Cooldown reduction, or CDR, is a stat people love, especially on their warriors and mages. But is it as valuable as it seems on the magical side? Sure, you can throw out more abilities quicker, but when you consider the cost-value is it truly worth bypassing something with more damage to get that extra 2-4 seconds off your nuke ability? Surely it has to be right? More nukes means more damage which would clearly translate into more kills. Now that’s where the misconceptions begin, that having more CDR would mean more damage overall than the same god who doesn’t have CDR. That’s not the case though, because in my experience people use the terms DPS, or damage per second, and damage interchangeably despite meaning completely different things. Damage is raw output in a single go, DPS is average damage over a period of a second. This means that, for just a single use of an ability, more power ALWAYS beats out more CDR, but at what point does CDR become the better stat?

We’ll use 2 Ra’s as an example. Ra 1 has 673 power from Shoes of the Magi, Book of Thoth, Obsidian Shard, Dynasty Plate Helm, Rod of Tahuti, and Soul Reaver, and 25+33% pen. Ra 2 has 513 with Shoes of the Magi, Chronos Pendent, Obsidian Shard, Breastplate of Valor, Rod of Tahuti, and a fully stacked Warlock’s Sash, as well as 40% CDR and 10+33% pen. Just from these numbers alone, we know Ra 1 will destroy Ra 2 in a straight up fight, especially because Ra 2 will be taking the full blow of Ra 1’s abilities because Ra 1 has true damage if Ra 2 has no magical protection.

Because of the sheer damage that Ra 1 will be throwing out at Ra 2, even with a Warlock’s Sash, Ra 2 likely won’t be able to actually use that extra CDR he spent so much money on. And you might think “well what use is CDR then?” and the answer is not much when it comes to mages. It becomes more valuable the longer a fight goes on, but often a mage's job is to make sure fights end before they become extended team fights. It’s almost a catch-22. By getting CDR, you can ensure you’re better equipped for longer fights but with more power you can avoid longer fights because you’ll kill people, or at least injure them fast enough, so there will be less people in the fight. Generally though, going with raw power instead of CDR is more valuable overall.

But every rule has exceptions and this one is no different. Janus excels with CDR, so much so that I’m probably willing to say that it is a necessity on him. The reason for this is based solely on how hyper-mobile his kit is. Not only is Janus affected by his CDR on his mobility, but his entire team is as well. The ability to drop vital teammates into fights or extract them in the blink of an eye and taking what you can get in a losing teamfight is so potent to a team with a Janus that getting CDR for the 4.8 seconds off his Portal, 6 for Threshold, and 36 on the most annoying ultimate in the game, Through Space and Time, is the single most important thing you can do. It’s his ability to also slip in and out of teamfights nearly instantly that makes him such a menace as he can throw his Unstable Vortex out WHILE backing into a portal, then just over 4 seconds later, throw another Unstable Vortex from somewhere, and Portal back in with ANOTHER Unstable Vortex. Because that is what Janus does, excels in being almost untouchable anywhere on the map, especially anywhere in the jungle where walls are nearly everywhere just waiting to teleport Janus out of a bad situation or dumping his entire team onto your Gold Fury attempt when you least expect it.

The same could probably be said for Chang’e, though for a different reason than Janus. Because her scaling is very poor for a mage (160% across her entire kit) she needs that extra CDR because Chang’e is probably the only mage where there is a very real difference in DPS because her Cooldown are short as is, so being able to thrown out a Crescent Moon Dance every 3 seconds, as opposed to 5, is a big boost. Outside of those 2 examples though, every other mage should probably have raw power unless you have additional magic burst from another source, which is unlikely.

On the flip side though, CDR on physicals is far more valuable than on mages, and that’s because of the fact that 1) Jotunn’s Wrath, the most popular assassin and warrior item, provides 10 penetration as well as 20% CDR and Breastplate of Valor gives warriors the vital physical protections they need with another 20% CDR. Because of these facts, purchasing CDR on physicals is a lot less damaging to your overall power curve because you don’t sacrifice anything. It’s like a little added bonus to getting items with the stats you need. The power curve is also the same reason you never see Hunters getting CDR, because for them it leads to no obvious benefits to them. Of course that hasn’t stopped some players from experimenting with the idea, but most realize CDR just is not good on Hunters, and hopefully people can begin to see that CDR is of much less value than previously thought as some have already begun to believe.

Get your own AKRacing Chair here and support our players, all profit goes towards the teams!