How would you improve the Paladin's Cover skill?

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Don't drool on your keyboard too hard man. I know you can enable these devs to get a bit more creative in the job design. It was obviously very busted when it worked with Hallowed so we don't need to go back that far. Well, I say that, but Cover barely even blocks debuffs anymore so I don't know why they're so skittish about this skill in the first place.

The only drooling on keyboards is the lack of brain cells being used to thoroughly think out the pros and cons. Your idea is bad, Guardian (Cover) will not work in PvE like you think it will. In PvP, Guardian paired with Paladin's limit break, which gives Hallowed Ground and a 50% party mitigation effect, will reduces incoming damage, but not cancel it out. Without that possibility using Cover will be a death sentence more that it would be helpful.

[elioaiko]

Part of me wishes they could reverted back to SB's broken state because that was satisfying but I can't really imagine them wanting to do anything with it.

It's just one of those abilities that are either niche or busted.

[Fryfor]

If you make it so that Cover yeets yourself to the one you are protecting, congratulations, you have just made it WORSE. You would never use it when main tanking, which reduces it effectiveness, and if your cover target happens to be far away, you lose uptime, especially if you want to remove the gap closer to the boss. COvber is already bad, but this idea just makes it objectively worse.

Have yet to play a single scenario where a a Paladin cannot plan their Req window to cover any bit of downtime. Man, hardcasting Holy Spirit isn't even a bad thing anymore, either! But you're the expert. Can I think of a potentially egregious example? P4S act 2, depending on strat? You tell me. That extra intervene charge must be sick for the 150 potency you get out of it. Part of this discussion is, you know, offering options considering the laziest thing you can make these devs do is remove things entirely. Did Kaiten really need to drop? Who knows! Allowing players to have any granule of skill expression on a role should be a good thing. The real issue is that my idea, probably has generic overlap over something that Intervention does already, or fills the fantasy of. Exploring options should be a good thing.

[Mikey_R]

Have yet to play a single scenario where a a Paladin cannot plan their Req window to cover any bit of downtime. Man, hardcasting Holy Spirit isn't even a bad thing anymore, either! But you're the expert. Can I think of a potentially egregious example? P4S act 2, depending on strat? You tell me. That extra intervene charge must be sick for the 150 potency you get out of it. Part of this discussion is, you know, offering options considering the laziest thing you can make these devs do is remove things entirely. Did Kaiten really need to drop? Who knows! Allowing players to have any granule of skill expression on a role should be a good thing. The real issue is that my idea, probably has generic overlap over something that Intervention does already, or fills the fantasy of. Exploring options should be a good thing.

You cannot plan your REQ window, they happen every 60 seconds and you cannot delay the blade combo too much otherwise it falls out of the raid buffs (unless it is on the odd minute bursts, then you can delay it up to 3 GCDs to keep it all in FoF).

Cover is not something that you plan to use as that implies you already know when you are going to use it. Since you know when it is going to be used, you already know damage is going to go out and so you are better off using Intervention for the higher damage mitigation (even before you take into account Rampart or Sentinel) and it has a regen ontop. It also has a higher activation range and does not require you to stand near the person you are protecting. For reference, Cover's range is 10 Yalms and Intervene is 30 Yalms.

If you use it as a reactive action, it still isn't reliable as you have to not only notice someone is going to die by being hit by something, but you also have to be in range for it to even activate. Granted, with a gap closer, assuming it gives more range, that isn't an issue, however, you won't necessarily have a gap closer to get back, it was unplanned after all and do you know how annoying it is to move whilst hard casting Holy Spirits? Anyone who played SB PLD for any length of time can tell you it wasn't fun.

This is not a case where there is some niche use, therefore it isn't bad. This is a case where it is a change for the sake of change that benefits noone and just makes your own job potentially more clunky to use. If you want the change you have to tell me how exactly it would be useful. Why should this be a change for the better and no, 'flavour' is not a good reason for change as fight mechanics is single player games have to be treated differently to fight mechanics in MMOs.

[Katish]

How about something like this:
Cover: Will allow you and the person you are tethered to survive with at least one hp during the tether. Does not consume your hp if the person is hit. Must have a target to use and that person must be within 10 yalms. If the person moves out of range, the tether will break early. This will allow Paladin to have another mitigation move, but also allows it to be usable and have a niche that allows someone else to survive with you. (As long as there is someone) Might need to change the cooldown of this skill to be higher as it becomes more usable as a "second" invuln, maybe 420 seconds like Hallowed Ground, as warriors are able to use Holmgang every 240 seconds. So in the time u go from one into the other, should you need it, warriors could have used Holmgang 2 additional times. (But allowing someone to survive has value in of itself so it makes up for it imo). It would be usable to guarantee someone's safety vs intervention where that's not always the case. Example: If your other tank is down and a DPS or healer is needed to take a tank buster this would be a saving grace.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

How about something like this:
[essentially give PLD a 2nd invuln]

I can totally not see anything in the game an invuln with a 2nd charge that you can cast on another player would totally not be able to break things.

