Please replace Cover with something useful

[Rattleh3ad]

I have never found a single situation where cover was useful. Nobody stays 6 yalms close enough at any given time to have the effects stay on and it only protects against physical attacks.

TL;DR, this move blows, and could be easily buffed to be more useful or replaced outright.

Why not have the move cast on all party members regardless of distance but absorb 50% of all damage(both physical/magic). This is how it works in LOTRO and it works great for Captains in that game.

Or why not bring back Divine Veil from 1.0? I've never played it but from the description it seems pretty awesome, much more helpful than crappy Cover.

Thanks.

[Kal-El]

CM last boss where you can't get hate from the add - Use cover on the targeted team mate.

If I lose hate I might use cover while trying to get it back.

[Enkidoh]

I agree Cover needs major changes, as it's current form it's just too fiddly to bother with. The only vague use I could see this being used for is to protect a DD like BLM who happened to be too close to the mob, but even then that's a vague use and too overly complicated to work with.

Unfortunately Cover is a traditional ability for the PLD Job throughout the series so we're kind of stuck with it - if it was more like Cover materia from FFVII it would work far better. Really, it just needs alterations to make it useful, as it stands, it's worthless practically.

[Shuon]

think of it as a back-up Provoke (interms of practical usage). imo its an emergency tool i.e. extremely useful albeit only when confronted by the situation.

after all, like provokr, you will almost never use it if you held hate well all along, but in the scenario you lost hate/didnt do a good enough job/died and you have 2 separate mobs pounding on ur party members, provoking one and covering the member the other mob is hitting, while building up hate on the voke-ed one seems like a classical situation where cover is put to good use. rare, but it would be frustrating if cover wasnt there.

[Rattleh3ad]

think of it as a back-up Provoke (interms of practical usage). imo its an emergency tool i.e. extremely useful albeit only when confronted by the situation.

Not at all. Again, the ability stops working if someone moves 6 yalms away from you even if the icon is still on their status bar. The only time I would ever use it is on a healer who grabbed threat but they never stand next to me so the ability has zero purpose. It's a useless move, in any given situation and even when I do use it, it never functions cause nobody should be close to you at any given time. Also how is it anything like a backup provoke?

[Shuon]

Also how is it anything like a backup provoke?

because it allows you to take damage in anoyher person's place even though you dont have a higher amount of enmity. if you were freshly raised and voke is not up, is there a better alternative than cover?

and re distance, it is called cover for a reason. alluding to ffxi, pld had to be in front of a another member before Cover is effective, because you are suppose to cover another member from incoming damage.

again, this is situational, and probably will never come to use if you are in a perfect party where no signs of danger ever surfaces - but the same could be said abt provoke, benediction, second wind, thrill of battle etc because they are all oh-shit-this-situation-aint-good skills

[Faction]

Cover is a useful ability, you just haven't done any content where it's actually useful yet. In any situation where there's 2 tanks and one of the tanks no longer needs to tank (IE: turn 4 after the first dreadnaught, after one Caudeceus split dies) cover is useful.

[Sephirah]

Cover is a useful ability.

Mark your calendars people, Faction and I agreed on something.

While I agree that it would be nice if the range was a bit further, situationally this is a very strong ability. You can also use it in conjunction with Hallowed Ground for even more protection.

[Pots_Talos]

Would be nice if you could keep it up on a party member indefinitely. Of course it would have to be a percentage blocked instead of all damage for that to work.

[IndigoHawk]

Cover is even worse than you say. Because you need to be so close, you need to run to the person you want to cover. This turns the boss you are tanking, probably moves it out of position, and allows cone or aoe attacks to hit the rest of the team while you're trying to save one person.

I like the idea of turning Cover into a general damage redirect for the whole party, which is a common emergency tank ability in other games.

I agree that Cover has some good use for offtanks, but that's a very narrow use.