Cover should be a Role Action

[Lucy_Pyre]

That's not even a problem though considering role actions generally get used far less than other abilities.

Half or more don't get used in most fights, so Cover fits right in by that metric.

More importantly, why keep an ability rarely used as a core ability?

I'm not on board with deleting the skill entirely, because I think it's a fun ability to use, it just has such rare use cases. Ones that I don't think should be limited to PLD.

Edit - That all said, what ItMe said does hold in that if all tanks have a specific utility, they can add mechanics to require them. I see no downside.

Tank role actions: Rampart, Low Blow, Provoke, Interject, Reprisal, Arm's Length, Shirk.

Extensively used in all/nearly all EX/savage/ultimate fights: Rampart, Provoke, Reprisal, Arm's Length, Shirk

Used rarely in specific savage fights: Interject

Never used outside of casual content (because lolbossimmunetocc): Low Blow

Almost every single piece of the tank role actions sees extensive, regular, use. Now personally, ever since the change to Interject in ShB I've been a very vocal proponent of SE making more use of the skill in EX/savage/ultimate. Even though it was a minor thing I quite liked the bit in E1S adds phase where each tank had to interrupt their specific add's cast of Mana Boost in order to prevent the following cast of Mana Surge from wiping the entire party with a raidwide blast. Perhaps my liking of interrupts has to do with the fact that I played SWTOR before FFXIV, and interrupting of specific skills in PvP in that game was a very important thing, but I do feel that it's an under-utilized mechanic that could have at least a little bit more potential from a mechanical perspective in fights. As for Cover, well, if SE were to make it a tank role action with something like a 90 or 120s CD then I think some sort of mechanic where a tankbuster gets targeted on a DPS or healer, rather than the tank, forcing one of the tanks (or both if two of them go out) to identify the target it was going on and Cover them to mitigate it would be neat. I can see that wiping pugs in savage constantly though.

[DWolfwood]

Tank role actions: Rampart, Low Blow, Provoke, Interject, Reprisal, Arm's Length, Shirk.

Extensively used in all/nearly all EX/savage/ultimate fights: Rampart, Provoke, Reprisal, Arm's Length, Shirk

Used rarely in specific savage fights: Interject

Never used outside of casual content (because lolbossimmunetocc): Low Blow

Almost every single piece of the tank role actions sees extensive, regular, use. Now personally, ever since the change to Interject in ShB I've been a very vocal proponent of SE making more use of the skill in EX/savage/ultimate. Even though it was a minor thing I quite liked the bit in E1S adds phase where each tank had to interrupt their specific add's cast of Mana Boost in order to prevent the following cast of Mana Surge from wiping the entire party with a raidwide blast. Perhaps my liking of interrupts has to do with the fact that I played SWTOR before FFXIV, and interrupting of specific skills in PvP in that game was a very important thing, but I do feel that it's an under-utilized mechanic that could have at least a little bit more potential from a mechanical perspective in fights. As for Cover, well, if SE were to make it a tank role action with something like a 90 or 120s CD then I think some sort of mechanic where a tankbuster gets targeted on a DPS or healer, rather than the tank, forcing one of the tanks (or both if two of them go out) to identify the target it was going on and Cover them to mitigate it would be neat. I can see that wiping pugs in savage constantly though.

Even provoke isn't extensively used unless you're doing some weird unnecessary tank swaps, I mean come on.

Back in SB there was actually a NEED to voke->shirk, due to stances still reducing damage, etc., but even coming back to the game in 480 crafted gear tanking with 500 players, I had literally no problems managing hate. Even in tank swaps, just turn it off and you're fine 95% of the time (the other 5% being if the other tank literally does nothing).

Arm's Length is admittedly used a lot NOW, because it was ADDED in ShB.

And you haven't been raiding that long if you think stuns have never been used in raid tiers. Hell, even Low Blow itself had a specific purpose in stunning arms in A4S when it came out as part of DRK's first kit. Stuns were used more extensively than both Arm's Length and Interjects at some point.

