Please fix protect

If you're not gonna get rid of it (even though you should) over some silly nonsense of it being "too iconic" then for mog's sake make it actually useful and intuitive. Right now its useless. Most players argue its reduces damage. but by how much? we don't bloody know.

Right now its broken and as healers we deserve a better version.

You may be don't know, but others do.
+15% of current defense values.
You are welcome.

If Protect is so iconic... Where is Shell?

But Yeah, being a mandatory cast at the start of any and all instances just makes it a chore, and it basically becomes an additional weakness penalty after being raised.

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Originally Posted by Charred

You may be don't know, but others do.
+15% of current defense values.
You are welcome.

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No need to be rude. I'm well aware of its flat bonus. However its un-intuitive. like Seraphor said its basically a second weakness penalty. It clogs up cross roles and should be done away with or at the very least be made better.

It's a free fire and forget buff. What's the problem?

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Originally Posted by Transient_Shadow

No need to be rude. I'm well aware of its flat bonus. However its un-intuitive. like Seraphor said its basically a second weakness penalty. It clogs up cross roles and should be done away with or at the very least be made better.

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Better version...how? In dungeon content, that 15% boost helps when you have tanks doing wall-to-wall pulls. Make protect any higher than what it is, and it becomes a very mandatory role action. There are healers who will cast protect at the start of an instance, and then immediately switch out to a desire role action. It's not as if you need to keep protect on your role action the entire time.

I'll admit, I'm confused about the second weakness penalty. Can that be explained?

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Originally Posted by Biridan

It's a free fire and forget buff. What's the problem?

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You could remove it entirely, increase all defenses by 15%, and functionally thered be no difference.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

Better version...how? In dungeon content, that 15% boost helps when you have tanks doing wall-to-wall pulls. Make protect any higher than what it is, and it becomes a very mandatory role action. There are healers who will cast protect at the start of an instance, and then immediately switch out to a desire role action. It's not as if you need to keep protect on your role action the entire time.

I'll admit, I'm confused about the second weakness penalty. Can that be explained?

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Its already a mandatory skill. Most dungeons won't start until the healer uses protect.
Like you said, they then have the hassle of changing their role skills.

It's a weakness penalty because that 15% additional defence becomes a baseline, and when you die, the healer isn't likely to stop and recast protect until the fight is over, if at all.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Its already a mandatory skill. Most dungeons won't start until the healer uses protect.
Like you said, they then have the hassle of changing their role skills.

It's a weakness penalty because that 15% additional defence becomes a baseline, and when you die, the healer isn't likely to stop and recast protect until the fight is over, if at all.

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I ... see....

I don't have a counter argument for the weakness penalty thing. I don't agree with certain things, but can't really argue against the logic either.

But in regards to protect itself, wouldn't making it stronger turn it into a broken skill? I might have to wait for the OP to respond, though, as I'm waiting to see what exactly they think should happen with protect. I imagine that with all encounters in the game, simply lowering the damage by 15% (this includes up to Savage and Extremes), would be a bit more work than what the devs are willing to do.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I ... see....

I don't have a counter argument for the weakness penalty thing. I don't agree with certain things, but can't really argue against the logic either.

But in regards to protect itself, wouldn't making it stronger turn it into a broken skill? I might have to wait for the OP to respond, though, as I'm waiting to see what exactly they think should happen with protect. I imagine that with all encounters in the game, simply lowering the damage by 15% (this includes up to Savage and Extremes), would be a bit more work than what the devs are willing to do.

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Fixing something doesn't mean making it more powerful. It needs some kind of functional change.

Perhaps reducing it's duration and making it instant cast, basically becoming part of a healer "rotation" (if there is such a thing) instead of a one-and-done skill.

Another thing they could do is introduce Shell. Have Protect mitigate physical damage and Shell mitigate magical damage, and make them mutually exclusive.
The problem with this however is you then have two mandatory role skills instead of one.

