Cooldown
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A cooldown is a period of wait time before a spell, ability, or item power can be used again.
Contents
Mechanics[edit]
Usually, a skill will be on cooldown if the skill was activated and the cast time of the skill has passed. For instance, Sand King's Epicenter will instantly go on cooldown when activated, since it has no cast time. If the hero is interrupted before the channel time is over, the spell does nothing, and the cooldown and mana is wasted. On the other hand, Sniper's Assassinate and Shadow Fiend's Requiem of Souls have long cast times, and they will not go on cooldown before the cast time is over. Spirit Breaker's Charge of Darkness is an exception to the usual rule; it goes on cooldown once the charge ends or is canceled, not upon cast.
If a hero has several versions of the same item, all versions will be on cooldown upon activating one of them. For instance, all Dagons are in the same cooldown group.
Some abilities or items have multiple cooldowns, using a different duration if their conditions are met. For example Manta Style's cooldown differs for melee and ranged users. Culling Blade's cooldown is 0, but only when successfully killing a hero.
Many abilities have reduced cooldown when leveled up. If an ability is on cooldown and it is leveled up, the current wait time will not be affected at all.
Some abilities have charges and a charge replenish time instead of the usual cooldown. For instance, Sniper's Shrapnel has 3 charges and a 55 seconds replenish time for each charge.
Cooldown manipulation[edit]
Some abilities and items are able to manipulate the cooldowns of abilities. There are several different types of cooldown manipulation:
- Percentage-based reductions and increases
These cooldown modifiers reduce or increase the cooldowns of all abilities and items by a percentage when used. They cause abilities and items to enter a reduced or increased cooldown after being acquired. This means they do not retroactively affect already running cooldowns. All sources of percentage-based cooldown reductions stack multiplicatively with each other.
- Flat reduction and increases
These cooldown modifiers reduce or increase the cooldowns by flat amounts. Unlike percentage-based cooldown modifiers, these can affect abilities which are already on cooldown. Flat changes are applied before percentage-based changes.
- Cooldown resetting
Some abilities are able to completely reset the cooldowns of abilities and items instantly, so that they are ready to use again.
Talents reducing cooldowns[edit]
The following heroes have a talent that reduces all their cooldowns by a percentage.
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| Cooldown reduction |
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Besides these, the following heroes have talents which reduce cooldowns of specific abilities by a flat amount
-6s Unstable Concoction Cooldown:
-2s Ice Vortex Cooldown:
-2s Blink Cooldown:
-50s Mana Void Cooldown:
-1.5s Spark Wraith Cooldown:- -10s Flamebreak Cooldown:
- +100 Wild Axes Damage:
-5s Blood Rite Cooldown:- -65s Primal Split Cooldown:
- +10% Chaos Strike Chance:
+16 Holy Persuasion Damage:- -3s Crypt Swarm Cooldown:
- +1.5s Static Storm Duration:
- -8s Glimpse Cooldown:
- -1.5s Enchant Totem Cooldown:
- -60 Earth Splitter Cooldown:
- +16 Rocket Barrage Damage:
- -8s Cold Snap Cooldown:
- +2 Forged Spirit Armor Reduction:
- +700 Health:
- +110% Tidebringer Cleave:
- 400 AoE Press the Attack:
- -3s Frost Blast Cooldown:
- -5s Dragon Slave Cooldown:
- -10s Savage Roar Cooldown:
- -32s True Form Cooldown:
- -0.1 Spirit Bear Attack Time:
Removes the ability's cooldown completely. - -3.5s Lucent Beam Cooldown:
- -3s Earthbind Cooldown:
- -4s Poof Cooldown:
- -3.5s Sacred Arrow cooldown:
- -60 Moonlight Shadow Cooldown:
- -9s Ensnare Cooldown:
- 20% Cooldown Reduction:
- Removed Teleportation Cooldown:
Removes the ability's coooldown completely. - -2.5s Death Pulse Cooldown:
- -60s Dark Ascension Cooldown:
- -60s Guardian Angel Cooldown:
- -1.5s Fortune's End Max Channel Time:
- 2.5s Shield Crash CD in Ball:
Sets the cooldown to a specific value when cast during Rolling Thunder. - -28s Rolling Thunder Cooldown:
- -2.5s Swashbuckle Cooldown:
- -4s Doppelganger CD:
- -7s Waning Rift Cooldown:
- -0.8s Netherblast Cooldown:
- -4s Smoke Screen Cooldown:
- -4s Fade Bolt Cooldown:
- -12s Telekinesis Cooldown:
- -1.25s Shadow Poison Cooldown:
- -5s Soul Catcher Cooldown:
- -4.5s Hex Cooldown:
- -8s Ancient Seal Cooldown:
- -8s Spectral Dagger Cooldown:
- -5.5s Bulldoze Cooldown:
- -5s Storm Hammer Cooldown:
- -3s Proximity Mines Cooldown:
- +8s Conjure Image Duration:
- -32s Sunder Cooldown:
- +18 Strength:
- -7s Avalanche Cooldown:
- -5s Whirling Axes Cooldown:
- -8s Snowball Cooldown:
- -2s Decay Cooldown:
- -2.75s Magic Missile Cooldown:
- +200 Magic Missile Damage:
-6 Venomous Gale CD:- -5.5s Shadow Word Cooldown:
- -4s Cold Embrace Cooldown:
Sources of reduction[edit]
Cooldown reduction: 30%
Reduces all cooldowns, including items and passives. Also affects charge replenish times.