One tier or expansion aren't the end all be all, and Cover can add more mechanics as well.

[Lucy_Pyre]

Even provoke isn't extensively used unless you're doing some weird unnecessary tank swaps, I mean come on.

Back in SB there was actually a NEED to voke->shirk, due to stances still reducing damage, etc., but even coming back to the game in 480 crafted gear tanking with 500 players, I had literally no problems managing hate. Even in tank swaps, just turn it off and you're fine 95% of the time (the other 5% being if the other tank literally does nothing).

Arm's Length is admittedly used a lot NOW, because it was ADDED in ShB.

And you haven't been raiding that long if you think stuns have never been used in raid tiers. Hell, even Low Blow itself had a specific purpose in stunning arms in A4S when it came out as part of DRK's first kit. Stuns were used more extensively than both Arm's Length and Interjects at some point.

One tier or expansion aren't the end all be all, and Cover can add more mechanics as well.

It isn't a question of what's inherently necessary. It's simply the easiest & safest way to do a tank swap for the tank taking aggro to voke while the tank swapping off then shirks to them.

[ItMe]

That would likely just lead to them doing what they do with interrupts: Once per tier there is a ability (usually cast by a add) that requires an interrupt to avoid a wipe.

This is true, but they could always change what it does.
As an off the wall example: what if instead of reducing damage to people behind you it blocked off orange AoE markers? Something as simple as that would definitely influence strats.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Even though it was a minor thing I quite liked the bit in E1S adds phase where each tank had to interrupt their specific add's cast of Mana Boost in order to prevent the following cast of Mana Surge from wiping the entire party with a raidwide blast. Perhaps my liking of interrupts has to do with the fact that I played SWTOR before FFXIV, and interrupting of specific skills in PvP in that game was a very important thing, but I do feel that it's an under-utilized mechanic that could have at least a little bit more potential from a mechanical perspective in fights.

Considering one of the "major" changes in ShB was making the interruptible actions visible. I was expecting interrupting to be a lot more prevalent in ShB. It is kind of saddening that their inclusion in fights seems more an afterthought than a core factor. Both tanks having Interject should mean that fights like T1 ADS shouldn't be problematic anymore.

As for Cover, well, if SE were to make it a tank role action with something like a 90 or 120s CD then I think some sort of mechanic where a tankbuster gets targeted on a DPS or healer, rather than the tank, forcing one of the tanks (or both if two of them go out) to identify the target it was going on and Cover them to mitigate it would be neat. I can see that wiping pugs in savage constantly though.

Which might be exactly what the game needs to do to reintroduce tank "skill" back into the game. I'd rather have tank skill measured by healer/dps survival through use of Cover/Intervene/TBN/HoS/NF than by dps numbers.

This is true, but they could always change what it does.
As an off the wall example: what if instead of reducing damage to people behind you it blocked off orange AoE markers? Something as simple as that would definitely influence strats.

Cover is conceptually and mechanically fine as it currently stands. I was more disparaging the formulaic fight design that the devs have developed.

[DWolfwood]

It isn't a question of what's inherently necessary. It's simply the easiest & safest way to do a tank swap for the tank taking aggro to voke while the tank swapping off then shirks to them.

If we're talking someone you can't rely on, yeah sure.

That said, there's still not that many tank swaps in a fight. Some never use them even.

Obviously it's a necessary skill with how the game is now, but you ignore the fact that the game could have just as easily been a single tank endeavor, and the skill would be completely useless given how easy threat is to manage in this game.

So again, giving a utility skill to every tank can open up more gameplay options.

[bundythenoob]

Considering one of the "major" changes in ShB was making the interruptible actions visible. I was expecting interrupting to be a lot more prevalent in ShB. It is kind of saddening that their inclusion in fights seems more an afterthought than a core factor. Both tanks having Interject should mean that fights like T1 ADS shouldn't be problematic anymore.



Which might be exactly what the game needs to do to reintroduce tank "skill" back into the game. I'd rather have tank skill measured by healer/dps survival through use of Cover/Intervene/TBN/HoS/NF than by dps numbers.



