New support gem : Added Cooldown

I'd be all for this. Traps and mines give some nice burst to the game but to make real use of them requires a lot of specific building and they're completely unusable for any melee users.

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Wooser69 wrote:

I'd be all for this. Traps and mines give some nice burst to the game but to make real use of them requires a lot of specific building and they're completely unusable for any melee users.

Exactly, Casters and range characters can benefit much more than melee character from Traps, Mines and Totems. Melee skills could at least be supported by the Added Cooldown gem.

Btw, which color should the "hypothetical2 cooldown support gems be ?

Red, Green, Blue or "doesn't really matter" ?

The other possibility is 2 different colors for the short and long cooldown support gems.

I find it interesting that the second replied said your proposed values were OP, because when I read your post I thought the opposite. The damage boost would have to be bigger if I were to endure a cooldown to use a skill. What would be the point of using something that doubled my damage for one hit but I had to wait 4 seconds to use it again, when if I just kept hitting with my main skill I would do more damage? As an example, let's say I hit once a second for 1000 damage with my main attack. If my secondary attack gave me more damage than that, it wouldn't be secondary, it'd be my main attack. So I have a secondary attack that does the same 1000 damage, but has some utility to it like elemental instead of physical for reflect mobs. So, using this cooldown support that gives 50% more damage with a 4 second cooldown my choices are:

Main attack 1000
Main attack 1000
Main attack 1000
Main attack 1000
Main attack 1000 for a total of 5000 damage in 5 seconds

alternatively:
Alternate attack 2000
Main attack 1000
Main attack 1000
Main attack 1000
Main attack 1000 for a total of 6000 damage in 5 seconds

So I gain 20% DPS at the cost of a skill slot and whatever mana and sockets I would need to add the alternate attack. Which isn't bad at all, but I could get the same by hitting 20% faster.

Now assume I hit twice a second instead of just once. If I keep the same main attack DPS each hit would do 500. So without using the cooldown support gem, in the first example my damage would still be 5000 in 5 seconds. In the second example I'd hit once for 1000 and 9 times for 500, for a total of 5500 damage in 5 seconds. Now I'm only getting a 10% DPS boost.

So, I think not only does this support gem get worse the faster your attack speed is, but also the damage boost would need to be even bigger to make it worth using. Otherwise you could just use a damage support gem like Added Fire or crit stuff

That's the way I see it. But maybe for somebody who has empty skill slots it might work out. I tend to have all my skill slots used with a main single and AoE attack, an attack to deal with reflects, a totem, a curse, a movement skill, a buff like blood rage, or something else. I can't see myself ever making room for an additional big hitting skill unless it really hit big to deal with bosses.

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mark1030 wrote:

I find it interesting that the second replied said your proposed values were OP, because when I read your post I thought the opposite. The damage boost would have to be bigger if I were to endure a cooldown to use a skill. What would be the point of using something that doubled my damage for one hit but I had to wait 4 seconds to use it again, when if I just kept hitting with my main skill I would do more damage?

This isn't a bad point, however you can do something else while your nuke is on cooldown. Even 20% bonus dps gotten by using this support would be a benefit.

As I said, this would be very valuable for hybrid builds which are on the verge of extinction, however, nothing's stopping spammer builds to use this to cheaply boost damage output. Now, this would be relatively simple to restrict, cooldown for like skills just needs to be shared. For example if you use one souped-up ice spear you can't use another ice spell for the duration of its cooldown, or any damage spell, or something like that.

And one mroe thing, cooldown could be based on skill's base attack or cast speed to offset better useability of stronger, slower spells with this gem, it could just be x5 or something. For example, fireball has 0,8 attacks per second so cooldown will be 4 secs, freezing pulse has 0,5 so it would have 2,5s cooldown.

Mark, the first thing you must understand, is that adding a cooldown isn't meant to give you the same damage per second, it's meant to give you burst damage.

So you sacrifice damage per second for a considerable boost in damage.

However, following your line of thought, consider Multistrike and Flicker Strike, along with Bloodrage and the fact you can reset cooldown by spending 1 Frenzy charge (only needed every 3 frenzy strikes, at most).
If you kill enemies fast enough, you can perpetuate its usage, and you actually won some damage per second.

I like the idea of cooldowns if implemented in a tasteful manner.
What I do like in particular, are the cooldowns bypassable by spending charges, like Flicker Strike and Cold Snap.
I think that was an awesome concept GGG added to the game that they should definitely further explore.

