Again in the spirit of ‘diversity,’ there should be the ability to power down/ power up abilities, with your power up max limited to the number of covers you own. I’d equate this to a typical RPG where a weaker strength weapon might have a special power you need for a specific battle.
You could then carry a 5/5/5 character, still with a maximum of 13 ‘equip’ points. And maximum health/damage is still determined by your overall level, i.e. a 2* character with 13 covers w/ full ISO invested maintains their level 85 health/damage, even if you are only using level 1 powers (or turning off powers all together) for a single game.
Examples:
-In the previous PvE, depending on your team, there were situations where IM40’s recharge is more valuable at lvl 1/2 than lvl 3/4 (depending on if you need to fuel green/purple). If you have 4 covers for IM40, previous it’s tough luck. With this change, you can reduce your yellow power w/o affecting the health of your character. However, if you only have two yellow covers for IM40, you can not go up to level 3 powers, you’re resigned to 0/1/2.
-Sometimes you’d prefer the 5/3/5 build of OBW to steal purple, but you have a 3/5/5 build. Currently you’re SOL, and even if you get the covers to switch to 5/3/5, that change is permanent until you get the blue covers to switch back. Silliness and completely unnecessary dynamic. Once you collect all 15 covers, you can change at will.
For PvP, if you drop your levels, then your opponent sees those reduced levels in the retaliation node.
Example:
-You want to use a Sentry/BP pairing for defense, but are afraid the AI will not cast Sacrifice and use the inferior Battleplan. No longer! Power down your Battleplan to lvl 0 and take the option away. (you of course have to win like that first)
Edit and addendum: Make powering down hero level possible also. Sometimes you want a specific player to tank a color but can’t because you maxed him. In this case, you take the reduced damage and reduced health that comes with a lower level hero.
Example there:
-You have a 2* Daken that typically sits on the bench behind 85 Thor and 85 OBW. You want to use him with one of those characters, but also want him to tank colors. You can reduce Thor/OBW to whatever level is satisfactory to have Daken tank that color. Same deal with PvP, if you do that, your opponent sees the reduced level.