I think at least we should be able to agree that stuff like every crusader/dh/monk aiming for 100% akarats/vengeance/epiphany uptime is not healthy for the game.
But i’d like to hear what you guys think about other long cooldowns like land of the dead or simulacrum, big bad voodoo, etc
Cooldowns should be in. But those long cooldown buffs are pretty badly designed. They become “fire and forget”.
Part of the issue is the set/legendary items that allows them to be kept up all the time of course. Cooldown reduction should be a rare stat, that comes with a high opportunity cost. Not something every build want to use.
For buffs that are meant to be on most of the time, the aura/mantra design is better; a passive component, and an active with a cooldown (and/or a resource cost of course).
Imo, the vast majority of skills should not go above 30 sec cooldowns - and the majority of skills should have 0 coolddown. A small amount of skills could be up to 60 sec cooldowns (like aforementioned auras/mantras etc, since part of the skill effect would always be there).
I don’t mind them ibthe ability is super powerful. However, I would be in favor of sacrificing power of “ultimates” for shorter CDs. Or have each class have a proper ultimate and have it build up over time like in OW and the skill be independent of the action bar.
Generally any ARPG with lesser CDs is more entertaining than just waiting for your spells.
If you want D4 with 5-15 secs cooldowns then implement it like Grim Dawn with a huge spellbar (18-20 spell slots).
If you want 0 to 5 second cooldowns then about 10-13 skill slots in the spellbar is fine.
Id rather let resource be your limit than cooldowns. A Resource limit keeps a player active and on their feet, while cooldowns make it where you can use macro’s easier. D2 balanced it well without cooldowns and D4 can do the same. Cooldowns should not exist because with them gone we can have more item stat diversity.
If you want to let resource to limt your character, then mana potion and mana regeneration should be removed from the game. Funny for you bring D2 up when it was mana/rejuvenation pot spamfest and insane mana regeneration completely negating the purpose of resources in that game.
Back to the topic, I don’t mind the spell has a minor cooldown like 5-10 seconds cooldown. If we are talking about ultimate spell that has 120 seconds cooldown, I would prefer that they make it into Ultimate like Diablo Immortal where you build up the Ultimate meter from attacking the enemies to use the ultimate spell.
Even if D4 are not using the Immortal’s Ultimate System, then at least make it the Ultimate Spell with long cooldown has it own skill bar instead of taking one of your limited skill bar to use it.
There should be no “ultimate skills” in D4. Terrible concept imo.
timers are bad game design and serve only as a solution for imbalance whether it be entity, resource or whatever. long timers are obviously a lot worse than short ones. it’s better to give players freedom to use their skills as they see fit as long as they have enough resources to spend because more player interaction relates to fun. it’s why we want to play more than we want to watch cut scenes. having game timer affixes on gear is boring, a waste of an affix, and isn’t related to anything in the game/lore/fantasy. it’s the game devs placing invisible walls everywhere which obviously kills immersion. do i need to give the monsters a break? am i tired? what’s the purpose of not allowing me to use my skill? the answer is design imbalance. if i don’t have enough resources, i can’t use the skill. end of story. this formula allows way way way more player freedom while never giving us the feeling of a wasted slot. if the devs focus on perfecting resource and skill damage, we won’t have skill slots that feel like a crutch or waste.
when we have no control over our skills on an encounter by encounter basis, we lose the feeling of character control. it’s a little different in games that focus on single enemies like in wow because they sort of have a turn-based 1v1 combat style.
if timers are necessary (they shouldn’t be) then at least have them be extremely short. instead of showing us a timer, have a long animation (d2 meteor and frozen orb). only allow the player to use the skill again once it’s finished doing damage or animating. at least try to trick us into not realizing we’re waiting due to the skill being too op for the enemies. skill power must relate to the amount of resource it uses because resource management and attainment is far more dynamic than waiting for a timer to reach 0.
it just boils down to skill freedom syncing with the number of enemies we encounter in general. instead of treating players like children who need to be instructed, treat us as if we’re able to determine what’s required for each encounter. somehow we managed it in diablo and diablo 2. 
I don’t mind some of the longer cooldowns, but they should be a bit more interesting than a big damage cooldown that ultimately only encourages grouping up monsters and screen wiping.
This isn’t World of Warcraft where some fights can last 10+ minutes and smart use of cooldowns is part of the skill of playing your class/build.
