Lock other's powers - will this work?

[darude11]

So, I've got concept of ability, which blocks abilities of some other character. However I don't know how exactly should I make it more balanced, so I propose concept itself along with several methods of balancing it out.

This character will be able to block special attacks (defend-direction-attack/jump) with his spell. When he does his spell, he releases invisible ball, which follows nearest enemy. It has got ik8, so it clings to the enemy and goes to certain frame, in which it modifies what spells does enemy do with his key combinations (I think there was article for this one, I'll look for it meanwhile). How exactly does it block powers of character is, that it will detects, whether character (which it clings to) tries to do his special attack. When it detects such attemp, it will make him go to some other frame (standing, defend, or something else), kind of like NTSD's Kirby with it's hats worked.

Thing I am concerned about here is however limit to this. I am not sure, how can I limit this ability. My idea is to make it destroy itself after some time. How exactly can I do that?

[YinYin]

Have a look at Johns shield. It uses its own hp as a timer. hit_a defines how much hp is subtracted during a frame, hit_d defines the frame to go to once the object is out of hp.

[darude11]

Sorry for double-post, but I guess I just messed up something...

What I thought of was to find tutorial for creating weapon, which reacts for each character in same way (DVA has same effect for anybody, who holds it), but I can't find anything more than special attacks with certain weapon for certain character. Any help with that?

EDIT: Thanks, YinYin... you ninja'd my double post

[YinYin]

It will always require you to edit all characters it shall work on.