...for real, this would be just downright broken.

[Katish]

I didn't say a second charge, I said it would be an additional invulnerability with a CD similar to Hallowed Ground, warrior would be able to use 4 Holmgangs by the time you use Hallowed Ground + Cover if released this way. The bonus would be applying it to someone else giving it a niche, and although it might be a bit powerful: its range, needing gauge needs for it, and having an applicable target to line up and be applicable is still a requirement. It would also make Paladin continue to shine as a "Prog" tank and be more welcoming in parties that require what PLD is said to be but isn't (The defensive tank).

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I didn't say a second charge, I said it would be an additional invulnerability with a CD similar to Hallowed Ground, warrior would be able to use 4 Holmgangs by the time you use Hallowed Ground + Cover if released this way. The bonus would be applying it to someone else giving it a niche, and although it might be a bit powerful: its range, needing gauge needs for it, and having an applicable target to line up and be applicable is still a requirement. It would also make Paladin continue to shine as a "Prog" tank and be more welcoming in parties that require what PLD is said to be but isn't (The defensive tank).

Mate youre overshooting the mark here. Having Cover be a PLD's 2nd invuln or one you can use in place for another along with keeping Hallowed untouched would make it more busted than Holmgang's 240s CD because you have the flexibility by having two separate options for one and the freedom of dtaggering them how you like.

Paladin doesn't need more defensive power, he needs Cover to not be a waste of a button, which could work by having Cover grant the Paladin the effects of Sheltron/Holy Sheltron upon use OR give it some mitigation tied to itself (like the Stormblood Lv66 Cover trait but less powerful) AND/OR the gauge cost removed.

Your idea would push Paladin past prog-tank-musthave into "musthave everywhere and build the strats around it" level.

[Katish]

I don't see it taking a must-have spot given that DPS will always be number one and PLD falls off on that, having one more utility would just give it more reason as to why it would be welcomed rather than barricaded. Although I do see how it could be too strong as admitted previously, but then that was also said about Scholar's movement skill, nothing is ever balanced out the front door (especially when classes are played too similarly to begin with). Perhaps give it more of a limitation knowing that it could be game changing? And as for the mitigation, no one will bat an eye if it's just extra mitigation (unless the added mitigation was substantial enough to make a difference) unfortunately, as Shelton will always be a little more useful! If cover is going to kill the paladin they won't use it and have it chock to the player's mistake so they deserve to die, so the intended use behind cover wouldn't cover it (pun intended xD), and it would still be a wasted slot, more usable perhaps, but not worth keying it.

By defensive tank, I meant party player tank, your defenses aren't just for YOU.

[Marxam]

Part of me wishes they could reverted back to SB's broken state because that was satisfying but I can't really imagine them wanting to do anything with it.

It's just one of those abilities that are either niche or busted.

That was because SB was the first time they introduced ultimate. Prior to that you can get away with slightly wonky balance because you can always "out-gear" the savage content, not so in ultimate. Everything needs to be finely tuned to that one piece of content that 99.99% of the playerbase will never touch. So I guess the real question is if tuning jobs around one content that literally no one is interested in, is good for the game as a whole? Though they couldn't even balance tank dmg since we had issues in P8S so idk tbh.

As for cover it would have been better used as a role skill at like lvl 20 and remove rampart. Rampart in the game is just button bloat as many of the tanks short cds already provide the same effect, and then some. However I see role skills as tech options and not another avenue to gain a mitigation cd. Things like shirk, reprisal, provoke are good examples of what should be role skills. Rampart is no longer needed even for the expansion its designed for because most cases you just over gear it or there are generally better options available to you job exclusively. That being said, the options of how I think cover should function as a role skills are either:

-Functions as it currently is
-Drop a small aoe for one person to stand in, still take dmg from individual
-Small radial aoe passage of arms, <5 yalms

The last two offer unique tech choices. Lets say a healer need to stack away from the party for a mechanic. Drop a cover aoe and they stand in it, even if its >10 yalms. The last option I'm more partial to as in dungeon pulls you can just pop cover and melees don't need to worry about dmg, as long as they are near the tank and the tank can afk for 10-15 secs to grab a drink of water. It could also have a neat aoe animation like Sheltron but a full 360, think of a Roman testudo formation and you get my idea.