PLD's Cover

I was looking for a thread that may have shed some insight on this particular ability but I couldn't seem to find anything on the forum that was related to the topic I wanted to discuss.
So a while ago (maybe like a month ago but I still remember it), I was tanking Titan EX and I was a OT PLD. We wiped a few times but I was in DF so I was okay with it since I was most likely running with newcomers at the time. What got me, though was when I glanced at the MT PLD and saw that his health was around 20% and dropping and so I said to myself "hm, I'll just be nice and hit cover since the boss is about to die and I've never really used the Cover ability before." So, we end up beating it.

The other tank that I covered immediately goes off and swears at me and questions "why the f*** would I use cover" and so I'm like "why the f*** not?" So he goes something like "you must be new or something, that's alright." And so I leave 'cause at that point I don't have time to explain why I used cover to someone I'll probably never see again and continued on with the night. But now it's come back and the question's more burning than ever and so I come here today to pose a few questions that I hope someone with experience can answer. So uh, do people actually use cover? Is it actually useful? Do people actually get offended if you cover them even if they're a tank?

Honestly, you may be unaware but covering in Titan Ex is the best way to do it. You take a stack without having to tank swap. It let's you keep your sword oath dps going.

You unknowingly used an advanced strategy, just perhaps at the wrong time.
That other tank, I don't know. If a PLD wants to help my mitigation as I MT, be it Cover or Stoneskin or whatever, I'd always appreciate the team effort.

Cover is... an odd beast. Sometimes you'll pop it, take some damage, and call it a day. Sometimes your healer(s) will get mad at you because the person they expected to have to heal suddenly isn't the one taking damage and now you're nearly dead. Other times you'll actually save someone's life and feel all fuzzy inside.

The best word for it is probably "situational". For example, Canadane mentioned that as Titan EX gives stacks to the current MT you can Cover that Tank to receive a stack in his place... thereby removing the need to swap Tanks. Your seemingly innocent thought of trying it to see if it would help is absolutely on the right track. As you experiment more you'll find additional situations where it comes in handy.

Just a tip, though: You might want to assign a macro to the action so that people have a chance of noticing that the big obvious line that's suddenly connecting you to them isn't something bad :)

I have no clue why the other tank would be mad at you... Cover is fantastic. If I notice someone's hp is low in general and I'm OT I'll often cover just as a safe guard until they get healed back up. The only thing I would caution about is pushes.... when you use cover, YOU will be pushed... I've had my derp moments with cover before (like covering my healer who failed an auto death mechanic and then realizing I forgot to pop HG and so I die instead). But on another note, you have tempered will =) So if there's a push back mechanic (such as Titan Ex when he stomps down) you can use it to prevent yourself from being pushed and if you're REALLY good, cover and use to save someone from a push.

Thanks for the enlightening answers. I had no idea that cover had strategic utility outside of take damage for this person and hope the healer can pick up the slack but like Donjo said, it'll probably create a few more issues than prevention. In my opinion, it's an ability that I never really see tanks use but it's really fun to use 'cause who doesn't want to feel fuzzy from preventing someone from tanking damage. The macro idea does sound better than just hoping the person you're covering notices the cover taking effect.

Cover can also be a nice way to boost dps by covering a melee so they can stay in melee range for a bunch of mechanics like for example in ravanna. Another use can be to cover the healer when he gets aggro from healing, say when adds pop, for more comfortable pick ups.

Its one of those tools you have to get creative with but can actually be fairly useful.

When you cover, and cover you should, also use a CD to mitigate the incoming damage you are about to take (you are in SwO after all). There have been plenty of times I have used cover as the OT and coupled it HG, to take a buster when the healers are getting a little overwhelmed.

Just know; most PLDs, even those in raids, really don't know what they're doing. You did the right thing by just brushing off his comment and then asking questions from other tanks when you felt unsure, it's the best way to go about it. There's more bad/misleading advice going around for PLD than any other job IMO, so take what you hear with a grain of salt. PLD doesn't have a bad or useless skill, just a number of situational ones.

