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

[Sandpark]

It would be really cool if there were more than one type of protect. It would allow parties to think carefully on which type of attack they want to be shielded against, rather than just casting the same protect every time. Personally I feel like it's kinda useless, unless they expand on it more. It feels like SE could just lower all enemies attacks, by the percentage of protect, and it wouldn't even matter if it were there. Give us some diffident types of protective magic.

Hell no, please don't lower enemy attacks. Tanks can already pull half a dungeon, and people already cry about wanting every healer to DPS due to players being topped off on health.

Remember protect is a role action now, meaning whatever is changed here has every healer having to change their actions on the hotbar everytime a different encounter calls for it.

The elemental system was dumbed down in this game versus it's sister to prevent button bloat and combat one job being preferred over the other in certain contents. Right now the meta in the game is dodging being more important than mitigating.

Essentially different kinds of protects is the same thing as barspells from XI. A specific spell you cast to mitigate a specific mechanic. With the removal of elemental resistances/attributes point system, it seems SE doesn't want to go down that road.

Barstonra
BarPoisonra
Barsleepra
Barwatera
Barparalyzra
Baraera
Barfira
Barblindra
Barblizzara
Barsilencera
Barthundra
Barvira
Barpetra
Baramnesra

Having specific counters is nice in my books, but with the highly scripted mechanics and themes, doing so basically has specific spells being default depending on the circumstance.

Barfire- Use against Ifrit
Barice- Use against Shiva
Barthundra- Use against Ramuh

Or you could cast barpetra/bargaol and prevent a party member from being gaoled in Titan fight.

It would work the same if the elemental system was changed.

Ifrit weak to ice? Cast Ice Spells
Shiva weak to fire? Cast Fire
Titan weak to wind? Cast Aero

• It would break up the monotony of this rotation works for all content regardless of what that enemy is.
• It would perhaps trivialize the need to even dodge mechanics.
• It would add more buttons to manage more frequently.
• Introducing this at this point would require an entire revamp of every job's skills and rotation which probably ain't happening.

I posted an idea for bringing the skillchain system back which was the best party based cooperation mechanic for any mmo in my book. But I don't see none of this happening anytime soon. The theme is keep it simple, too much complexity and they get rant threads, too much complexity and they get job division(one job preferred over another,which still happens in raids even without all those things they were trying to avoid).