Cool down

A "cool down" is a time during which a skill or other game feature can not be used again. Many skills in Diablo III come with cool downs, especially when used in the Arena.

Cool downs are used by the developers to add a level of strategy and variety to skills, as well as to limit the power of very high level and powerful skills. Cool downs do more than just resource costs, plus they allow characters to continue fighting and using other skills; just not the big one with the cooldown on it.

Other game elements have cool downs as well; health potions chief amongst them.

Cool down timers are shown visually by the icon going grayed out, and regaining color gradually, as a second hand-like line sweeps around it, clockwise. The time it takes for the clock hand to circle all the way around is equal to the duration of the cool down; once the skill icon is all colored in again, it can be used.

Long Skill Cooldowns Revealed

The issue of cooldowns in Diablo III became much more contentious in July 2011, when Bashiok revealed that the highest level Barbarian skills had two-minute cooldowns.[1]

The three final skills of the barbarian tree all currently have 2 minute cooldowns. There are ways to augment those cooldowns slightly of course, but you’re still going to want a mix of skills that complement each other.

This information was offered without explanation or context, and set off huge fan debates. While some players disliked the concept or long cooldowns in a Diablo-style fast action click-fest, a lot of players, especially those who have grown used to multi-minute cooldowns in games like World of Warcraft and Rift were not upset by the concept coming to Diablo III. Bashiok added some explanation a few days later, repeating many of the arguments fans had been offering since the initial word hit.[2]

…Diablo II had a single resource mechanic (mana), and the biggest end game skills in Diablo II are low-to-mid tier skills in Diablo III. The big “end-tier” skills we have are more complex and usually wouldn’t make sense as spammable skills, or would likely outright have to be pulled from the game if it turned out they ever could be spammable. And we have varied resource systems that we can’t just throw a problem-solver at, like Diablo II could with mana potions.

For instance Call of the Ancients literally calls down the four barbarian ancients to fight alongside you. How would that work if it was spammable? Should we make it cost 100% resource to keep you from being able to spam it, and then leave you drained to Cleave back enough Fury to follow it up with anything? That doesn’t sound like something *I* would take. Maybe someone could find a build for it, I don’t know.

Bottom line is that cooldowns allow for skill complexity or power by limiting them in a meaningful way because it can mean long-term balance even as stats inflate. We do want to make sure we’re only using them where appropriate, though.

Most fans seemed to accept these arguments, and others in favor of the system, as demonstrated by a vote run by Diablo.IncGamers.com on the issue. As of July 19th, nearly 60% of voters either loved or liked the system, while 35% disliked or hated it.[3]

Other Skill Cooldowns

The furor over the Barbarian skill cooldowns was partially fueled by the lack of context to the information. Without knowledge of how long the cooldowns are for other skills, it's impossible to look at the bigger picture. No other details had been released as of mid-July 2011, but brom what Blizzard has said about this issue, it seems like long cooldowns will be quite common, at least on high level skills. (Full details on this will be added to all the appropriate skill articles, once they become available.)

Most lower level skills will have minimal cooldowns, if there are any at all, and players will be able to use those skills constantly, their resource permitting. Naturally, these spammable lower level skills will be less powerful than the higher level ones with long cooldowns. And these high level skills with longer cooldowns will be very powerful, appropriate to their cooldowns.

It seems likely that the developers will have to tweak such values extensively after release, as players find some skills that are a little too powerful, or need a little longer cooldown, or a shorter one to make them more viable, etc.

PvP Ramifications

The issue of long cooldowns on skills comes to the front in terms of the Battle Arena, where the PvP is very fast and hard-hitting and most rounds are less than a minute long. Obviously, a skill with a two-minute cooldown wouldn't be used very much in such a PvP encounter, but by its very rarity comes its power.

Players will have to wait until just the right moment to use their biggest skills, since they'll only get one use in most rounds. Landing a good hit with such a skill should be a game-changer, but missing with it would be devastating. And all the while the opponent(s) would be waiting for just the right moment to spring their nuke-skill or skills. How these single use, mega-skills will work into arena strategies, compared to lower level skills that can be spammed all during the round, will be an interesting process to observe.