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?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Lucy_Pyre]

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.

Tank role actions: Rampart, Low Blow, Provoke, Interject, Reprisal, Arm's Length, Shirk.

Extensively used in all/nearly all EX/savage/ultimate fights: Rampart, Provoke, Reprisal, Arm's Length, Shirk

Used rarely in specific savage fights: Interject

Never used outside of casual content (because lolbossimmunetocc): Low Blow

Almost every single piece of the tank role actions sees extensive, regular, use. Now personally, ever since the change to Interject in ShB I've been a very vocal proponent of SE making more use of the skill in EX/savage/ultimate. Even though it was a minor thing I quite liked the bit in E1S adds phase where each tank had to interrupt their specific add's cast of Mana Boost in order to prevent the following cast of Mana Surge from wiping the entire party with a raidwide blast. Perhaps my liking of interrupts has to do with the fact that I played SWTOR before FFXIV, and interrupting of specific skills in PvP in that game was a very important thing, but I do feel that it's an under-utilized mechanic that could have at least a little bit more potential from a mechanical perspective in fights. As for Cover, well, if SE were to make it a tank role action with something like a 90 or 120s CD then I think some sort of mechanic where a tankbuster gets targeted on a DPS or healer, rather than the tank, forcing one of the tanks (or both if two of them go out) to identify the target it was going on and Cover them to mitigate it would be neat. I can see that wiping pugs in savage constantly though.

[DWolfwood]

Tank role actions: Rampart, Low Blow, Provoke, Interject, Reprisal, Arm's Length, Shirk.

Extensively used in all/nearly all EX/savage/ultimate fights: Rampart, Provoke, Reprisal, Arm's Length, Shirk

Used rarely in specific savage fights: Interject

Never used outside of casual content (because lolbossimmunetocc): Low Blow

Almost every single piece of the tank role actions sees extensive, regular, use. Now personally, ever since the change to Interject in ShB I've been a very vocal proponent of SE making more use of the skill in EX/savage/ultimate. Even though it was a minor thing I quite liked the bit in E1S adds phase where each tank had to interrupt their specific add's cast of Mana Boost in order to prevent the following cast of Mana Surge from wiping the entire party with a raidwide blast. Perhaps my liking of interrupts has to do with the fact that I played SWTOR before FFXIV, and interrupting of specific skills in PvP in that game was a very important thing, but I do feel that it's an under-utilized mechanic that could have at least a little bit more potential from a mechanical perspective in fights. As for Cover, well, if SE were to make it a tank role action with something like a 90 or 120s CD then I think some sort of mechanic where a tankbuster gets targeted on a DPS or healer, rather than the tank, forcing one of the tanks (or both if two of them go out) to identify the target it was going on and Cover them to mitigate it would be neat. I can see that wiping pugs in savage constantly though.

Even provoke isn't extensively used unless you're doing some weird unnecessary tank swaps, I mean come on.

Back in SB there was actually a NEED to voke->shirk, due to stances still reducing damage, etc., but even coming back to the game in 480 crafted gear tanking with 500 players, I had literally no problems managing hate. Even in tank swaps, just turn it off and you're fine 95% of the time (the other 5% being if the other tank literally does nothing).

Arm's Length is admittedly used a lot NOW, because it was ADDED in ShB.

And you haven't been raiding that long if you think stuns have never been used in raid tiers. Hell, even Low Blow itself had a specific purpose in stunning arms in A4S when it came out as part of DRK's first kit. Stuns were used more extensively than both Arm's Length and Interjects at some point.

One tier or expansion aren't the end all be all, and Cover can add more mechanics as well.

[Lucy_Pyre]

Even provoke isn't extensively used unless you're doing some weird unnecessary tank swaps, I mean come on.

Back in SB there was actually a NEED to voke->shirk, due to stances still reducing damage, etc., but even coming back to the game in 480 crafted gear tanking with 500 players, I had literally no problems managing hate. Even in tank swaps, just turn it off and you're fine 95% of the time (the other 5% being if the other tank literally does nothing).

Arm's Length is admittedly used a lot NOW, because it was ADDED in ShB.

And you haven't been raiding that long if you think stuns have never been used in raid tiers. Hell, even Low Blow itself had a specific purpose in stunning arms in A4S when it came out as part of DRK's first kit. Stuns were used more extensively than both Arm's Length and Interjects at some point.

One tier or expansion aren't the end all be all, and Cover can add more mechanics as well.

It isn't a question of what's inherently necessary. It's simply the easiest & safest way to do a tank swap for the tank taking aggro to voke while the tank swapping off then shirks to them.