Add Shell, and don't make it stackable with protect.

It would be really cool if there were more than one type of protect. It would allow parties to think carefully on which type of attack they want to be shielded against, rather than just casting the same protect every time. Personally I feel like it's kinda useless, unless they expand on it more. It feels like SE could just lower all enemies attacks, by the percentage of protect, and it wouldn't even matter if it were there. Give us some diffident types of protective magic.

Isn't that what Protect is in this game?
Shell in FF series - Increases Magic defense. (There's another small alteration in FF6 but still the same thing.)
Protect in FF series - Generally halves all physical damage dealt to the target.
Protect in XIV - Increases the physical and magic defense of target and all party members nearby target.

They basically merged Shell into Protect.
Actually they made Protect, Proshell.

First necessity before we can have that is we need to be able to definitively discern magic attacks from physical attacks. They're pretty nebulous as is.

I'd still like to see Reflect at some point, IMO it's much more iconic than both Protect and Shell and I'm surprised they haven't done anything with it yet.

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Originally Posted by Jybril

Isn't that what Protect is in this game?
Shell in FF series - Increases Magic defense. (There's another small alteration in FF6 but still the same thing.)
Protect in FF series - Generally halves all physical damage dealt to the target.
Protect in XIV - Increases the physical and magic defense of target and all party members nearby target.

They basically merged Shell into Protect.
Actually they made Protect, Proshell.

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Don't forget at the launch of XIV only White Mage had Protect with Proshell, any other healer had to make due with only a physical defensive boost instead.

And then half the raid dies at the end of V3S library phase because half the party takes huge physical damage and half takes huge magical.

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Originally Posted by Ameela

I'd still like to see Reflect at some point, IMO it's much more iconic than both Protect and Shell and I'm surprised they haven't done anything with it yet.

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Reflect has made an appearance once or twice... but as monster abilities.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

First necessity before we can have that is we need to be able to definitively discern magic attacks from physical attacks. They're pretty nebulous as is.

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Assume the attack is magic until you see it can be parried.

Multiple spells for situational use? You're asking them to think of us as intelligent video game players now.

Honestly though I'd love more spells and abilities with niche applications but the direction this game has gone since 2.0 has made it very clear they don't want things too complicated for us. Even our selection of role abilities are a core of must-haves with a smattering of maybe's. For healers it's even worse.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

Reflect has made an appearance once or twice... but as monster abilities.

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And it will probably remain a monster ability, because it would be extremely hard to balance if we could get it. If it were to function like it does in the rest of the series, it'd basically be giving healers a targeted Shelltron that's also a huge nuke.

nearly all raidbusters are magic based. the game is designed around that: mages have less life but higher magic defense, while melees have more life and lesser magic defense. if you change the raidbuster to physical then all the mages (and healers) will die while melees don't get much problems, wich is hard to justify.
so Shell > Protect.

I mean, they could just serve out the 2.4 maiming set solution and bump up the lacking defense to be on par.

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Originally Posted by MisterLucie

And then half the raid dies at the end of V3S library phase because half the party takes huge physical damage and half takes huge magical.

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Admittedly, unless people are surviving by a margin of 15% HP, Protect won't be the reason they're dying to that particular mechanic. It would absolutely make a difference on things like Meteor on O4S though, meaning the magical option in the OP's scenario would be the only "real" choice - negating all that talk about "thinking about what you want to shield against". FFS I'm not even sure any of the raid bosses in Savage EXCEPT the third boss do any sort of physical damage anyway outside of auto-attacks. And in dungeons you'd only ever take the physical version to help shield the tank from mob autos during mass pulls so the healer can DPS more. I'm as much a fan of "illusion of choice" in most scenarios as anyone, but in this case I'm just not seeing what two different types of buffs would "add" here except more cross-role swapping annoyance depending on what content you're doing.

I'd rather they do something based off of the OP's second obseravation re: the uselessness of Protect, though - just get rid of Protect altogether and lower all mob damage to compensate. Free up a role action for healers who lost a lot of "mandatory" things with this stupid new system. Why are people so desperate to cling to the irreverence of fire n' forget party buffs?

I think it's fine the way it is. Adding iconic spells for the sake of adding iconic spells does little to tackle button bloat moving forward.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

Don't forget at the launch of XIV only White Mage had Protect with Proshell, any other healer had to make due with only a physical defensive boost instead.

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How soon we all forget. At the launch of XIV, there were two separate spells. Protect and Shell. It was only when it was remade into A Realm Reborn that we lost Shell and it became a trait added onto Protect. What's more, Protect and Shell had a far more dramatic increase in defense in their original forms, reducing damage by a very noticeable margin.

Mind you, these were also the days where Conjurer also had all of the elemental spells too. Banish was in the game too, but as a Thaumaturge spell.

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Originally Posted by Ameela

I'd still like to see Reflect at some point, IMO it's much more iconic than both Protect and Shell and I'm surprised they haven't done anything with it yet.

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Can I cast Foul on myself for double damage?

