In general, some kind of solution that involves the passive applying debuffs is likely the direction we will go, but we may try different ways of applying it to make the effect more impactful (considering it will at least have counters when it's a debuff). We're looking at our options and internally testing some possibilities to see what we can do with our current deadlines.
The change to Angel of Fear is not a substantial change; as I noted earlier in the thread, he's going from effectively tied for best maxed out Attack in the game to being higher Attack than every character that isn't basically tied for highest Attack in the game (from approx 1750 to approx 1500 at 5 star level 100). We really are just trying to give other high-Attack-focused characters a bit more of an edge without power creeping everyone else above him.
We don't want to adjust the price or purchase restrictions for Skill Shards as they exist right now, but we do plan to have more options for being able to get them (such as features like Sacrifice sometimes giving them, or more events like the PVP one we recently ran).
I haven't been saying too much with this because we're not confident we have a 100% fix for this yet. The issue currently has a fix applied for it and our QA is dedicating time to ensuring the fix functions as intended, but it's still uncommonly seen by us on the development team even when we're trying to make it happen.
Thanks for your patience and understanding as well! I am also happy that we can have this dialog to help advance the game in the best manner possible, even if yes, we may not agree all the time.