It's a shame FFXIV's net code is so abysmally sloppy, as one complete left of field avenue to explore would be abilities to actively counter incoming attacks such as timed shields and barriers that get significant bonuses for being correctly timed. If the pay off could be big enough that it was worthwhile over simply smashing glare as fast as the GCD allows then that's an instant huge shakeup to the current gameplay loop right there. Drop it in a reasonably short cooldown so that it's frequent enough to be impactful but not causing us to stand around doing waiting for something to counter and IMO it'd be a neat addition.

We kind of almost had a very small indie version of it in the past with PLD but it'd be nice to see it done properly assuming SE ever managed to get things tight enough that it would actually work consistently and feel good across the sort of ping ranges seen outside of the JP homeland.

Perhaps it's time for SE to implement hold skills?