allowed them by default... But for several bad reasons (the joke) some players (with a ping equal or lower than 100 ms) abused and changed the value to be lower than 100 ms.
Result ? Their skill speed limit allowed them to play like a "speedfire" because their skills animations were too high compared to the game allowed (I remember some BD in arena who abused this...)
BUT for the others (who played with a higher ping than 100 ms)... The skill speed limit which was possible for them was slower than the game allowed and players used skill slower than a player with a better ping (equal or lower than 100 ms). So, by changing the default value (like 120/130/150 and more ms ; depending on your ingame ping) for the players with an high ping, they were able to use skill as faster as the game allowed and they could be competitives with good ping players. It was a good idea for them but a very bad way for the first case.
And because of the abuses of a lot of morons, Ncsoft changed the value to be unusable with automatic GCD (less good than the old manual way for some players like me). Of course you can desactivate Auto bias option to desactivate automatic GCD but it will just let you use the default ingame ping latency value (100 ms) and it's not recommended for players with a high ping (higher than 100 ms).
Maybe sorry for my language, it's not my mother tongue ^^
Very informative, thank you. Perhaps you can shed some light as to why changing the settings I proposed is beneficial to some (like me) and harmful to others? I can use very aggressive settings (will post below), and not have any issues with combat. My attacks are much faster and fluid than default settings, hence I net an increase in DPS. For others, any changes to these values results in stuttering and skipping. My ping is quite unstable, bouncing between 100-200 over the course of a few seconds sometimes.
FileName = xml[bit].dat.files\\client.config2.xml
Search = <option name="pending-time" value="0.300000" />
Replace = <option name="pending-time" value="0" />
Search = <option name="pending-key-tick-time" value="0.25" />
Replace = <option name="pending-key-tick-time" value="0" />
Search = <option name="pressed-key-tick-time" value="0.25" />
Replace = <option name="pressed-key-tick-time" value="0.025" />
Search = <option name="charge-key-tick-time" value="0.25" />
Replace = <option name="charge-key-tick-time" value="0.025" />
Search = <option name="ignore-mouse-press-time" value="1.000000" />
Replace = <option name="ignore-mouse-press-time" value="0.025" />
Description = Reduces client side input throttling.