Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-43877988-20191115062029/@comment-26397825-20191115064443

I believe the current consensus is that a semblance can't be activated after your aura has been completely broken, and overuse can in fact be the reason why your aura breaks in the first place. The most obvious case of this that I can think of is in the Sun and Blake vs Ilia fight; Sun overused his clones to hold Ilia down. He kept them active for longer, created more than he had in the previous scenes, and had them actively holding onto a struggling person, which requires more effort than holding a non-living object or a willing person.

As for your other questions, by defensive/offensive aura, do you mean if your aura is unlocked, such as what Pyrrha did for Jaune in the Emerald Forest? If so, I believe that having a locked/unactivated Aura means you can't use your semblance, since Semblances are directly attached to your aura as shown by Sun. And Ren's aura unlocked because he used his sembance for the first time as a child; basically you can't use your semblance without unlocking your aura, because actively using your semblance automatically unlocks your aura anyway.

But that being said, I personally believe you can activate and use your semblance like you're used to so long as you have even a fraction of aura remaining, and it won't negatively affect your overall aura levels or break them. Breaking the aura through semblance use only comes after you try to push yourself far too hard.

I compare it to walking. You can walk at a pace you are used to for hours with no issues; you're used to it, your body just sort of goes "sure, this is what we're doing". But if you try to force yourself to powerwalk for the same length of time without training to become used to it, your body very quickly goes "nope, not happening".

The same thing applies to semblances. You can use its base abilities no worries, activate it as much as you like, such as Ruby zipping around everywhere with no issues. But the first time she tried to carry someone - Penny - her semblance faltered and she ended up having to drop Penny. She wasn't used to it, so she didn't have the same amount of endurance for using her semblance in that way as she does in her normal zipping way.

Compare that to V4 and V6, where Ruby has been shown carrying both Weiss and Nora at separate times. She's trained in her semblance, gotten used to carrying others with her, and can now do it just as easily as she can zip around on her own. She shows no sign of the faltering that happened last time with Penny.

TL;DR Semblances don't remain active if your aura breaks, we haven't seen anyone activate it after their aura breaks, overstraining your semblance can break your aura. Using a semblance automatically unlocks your aura, meaning you can use a semblance and not have active aura.

I believe you can use your semblance as much as you like so long as you have aura remaining, so long as you don't overstrain it.