The other tank should never have been "mad" and if he was then he's probably just an unsupervised kid, but a PLD may have thought it was ridiculous depending on the situation (such as he'd just popped Hallowed Ground).

save space :
/ac "shield bash"
/ac "cover"
/ac "cover" <tt>
As a ps4 player and a Pally main since launch I use this macro to save space , try it out.

oh and line 1 do:
/macroicon "shield bash"

oh and cover negates Earth Shaker btw in T13 and Sepiroth X

its also great to give your Whm and let him/her pull healing agro to force fresh spawned enemies into a certain location

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

save space :
/ac "shield bash"
/ac "cover"
/ac "cover" <tt>
As a ps4 player and a Pally main since launch I use this macro to save space , try it out.

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As a PS4 player (previously PS3) I don't understand this. I see that you can target a player with this to avoid using Shield Bash (because shield bash during every cover would be inefficient in many/most cases) but with this you have to blow Covers CD time needlessly every time you want to stun something which is making a situational skill unavailable when you need it. If you really want to macro to save space then I'd recommend getting rid of the <tt> line altogether. Also I'd use /micon "Cover"—you don't need to see Shield Bashes CD because it's on the GCD meaning you can see when it's ready by looking at any other skill, whereas Cover is unique.

But I don't recommend macros in general aside from their novelty because they don't allow you to queue up skills, they cause delay due to /wait requirements, and if used recklessly they may not activate at all.

When I draw my sword and shield I get a crossbar that has my primary combos, my urgent abilities (Hallowed Ground, Provoke) and a few skills that see infrequent use due to longer CD. Tap R1 and it's an identical crossbar but the less frequent abilities are swapped out for abilities that are used even less frequently. (Trading CoS/SW for SwO/ShO, for example). Hold R1 + L1 (pressed in any order) at any time to have instant access to all my defensive buffs. These are all I see in battle. It gives me consistent access to my general combos and my urgent abilities while keeping my defensive buffs always in reach. Cycling my two crossbars just hides my skills that are on CD timers anyways. With this I'm able to fit every single skill including crossclass.

My general use skills for the open world like Teleport and gear sets only show up when my weapon is sheathed.

Cover is a great skill, it's situational tho. It shouldn't be used whenever, only when you feel it'll help.
I personally only use it on my healers, or on rare occasions, the MT, if I'm off tanking.
On DPS? No, never.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for DPS to take damage.

I might sound a bit rude towards DPS, but it's really just that.
If a healer doesn't get out of AoE, it's 90% of the time to heal someone else, I will Cover and take his damage, gladly.
If a MT can't get out of AoE, it might be due to his weird positioning as MT, not a good excuse, but if it's reasonable and manageable HP wise for me, I'll Cover and soak the damage.
If a DPS doesn't get out of AoE it's because of... There is no justifying for that. I don't care what spell you were casting, how much damage you could've done. If you're dead, you do 0 damage, that should be clear to you. I will not take additional damage because of people being ignorant.

I use Cover alot when helping low level people in the lower dungeons that I can use it in. Sort of a safety net ability to allow for mistakes.

My most amazingly fun use was in ExBug. The team slowly wiped and at the end Rav had like 1-2% health left. The WHM and I was all that was left. He finished the MT and turned on us, so I figured why not and ran to the healer and hit cover and HG and we used those 10 seconds wisely and beat him. After that I was like... "wooooo! That was fun!"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iracy

Cover is a great skill, it's situational tho. It shouldn't be used whenever, only when you feel it'll help.
I personally only use it on my healers, or on rare occasions, the MT, if I'm off tanking.
On DPS? No, never.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for DPS to take damage.

