My Raid Leader made a comment about cooldowns the other day that I thought I would share with everyone,
Use them. Please.
In SSC, it takes about 10 minutes to clear Hydross. Heroism is on a ten minute cooldown. Our Priestly minion is on a five minute cooldown. Innervate’s on a 6 minute cooldown. Cooldown mechanics were thrown in by Blizzard to be used in a limited basis so they could not be abused. That doesn’t mean that they should not be used. In the past, I’ve treated cooldowns like superweapons from Red Alert 2: To be used in case of emergency or in a game breaking situation. Upon further reflection, I realized that they’re not really game breaking.
A fight like Hydross has an enranged timer of nine minutes. Our Shadowfiend cooldown has five. That means we pretty much have free spells to cast for the first 2 or so minutes. For example, in the opening pages of Hydross, I would open up with Shadow Word: Pain, renews, several smites, and maybe a few heals here and there. After that, I’d drop a shadowfiend to get all that mana back. Because really, in the first part, the tanks aren’t taking a lot of damage anyway that a couple of flash heals can’t mitigate.
On trash, there might be a few tricky pulls. A well timed Heroism could cut through trash like a Kansas tornado. It makes for quick takedowns. You’ll still have the cooldown available for the boss anyway because you’re not stupid enough to blow it on the last trash pull, RIGHT?!
But yeah, gauge the time it takes for you to go from boss to boss. Be liberal about the use of your cooldowns.
Five more minutes until my Criminology Midterm. Panicking is a very viable option.
This is so true! It’s especially easy for us dpsers to get in the mindset of “I’ll hold this until I really need it,” instead of waiting until aggro is established and then blowing cooldowns immediately so that they can be used a second or even a third time in a fight. I’ve gradually been integrating more and more cooldowns into my boss cycles, but I still have to make a conscious effort to maximize their use.
Just imagine all that extra DAMAGE that can be DONE!
Heroism is a game breaker Matt
Yeah and its unfortunate people only use it at like the last 5% or 10% on a boss when it lasts for 40 seconds. I’ve seen cases where there were still 20 seconds of Heroism left after a boss take down.
Unfortunately, warriors have three 30 minute linked cooldowns. So for us, they ARE panic buttons. You can’t afford to use Recklessness or Retaliation on trash if it will be 29 minutes before you can Shield Wall and you have to tank Hydross, and likewise you can’t blow Shield Wall to stay alive on a trash pull if you’re a DPS warrior who wants to have Recklessness for Al’ar.
Well, okay, you guys are an exception then =)