Blizzard has outlined improvements planned for the Cooldown Manager feature first-introduced in Patch 11.1.5.
While we’re not certain when these changes will arrive, Cooldown Manager will receive Advanced Cooldown Settings, which let players customize their bars and frames to show only specific spells or reorder them based on their preference.
They also plan on letting you track your offensive dots in either a new frame or as part of an existing Cooldown Manager frame. Debuffs will have different states indicating whether they are applied, missing, about to expire, or in the pandemic window, as you can see below.
Blizzard also plans to implement a tracker for tanks to see if another player has used externals or buffs with a duration on them, like 
Pain Suppression.
Finally, players will have access to sound alerts to customize their cooldown sets!
Since the release of the 11.1.5 Cooldown Manager feature, we’ve been listening to your feedback and are excited to share several planned improvements. These updates will enhance functionality, customization, and ease of use. We aim to consistently iterate and improve on the Cooldown Manager, and these enhancements will be included in future World of Warcraft updates.
Please note that the features shared here are still being iterated on and can change. Additionally, any images shown are currently wireframes of the User Interface (UI) so the final product might look slightly different once it’s released on the live realms.
Advanced Cooldown Settings
One of the strongest pieces of feedback we’ve received around the Cooldown Manager was that players want to customize their bars and frames to show only specific abilities or reorder them based on their preference. We’re excited to share that we’re adding new Advanced Cooldown Settings for players who want to fine tune and control what their Cooldown Manager displays. In addition, we are adding a lot more class and specialization abilities that players can opt into tracking. Here are some of the new settings that you can modify to update your Cooldown Manager with:
- Pick and choose which spells or abilities you want to display or hide.
- Change the order that the abilities display on the Cooldown Manager frames.
- Toggle whether mouseover tooltips and ability timers appear.
- Set whether abilities appear in the Essentials or Utility frame, and whether buffs appear as icons or bars.
- Show unlearned abilities if the player hasn’t selected the talent yet.
- Search for specific abilities.
Reorder
Drag + Drop
Reorder can be done inside its own group or between Essential and Utlities groups. Reordering a cooldown will automatically reflect on the HUD (Heads up Display).
Show Unlearned
Dropdown Menu
Shows all unlearned cooldowns and buffs, plus the HUD will update the UI if the player learns that talent.
Search Bar
Similar to Bag Search
Players can search for spells and buffs using the top bar. Highlighting the spell they are looking for.
With these new customization options, players can track as many or as few abilities as they’d like. In our UI images below, you can see an example of Unholy Death Knight with the default Cooldown Manager settings and an example displaying some of the additional upcoming tracking options for abilities.
Debuff Tracking
Another piece of feedback we’ve received is that players want the ability to track their damage over time (DoT) effects and other important debuffs on their target with the Cooldown Manager. We plan to let players opt into tracking their offensive DoTs in either a new frame or as part of an existing Cooldown Manager frame. Like the Advanced Cooldown Manager settings, we plan to populate this setting with all potential abilities so players can pick and choose what they want to track.
Debuffs will have different states indicating whether they are applied, missing, about to expire or in the pandemic window, or if they’re on cooldown entirely. While the debuff from a spell is on your current target, the remaining duration of that debuff will be shown on that spell.
Debuffs on Target
Tracking
If a player selects a target that has a debuff applied, the cooldown manager will change states to show that.
Big Defensive Tracking
From some players(mostly Tank classes) we’ve heard that they want the ability to see if another player has used external abilities or buffs with a duration on them (such as Pain Suppression or Life Cocoon). To support this, we’re adding an additional optional frame that can track the use of these external enhancements when they’re active on your character.
Edit Mode
Big Defensive Tracking
Players will be able to toggle the External Big Defensive tracking through Edit Mode.
Sound Alerts
To alert players better when an ability or buff becomes available or is active, we’re adding the ability to configure sound notifications on abilities on a case-by-case basis. If you’d like an audio notification tied to one of your class abilities, you can configure that specific ability with a unique alert.
Alerts
Players will have access to a list of sounds to customize their cooldown sets.
Additional Edit Mode Customizations
In addition to the above, we’re also looking at some quality-of-life updates for the Cooldown Manager and its associated frames, and we’re exploring other potential updates such as:
- Resizing and repositioning elements of the Cooldown Manager with greater flexibility.
- Saving different Cooldown Manager configurations profiles that can be swapped between different types of content.
In addition to the above, we’re also taking steps to make the various portions of the Cooldown Manager UI more accessible and discoverable in the Options menus.
Looking Ahead
As we look forward to introducing these improvements in future updates, we remain committed to refining and expanding these features based on your feedback. We look forward to supporting the wider community and their needs as we continually iterate on the Cooldown Manager.
You can check out the Cooldown Manager in its current iteration on the live realms by opening the Game Menu (Escape) going to the Options settings and checking the Cooldown Manager box.
