Protect is a waste of space and should have died with Stoneskin

4.0 decluttered the battle system by dropping Stoneskin, which makes sense when it's just cast at the start of a duty and quickly falls off the tank, with dubious benefit for the party.

But then why do we still have Protect? It's essentially a permanent stat boost. The party is expected to have it on them at all times, and it's essential to healers since combat difficulty assumes everyone has it.

But if you have it near-constantly, why make it a spell at all? It doesn't provide special protection, because you have it constantly. On the contrary, it only harms you: it can expire mid-battle, and the few seconds after revival where you lack it makes you more vulnerable on top of death sickness.

It feels like it only exists to give healers a reason to exist. But they already have one: healing!

Couldn't its effects be baked into character base stats and replaced with something useful? Role command slots are precious and Protect wastes one right now.

Yoshi-P was insistent in keeping Protect around for thematic reasons.. But it would've been the first skill I'd prune from healers.
That said, PvP has a new effect on Protect, and I think it'd fit well if a similar effect was the case for PvE as well.

EDIT: Oh and weakness no longer reduces max health, a lack protect buff is the only death penalty to survivability still around.

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Originally Posted by hikari_no_yume

On the contrary, it only harms you: it can expire mid-battle, and the few seconds after revival where you lack it makes you more vulnerable on top of death sickness.

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Your healers should be smart enough to check before a pull if protect is about to fall off, your healers should also be smart enough to judge when it's safest to reapply protect if someone dies. Also protect isn't killing you when you raise, sickness and a lack of health is, if you raise and are about to get hit by an aoe, don't move and it won't hit you (this only lasts for a few seconds though).

I agree, if it's essentially a permanent buff we are always supposed to have on, then they might as well just reduce the damage monsters are doing to us by 15%.

I actually prefer the way they've done it in pvp, it's a 20% damage reduction for 10s, they should have kept protect as this version and made it WHM exclusive, and made stoneskin the 10th role skill. It would give WHM that much needed utility they're missing.

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Originally Posted by Ignnis

Your healers should be smart enough to check before a pull if protect is about to fall off, your healers should also be smart enough to judge when it's safest to reapply protect if someone dies.

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Perhaps, but what's the point of an ability whose only function is apparently to punish bad healers who fail to check when it will fall off?

Please no.

I'm a little tired of the over optimization.

I'm already sad looking at my small list of skills at whm despite being almost 65. God when I think of all the spells a mage would have in other games at this level it's pitiful.

I like pre battle buffing

Yeah, it should have been removed or turned into something that is part of active gameplay.
There's a few odd things in the game to survive the culling, but protect stands out as the most pointless button that you're required to press every half hour then forget about...

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Originally Posted by Keramory

I'm already sad looking at my small list of skills at whm despite being almost 65. God when I think of all the spells a mage would have in other games at this level it's pitiful.

I like pre battle buffing

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I'm not against pre-battle buffing, and I too am disappointed in the lacklustre and shrinking WHM skill set! But I don't think Protect as it exists now is worth keeping. Wouldn't it be better to replace it with an actually useful (i.e. differentiating, not essential and quasi-permanent) buff? Others have already pointed to the PvP version as a model that could be followed.

That being said… yeah, it would sure feel weird if in 4.1 or something there's nothing at all I have to cast at the start of a duty!

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Originally Posted by hikari_no_yume

I'm not against pre-battle buffing, and I too am disappointed in the lacklustre and shrinking WHM skill set! But I don't think Protect as it exists now is worth keeping. Wouldn't it be better to replace it with an actually useful (i.e. differentiating, not essential and quasi-permanent) buff? Others have already pointed to the PvP version as a model that could be followed.

That being said… yeah, it would sure feel weird if in 4.1 or something there's nothing at all I have to cast at the start of a duty!

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I'm all for reworking things, just not completely eliminating.

Also half my complaints are nostalgia, which is on me

For example shell and protect merged which was fine... but I kind of miss that too ;.;

It would be nice if Protect and Shell were separated and were a buff that increase Magical or Physical resistance for a few seconds and then give back Divine Seal to WHM.