Add Shell, and don't make it stackable with protect.

[MisterLucie]

And then half the raid dies at the end of V3S library phase because half the party takes huge physical damage and half takes huge magical.

[loreleidiangelo]

And then half the raid dies at the end of V3S library phase because half the party takes huge physical damage and half takes huge magical.

Admittedly, unless people are surviving by a margin of 15% HP, Protect won't be the reason they're dying to that particular mechanic. It would absolutely make a difference on things like Meteor on O4S though, meaning the magical option in the OP's scenario would be the only "real" choice - negating all that talk about "thinking about what you want to shield against". FFS I'm not even sure any of the raid bosses in Savage EXCEPT the third boss do any sort of physical damage anyway outside of auto-attacks. And in dungeons you'd only ever take the physical version to help shield the tank from mob autos during mass pulls so the healer can DPS more. I'm as much a fan of "illusion of choice" in most scenarios as anyone, but in this case I'm just not seeing what two different types of buffs would "add" here except more cross-role swapping annoyance depending on what content you're doing.

I'd rather they do something based off of the OP's second obseravation re: the uselessness of Protect, though - just get rid of Protect altogether and lower all mob damage to compensate. Free up a role action for healers who lost a lot of "mandatory" things with this stupid new system. Why are people so desperate to cling to the irreverence of fire n' forget party buffs?