The real problem is that Protect is a role skill at all really. It should have remained a WHM job skill, with Shell, as instant cast mitigation spells that the WHM has to 'dance' around depending on if incoming damage is magical or physical, which would give WHM a unique instant cast mechanic to weave between GCDs. Then balance this with similar but different mitigation skills on the other healers, or increased healing potency to account for a lack of Protect.
But apparently 'balance' means 'homogenisation'.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

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If I'm wrong, I'll happily admit it, but wouldn't that suggestion change the overwhelmingly high potency of WHMs? Say protect does become an exclusive skill. I don't know enough about SCH to comment on it, but wouldn't that allow ASTs to get on WHMs level for heals, if not better, while bringing the extra buffs they already provide? While I like the idea as i heal main AST, that seems like it does more harm to the current healer balance than anything.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

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being forced to press the button more often is not really a fix.

and while switching between protect and shell may sound like a nice idea at first, the game design doesn't allow that.

all aoe damage is magical, or some kind of a fixed damage wich you can't reduce. the defense stats of the classes are balanced around that. meeles have more life, but less m-defense, while casters have less life and more m-defense. a physical aoe will wipe out the casters, while meeles with their higher physical defense and life will survive with no problem.

so shell > protect in nearly all cases, except on the tank maybe, but then it should be better turned into a single target shield (but do we really need any more of them?).

My issue is its a fire and forget spell that the game puts baseline balance around you having. It doesn't add anything to gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Tint

being forced to press the button more often is not really a fix.

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But it will feel like you're actually doing something with it, it'll be more satisfying to use.
That's the idea around every single skill in the game.
You could boil all healers down to one mitigation skill with a 30m duration, one HoT with a 30m duration and a GCD heal and it would all work out fine and balanced, but it wouldn't be interesting or satisfying to play.

On Shell/Protect mutual exclusivity and damage types: You're right, if these were still role skills.

But I think if they were a WHM only mechanic, they wouldn't be seen as strictly mandatory (because AST doesn't always get the Bole out and SCH doesn't always get a Critlo) so it would simply be a weaving skill used as a bonus, and would make WHM more interesting to play.

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It's a weakness penalty because that 15% additional defence becomes a baseline, and when you die, the healer isn't likely to stop and recast protect until the fight is over, if at all.

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Speak for yourself. I'm one of few who keep it on my bar (no swap-macros, no farting around) and apply it after raises. We're in a point in the game where so few cross-skills are even remotely useful (never-mind mandatory) that you can get away with it.

Not saying that fixes anything - just that not all Healers are as described.

They should just make Protect a WHM only ability that works similar to the PVP version. Increase defense or reduce damage taken for a few seconds for all party members on a 60 seconds cooldown or so. Like an AoE Divine Benison.

And as WHM already has less buttons than AST and SCH (as WHM I have space for all cross role skills while as SCH and AST I need macros to switch the hotbar slot between some of them), they could actually also make Protect AND Shell as separate abilities, one for physical and one for magical damage. I don't think that it would be so overpowered if the buff wasn't that strong. AST and SCH both have access to regens AND shields, so why should WHM not also have an AoE shield-like ability?

Because Joe Soap playing class X will complain class Y is encroaching on their playstyle/theme. Ludicrous, I know.

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Originally Posted by Limonia

I don't think that it would be so overpowered if the buff wasn't that strong. AST and SCH both have access to regens AND shields, so why should WHM not also have an AoE shield-like ability?

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Because whereas you are suggesting that WHMs can carry Protect and Shell as separate abilities in their kit, AST at the very least do not have the option of switching between regen and shield while in combat. Outside of the 4-man dungeons, ASTS are screwed because we are already limited to a single sect in combat. It wouldn't balance out very well at all.

Collective Unconscious has a very strong regen AND also a shield effect and you can even make it last longer. And it doesn't cost any MP, like Whispering Dawn. It's a bit more annoying to use, but in content where it matters there are usually many times where people are stacked. So I don't think it couldn't be somehow balanced to give WHM small physical and magical AoE shields. They don't even have to be as strong as Protect is now. They could also make the cooldown long. It would still be better than the current Protect.

Protect
Becomes a WHM exclusive spell again.
Instant cast AoE 10% Physical Damage reduction on a 5m duration and 10s cooldown. Overrides Shell.

Shell
Becomes a WHM exclusive spell again.
Instant cast AoE 10% Magical Damage reduction on a 5m duration and 10s cooldown. Overrides Protect.

This gives WHM an oGCD to weave between heals, and a unique ‘damage type dancing’ mechanic, whereby you can anticipate the damage type you’ll most likely need to block and use the mitigation spell suitable for it. Could replace Fluid Aura and Repose.
You could just use it and leave it for 5m if you wanted to, and it probably wouldn't be an issue, but for players more inclined to optimise their healing/mitigation role, you could learn to anticipate the damage types, similarly to how AST has to learn card uses (but can get away with just throwing out a balance now and then) and SCH has to manage their pet (but can get away with just letting Eos do her thing).