Cooldown reduction: 3/4/5/6
Reduces the current cooldowns of all non-ultimate abilities by a fixed amount. Does not affect items.
Impale cooldown reduction: 7
Reduces the cooldown of Impale by a fixed amount while burrowed.
Cooldown reduction: 25%
Reduces all cooldowns, including items and passives. Also affects charge replenish times.
Cooldown reduction: 13%
Reduces all cooldowns, including items and passives. Also affects charge replenish times.
Cooldown reduction: 20%
Reduces all cooldowns, including items and passives. Also affects charge replenish times.
Cooldown reduction: 26%/38%/50%
Reduces all cooldowns, including items and passives. Also affects charge replenish times.
Sources of increase[edit]
Sources of resetting[edit]
Resets its own cooldown when the cull succeeds.
Resets cooldown of all spells.
Resets cooldowns of all items, except for Refresher Orb.
Resets its own cooldown when the phantom successfully returns to the caster.
Resets its own cooldown when invoking an already invoked spell.
Resets cooldowns of all spells, except ultimates, for self and the allied hero when upgraded. Does not reset any item cooldowns.
Resets cooldowns of all spells and items.
Resets cooldowns of all spells and items, except for Refresher Orb.
Resets its own cooldown when cast on self.
Resets all cooldowns, except the following: Arcane Boots, Black King Bar, Bottle, Hand of Midas, Helm of the Dominator, Linken's Sphere Necronomicon, Pipe of Insight, Refresher Orb and Refresher Shard.
Other interactions[edit]
Taking hero or Roshan-based damage triggers a short cooldown.
The heal restricting buff's duration is affected by percentage-based cooldown reductions.
The heal restricting buff's duration is affected by percentage-based cooldown reductions.
The guard stack restricting buff's duration is affected by percentage-based cooldown reductions.
Duration: 8/10/12/14
Causes enemy cooldowns to recharge 75% slower while they have the debuff.- Heart of Tarrasque - [[Heart of Tarrasque#|]]
Taking hero or Roshan-based damage triggers a short cooldown. 
Uses a different cooldown when using the Cataclysm Aghanim Scepter effect.
Triggers the cooldown upon cast, and again when the buff on the ally blocks a spell.
Uses a different cooldown for melee and ranged users.
Cooldown triggers upon leaving the infested unit, rather than upon cast.
Taking hero or Roshan-based damage triggers a short cooldown. Cooldown also triggers upon landing on a tree after a jump, and upon unperching from a tree.
Casting one Adaptive Strike puts the other on a short cooldown.
Cooldown triggers upon losing the provided buff, rather than upon cast.
The armor loss on the caster is bound to the cooldown of the item.
Taking hero or Roshan-based damage triggers a short cooldown.
Cooldown triggers when the charge ends, rather than upon cast.
Cooldown triggers upon losing the tree, rather than upon cast.
The downtime is affected by percentage-based cooldown reductions, but cannot be reset.
The cooldown of the sub-spell on the hero periodically sets itself equal to the shortest cooldown of Stone Form on the Familiars.
Unaffected by cooldown manipulation[edit]
The following abilities have cooldowns that are unaffected by cooldown manipulation for several reasons:
- The ability may use a custom cooldown system, which is not covered by default cooldown manipulation.
- The ability may use a cooldown for other purposes, for example, to indicate a delay before taking effect, like the effect delay of invisibility.
Cooldown: 2.3
Unlike Skull Basher, Abyssal Blade's bash uses a custom cooldown system, because a regular cooldown would prevent the player from using the item's active ability.
