Unsure when I am suppost to use cover

I ask my Tank friend whose been a on since ARB Beta, and he couldn't tell me why or who it for.

I am unsure how and why it's used on single target when as a MT, I don't use it and for OT 10s is not a long window to be proactive with it. I tend to use it, when a person is raised and a big move is coming; such as titan weight and stomps. The CD on it is kind of long for a High action group and the 10s duration is not going to help 2+ members for that long.

So i need the community help on how do you deal with the move "Cover"?

I use it if I know heals has been dying, not muchbut once in a while. If we're in a dungeon and wiping cause of heals sometimes I'll get by them and use it. Other tanks prolly use it better but that's how I've used it

I use cover to attempt to gather a little bit of hate... (I'm sure to be corrected on this ha ha)... when I'm trying to steal hate back from a melee dps and provoke isn't ready. It seems to help in my experience, but I don't know if it has any actual enmity attached to it.

Use it whenever. There are a multiple of chances to use it. T1 snake pulling is one, Brayflox HM speedruns, T4 during phase transitions, etc. Basically anytime you need to get hate off of the healer you should throw it on them.

Not sure if they made adjustments in 2.2, but prior to that, cover was pretty useless.

1. It only absorbs physical damage, meaning magical damage would still kill whoever you're covering.
2. Damage calculation that you would take while covering someone was insane. (Rmb a post awhile back where an ot used cover on the mt in titan hm and was hit for around 9k iirc) much lulz were had.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OPneedNerfs

snipped

---

From what ive seen when i have used it, it has always returned normal damage to me. And yes the note on physical and not magic dmg being taken is true. You just have to get to know your enemies and use it whenever you want. there is no bad effects of using it, unless you are almost dead.

I don't use it at all. It requires me to shift my target off the mob I'm holding agro on, on to one of the party, and only lasts a short time. In my experience, that time is better spent holding agro from the mobs so that my party doesn't take damage in the first place.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JeniLinsky

I don't use it at all. It requires me to shift my target off the mob I'm holding agro on, on to one of the party, and only lasts a short time. In my experience, that time is better spent holding agro from the mobs so that my party doesn't take damage in the first place.

---

But what if said person is GOING to be taking aggro from one of the mechanics of the game? why would you not use it then? Its not a useless skill and if you tank correctly 5 seconds to switch and cast the skill wont cause everything to go insane. I actually get applauded for using the skill even when its not necessary.

Macro it.
/ac "cover" <mo>
/ac "cover" <tt>

Use either mouse over on party frame or target the thing biting your friend. Cover can save overzealous melee. Macros help a lot.

Bro do you even script?

Quote:

---

Basically anytime you need to get hate off of the healer you should throw it on them.

---

Quote:

---

Macro it.
/ac "cover" <mo>
/ac "cover" <tt>

Use either mouse over on party frame or target the thing biting your friend. Cover can save overzealous melee. Macros help a lot.

Bro do you even script?
(0)

---

I play on the PS4 and that cross bar doesn't leave a lot of room but TY,

BLM double Flare early proc -> Cover.

Also iirc it doesn't adjust damage taken, so your own defense and mitigation cds won't reduce the damage you receive. You'll eat the full weight of whatever hit the person you're covering.

Honestly, I hate seeing a tank use this when I'm healing because suddenly they're taking 3x the amount of damage they should be. I would wager that it has caused more wipes than saves.

Never had cover kill me but it has saved many a melee who hit b4b too fast

First thing I thought of was thorn march extreme. The aggro reset skill occurs, so you use the macro for tt, use it on the add that you are losing aggro on, then while you have cover on it, take your time and use your ROH combo. That is if provoke is down, if you have provoke up then theres no need, but usually its down for one of the tanks due to tank swapping on the fight. Also, on t6 recently, on the second set of slugs, I was getting ready to kite them. When they spawned, our healer had to use medica 2, so they made a Bline for him. I could've covered him and started cycling the combo on the slugs to get them on me. I panicked since I never use cover though and tried to spam flash until I was oom, and it still didn't get the slugs back on me. Granted he was probably continuing his medica spam, as we had like 8% left on boss and he was just trying to keep the team alive. Idk, not many situations where cover helps, I rarely use it. I guess if the other tank is main tanking and he's low, and you're full hp, you could cover him to save him. I thin they should do something different with cover or tweak its duration or something

A paladin friend of mine has found a good use for it in Halatali HM's first boss where pug people tend to miss out the mammet's manawall. He covers the person and uses hallowed ground to save the day. :) Also seen paladins cover DDs in speedruns who take damage from random aggro -mobs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pizzaparty7

Macro it.
/ac "cover" <mo>
/ac "cover" <tt>

Use either mouse over on party frame or target the thing biting your friend. Cover can save overzealous melee. Macros help a lot.

