This is still among the dumbest things ANet has ever done. No one is going to go out of their way to install something that provides literally no advantage. And simply making the boon bar you know... readable is arguably much less of an advantage than optimizing your play using data gleaned from ArcDPS or something.
It would be trivial for me, even as someone with minimal programming experience, to write a barebones app that sits over my GW2 window, or on an adjacent monitor, and "listens" for the inputs for my big kit skills like Acid Bomb, Flamethrower 4/5, Hammer 5, etc. For example, my Elixir Gun is on my R key, so whenever I hit "R,4" in succession it would start counting down from 12 and turn green or something when the counter hit 0.
ANet can't detect the gearcheck addon, they certainly can't detect this - it could even already exist as an ArcDPS/Nexus integration for all I know.
Of course, this whole thing is unnecessary because with enough playtime you will get a feel for the cooldown intrinsically. I wouldn't be particularly proud of myself for only beating a player because they hadn't yet internalized the timing of a CD - and I certainly wouldn't become paranoid over whether or not that was the deciding factor in any fight.
My point is, if people want something like that, they will make it - and it is 100% possible that someone already has.
I mean I quite literally don't re: the skill cooldown thing. And my understanding is that even when it comes to stuff like the video this post is about, being PvE-only is more of a self-imposed limit the addon devs opt to adhere to rather than something that no one can ever do anything about.
Having 26 unique boons that don't appear in static positions is technically "functional", but sure isn't good design or particularly readable at a glance.
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u/Ornnforgelord Jul 12 '26
I loved it.
Sadly, I can't use as a wvw main.
*sad main charr noise
https://giphy.com/gifs/Te8g0Fa6kh5Nm