How would you improve the Paladin's Cover skill?

[Marxam]

Hot take, but I'd make it a tank role skill for all tanks to utilize. It would free up PLD with an open spot, give all the other tanks some good utility and the shenanigans you can pull with it is potentially endless, ex. both tanks cover the healers for mechanics, OT covers MT to take a slashing debuff, etc.

Even hotter take; they should also remove rampart. With the introduction of short cds like BW, shelltron, TBN, etc, acting as a shorter but powerful version of rampart (20% mitigation) it seems redundant to still have it in-game. The only reason I can see to keep rampart is for low lvling dungeons but honestly if the healer just spammed heals on the tank they can pull quite a bit w/o needing to use cds. In most cases lvling roulette that already happens, in addition to the tank not putting up stance.

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

Give it Knight’s Benediction and a 10s recast

[Garnix]

Simple changes:
1) When applying cover, the next Sheltron/Intervention should be free. (this way, you are still restricted in use by your gauge and not by a ridiculously long CD, but are not penalized if you use it)
2) Increase the range and remove the tether, the same way Dragoons lost theirs.

[Sqwall]

Personally I there are two ways to fix cover.

1. Drastically reduce the oath cost, or simply remove the oath cost. In addition to that, drastically lower the cooldown which is CRAZY long to begin with. Intervention is by and large, hands down, BETTER then cover and also gives knights benediction/resolve plus the damage mitigation. This is why I believe cover should just be "traited up" to be intervention. I don't even have cover on my hotbar, and it hasn't been there since HW. This is one avenue to fix cover.

2. Change cover to a "dance partner" buff that you can give to another party member of your choice. The buff gives them block chance mitigaion while the buff is active and they are in range. While the party member you cast the buff on takes less damage, the paladin now gains oath every time the person you cover get's hit results in a block. Paladins no longer generate oath off of auto attacks, but off of blocks. This would basically make it so that if i'm blocking I gain oath, if my cover partner blocks I gain oath. If we BOTH block I gain oath. This would synergize with Holy Sheltron and give crazy amounts of oath during large pulls much like it was back in HW with bulwark and how it gave you stupid amounts of oath to feed your sheltron.

Other changes I would make with #2 change in mind.

Passage of Arms spreads the cover buff to the party and every block they absorb gives you oath. Passage of Arms duration is now 6 seconds instead of the ridiculous 18 seconds it is now.

Change Devine Veil now uses Oath and now procs off of a block, and gives the party a one time block chance with a heal.

Shield Bash now uses Oath gauge and is a damage dump instead of an interrupt.

Royal Authority morphs into Atonement once the Royal combo is completed.

Trait up Circle of Scorn to Confiteor. Confiteor is now a ground AOE that lasts for 60 seconds with a potency of 15. Each tick of the DOT restores HP with a potency of 10 and this extended to your Cover Partner as long as they are in the circle. Confiteor is essentially a spell, but it looks and acts like a weapon skill. Let's make it a spell.

I could go on....but this WILL NEVER HAPPEN....pipe dreams.

[Rithy255]

Personally I there are two ways to fix cover.

Your cover changes seem ok, while I'm not 100% opposed to defensives giving you extra gauge, I also dislike generating oath based off auto attacks, I'd personally want Oath to be generated either by GCD Attacks or a set timer, while using defensives correctly would help you gain extra oath, I'd personally find it cool if your "cover partner" could benefit in someway of your magic attack healing, as you tend to only benefit from it as the MT.

1) Passage of arms, With your rework would it still be a cone? I hope not lol. Other then that it seems intresting at the very least
2) Why rework Divine veil into a ability that has "block chance" current Divine veil is pretty much perfectly fine, although id kinda like the regen instead of the upfront heal you get.
3) Shied bash... wait so you want DPS and defensives tied together? No thanks PLD's will just spam shield bash for extra dps and expect the other tank/healers to pick up the slack.
4) Royal Authority becoming atonement would me you'd press the same button 4 times in a row... Honestly atonement needs a rework but I wouldn't be a fan of this change.
5) Confiteor healing 10 potency? that's like... healing 200hp on a Level 90 tank class? sounds pretty useless if I'm going to be honest, at least boost the potency, or let the cover partner heal off your magic attacks instead.

[Duskane]

it needs to be like mega version intervention and Holy Sheltron in the one skill
like grants a Barrier to the PLD while also giving mitigation,regen etc etc something along those lines.

[Seku]

Hot take, but remove it, intervention is a better general version of it.

If really wanting to keep it, allow knight benediction and Knights resolve to be placed on the paladin. Cover, like shield bash is really niche and is something that isn't hard required in any content making it mostly button bloat. Intervention also does what cover use to do when it was good, which is putting up damage reduction on the PLD and providing an additional cool down. The only difference is that the PLD doesn't take the hit and tank swaps are now needed, which the former is what we'll be back to more than likely.

Cover is more a skill for if there isn't a dedicated-tank or enmity actually matters, which the game design of FF14 doesn't support, except on the rare occasion where a party member gets attacked and typical aggro mechanics don't apply. But we know that they'll live, otherwise PLD would be hard required, and SE won't do that. Though maybe...??? It's still possible to cheese some mechanics with it, but outside of that it's pretty useless.

[Absimiliard]

By replacing it with something that doesn't suck.

[Arohk]

Its a useless skill you never need, if someone dies because you couldnt save them with cover, its their own fault anyway.

[ataren3]

I think Cover as a skill is fine. It's one of the unique (albeit niche) skills PLD can bring to the group.

However I think the cost should be removed with the 2 minute CD remaining, or vice versa. I'm of the mind of removing the cost and making it only usable once every 2 minutes because I can see people able to abuse it if it costs 50 gauge but I can, in essence, spam it.