Banner also needs to last longer in general.... right now it's somewhere like 10 seconds but feels more like 6-7ish seconds. Take away the ability for banner to heal you from 1 hp to full, and that banner duration needs to be 30 seconds MINIMUM to make up for it.

Because that long a banner, you can actually use it for the potential damage reduction. The only other acceptable choice to Invigorating Icon is the [Glory's Shield] which now reduces ALL incoming damage by 20%, increased from only providing a 20% reduction from ranged only. However even if you take Glory, the flipping banner doesn't last anywhere long enough to actually be worth dropping! Sure it also extends banner duration by 20% but since the base duration is only 10s, your banner with Glory now lasts 12s.... fights in Lethal/Absolute last for 60-180 seconds and can change quickly with multiple Extremis and Terminus enemies on the field simultaneously.

With a 30 second base duration on banner, Glory's 20% longer duration would still only be 36 seconds, but 36 seconds beats 10-12 seconds. You can both reduce quite a lot of damage with that long a banner, -AND- give a respectable amount of healing but it's not an instant heal. You need to land a bunch of hits, or melee a bunch of guys in quick succession to heal on a current banner that doesn't have Invigorating and it's so short you're lucky to get 10-20% of your missing heal back.

Confirmable source on banner lasting 15 seconds? Because everywhere I look, from reddit to other gaming sites, says anywhere from 6 to 20 seconds. And it most certainly doesnt last 15-20.

I don't run Rapid Restoration, and it's still a "blink and it's gone" duration. Barely lasts long enough for me to heal off my own banner when executing a Terminus enemy.

And if it actually is 15 seconds.... great, that's still absolutely pathetic duration, especially if the devs are effectively whining that they want people to use it more, but not use it with Invigorating. Well maybe if it actually lasted long enough to influence a fight, I'd plant the banner more and use it whenever possible. But since it doesn't last long enough to influence a fight, I really only have two options... use it to grant full healing via Invigorating, or use it to revive downed allies via Rejuvenating Effect because it's too hot to actually stop and pick them up manually.

So your source on the timer is just that you made it the hell up, got it. Means the posts from everywhere else are right, and nobody seems to agree on how long the banner actually lasts. Nobody cares if it lasts 20 seconds in trials, because the second you drop into an actual match it doesn't and that's where the duration matters by a huge margin. Although you're probably right about difficulty somehow influencing banner duration, since I never play on anything lower than Ruthless.

Short banners are worthless when all the perks almost beg for the banner to last a long time. A 30/60 second minimum duration Banner, and I'd seriously consider switching away from Invigorating Icon and use Glory's Shield and possibly others. Because that +20% duration will now increase by a meaningful amount of time (6 or 12 seconds), and that 20% reduced damage now covers ranged and melee according to patch notes. The other viable perks are Inspiration (if you give up Rejuvenating Effect) for a boost of +20% damage dealt, and possibly Purity of Purpose so the banner is also creating an AOE damage over time. The squad could then practically ignore minoris because the banner will kill those and everybody focuses their now-buffed guns on bigger targets like multiple Extremis or Terminus threats. That's a pretty powerful banner, and worth thinking about using... and it's really only possible because it has enough duration to make a difference.

But if the banner duration stays 10/20/30 seconds tops? I'd still pick Invigorating Icon just about every time, because even with the Devs original plan of the cooldown being 3 minutes, or let's go worse and say they increase it to a full 5 minutes to recharge? That power of having an on-demand heal capable of full healing is too powerful for any short-duration banner buff to influence a fight enough to give up.

List of buffs that plead for longer duration banners:-Purity of Purpose: aoe damage over time, proximity based-Rapid Regeneration: 300% faster armor restore, and tweak the duration reduction to match the longer base (if applicable)-Glory's Shield: 20% less damage taken, 20% longer banner (could be lowered slightly if base banner duration was increased to useful)-Invigorating Icon: even if the instant heal-to-full were removed, if it still enabled even the slightest healing then a longer banner = more healing obtained but only if there's enough enemies to land hits on-Inspiration: +20% damage dealt if you're near the banner

A longer banner, with many of the combinations would effectively be Titus' skill from campaign, but highly localized and makes the squad stay stationary for a brief period rather than the 'gogogo, rush B!' mentality. But short banner, and all those perks are honestly pretty much worthless, they only work with long duration.