I miss protect.

[Rasikko]

I think they just had it there for sentimental value for us FFXI vets. The boost was about as useless as spell speed for regen.

Stoneskin though, yeah I miss that.. it actually could save your butt. I loved how healers(even I did this) know someone wasn't gonna make it out of an AOE in time, and they would stoneskin them.

[Jkap_Goat]

I miss protect and stoneskin, such iconic actions

I personally would love to have it back

[Vyrerus]

I miss Protect and Stoneskin as well, particularly the access PLD had to them. Being able to use cooldowns a few seconds before the cast of a tank buster, and then cast Stoneskin during the cast was kind of neato. Of course, mistiming the cast would mean losing out on the chance to block of parry, but hey, you could do it.

What I never liked about Protect is that they lumped Shell into it as a trait, instead of having each of those spells separately. They were a way bigger deal in FFXI where Shell V gave something like -23% Magic Damage Taken. They've been sacrificed on the alter of job identity though, which is kind of weird to me, since they also seem to have been trying to homogenize classes so that meta matters less/doesn't exist in any meaningful way. I mean, way back in 2.0, only WHM's protect had the shell trait on it, making the other protects from SCH and PLD worthless. In previous FFs, spells crossed between classes to an extent always, and it was specific spells and equipment as well as appearance which really differentiated the jobs. In XIV they want the jobs to be flavorful but all the flavors to be equally effective. It's taken a turn for the boring, in a lot of ways, while also being very good on other fronts.

Of course, it hasn't been like other FFs in the first place, with there being no elemental absorption or weakness, at least in 2.0. I can't speak for 1.0.

[Covfefe]

Something that could be interesting if people didn't like the way protect worked, would be to make a similar cast for tanks that grants reduced enmity.
Then tank mastery as a passive would no longer exist, instead wait for the tank to cast this new ability.
For the player that didn't wait for it, they would own agro and possibly die.

What I miss most is that it felt like I'd joined a team when waiting for protect.
I primarily tank, and it felt better than just rushing off.

[Canadane]

You guys remember 1.0 stoneskin?

It had the cooler animation imo.
TAKE THIS WALL

[KaerisKlyne]

Idunno why they didn't just call Temperance Protect instead. It basically does exactly what I always thought Protect should do as an ability.

[Miminming]

protect make people not go running around leaving healer begining of a fight, so i kinda miss it...

[Connor]

Honestly I miss support spells in general.

Protect, Stoneskin, Bard’s old songs.
One thing I loved about Eureka (the only thing lol) was how the logos crystal things let you cast support spells like that again. Protect and Stoneskin return, Shell and Reflect are there, there’s spells like Bravery for damage support, debuffs like Paralyze and Sleep or Spirit Dart.

How come we can’t have stuff like this in the actual game?* It’s not like eureka content has a separate battle system lol


* (rhetorical question lol, it’s because it’s impossible to balance in any way)

[Canadane]

Honestly I miss support spells in general.

Protect, Stoneskin, Bard’s old songs.
One thing I loved about Eureka (the only thing lol) was how the logos crystal things let you cast support spells like that again. Protect and Stoneskin return, Shell and Reflect are there, there’s spells like Bravery for damage support, debuffs like Paralyze and Sleep or Spirit Dart.

How come we can’t have stuff like this in the actual game?* It’s not like eureka content has a separate battle system lol


* (rhetorical question lol, it’s because it’s impossible to balance in any way)

It's absolutely not impossible to balance. BA was great. You could go without most support skills and be fine, but you could take them and tread a little safer.
Very little was hardline required. And even those you could make due without, using gear.

Eureka was so good, I'd take that as the main battle system any day than our cookie cutter dry and stale battle system we have now.

[Connor]

It's absolutely not impossible to balance. BA was great. You could go without most support skills and be fine, but you could take them and tread a little safer.
Very little was hardline required. And even those you could make due without, using gear.

Eureka was so good, I'd take that as the main battle system any day than our cookie cutter dry and stale battle system we have now.

I’m inclined to agree about support abilities in normal content; I mainly wanted to preempt the inevitable ‘but support means no balance’ argument that usually arises when it’s mentioned on the forums.

I only got to the third Eureka so I never experienced BA personally. But from just running around doing party stuff like FATEs or whatever, I did feel like the support skills were very useful. But at the same time, it’s not like you’d ever become unable to complete any content if you were missing a specific support ability.

One thing I found really fun about the whole Logos system thing was adjusting the ways I could support the party relative to what other party members have. So like if someone has Protect and Stoneskin, I could take Bravery and Spirit Dart, or if they had debuffs like Paralyze equipped I could equip Cure and Raise.

One of my favourite things about 2.0-3.0 Bard was having to manage song usage relative to the party’s composition, how they’re playing, the present situation, etc. I felt like Logos abilities had that same feeling of having something to manage beyond just ‘attack enemy’.

Honestly I think it’d be a pretty great long-term addition if they ported the Logos System to work in normal content (granted it got certain balance adjustments of course)