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

It would be really cool if there were more than one type of protect. It would allow parties to think carefully on which type of attack they want to be shielded against, rather than just casting the same protect every time. Personally I feel like it's kinda useless, unless they expand on it more. It feels like SE could just lower all enemies attacks, by the percentage of protect, and it wouldn't even matter if it were there. Give us some diffident types of protective magic.

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Hell no, please don't lower enemy attacks. Tanks can already pull half a dungeon, and people already cry about wanting every healer to DPS due to players being topped off on health.

Remember protect is a role action now, meaning whatever is changed here has every healer having to change their actions on the hotbar everytime a different encounter calls for it.

The elemental system was dumbed down in this game versus it's sister to prevent button bloat and combat one job being preferred over the other in certain contents. Right now the meta in the game is dodging being more important than mitigating.

Essentially different kinds of protects is the same thing as barspells from XI. A specific spell you cast to mitigate a specific mechanic. With the removal of elemental resistances/attributes point system, it seems SE doesn't want to go down that road.

Barstonra
BarPoisonra
Barsleepra
Barwatera
Barparalyzra
Baraera
Barfira
Barblindra
Barblizzara
Barsilencera
Barthundra
Barvira
Barpetra
Baramnesra

Having specific counters is nice in my books, but with the highly scripted mechanics and themes, doing so basically has specific spells being default depending on the circumstance.

Barfire- Use against Ifrit
Barice- Use against Shiva
Barthundra- Use against Ramuh

Or you could cast barpetra/bargaol and prevent a party member from being gaoled in Titan fight.

It would work the same if the elemental system was changed.

Ifrit weak to ice? Cast Ice Spells
Shiva weak to fire? Cast Fire
Titan weak to wind? Cast Aero

• It would break up the monotony of this rotation works for all content regardless of what that enemy is.
• It would perhaps trivialize the need to even dodge mechanics.
• It would add more buttons to manage more frequently.
• Introducing this at this point would require an entire revamp of every job's skills and rotation which probably ain't happening.

I posted an idea for bringing the skillchain system back which was the best party based cooperation mechanic for any mmo in my book. But I don't see none of this happening anytime soon. The theme is keep it simple, too much complexity and they get rant threads, too much complexity and they get job division(one job preferred over another,which still happens in raids even without all those things they were trying to avoid).

Add shell when most people are making very valid points about why we should get rid of protect? smh

Add in shell as a short term instant cast party wide 30% magic defense with say... 120-180 sec cooldown. This way we can sill have the passive protection of protect as a long lasting buff, while shell can come in as a healer action for bumping up the defense of everyone prior to a nasty raidbuster. This also means that both protect and shell has a use as a role action without overlapping or forcing a case of you always choose one over the other for a given piece of content.

Oh, and also return Esuna/Leeches/Exalted Detriment as being inherent to the healer classes. So I can stop seeing cases of going into O4 and seeing people die to doom because the healers did not think it was necessary to bring esuna.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

Don't forget at the launch of XIV only White Mage had Protect with Proshell, any other healer had to make due with only a physical defensive boost instead.

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At the time it was ok though since we only had 2 healers. AND Scholar did have a magic defense boost in the form of Eos with the Scholar ability Fey Covenant. But of course it makes people have to think and thinking is bad!!! Then with Astrologian added in things got more complicated (don't know why but as usual things got simpler), so instead of coming up with a way for Astrologian to protect against magic they just gave all 3 healers Proshell. So creative! So unique!

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

snip

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I totally agree with that, but I think there could be ways to play with the elemental system more without creating bloated situations like that or them being situational based on the fight. The mechanic exists, so I firmly believe we should use it somehow.

Something I played around with for fun was a dancer that could grant all allies either Enfire, Enwater, Enblizzard, Enthunder, Enaero, or Enstone with an action at random while also having an action that would drop the elemental defense of an enemy of the matching element. Everyone's doing Wind damage thanks to Enaero, you drop the opponent's wind resistance. Its functionally similar to just a defense drop on the target, but using the elemental system would help give it an identity.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I totally agree with that, but I think there could be ways to play with the elemental system more without creating bloated situations like that or them being situational based on the fight. The mechanic exists, so I firmly believe we should use it somehow.

Something I played around with for fun was a dancer that could grant all allies either Enfire, Enwater, Enblizzard, Enthunder, Enaero, or Enstone with an action at random while also having an action that would drop the elemental defense of an enemy of the matching element. Everyone's doing Wind damage thanks to Enaero, you drop the opponent's wind resistance. Its functionally similar to just a defense drop on the target, but using the elemental system would help give it an identity.

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But if only a hypothetical dancer would grant it, wouldn't that lead back to some parties wanting dancer over say some other support class?

Make it too weak or random and no would want dancer.
Make it too strong and other classes would start asking for nerfs or their own buffs.
And if it's just a flavor but the same thing as a defense drop then we already have that.

If the want is casters want Protect to be more than just cast it and forget it. Then it has to be a buff you can build up similar to Greased Lightning. I don't know how the rotation would work to accomplish that since Protect is a role action spell though.

