Removing power usage from defensive skills

Gero

How do people feel about power usage on defense skills such as power mask, aether sight, and hex aura? I myself find it a bit annoying to have limiters on super useful defenses. However I'm curious about what other people think on the matter.

Lerad

Mm. the purpose of power costs on abilities is to prevent them from being used too often. On defensive abilities, it makes the user think twice about raising them after they have been stripped, giving more potency to def-stripping abilities.

In cases like aethersight, most people would forgo putting it up even if it had no power cost anyway, so the power cost is pretty much useless, but with other things like hexaura, the power cost being there is a very real limit with combat implications, and removing it can be a buff to hex using classes, or a nerf to def-stripping classes, depending on your perspective.

Some definitely should stay, if only to maintain the status quo of combat balance, unless a valid argument and a need for the change is demonstrated. But there are others which can feasibly be removed without causing any change the in combat balance scene, and which I think can be a good idea if people find the power costs annoying.

Rancoura

What? I would put aethersight up way more often if it didn't have a power cost.

Lerad

Well, I meant, in the middle of combat, if it gets taken off.

Xenthos

Rancoura said:

What? I would put aethersight up way more often if it didn't have a power cost.

He's talking about it in the context of stripping it (such as in PvP fights, only place where you will have it taken away aside from PvE death itself).  Very few people will put it back up mid-fight when they need the power for other things.

Enyalida

Who strips general defenses in combat, typically? Aside from inquisition, that's an entirely different thread.

Xenthos

Enyalida said:

Who strips general defenses in combat, typically? Aside from inquisition, that's an entirely different thread.

I do it when people put up Serpent!  There is also the Moon Dark which does it passively (along with affs) and that gets used a fair bit as well.  The passive def-strippers are the most frequently used, really.

Enyalida

In the case of Serpent, they aren't going to be raising any defenses power or otherwise - they're trying to get out of combat entirely! With the exception of critical or balanceless defenses (metawake, insomnia, etc.) does anyone generally raise defenses at all mid combat?

Lerad

Depending. Hexaura might be important. And besides, that's the point of the power cost, isn't it? To make it so people WOULD think twice about trying to do it in the middle of combat. But then again, I've never used hexaura. So maybe I won't raise it myself.

Rivius

I don't really see it as a mid-combat thing, but more of a cost to dying. It's also a once-a-real-life-day tax when you put up your defenses. My opinion is that power is a commodity which you have to spend and maintain, and utilizing it for defensive skills should be fine. There are arguably some skills that power costs should probably be lowered for or removed entirely though. For example, power mask on your list is one of the most useless defenses in the game for its cost.

Enyalida

That's what I meant, the power cost doesn't make people think twice - generally, they won't think about raising ANY defenses mid combat. 

Arcanis

Mm, i think for certain abilities there shouldnt be a power cost, such as guardian deffing up which is costly in itself. Although truth be told, since we are bringing up defenses, id personally prefer there actually be less defenses to overall put up, or at least some combined. Far too many these days