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For a similar mechanic in Diablo II, see Casting Delay.

Cooldown is a property of some skills in Diablo III and subsequent games, which prevents the skill from being activated again until a set time has passed. The concept was introduced in Diablo II, although it was referred to as Casting Delay and didn't have any additional interactions or modifications. A few other effects and actions sometimes have cooldowns as well, such as certain item powers and Monster Skills.

Cooldown Reduction (CDR) is a percentage-based character stat which reduces the length of skill cooldowns, available from many sources. It is an important stat for some builds, allowing more frequent or even continuous use of some skills.

Skills[]

Cooldown skills range from short-cooldown utility skills that would be unbalancing if they could be used constantly, to skills with a massive impact on the battlefield that may serve as centerpieces or "finishing moves" to a fight. Some have cooldowns of just 6 to 30 seconds, while the most powerful may go up to 60, 90, 120, or even 180 seconds. Cooldowns longer than that are very rare.

Resource costs are the common alternative to cooldowns; each prevents skills from being used without limit. Some skills have both. A few such as Diablo III Primary Skills require neither, and can therefore be used as much as Attack Speed allows, but have correspondingly low power. Resource cost, Cooldown, and size of effect are the main ways skills are balanced to avoid being overpowered or underpowered.

Regeneration of charges for skills that have them, like Dashing Strike, is actually a form of cooldown. Cooldown/recharge periods run one after another until maximum charges have been restored. Recharging benefits fully from Cooldown Reduction.

Skills like Unstable Anomaly, which trigger automatically and have exploitable effects like cancelling death, are designed with hard limits to how frequently they can take effect. While the concept is similar to other cooldowns, such skills do not use regular cooldown mechanics, and do not benefit from Cooldown Reduction or other interactions. They usually show a debuff icon on the screen after they have activated. Only death cancels this restriction.

Follower active skills work entirely from cooldowns rather than consuming resources. However, none of them benefit from Cooldown Reduction, with the exception of Kormac's Heal skill.

Mechanics[]

Cooldown management is a vital part of gameplay, although some cooldown-independent builds exist as well.

Cooldown time is visually indicated by a pie chart / clock-style shaded area on the skill icon, with the icon fully gray when the cooldown has just begun, but an increasingly large angle becoming uncovered as time passes, progressing clockwise. The shading turns from gray to orange as the cooldown approaches completion. When it finishes or is reset, the button briefly flashes to indicate the skill is ready for use again. The visual indicator always starts fully gray, regardless of the length of the cooldown, so longer cooldowns move slowly through the 360 degree rotation, while short ones move quickly.

Cooldown time is determined at the moment a skill is used. Subsequent changes to the skill's Cooldown time, usually due to an update to a character's Cooldown Reduction stat, will apply the next time the skill is used, but not to the current cooldown period. On the other hand, a few effects do reduce the remaining time for skills that are already cooling down - the rotating cooldown indicator illustrates this with an abrupt jump in progress, although this can be harder to notice for long cooldowns.

Cooldowns normally start immediately after the skill is activated, not once its effect is over. This includes shapeshifting abilities like Archon. With high enough Cooldown Reduction, this can make it possible to keep a skill activated indefinitely. However, some skills, especially those that grant immunity to damage, such as Serenity, Smoke Screen or Spirit Walk, will only start cooldown after they end, to prevent characters from achieving permanent immunity.

A skill cannot be replaced by another while it is cooling down, preventing rotation through multiple high-cooldown skills in a single action bar slot. Swapping loadouts with the Armory bypasses this restriction.

All cooldowns are reset immediately when a Greater Rift is started.

Cooldowns continue to recharge even while a character is dead.

Interactions[]

Many effects and character statistics can change skill cooldown times. None of these are included in the "estimated effectiveness stats" on the Character Screen (Damage, Toughness, and Recovery), but they can have a huge impact nonetheless.

Each skill has a set base cooldown time, possibly 0. Some have Skill Runes which may use a different amount of time, for example Archon's Pure Power rune. Some Runes remove the cooldown entirely (often adding a resource cost in its place), or add one that was not present in the un-runed version. Certain Legendary Item unique powers make similar changes, such as Aether Walker (for Teleport). And a few passive skills may make flat reductions to specific skills' base cooldowns, like Boon of Bul-Kathos. All further interactions are relative to this base cooldown period.