So the ideal, in my opinion, would be (values are merely illustrative):
1 - Lesser Overcharge Support - 110% Mana, Adds 2s Cooldown, and 30..49% More Damage.
Per Quality: Additional 0.05% More Damage. Stacks additively with the gem's Per Level bonus.
2 - Greater Overcharge Support - 130% Mana, Adds 6s Cooldown, and 60..98% More Damage, but also doubles charges required to bypass its cooldown.
Per Quality: Additional 0.1% More Damage. Stacks additively with the gem's Per Level bonus.
3 - Endurance Overcharge Support - 110% Mana, Adds 4s Cooldown, and 30..49% More Damage, and allows you to bypass supported gem's cooldown by spending 1 Endurance Charge.
Per Quality: Additional 0.05% More Damage. Stacks additively with the gem's Per Level bonus.
4 - Frenzy Overcharge Support - 110% Mana, Adds 4s Cooldown, and 30..49% More Damage, and also allows you to bypass supported gem's cooldown by spending 1 Frenzy Charge.
Per Quality: Additional 0.05% More Damage. Stacks additively with the gem's Per Level bonus.
5 - Power Overcharge Support - 110% Mana, Adds 4s Cooldown, and 30..49% More Damage, and also allows you to bypass supported gem's cooldown by spending 1 Power Charge.
Per Quality: Additional 0.05% More Damage. Stacks additively with the gem's Per Level bonus.

For this to work and be interesting, in my opinion, we would need the following rules:
- All cooldowns stack - both the supported skill base cooldown (if any) and the added cooldown from the Overcharge gems.
- All charges required to bypass cooldown stack.
Example: You support a Flicker Strike with Greater Overcharge, Power Overcharge and Frenzy Overcharge.
Since Flicker Strike has 2s cooldown, you get a total of 2+6+4+4 = 16s cooldown.
Flicker Strike already allows you to bypass its cooldown by spending 1 Frenzy Charge.
Frenzy Overcharge adds +1 Frenzy Charge to that cost, Power Overcharge adds 1 Power Charge to that cost, and Greater Overcharge doubles the charge costs.
As a result, you must spend 2*(1+1) = 4 Frenzy Charges PLUS 2*1 = 2 Power Charges everytime you want to bypass the 16s cooldown.

All in all, what I'm talking about, is that I would like the gameplay around any cooldowns added to be versatile, and the rules of the game to be global, so that you can actually get creative.
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This means a "normal" Flicker Strike build would probably go for Lesser Overcharge.
If you build Frenzy Charges relatively fast, you can go for Greater Overcharge and Lesser Overcharge.

Combining more than one among Power/Endurance/Frenzy Overcharge isn't very effective, but there might be builds designed specifically to deal with it.
Combining the above with Greater Overcharge is alot harder, since all cooldown-bypass charge costs are doubled, but might still be doable in some situations.

I like this idea of an added cooldown in exchange for damage. As far as balancing is concerned, I would suggest adding longer cast times/reduced attack speeds in addition to adding a cooldown. And while I like the idea of this being a gem, I would also consider passive ability options of this nature, instead of--or in addition to--this gem. And if this were converted to a passive, you could easily include several of these passives around the tree, tailored to types of damage/attacks as well.

It's not about liking the idea of exchanging damage per second for a cooldown.

If you compare an ability that does alot more damage, but has a cooldown, to abilities that do their damage over a longer amount of time, then the cooldown based ability must have a drawback in form of damage per second, otherwise there's no point using the sustained damage skill.

Sustained damage should always have more damage per second than burst damage, otherwise it becomes worthless.

I'm not sure the slower speed is required.
It's just empowering the skill, at the cost of a cooldown that takes away some damage per second.

The charge-bypassable cooldown is also a tradeoff - you sacrifice something to overcome the cooldown.

So by adding cooldown, and adding charge-bypass, you're essentially giving the skill a damage for charges tradeoff.

The purpose of adding long cast times/reduced attack speeds, in addition to the cooldown, is twofold.

One, with these further negatives, it allows for a more substantial damage bonus. As it's been suggested so far, the damage bonus is roughly the same as current damage bonuses without the added cooldowns, and due to the number of damage bonus gems in the game already, it would be better to add one of those gems instead. This is especially true with the "overcharge" idea; due to the need to socket skills to get such charges, the damage bonus is too low to provide an incentive to use such a support skill, considering the additional gem socket requirement. Besides, as dps is not such a concern with an added cooldown, the further negative would be rather negligible in pve.

Two, without the additional increased cast time/reduced attack speed, the damage bonus that would be needed to make this gem viable would completely destroy the balance of pvp. Why wouldn't you just one-shot everyone with this support gem, when you can cast/attack just as quickly as normal? The increased cast time/reduced attack speed would provide the necessary riskiness of using such a one-shot skill, and would likely require a combo to keep the enemy player still long enough to actually be able to hit them with that one-shot skill.