Yeah I'd remove aura btw from most classes. Shield + barrier feels about right balance wise. Of course - if you got rid of deathblow, this is a whole different conversation, but sadly with deathblow around shield + barrier is a minimum.

Re: cooldowns - as the aggressor it allows me to dictate when I'll face full dam redux versus partial dam redux. I wouldn't put barrier on a cooldown, just shield and optionally aura if the class in question has really awful tankability (necromancer is the only one I can think of that probably needs aura). Right now some people either always have full ABS or almost never have full ABS - nothing in between.

By the by, I don't think it *has* to be super time consuming - but in my case I had a sleek in a friggin maze that I had to navigate every time I went to get it and it didn't respawn unless I left and navigated the maze *again*. Very, very annoying.

Then of course you have *finding* the wands, which is the real problem. It's a massive waste of time that only leads to information sharing and cheating. It favors high profile info/quest sharers and Imms (not to sound like a jerk, but if you know the locations then obviously its pretty good for you) and doesn't add anything enjoyable to the game.