I might sound a bit rude towards DPS, but it's really just that.
If a healer doesn't get out of AoE, it's 90% of the time to heal someone else, I will Cover and take his damage, gladly.
If a MT can't get out of AoE, it might be due to his weird positioning as MT, not a good excuse, but if it's reasonable and manageable HP wise for me, I'll Cover and soak the damage.
If a DPS doesn't get out of AoE it's because of... There is no justifying for that. I don't care what spell you were casting, how much damage you could've done. If you're dead, you do 0 damage, that should be clear to you. I will not take additional damage because of people being ignorant.

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Well, i will say this. In fights that have DPS checks, this is a very bad mentality to have. Weakness on a DPS can sometimes be the difference between passing and failing. I think I'm pretty good, but I'm not perfect, I've been caught in some AoE's before. Sometimes it's just very bad luck on placement and you simply don't have enough time to respond. Like on final steps, I was tank and caught on edge of map with the big line AoE on me. As I was exiting out of it, my quickest route had ALL 3 circle AoE's and that was the only way for me to make it out in time. So I had to choose, take 3 circle AoE's or 1 Line AoE (thank god I was a tank, if I was DPS or Heal, I would of died regardless of choice).

Not saying it should always be a bail out, but it's there to be used and I wouldn't automatically not use it on a DPS just because they're a DPS who got hit with an AoE. And sometimes, it's simply party wide dmg that the healers haven't gotten around to healing that particular person yet. A cover and clemency could be the difference. Once again, especially when a DPS check is coming later in the fight. I'd rather waste a bit of DPS during a NON check to ensure my entire party is full strength when the DPS check comes.

But listen, being a DPS, would you rather get that 1 last hit in and die, then do 0 damage until the healers revives you, spending time on that instead of keeping others alive? Even with swiftcast. AND the weakening which you also mentioned.

Or would you rather stop dpsing for 3 seconds, then continue, without causing the healers to spend time reviving you and overall damage loss compared to dying?

And this is only meant for Cover btw, Clemency I also use whenever I can to help keep people alive.

If unsure, just don't ever touch Cover at all. Unless if you wanna quickly kill yourself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iracy

Cover is a great skill, it's situational tho. It shouldn't be used whenever, only when you feel it'll help.
I personally only use it on my healers, or on rare occasions, the MT, if I'm off tanking.
On DPS? No, never.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for DPS to take damage.

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That's wrong. It was a common strat to cover a melee with earthshaker in T13, so he has more uptime on boss.

In the vault I usually cover the first charge (animation of Thordan Ex's knights tankbister) just for fun. It's damage they can't prevent.


You can cover a dps using a necessary LB3 with its long animationlock.

You can cover the lowest health dps in Sephiroth when he does his punchbacks and healers can't heal enough.
Mistakes happen: You could eat a misplaced pillar in SephEx and then die to pushbacks.
Is it better to not use cover and have a dps down (even if it's their 'fault') or to use it and save them? Remember a dead dps is dealing no damage.
So if you could have saved them and didn't do it just because 'i'll never ever use it on dps' you're not better than a healer saying 'i won't heal damage which is taken cause of mistakes'.

So to sum up: "Cover; good for covering other players' butts for mistakes and mechanics alike!"

That MT was a jerk, though. Heals might have been about to come in, but as OT, all of your CDs were available, and you were probably pretty close to full health.

I'll use Cover if there's a situation where I know I can help someone mitigate damage, and it looks like they might need the help. I'll also use it to grab the second add in Lost City of Amdapor HM's last boss. Thing is a pain in the neck to build hate on (Provoke isn't quite provocative enough), and if I add Cover, I can save the add's target a little bit of damage while I pull it towards me.

Also, the only macro I think should be used for Cover:

Code:

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/micon Cover
/merror off
/ac Cover <mo>
/ac Cover <f>
/ac Cover <tt>
/ac Cover <t>

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In order, it tries to cover mouse over, then focus, then target's target, then finally the target. Makes it always do what I want it to do.