Shield Of Deflection needs improvement

If you noticed the Shield Of Deflection elite skill (protection), you surely have seen that it only lasts 6 seconds, takes a whole second to recharge and consumes 10 energy.

I'd like to make a comparison with other protection skills.

For instance, Restore Condition is an elite that heals, removes all conditions and has the counterside that you cannot cast it on yourself. All condition removal skills cost 5 energy, even the elite one, but still the elite is much more powerful than the normal skills.

With Shield Of Deflection should happen a similar thing, if guardian costs 5 energy, has low recharge and low cast time, Shield Of Deflection that does a similar thing should have similar costs, and maybe duration time should be increased as well.

Sadly it has already been buffed... used to be less armor boost!

I'd like to see the energy cost reduced to about 7. However, SoD is a very powerful skill as it is and a reduction in its cost might prove to make it terribly overpowered.

Still, currently it's a waste of energy. 10 energy is too much for only 6 seconds. Maybe it would be different if time was increased to 15 seconds, for instance.

Guardian is 40% block, 5 energy

SoD at same level is 67% block, +25 armor, 10 energy.

Looks quite balanced... maybe if could use a slight duration tweak to 7s or 8s, but it's not that bad currently.

Then instead of decreasing SoD, let's nerf RC to 10 energy. It would be fair as well. As I stated above RC has the same costs as mend ailment but it is loads better, still it is not nerfed that badly. So why SoD?

If you're focusing in Protection it does 77% chance of evasion and 31 armor. Even for 6 seconds, that's pretty damn good. And I cannot believe you actually complained that it "takes a whole second to recharge." That is an awesome recharge! That's spammable.

Frankly, I think the skill is fine. I've used it on a few occasions.

I'm complaining about the cast time, it should be 1/4 or 1/2. And I say that they can increase the recharge time so that they can also increase the duration. 6 seconds for 10 energy simply makes no sense to me.

Theres an obvious reason why this is balanced, the lack of points neccessary for this skill to be effective makes it balanced. With maximum points in Protection Shield of Regeneration will typically be a better choice, but Shield of Deflection offers 6 seconds of protection with 0 points in protection magic, providing 50% deflection, which is the same as Guardian with 14 or 15 points in Protection.

Top that with roughly 25% more blocking then Guardian througout, and added armor, and you have a pretty impressive Elite, with high points in this skill you will have so much deflection, that You will take 1 out of every 4 hits, even with 4 melees attacking you, your likely to survive, then you put on armor, which is enough to ensure that if you get hit, it isn't going to hurt, and it also protects against elemental damage. With a recast that can ensure that you can continoually recast this on a target until you run out of energy. 6 seconds is plenty of time for the skill to recharge and recast, because of this enchantment stripper will waste their skill striping this because it is a spamm skill.

If this was a 5 energy skill, and you include the obvious healing it would get from divine favor, a Monk could negate everything but degen and armor ignoring damage on one target, with the addition of other spells casted in between Shield of Deflection, it would easily make 1 teammate invincible, and it probably does, which is why having it cost 5 energy would be totaly broken, 5 energy recovers too fast, not including regeneration support, and with high points in Divine favor, and maybe even boon, you would have a broken spammable skill which allows you to heal, deflect, and armor your teammate constantly for a very long time. With 10 energy cost, the amount of defense is balanced, and it will be "hard" too keep this spell up indefinetly, although it isn't impossible with uber energy support.

I would be hapy if they buffed it to 5 energy per cast, removed the armour and have it target other ally. Then it would be an elite version of guardian eh.

Only thing:

Lower casting time plz! 3/4 sec at the most (the slowest). 1/4 would be great.

It's that expensive because of both block AND armor. The only other two skills I can think of at the moment (does not mean only other two in the game) that has blocking AND armor are Defensive + Disciplined Stance. Those have a long recharge and ends if you use a skill/adrenaline skill though :S.

Lower casting is all I want ^^.