It might be better if the “ultimate” abilities instead of a simple 2 minute cooldown or whatever are charged up by dealing damage/killing enemies more like what the Vaal skills are in Path of Exile.
They also don’t need to be putting cooldowns on certain spells. Looking at the Sorceress abilities in D4 I don’t see why Lightning Spear or Hydra need to have 20 second cooldowns.
When my basic damage abilities are on cooldowns to me it starts feeling more like WoW combat which if I wanted to play WoW…I’d play WoW.
It really depends on the skills imo.
Lets say we have two attacks.
Attack one just deals damage. Attack two deals dmg and stuns the target for 3 seconds. It might make sense to add like a 10 sec cooldown to attack two, so you couldn’t spam a hard crowdcontrol skill. Having a cooldown on attack one would unnecessary.
Likewise, something like the monks Serenity pretty much needs a cooldown.
In D4 skills; makes sense that Frost Nova is given a cooldown. Less sense that Lightning Spear got one.
Big damage cooldowns on the other hand, yeah, that feels fairly pointless if not outright bad. There has to be something more to the skill that justifies the cooldown.
There is nothing inherently wrong with those big bad cooldowns like Land of the Dead, Big Bad Voodoo and Wrath of the Berserker. They’re fun to use and they make your character feel powerful.
The problems only start coming with cooldown reduction making it possible to keep up their effects 100% of the time. Then it stops being a strategic I’m-In-Trouble or Gonna-Kill-These-Before-They-Make-Trouble button and becomes something that needs its own set of balancing rules.
CDR can be a stat, but it shouldn’t be available in such amounts that it starts reducing cooldowns into 100% uptime buttons. Or, if so, then it should be a targeted CDR for 1 ability instead of applying universally, and only apply to cooldowns within a certain range.
No
all there needs to be said
Apparently there is a lot more to be said. Thankfully we are not a group think community.
Skills should be developed and customized into powerful tools. There should be an endgame that is capable of putting these tools to the test. Cooldowns are artificial restrictions that allow them to provide mindless gameplay that provides an illusion of challenge.
They should leave Cooldowns in MMOS where they belong.
As i have already said in other topics, its not worth to add CDs to fight PVE AI since their AI is always predictable, making no sense at all to wait for CDs if you can foresee their actions as their HP (like an MMO) lowers they always trigger “harder” or “stronger” spells.
For PVP however, due balance reasons to limit the spam of spells by increasing the cd of a few spells makes more sense to be able to counter-play players actions, but not over 10-15 seconds CDs, since fighting vs players cannot be exactly foreseen which spells they are gonna use, and tactically unlike an AI.
They should design CDs separately from PVE and PVP.
We’re on the same page here man 
For me personally, hopefully some over time resource pots maybe with slight a CD, natural resource regen, shrines/fountains and maybe even globes that occasionally drop on monster kill?
Also, if CD’s are up to 10 secs then OK, just maybe, not sure which type skills would have CD. But in general I’d rather D4 had no CD’s at all.
Yes, this is decent. Have most of the abilities have no CD’s, some very short (up to 10 sec) and resource for Ulties (if they will even keep those) and very very strong/top spells just be built up by attacks.
Yea, this is actually a good point too. We could also kinda do without them I think?
AYE 
I don’t mind be able to get more mana regen, but it should definately be more limited that d2 was. Making it so you have to sacrifice something else related to your build to get high regen sounds acceptable to me.
That being said, my favorite resource systems are ones where you charge using some weaker skills and then spend with others, essentially the norm for warrior style classes. Mages could build arcane power, dex classes could build up crits, it could work across the board in different ways.
What I would find very interesting would be a stamina/mana/etc bar to balance big moves.
Some charge-spend skills that may have a time limit to encourage follow through. And maybe a few buff cooldowns that are strong and sparse enough you have to think about when/where you’ll use them.
Your resource should be your cooldown, it’s all about resource management like they did in D2. If you have cooldowns you are just doing a sequence of abilities because certain abilities are up at the moment so you just press ability 1, ability 2, ability 3, ability 4, and then repeat.
And what kind of D3 build that you are talking about that required rotation? I am pretty most of the build only have 1-2 cooldown at best, which is usually a mobility skill and transformation or ultimate.
it costs resources so you cannot WW “all the way non-stop”. By do it like this your primary abilities becomes more useful aswell.