History Main / CooldownManipulation

* ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'': Here, cooldowns appear in form of the Custom Gauge, the gauge that will fill itself and, when full, lets you access the Custom Screen to load Battle Chips, after which the gauge will be reset to 0 and fill itself again. There exist chips that lets you manipulate this gauge:

** Illidan lowers all of his cooldowns every time he lands a basic attack. He has a set of medium-cooldown skills that are actually ''supposed'' to be spammed. Playing him correctly involves sticking to your target and adding as many [=AAs=] as possible between your abilities.

** Some characters have access to Rewind, a level 20 talent that instantly resets the cooldowns of your basic abilities.

** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', the soldier and vanguard classes have an ability that refreshes all ability cooldowns. Unfortunately, your companions like to use it at the beginning of combat before they've down anything.

** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', the soldier and infiltrator classes have an ability that refreshes all ability cooldowns. Unfortunately, your companions like to use it at the beginning of combat before they've down anything.

[[folder:Turn-Based Tactics]]
* ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown''[='s=] ''Enemy Within'' expansion lets you gene-splice soldiers with a neural feedback gene; if an alien attacks them with psionic powers, all of the alien's abilities are put on cooldown. A different variation of this exists in form of MEC Trooper conversations: taking too much damage during a mission causes a soldier to be wounded, which can result in lenghty hospital stays that can last up to 8+ days. However, you can still put any wounded soldiers through a MEC conversion, which only lasts 3 days, allowing you to get them back to action much quicker if you don't mind losing their genemods. This can be especially useful on harder difficulty levels where high-ranked soldiers are hard to come by due to their vastly lowered survivability.
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[[folder:[=Western RPGs=]]]

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' has a version of LimitedLoadout that provides either a buff or penalty to your power cooldowns depending on how much weight in weapons you're lugging around.
** Also, in the first game the soldier class has an ability that refreshes all ability cooldowns. Unfortunately, your companions like to use it at the beginning of combat before they've down anything.

* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'': Cooldown Reduction is a character stat provided by some items in the game that reduces the amount of time your skills take to refresh. It's capped at 40%. Various champions also have additional cooldown mechanics tied into their skills, oftentimes assassins refreshing an ability on a kill.

* ''TalesOfMajEyal'' has a number of ways to manipulate cooldowns. The Stun and Brainlock status effects put random talents onto cooldown and prevent cooldowns from counting down while the effect lasts. There are a number of skills and effects that will make cooldowns decrement faster, others that will instantly refresh coolsdowns of certain skills, and artifacts and item properties that reduce the normal cooldown time of specific skills.

** Mages have the "Clean Burn" passive that lowers cooldowns for each spell they cast, or gathering storm which lowers cooldowns each time they start a basic attack combo. Clean Burn is noted to be a massive GameBreaker when combined with a [[MagicKnight Knight Enchanter's]] Spirit Blade ability, which has no cooldown of its own, and Gathering Storm can also be potent when used with some form of attack cancelling.

* The ''Franchise/StarOcean'' games' Fury Gauge denotes how many actions they can take in battle, with the character needing to stand still for it to refill (attacking expends Fury, moving prevents it from refilling). Some skills allow the player to limit Fury use by certain percentages and amounts to pile on more hits.

** Mages have the "Clean Burn" passive that lowers cooldowns for each spell they cast.

* In ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', Cooldown Reduction is a prized property in the game's RandomlyGeneratedLoot for certain character builds, especially in the late game. Many characters have abilities that give them massive buffs for a limited time; it is possible to bring the cooldowns low enough that they can stay in a perpetual buffed-up state.

* ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown''[='s=] ''Enemy Within'' expansion lets you gene-splice soldiers with a neural feedback gene; if an alien attacks them with psionic powers, all of the alien's abilities are put on cooldown.

{{Cooldown}} refers to how abilities are given "time intervals" to be used again to prevent the players from spamming them over and over. Some games, however, gives ways for players to manipulate the cooldown for tactical uses.

This can take form of, but not limited to, extending the enemy's ability cooldown (so they can attack less often), or speeding up or negating one's ability cooldown (so one can attack more often). This kind of ability can be a GameBreaker if not regulated fairly.

** ''Videogame/FinalFantasyX'' has the attacks Delay Attack and Delay Buster, which increase the amount of time until the targeted enemy can take its next action, and Quick Hit, which has a much faster cooldown than a standard attack.

** Slow Gauge slows down the filling of the gauge. Commonly used when you just like to take your time for your tactics, or, if you use Custom Sword or Custom Volt, chips that get stronger as the gauge fills and, when used, reset the gauge back to 0.

* In ''Videogame/ChildOfLight'' every character in combat enters a "preparation phase" between them selecting a move and using it, and if they are attacked during this phase, the attack is interrupted and they are moved further down the cooldown meter. A lot of the tactical elements of combat arise from attacking enemies in their preparation phase to interrupt them, and knowing when to defend instead of attack if you think an enemy will interrupt you before you can finish preparing.

* The Matron in ''Videogame/EvilGenius'' can bestow a buff upon your other henchmen that lets them regenerate their special abilities quickly.

* ''Videogame/XCOMEnemyUnknown''[='s=] ''Enemy Within'' expansion lets you gene-splice soldiers with a neural feedback gene; if an alien attacks them with psionic powers, all of the alien's abilities are put on cooldown.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''[='s=] version of LimitedLoadout provides either a buff or penalty to your power cooldowns depending on how much weight in weapons you're lugging around.

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!!Indexes: VideoGameEffectsAndSpells, VideoGameTropes

[[folder:Fighting Games]]
* In a meta level, in fighting games in general, a variant of this can be achieved by chaining certain basic moves together faster than usually possible, forming basic {{combo}}s. With the advent of LagCancel, this process is made easier.
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