how can we know the Boss's Ability CD timer to build strategy ?

[Hctaz]

Isnt abilities timers static ? Or they are dynamic and can change?

They all have cooldowns just like players do, but the boss AI varies slightly. They might not always do the thing that they should be doing at precisely the exact time it comes off of cooldown. That's why stuff like DBM has a countdown timer that says "Infernal Burning CD" instead of "Infernal Burning will happen" or something.

One of the most famous examples of this leading to confusion was with Lich King. The Lich King fight phase 2 had these two mechanics that required exactly the opposite things to deal with them. On 25 man he would summon 3 Valkyr which you needed your whole raid to be clumped up in the very center of the platform for, as they would pick up players and drag them to the edge where they would get dropped off right to their death. He has another mechanic called Defile that has a 1.5 second cast time and would get applied to a completely random raid member. It would get larger and deal more damage each time it dealt damage to anything. You'd handle this by having everybody spread out on the out rim of the circular platform and run as soon as he starts casting it. You literally didn't have time to react. If too many players got caught in it then it would grow too big and you'd die.

The cooldown on the second usage of both of these abilities lined up such that Valkyr came off CD about 5 seconds before Defile. Normally he would cast Valk and then Defile, but sometimes he would cast Defile first. It was a clusterfuck when it happened the other way as you can imagine.

[sabrek]

Nice man rly interesting

- - - Updated - - -

They all have cooldowns just like players do, but the boss AI varies slightly. They might not always do the thing that they should be doing at precisely the exact time it comes off of cooldown. That's why stuff like DBM has a countdown timer that says "Infernal Burning CD" instead of "Infernal Burning will happen" or something.

One of the most famous examples of this leading to confusion was with Lich King. The Lich King fight phase 2 had these two mechanics that required exactly the opposite things to deal with them. On 25 man he would summon 3 Valkyr which you needed your whole raid to be clumped up in the very center of the platform for, as they would pick up players and drag them to the edge where they would get dropped off right to their death. He has another mechanic called Defile that has a 1.5 second cast time and would get applied to a completely random raid member. It would get larger and deal more damage each time it dealt damage to anything. You'd handle this by having everybody spread out on the out rim of the circular platform and run as soon as he starts casting it. You literally didn't have time to react. If too many players got caught in it then it would grow too big and you'd die.

The cooldown on the second usage of both of these abilities lined up such that Valkyr came off CD about 5 seconds before Defile. Normally he would cast Valk and then Defile, but sometimes he would cast Defile first. It was a clusterfuck when it happened the other way as you can imagine.

How can we learn the boss AI behavior ?

[MyndZero]

You literally just pull the boss and work it out from there.... you have basic info from the journal but putting it together it takes you wiping to it to work it out, that's how it's always been worked out.

[Deleted]

If you are asking for some sort of AI code we could read it from...
There is no such thing available.

There's only trial and error with these.
Usually that means either:
- watch video/use DBMish addon -> which means somebody else did the footwork for you
- go in and learn it based on experience