Cover should be a Role Action

[DWolfwood]

Before the PLDs and folks who wanna claim it's part of "PLD's identity", I wanna point out that while it's usually the Knight class in FF games that uses it, there's still exceptions, and I think FFXIV should be one of them.

I think the ability does a disservice to PLD's toolkit since it provides extra utility that must be considered when balancing the tanks, and PLD would be better served with another ability.

Since its (imo necessary) nerf, the skill is back to having very niche uses. Ones that frankly, every tank should have the option of.

[DWolfwood]

Also, I make no effort to hide the fact that I think creating tank diversity with defensive skills is a perilous path of never ending imbalances for no good reason.

Give us well thought and diverse dps rotations as well as aesthetics please.

No need to pretend this game is something it isn't.

[bundythenoob]

I actually wouldn't mind cover being moved to a role action. in its current form, it is very costly in terms of oath gauge, with a lengthy cooldown to boot, and it sometimes doesn't get used by PLD due to the distance from the person they're trying to cover unless the PLD is offtank.

there have also been plenty of times that I would wish I could give some form of mitigation to others when playing DRK below lv 70, and this would be a really solid way of giving all tanks a way to mitigate team damage while not being so strong that it can be abused. maybe its cooldown would have to be lengthened to accommodate for two tanks being able to use it in the same instance for trials. perhaps 180 sec cd?

as for the hole left in PLDs kit, i'm not too sure what could be added. I wouldn't want to see another defencive cooldown, as i believe changing sheltron to a base 8 second duration at lv 35, and giving it a trait to decrease its cost to 30 gauge at level 66 or so would be much better for its kit, but i guess replacing cover with another defencive cd would ease that issue. maybe bring bulwark back?

[Seraphor]

Cover is already incredibly situational for PLD. I don't see how that would be any different as a Role action. It would either be unecessary, or essential, and I don't want to have to Cover people as a DRK or GNB.
I'd rather they didn't make more job skills role actions. Certain imbalances between jobs are perfectly acceptable and Cover is one of those. DRK can TBN the other tank, GNB can cast HoS and Aurora on other players, and WAR has Nascent Flash.

I'd much rather they enhanced PLD's identity, by giving it an ability (shared cooldown with Spirits Within perhaps) that deals more damage as your HP decreases, the classic 'Minus Strike' if you will.
This would interact with Cover in the OT role, as you could Cover, take damage, then use Minus Strike instead of Spirits Within.
Essentially you're making SW/MS a part of the rotation where you need to discern if you HP is closer to max or closer to zero and you can make use of Cover without negatively impacting your SW use, as MS would be an alternative.

[Lucy_Pyre]

Cover is a rarely used ability as-is. Making it a role action wouldn't suddenly change that at all.

[Crushnight]

Got to ask why though?

It is niche enough on Plds that it wouldn't hurt but nor would it really be beneficial to other tanks so what's the point if it was old Cover might be more worthwhile but as it is your asking the skill to be uncoupled from pld gauge to be a free cd to all tanks including pld, which means they will probably nerf it again.

If you want to look at why I think this look at Repose on healers, Sch and Ast never needed sleep, they had more than enough tools to handle things without it, yet Repose was taken from Whm to be given to Role Actions for a single quest that is lv80, and has since been removed from my hotbars as they never needed it before or after, SE doesn't even design stuff with healers having sleep, 1 quest does not justify a skill to be taken from 1 job to be given to the role.

Unless SE were to design things around all tanks have cover I see no point taking it from Pld.

[347SPECTRE]

Not that good of an idea IMO. Cover makes more sense for PLD as it has a shield, while others do not. While others might be able to parry, logically it would make more sense to have a cover like skill on a job with a shield. I'm primarily looking at this from a more realistic stand point.

[ItMe]

If they made it a role action they could design fights around people actually wanting to use it.
That's an interesting idea.

[Ultimatecalibur]

there have also been plenty of times that I would wish I could give some form of mitigation to others when playing DRK below lv 70, and this would be a really solid way of giving all tanks a way to mitigate team damage while not being so strong that it can be abused. maybe its cooldown would have to be lengthened to accommodate for two tanks being able to use it in the same instance for trials. perhaps 180 sec cd?

It could be on a 60s cooldown and the current version wouldn't be problematic in most fights. Most cover usage in previous expansions was either to forestall a tank swap (by giving the non-PLD MT another defensive cooldown or to transfer a damage up debuff) or prevent a knockback on another character. The former is covered by a combination of tanks having more than enough defensive cooldowns now and tankbuster mechanics targeting both MT and OT. The later was covered by all jobs now having access to Arm's Length/Surecast.

If they made it a role action they could design fights around people actually wanting to use it.
That's an interesting idea.

That would likely just lead to them doing what they do with interrupts: Once per tier there is a ability (usually cast by a add) that requires an interrupt to avoid a wipe.

[DWolfwood]

Cover is a rarely used ability as-is. Making it a role action wouldn't suddenly change that at all.

That's not even a problem though considering role actions generally get used far less than other abilities.

Half or more don't get used in most fights, so Cover fits right in by that metric.

More importantly, why keep an ability rarely used as a core ability?

I'm not on board with deleting the skill entirely, because I think it's a fun ability to use, it just has such rare use cases. Ones that I don't think should be limited to PLD.

Edit - That all said, what ItMe said does hold in that if all tanks have a specific utility, they can add mechanics to require them. I see no downside.