Cover is conceptually and mechanically fine as it currently stands. I was more disparaging the formulaic fight design that the devs have developed.

I myself was also surprised about the lack of interjection in most shb content. I expected the revamp to make it so that more attacks would be interjectable, or to also have more things for tanks to do instead of dps since they butchered the kits. I am all for adding more tank skill, but i doubt it will be implemented due to accessibility issues.

[ArianeEwah]

Personally, I am strongly against adding any more "role" actions. This just ends up going into the "homogenisation" direction.
In fact, I would've the role actions reduced, either for aesthetical or identity reasons.
Most common/simple example would be Rampart -> Shadowskin on DRK.

I agree on the point that cover has very little to no use, but I don't think the reason is because of its nerf alone. Ofc, the gauge requirement was uncalled for, especially since cover doesn't provide any additional mitigation anymore. Honestly, it's a disgrace that SE nerfed such an iconic action to this bad, niche ability, yet they have to nerve to cry about how it's so hard to handle the button bloat...

But there is more to it. Since enmity management is basically non-existent anymore, or at least there are no challenge to it, cover has less uses because of it. It was also used to "cover" team members that drew too much aggro to compensate - either because enmity generation was too low or dps loss would be too high.
Best example from Deltascape V4 savage, Neo Exdeath: there were constant resets, and it was common for a PLD to cover the WHM from earthshaker. (Remember that WHM didn't had any enmity reduction modifier on their healing actions back then. Their enmity generation with healing was insane.)
And now - with ShB - Tank stance doesn't reduce damage output anymore (although tank dps contribution in ShB content has been greatly reduced) and the enmity generation from it is waaay higher than any old tank stances + enmity combo could ever provide by a long mile. (Even iLvl 50 tanks can easily hold aggro versus healers/dps on ilvl 130 nowadays...)
Same goes for voke and/or shirk. In older content/previous expantions you needed to generate additional aggro over your co-tank (either by using enmity combo or burst, or since SB shirk). If that would become a hindrance, cover was your answer. (And I believe there weren't as many "you get a debuff-tank buster, tank swap is required" situations as we have now, but correct me if I'm wrong.) Or shirk was on CD or needed elsewhere, cover was your friend, and the 20% were essentially an additional CD.
Now it's just a shadow of its former self: no additonal mitigation, unnecessary high costs, high recast time, and very niche uses in general.

Unless the dev team buffs cover again, I can only see it being removed in the next expac.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I agree on the point that cover has very little to no use, but I don't think the reason is because of its nerf alone. Ofc, the gauge requirement was uncalled for, especially since cover doesn't provide any additional mitigation anymore. Honestly, it's a disgrace that SE nerfed such an iconic action to this bad, niche ability, yet they have to nerve to cry about how it's so hard to handle the button bloat...

There is only one case where Cover lost it's "additional mitigation" and that was covering another tank. Currently if you Cover a non-tank target the damage inflicted on the Paladin is 80% that of what the target would have received. The gauge cost is there to balance Sheltron, Intervene and Cover usage (i.e. so you can't Sheltron yourself, Intervene on one target and Cover a 3rd), but neither Intervene nor Cover (nor any of the other single target protect abilities) is used enough on non-tanks that this balancing factor is noticeable.

Covering the other tank always seemed to be counter-intuitive to me so I am kind of glad that "benefit" is gone.

And I believe there weren't as many "you get a debuff-tank buster, tank swap is required" situations as we have now, but correct me if I'm wrong.

The 2+ stage debuff tank busters and both tank double busters were added to counter anti-tank buster/anti-tank swap Cover usage of ARR and HW.

[shao32]

I personaly don't want cover being a tank role skill, in fact i would love if the role skill on tanks would be complety removed from the game, cover should remain as a iconic skill of PLD and maybe instead of redirecting full damage just 20% of it and remove intervetion, idk something to make it more useful but don't stamp it to all tanks and have another useless skill i dont wanna add in my hotbar.