Two labels, two questions
Attack speed and weapon cooldown should not be treated as interchangeable words. The official Stats (Survivors) page is the source for the game's definitions and affected attributes. Read the current entry before deciding whether a visible stat changes shots inside an attack sequence, the time between activations, or another weapon-specific behavior.
Cooldown is a timing question: how long until the next activation is available. Attack speed is a frequency question: how quickly an attack pattern operates when it is active. A route can benefit from one, the other, or neither depending on the weapon and upgrade. The exact relationship must come from the current stats and upgrade entries, not from a genre assumption.
A diagnostic test
Choose one weapon and record its starting behavior. Then compare an attack-speed choice and a cooldown choice under the same team, mode, difficulty, and movement pattern. Watch the time between visible activations, the number of projectiles or hits inside an activation, and whether the weapon stays useful while you reposition. Those observations answer more than a final score alone.
The official Upgrades page should be used to identify the available choice and its stated effect. If the game presents a weapon-specific wording, keep that wording in your notes. Do not generalize from one weapon to every weapon unless the source explicitly supports it.
- Hold the weapon and upgrade route steady before changing the stat.
- Measure the behavior you can actually see, not a guessed internal timer.
- Repeat the comparison because offers and run pressure can distort one attempt.
- Link the result to Rocket Launcher vs Minigun only when the weapon context is explicit.
How to choose during a run
If the weapon already has a useful activation but leaves long gaps, a cooldown question may be more relevant. If an activation is frequent but each sequence feels thin, attack speed or another scaling dimension may deserve the test. This is a decision heuristic, not a universal priority. The correct choice depends on the current upgrade text and the job your team is trying to fill.
When neither stat clearly answers the pressure point, prefer the option that improves the next minute's reliability and record why. A transparent reason is more valuable than a copied ranking with no version or setup.
Keep the evidence current
Stats and upgrades are exactly the kind of pages that can change with a release. Reopen the official entries after a balance update and update any test note with its version. The site intentionally avoids publishing a made-up formula or exact threshold when the supplied source record does not establish one.