How to balance the lack of Protect as a role skill? Increase SCH and AST’s basic mitigation spells by 5-10% depending on how accessible they are. Maybe knock Bole and Sacred Soil to 15% or 20% reduction.
Balanced against SCH/AST mitigation? Well it’s less potent (only 10%) and only protects against one type of damage at a time. I don’t see how it’s encroaching on either of their territories. Both SCH and AST can already do both HoT and Mitigation, and AST isn’t solely limited to its Sects, it has Bole and Collective Unconscious (which does both). Besides, Nocturnal is almost always more effective than Diurnal. I only ever use Diurnal when I’m paired with a SCH in a dungeon/raid.

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Originally Posted by Biridan

It's a free fire and forget buff. What's the problem?

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That in itself is the problem. Who thinks that fire and forget extended duration buffs are even remotely interesting in this day and age of game development?

Any skill that's best used with a macro that casts it and then replaces it with something more interesting to use is inherently flawed by design.

PvP Protect is inherently better designed because I get to think about when to use it and that actually matters. PvE Protect is effectively a passive thing that I put up and then forget exists for the entire dungeon.

I am in agreement as well that Protect needs to feel more impacting in PvE content. As others have stated, it basically acts as a second form of weakness and should be brought as an essential buff but it doesn't feel like it has any impact on the fight after it's been reapplied, and it burns more than a GCD of the healer in the process.

I'd be very happy if it worked like the PvP and gave a temporary mitigation buff on the target, even if that buff may only be a 5% increase for PvE purposes to ensure it's not too busted as a cross role ability.

The problem I have with healing, is all arround the Resurrection.
7,5 sec of cast time (remember the time where invocation of the fairy was the same, ouch) if there is no Swiftcast.
2,5 sec for Protect.
= 10 sec of time lost on my DPS

Something need to be done about this, specifically when Red Mage are better to Rez than Healers. It is normal ?

Either get ride of Protect or lower the cast time of Resurrection to 3 sec (like pet invocations).

The only way to "fix" protect is to change duration to 60 seconds, so healers need to keep the buff, and not just buff and forget.
FFXII protect was not that long duration too, I don't know why protect got so much duration on FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

You could remove it entirely, increase all defenses by 15%, and functionally thered be no difference.

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We could also make everyone's self-regen more powerful and remove all casted regens and functionally there'd be no difference. Prior to SB, WHM was the only class that gained access to protect w/o having to burn a role slot so if you had a WHM in your party you could get away with not having to bring it. All these great changes SB introduced like reducing the complexity of skill chains, removing the requirement of a 2nd class before you get your job stone and the really super confusing role actions that allowed you to select something like stoneskin for a PLD o.O??? So this is what you get when you beg for easier content, easier classes and less flexibility in your role builds. You get useless, limited or 1 use role actions some of which have a niche use (silence, anticipation, break, low blow, etc). All the improved "choice" you get with class based role actions is simply smoke in mirrors. The traited version of cross-class actions in HW and SB meant bringing certain classes gave a benefit and since SE has made all classes in SB 100% equal in terms of utility and synergy you no longer have to worry about taking a WHM for their bonus to stoneskin and can take the classes you really want to play with, not because ASTs and SCHs have more utility or anything it's all about player choice and who you chose to take protect over cleric stance. /s

I'm not saying protect is worthless, it's very useful and required in a lot of content. The extra defense down death penalty is a key part of the game play - I miss the older penalty that would affect all your stats and not just your primary stat; it made death an even more punishing mechanic since you had to babysit someone with weakness until it was gone and in many cases forced a change in strategy if a tank or healer died. The issue I see is that you're left cucking one person for certain mechanics. For healers, it's always "who's going to take protect". For certain mechanics, "who's going to take silence if we don't have a ninja?" or Can the monk silence pls? The fact that at level 50 we had 5 cross-class skills and at level 70 we still only get 5 role slots is the real issue. For the majority of content, there's a set 5 role actions that you MUST take and again in many cases there are 6 role actions that you MUST take so you're left depending/forcing someone to drop their 5th action for the required 6th putting them front and center when they fail to use it when they're supposed to. This was stated before the SB role changes, but the role actions are an illusion of choice designed to make it look as though all jobs in every role are equal, but all it does is force you to change your role actions for each fight just in case nobody else takes it.

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Originally Posted by Charred

You may be don't know, but others do.
+15% of current defense values.
You are welcome.

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+15% defense does NOT mean 15% less damage taken. The actual value if that defense is like....3% mitigation if I remember correctly?

It's pretty useless, but I mean it's free so we're expected to use it. If you were forced to have it equipped to have the effect persist, I wouldn't bother in dungeons, and maybe not even in raids. Assuming I would need surecast of course.

