From the addon terminology, a counter is a spell or ability that the player cannot cast anytime, but requires certain condition. There are famous examples, such as Warrior's Overpower (can be cast only after a dodge) or Paladin's Hammer of Wrath (can be cast only when the target is below a certain HP threshold).

Problem

Some abilities added as counters may be ready for a long period of time, sometimes they even have unlimited duration.

A problematic example is Flanking Strike (#153) which displays a spell alert and let the button glow practically forever.

The Spell Alert eventually fades away due to the 30-second out-of-combat fade-out system, which is very long. The Glowing Button, however, just never fades away. Not only this is very distracting when the player is e.g. commuting, but this also means the urgency is not really urgent.

Suggestion

To alleviate this issue, some counter-based effects may fade out after combat:

• when the player is in combat, the ability's Spell Alert and Glowing Button would trigger as they currently are
• when the player is out of combat, the Spell Alert fades out after a short time
  • for example, it could fade after 5 or 10 secs
  • the goal is to fade much quicker than the 30-second system
• when the player is out of combat, the Glowing Button stops glowing after a short time
  • this short time should be the same as timer for fading out Spell Alert
• when the player enters combat again, the Spell Alert and Glowing button would be displayed once again
  • this would be displayed immediately upon entering combat, without waiting for a new trigger

Exceptions

Not all counters should be given this functionality. Many counters (most of them actually) are better off without this feature.

For example, Warriors with Victory Rush would like to know their ability is ready even when out of combat. It tells them "okay, now I can cast Charge on this juicy mob and then cast Victory Rush for free damage and healing". If Victory Rush faded out after combat, Warriors would lose that precious information.

Newcomers

If this functionality is implemented, it allows the addition of new Glowing Buttons which we did not want to add so far to avoid being too prominent. This includes spells abilities that have a moderately long cooldown and that players usually spam on-cooldown.

Paladin's Exorcism is a good candidate for being a new counter. It has a moderate cooldown, it deals decent damage, in some builds it should be cast on-cooldown, and it even has procs to reset it (in Wrath and SoD).

PS. Maybe we should find a better term than counter for this kind of spells, to avoid confusion with actual counters such as Overpower.