Bro do you even script?

---

lol for the ps3/4 scripting bros

/micon "cover"
/psort
/ac "cover" <2>

for dem 4 man dungeons auto targeting healer

want to cover the healers in 8 man? make two macros with the target being <3> and <4>. just gotta make room for it. no manual targeting neccessary

Binding Coil of Bahamut - Turn 4 - Phase 4.

Phase 3 single Dread dies. Room is flooded with bugs. Initially targeting the healers.

Cover designated 'over-healer' while they Surecast+Cure II themselves.

Contoller player, most of the time it isn't even on my bar. The only progression content I ever used it for was T4 when BLM would nuke down the spiders. Once I got geared more they stopped pulling hate so this became a non issue and I took it back off my bar.

Only a few times I've found it useful.. T4 covering a melee (or healer), T2 Enrage covering the bard that just got rez'd lol

My primary use for cover is when healer will takes damage...

1. Speedrun, when speed running there is a chance that mobs will go out of your way if the healers is overhealing
2. T4 , when your main tank tanking Double Dreadnought and you will about to popup Hallowed Ground -> thats double HG for the tanks !
3. when you see someone in the wrong position/place if you can use cover why not?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RegentP

I play on the PS4 and that cross bar doesn't leave a lot of room but TY,

---

This is a bad excuse people need to stop saying. 2 bars for either tank class is more than you need.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soulburn32

This is a bad excuse people need to stop saying. 2 bars for either tank class is more than you need.

---

Exactly, there is plenty of room on the hotbars. I have everything I need on 1.5 (both "hidden" trigger sides are copies so I don't have to worry about hitting L2 or R2 first, either one gives me the same options). Dragoon, Warrior, Paladin, White mage.. All the same set up. Only ones I have to use both sides of the "hidden" triggers are on Summoner and Scholar, one half has Pet commands (summon, obey, heel, place, etc) while the other has left over abilities not on main bar (for scholar it's DPS abilities (same as WHM), for summoner its Shadow Flare, Rez, E4E, Limit break, etc)

Ahh... Organization XD

My most use is when i do Ultima Story when OT.. i throw it in the MT when the big wave AoE comes, ... but most of them run anyway so I guess I just use it, to use it ^^

my fc mate uses it on someone when we stack for big hits like levi ex tidal wave. Usually on the healers or anyone who isn't fully topped off. Its a niche move but when it works it works. It saved me a couple of times during T5 pre 2.2 when I was MT and he was OT.

If you're on a console like I am you can use this macro:

Cover
/micon "Cover"
/ac "Cover" <f>

This covers your focus target. I normally have a tank (full parties) or healer (light parties) as my focus. But through experience you will benefit much more by being able to select manually who you want to cover.

I've used it maybe a handful of times at the most. And generally it's while I'm off tanking, last time I used it was during HM Ifrit, heals were coming in kind of slow on the main tank and he was about to die, so I popped cover on him to help the healer out.

I don't think there's necessarily a specific time to use it rather than you have to adapt to the situation and know when to use it. It's not like going by the books in terms of "Hey you have an AoE pack? Use flash." For example, and this is more of a random situation, I was Atma FATE grinding and came into a FATE a bit late, noticing our healer had a ton of mobs on him, so I used cover. While it was on I was able to use what abilities I needed to to get threat from the mobs at hand.

Other times I've used it would be in CM on the final boss, during adds that you can't get threat off of. I usually tell whoever gets threat to run to me for a cover, but people rarely listen haha. Another time would be Halatali Hard Mode, against the Lancer enemy on the final boss since it's the same situation. I try to cover that person but they usually just end up running around anyway.

Turn 4 of Coil may work too depending on what you're tanking. But you shouldn't really -have- to.