We need baseline Role Skills AND also truly optional Role Skills. Protect, Esuna, Lucid Dreaming, and possibly Largesse should be baseline skills that all Healers would get as they level with no option to discard or trade them. Role Skills would then be all the other junk we never use because of taking the mandatory ones. I wouldn't even mind being limited to 2 or 3 Role Skills if Sure Cast and Rescue weren't competing with Esuna and Protect. I hate that Healing macros to swap out skills are just accepted as common practice.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

+15% defense does NOT mean 15% less damage taken. The actual value if that defense is like....3% mitigation if I remember correctly?

It's pretty useless, but I mean it's free so we're expected to use it. If you were forced to have it equipped to have the effect persist, I wouldn't bother in dungeons, and maybe not even in raids. Assuming I would need surecast of course.

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yes, you are technically not forced to use Protect, because it's a rather weak buff. at least in casual content - in raid progression it's a different story, when every little bit counts. but you will have two healers there and only one needs Protect.

however, actually you are forced to use Protect, because a dungeon will not start without you casting it. we are just so used to wait for the Protect at the start of a dungeon that a healer will land very often in a situation where he has to defend himself why isn't casting Protect. and of course has to explain every time when a dungeon starts that he will not cast it, otherwise people will stand there useless waiting for a while.

Protect is the least engaging ability ever. I would be happy if the duration was reduced to like 5 minutes because then at least you would have to use it more. An entire Role Action that only gets used once per Instance is retarded. Its even worse that no one complains in casual content if they die and don't get protect again. It really needs to be more impactful and not just as a mandatory tool in top tier savage survival.

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Originally Posted by Tint

yes, you are technically not forced to use Protect, because it's a rather weak buff. at least in casual content - in raid progression it's a different story, when every little bit counts. but you will have two healers there and only one needs Protect.

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My point is that the mitigation is so insanely minor, that if you were forced to choose between protect or other cross class skills, Protect would be thrown into the bin without a second thought. Mechanics wouldn't even need to be rebalanced around not having Protect.

I'm just sitting here happy that they removed its MP cost of Protect in 4.0 so the cost of rez+protect wouldn't murder your MP so much in Savage content. That said, I'd prefer it if they just removed its set-it-and-forget-it approach to Protect, or make it yet-another buster/aoe mitigation skill like Sacred Soil or Palisade so it's a more actively used skill.

I feel like removing it and having the light and full party bonuses apply a 15% defense buff would be just fine.

I also like the idea of it being a cooldown on a 30s timer. If they make the buff equal to Eye for an Eye, they could remove that less iconic skill and make our choices for Role Abilities less difficult. Maybe even combine E4E effect into Protect’s. That way even if the effect doesn’t proc, the tank is still getting some mitigation.

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Originally Posted by Charred

You may be don't know, but others do.
+15% of current defense values.
You are welcome.

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Which means nothing without also knowing the percent mitigation given by Defense, assuming, unlike as in most MMOs, that it's even linear in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

But it will feel like you're actually doing something with it, it'll be more satisfying to use.
That's the idea around every single skill in the game.
You could boil all healers down to one mitigation skill with a 30m duration, one HoT with a 30m duration and a GCD heal and it would all work out fine and balanced, but it wouldn't be interesting or satisfying to play.

On Shell/Protect mutual exclusivity and damage types: You're right, if these were still role skills.

But I think if they were a WHM only mechanic, they wouldn't be seen as strictly mandatory (because AST doesn't always get the Bole out and SCH doesn't always get a Critlo) so it would simply be a weaving skill used as a bonus, and would make WHM more interesting to play.

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This.

Hotshot felt most like pointless bloat after it was turned into a 60-second buff. Straight Shot felt silliest and most lackluster after being extended from 20 to 30 seconds.

Pretty sure they stated that they felt like they should get rid of it. The only skill involved in protect is getting it back on someone when they die and even then that rarely occurs. I think it should be more potent but on a timer. Think they should give protect essentially stone skin but make it not a one hit and it's done skill.

Think they have hinted at just making it always on so long as you are grouped with a healer i think

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Originally Posted by Transient_Shadow

If you're not gonna get rid of it (even though you should) over some silly nonsense of it being "too iconic" then for mog's sake make it actually useful and intuitive. Right now its useless. Most players argue its reduces damage. but by how much? we don't bloody know.

Right now its broken and as healers we deserve a better version.

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Change Protect's effect to the PvP Protect. And give it back to WHM. Solved.