Many fights have a DPS check, well this would be similar to a Healer Check. Say you get the spell version up to maximum Protect. In a circumstance a Primal ultimate skill would one shot the party. If Protect was maxed it could theoretically circumvent a group wide one shot just enough so no party wipe but just barely. In a party with more than one healer, it would take a stacked max protect from all healers to circumvent the group wide wipe.

Maybe you cast a low level defense boost protect 8%.
Then it requires a certain amount of hit points healed to keep it growing
At the next threshold it builds to 12%.
Next threshold it builds to 16%.
Next threshold it builds to 20%.

Change the icon to show 4 distinct sections, each section shows what threshold you are at. Recast required to upgrade the current spell level.
Cast it is Protect 1
When you hit second threshold, cast Protect 2
When you hit third threshold, cast Protect 3
When you hit fourth threshold, cast Protect 4

Or a simpler version where it requires more environmental awareness from the tanks, dps, and healers.

An area based effect similar to Summoners Shadowflare but way larger.

Members In the immediate vicinity of the caster grants a 20% defense boost
The further out you are the % is smaller, 15%, 10%, 5%.
There it would have to be recasted every 60 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Jybril

Protect in XIV - Increases the physical and magic defense of target and all party members nearby target.

They basically merged Shell into Protect.
Actually they made Protect, Proshell.

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The funny thing is that in 1.0, Protect and Shell were 2 separate single target spells. After clicking the "Area of effect"-button those the single target spells would turn into AoE spells.

FFXIV 1.0 Protect:
https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net...=2011122304533

FFXIV 1.0 Shell:
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net...20140831094106


With A Realm Reborn, they merged those those 2 spells to make the "Protect"-spell which increases both physical and magic defense (after getting the "Proshell" trait at level 16). I'm actually happy they they merged those spells into 1 single spell, because if you look at the every day Duties, half of the groups you meet didn't even want to wait till both Protect and (Swiftcast) Stoneskin II were cast before taking off.

Image how things would be if we had Protect, Stoneskin and Shell in our toolkit.

Edit: And then i found out that Lemuria beat me to it. (^_^; )

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

How soon we all forget. At the launch of XIV, there were two separate spells. Protect and Shell. It was only when it was remade into A Realm Reborn that we lost Shell and it became a trait added onto Protect. What's more, Protect and Shell had a far more dramatic increase in defense in their original forms, reducing damage by a very noticeable margin.

Mind you, these were also the days where Conjurer also had all of the elemental spells too. Banish was in the game too, but as a Thaumaturge spell.

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Originally Posted by Aldora

The funny thing is that in 1.0, Protect and Shell were 2 separate single target spells. After clicking the "Area of effect"-button those the single target spells would turn into AoE spells.

With A Realm Reborn, they merged those those 2 spells to make the "Protect"-spell which increases both physical and magic defense (after getting the "Proshell" trait at level 16). I'm actually happy they they merged those spells into 1 single spell, because if you look at the every day Duties, half of the groups you meet didn't even want to wait till both Protect and (Swiftcast) Stoneskin II were cast before taking off.

Image how things would be if we had Protect, Stoneskin and Shell in our toolkit.

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But only White Mages had Proshell, so Scholars just had to deal with only having their shields to mitigate magic damage. If they want any group composition to be viable, passive mitigation buffs either need to be available to every healer or not exist.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

But only White Mages had Proshell, so Scholars just had to deal with only having their shields to mitigate magic damage. If they want any group composition to be viable, passive mitigation buffs either need to be available to every healer or not exist.

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And that's why Protect has been changed to a Role Spell/Ability which does the same thing for everyone. All 3 healers now have access to Protect, which will increase both physical and magic defense.

But, let me ask you this. How does a scholar (or Astrologian) become less viable in a group composition, just because it didn't have a "Proshell"-trait? The only "shielding" ability the White Mage had was Protect and Stoneskin. The White Mage always was the burst healer and the Scholar always had its shields (which gave a shield for the amount of healing done) and fairy. They both had their own identity in ARR and complemented each other well during raids.

Then the Astrologian was introduced, which was meant as an alternative to the White Mage and Scholar combination for Raiding. The flexibiity and Card system was the strength of the Astrologian and gave it its own identity.

It's not necessary for all 3 healer classes to have the same "passive mitigation"-buffs. It doesn't really matter for the regular dungeons (due to their more casual difficulty) and with raids, you could get 2 healers that complemented each other. So, that difference that the "Proshell"-trait gave you was only marginal compared to what the spells from the other classes could give.

But, with my previous comment, i was only referring to the fact that Shell was a separate spell in 1.0 they merged with Protect and offered as a trait in ARR. The Proshell trait was later removed and the effect permanently incorporated within the Protect spell. What the OP was asking for was a situation we already had in 1.0, but the team stepped away from that. They even considered removing Protect entirely with the release of Stormblood. So, we won't be seeing Shell in the game anymore.