Cooldown Reduction[]

Foremost among modifications is Cooldown Reduction (CDR), a percentage that is removed from the total cooldown time of all skills. This stat is listed in the Character Screen's secondary stats panel under "Offense", although many defensive skills benefit from CDR as well. CDR applies the moment a skill is activated, so subsequent changes to the stat have no effect on a skill that has already started cooling down.

Aside from the normal benefits of Cooldown Reduction, Captain Crimson's Trimmings also grants a direct bonus to damage equal to a character's Cooldown Reduction stat.

Sources of Cooldown Reduction:

Multiple sources of Cooldown Reduction apply sequentially. For example, a 20% CDR passive results in a cooldown length 80% of the original. If a 10% CDR item is also equipped, it reduces 10% of that 80% (8% of the original cooldown time), resulting in a final cooldown time 72% as long as the original. This can also be thought of as multiplicative stacking of CDR effects, if they are stated in terms of the relative remaining cooldown times: .8 * .9 = .72, with the same example. Note that regardless of the order of the effects or how many there are, the result will be the same. This is a form of diminishing returns for Cooldown Reduction (e.g. a new source is only half as effective if the character already has 50% CDR), and it is impossible to achieve 100% CDR through combinations of smaller effects.

There are some builds focusing on keeping lower cooldowns for long-recharging spells, but the cap for most classes is around 72-75% (84.5-88.5% with Leoric's Crown).

Other reductions[]

A variety of powers and effects can reduce or interact with cooldowns without an associated character stat.

These effects apply percentage reductions applied sequentially which take effect the moment a skill is used, just like the Cooldown Reduction stat:

These effects reduce current cooldowns of skills that have already been activated:

  • Item powers which reduce some or all skills' current cooldowns by a set amount per trigger, including Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, Messerschmidt's Reaver, and Armor of Akkhan's 4 piece bonus.
    • Trag'Oul Coils was formerly known for a strong version of this effect, but has been redesigned.
  • Passive skills which do the same, like Grave Injustice.
    • Critical Mass proved so effective that it has been removed from the game altogether.
  • The "Runic Circle of Creation" from the Mother seal of the Altar of Rites (and the original "Triune Circle of Creation" from Season 18) reduces the remaining time of all skills on cooldown by 1 second, each second the character is in the circle. Overall, this doubles cooldown progression rate.
  • Skills which reduce the cooldowns of other skills when activated, such as Akarat's Champion with Rally rune.
  • Passive effects which reset existing cooldowns, instantly removing them regardless of how much time remains, for instance Illusionist.
  • Skills which regain charges or reset cooldowns based on a trigger condition, as with Revenge.

In-Geom reduces all skill cooldowns by a set amount when it triggers, similar (but stronger) than the Obsidian Ring above. In addition, for a short duration, it modifies all skills with a flat subtraction to the base cooldown period. Like regular CDR, this deduction applies at the moment the skill is used. This can potentially set some cooldowns to 0, but if not, percentage-based Cooldown Reduction is applied after the In-Geom benefit.

Followers do not benefit from regular cooldown reduction bonuses on items, with the exception of Kormac's Heal skill. However, each follower has a Legendary trinket that halves their skills' cooldowns: Vadim's Surge, Slipka's Letter Opener, and Hillenbrand's Training Sword.

Items and other cooldowns[]

Cooldowns of skills triggered by items are usually separate from cooldowns of identical skills wielded by the player, if any.

Cooldowns of item special effects (such as Firebird's Finery set bonus) are not affected by the cooldown reduction, unless specifically stated otherwise. Moreover, cooldowns of all passive skills that prevent a hero from dying (Unstable Anomaly, Near Death Experience, Spirit Vessel etc) cannot be reduced by any means possible.

The potion cooldown of 30 seconds may not be reduced by the cooldown reduction; the only ability in game able to reduce it is the Blood Flask Necromancer skill rune.

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