Cooldown: 0.3
Counter Helix uses a custom cooldown system for unknown reasons.- Damage cooldown: 3
Instead of getting disabled by damage, Blink Dagger goes on a fixed cooldown instead. The cooldown is affected by cooldown resetting. - Cooldown: 12
The cooldown that triggers when blocking a spell for an ally always uses the default cooldown value for unknown reasons. - Damage cooldown: 3
Instead of getting disabled by damage, Tree Dance goes on a fixed cooldown instead. The cooldown is affected by cooldown resetting. 
Cooldown: 0.2
Maelstrom uses a custom cooldown system for unknown reasons.
Cooldown: 0.2
Mjollnir's Chain Lightning uses a custom cooldown system, because a regular cooldown would prevent the player from using the item's active ability.
Fade delay: 4/3/2
Cloak and Dagger uses the cooldown system to indicate its fade delay for the invisibility. It has visual purposes only.
Fade delay: 0
Nature's Guise uses the cooldown system to indicate its fade delay for the invisibility. It has visual purposes only.
Charges[edit]
Some abilities use the charge mechanic, instead of cooldowns. These abilities have a set number of charges on them, which replenish over time. Instead of going on cooldown, these abilities use up one charge per cast. This means when having multiple charges, they can be cast quickly in succession, but cannot be used when having no charges left. Each charge takes a certain time to replenish. Multiple charges of a spell do not replenish at the same time, they recharge one after another.
Charge-based abilities will appear to be on cooldown when using the last charge. This "cooldown" however is only to visualise when the next charge is going to be ready again.
The replenish time of charges can be affected by the cooldown reductions of Octarine Core, Arcane Rune, and talents, and can all be replenished with Refresher Orb, and are also affected by Chakra Magic and Time Dilation. Other sources of cooldown manipulation cannot grant charges back or affect the recharge times.
An ability's current charges and recharge time are indicated by a number at the bottom left corner of the ability icon, surrounded by a green circle that fills up while recharging a charge.
Charge-based abilities[edit]
The following abilities use the charge system:
Max charges: 0 (
2)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 40)
Max charges: 2/4/6/8 ( 6/10/14/18)
Charge replenish time: 45 (
38.25)
Max charges: 1/2/3/4
Charge replenish time: 45/40/35/30
Max charges: 7
Charge replenish time: 25
Max charges: 3 ( 5)
Charge replenish time: 38 ( 26)
Max charges: 0 ( 2)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 18/14/10/6)
Max charges: 0 ( 3)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 26/21/16/11)
Max charges: 3
Charge replenish time: 45/40/35/30
Max charges: 0 ( 2)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 20/17/14/11)
Max charges: 0 ( 2)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 12)
Max charges: 2
Charge replenish time: 25/20/15/10
Max charges: 3 ( 8)
Charge replenish time: 40 ( 34)
Max charges: 0 ( 2)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 27/24/21/18)
Max charges: 0 ( 3)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 60)
Max charges: 0 ( 2)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 10)
Max charges: 3
Charge replenish time: 23 ( 20)
Max charges: 0 ( 3)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 17/15/13/11)
Max charges: 2
Charge replenish time: 90/80/70
Max charges: 0 ( 2)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 18)
Max charges: 2
Charge replenish time: 30/25/20 ( 24.5/19.5/14.5)
Max charges: 0 ( 2)
Charge replenish time: 0 ( 15/14/13/12)
Version history[edit]
- Refresher Orb now replenishes all charges to charged-based abilities.
- Octarine Core now affects the replenish time of charge-based abilities.
Patch history[edit]
- Implented a new UI element for charge-based abilities.
- Charges are no longer shown as status buffs in the buff bar.
- Charges are now indicated by a number at the bottom left corner of the ability icon.
- Recharge time is now indicated by a green circle filling up around the new number at the bottom left corner of the ability icon.
- Charge-based spells now have a universal error message for when attempting to cast them while having no charges. [?]
- Fixed charge-based spells that do not have charges by default (i.e. gained from talents or Aghanim's Scepter) not having infinite charges in WTF mode.
- Fixed charge-based spells not interacting properly with Chakra Magic and Time Dilation.
- Fixed several single-targeted charge-based spells not losing a charge when blocked by Spell Block.
- Fixed Rubick's stolen spells not remembering how many charges and recharge time they had remaining when re-stealing them.
- Fixed percentage-based cooldown reductions to stack multiplicatively, instead of additively.
- Fixed a bug where the cooldown for charges for Spin Web, Spirit Siphon, Stone Remnant, Fire Remnant and Aghanim's Scepter Demonic Purge was not properly affected by Octarine Core or Arcane Rune.
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