Cooldown Management

Offensive cooldowns multiply your damage for a short window. Managing them is a scheduling problem: fire them where they do the most total work, not where they feel most dramatic.

The rules that cover most cases

• Use cooldowns on cooldown. In most content, the best time to press a damage cooldown is the moment it is ready — waiting wastes potential uses.
• Hold only for something specific: a boss phase that takes extra damage, a dangerous add that must die fast, the last big trash pull. 'Saving it' without a reason is just not using it.
• Fire them early in fights. An opener cooldown is guaranteed value; one held for a perfect moment that never comes is worth nothing.

Dungeon versus raid logic

In dungeons, cooldowns are for the biggest pulls and the bosses — ask your tank when the big pull is coming. In raids, check whether the boss has a damage-taken phase or a burn window; aligning your cooldowns there is worth more than firing them twice into normal phases.

Do not double-dip by accident

Stacking every cooldown on the first pull can leave you naked for the actually-dangerous moment two minutes later. If the fight has scheduled pain, split your kit across it.

Stuck on something here? Post a note on the Academy Learning Board — someone aboard has been exactly where you are.