How would you improve the Paladin's Cover skill?

[krislox]

I've been using Cover liberally during dungeons runs just so I get a feel on how to actually use the ability efficiently. I've counted 2 successful saves over many runs and this is because apparently a lot of players don't like it when you use cover and run away to break the tether. I think breaking tether isn't necessarily bad but I don't think there are any other skills in the game that has another player dictate the usage of your abilities. There were also times where Cover would've been perfect, but that 50 Oath Gauge cost makes using it even more difficult.

It's a situational ability that punishes you hard for using it at the wrong time. I think increasing the tether range (and creating a visual indicator for when the tether is about to break) and lowering the cost is a good direction to start. It could have an effect similar to Synastry where a heal on one target is also a heal for the chosen ally but that might be stepping into Astro's turf.

[Cabalabob]

There are times when you want to break the tether so you can cover one hit and then let the other tank continue tanking so a longer tether would be bad because you couldn’t cover then break the tether while staying in melee range.

I think it’s pretty much unanimously agreed that the gauge cost was an unnecessary addition to the skill and should be removed.

Cover used to give a 20% damage reduction on covered damage which made it PLDs go to CD where other tanks needed to swap, personally I found that iteration of cover to be the best because it brought PLDs iconic ability to the forefront of its kit. But they nerfed it because it made PLD too good as OT.

Right now I think it’s fine as it is. It has its uses but PLDs baseline kit is fairly decent without it. The gauge cost is the only thing I’d change, just outright remove it and cover would be a perfectly inoffensive niche skill.

[ThorneDynasty]

Either remove the gauge cost or the cooldown, first of all.

[Dzian]

Bring back its buff sharing.

Used to be fun to cover a WHM or something and pop hallowed ground. Resulting in an invincible WHM.

Or the times I used it to save people in old ex trials. Tempered Will and cover the BLM mid cast during a landslide in Titan ex or on the wrong side of the boat in Leviathan ex. Don't worry buddy I got you..

Oh and get rid of the "does not activate on certain attacks" thing.. especially with this trend of making things simpler to understand... you either cover them or you don't. no effin maybes

Things like that made it a fun skill to use.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

The only way you can make Cover useful again is either remove the cost and keep the 2 minute cooldown, or keep the cost and 2 minute cooldown, but allow Cover to apply Knight's Benediction and Knight's Resolve for the duration of Cover, to the PLD, to make it equally worth using it as there reason to use Intervention.

Bring back its buff sharing.

Used to be fun to cover a WHM or something and pop hallowed ground. Resulting in an invincible WHM.

Or the times I used it to save people in old ex trials. Tempered Will and cover the BLM mid cast during a landslide in Titan ex or on the wrong side of the boat in Leviathan ex. Don't worry buddy I got you..

Oh and get rid of the "does not activate on certain attacks" thing.. especially with this trend of making things simpler to understand... you either cover them or you don't. no effin maybes

Hallowed Ground and Cover never interacted, ever. There has been evidence showing this interaction never existed all the way back in ARR.

Tempered Will plus Cover worked only until the second tier of SB raid tier, after which they negated that interaction. Granted most people had Arm's Length or Surecast to negate knockback and draw-in effects.

Does not work on certain actions is there as a caveat to cover certain fight design, and reduce cheesing mechanics or circumventing enrages.

[Faafetai]

Hallowed Ground and Cover never interacted, ever. There has been evidence showing this interaction never existed all the way back in ARR

Is this a case of the Mandela Effect. I used this a bunch duo ing content. Haven't played much recently, but before endwalker dropped I was able to cover my partner who was whm through alot of stack markers and even recently E2n recently being maybe a few months ago. I have seen this mentioned alot that it did not interact in this way. One of the reasons I picked up paladin was after watching a paladin cover invulm through haukke manor hard when we did not dps the last boss slowly enough. The healer was alive, he took no damage. Healer raised us and we won. I am confused though because many are saying this never worked this way and still does not. I haven't tried it recently, but I am beginning to think I might be an orc from warhammer 40k and because I believed it would work it just randomly worked. I wish I could have taken a recording of events if it has indeed changed to no longer work this way. I know it interacts differently depending on mechanics like in Alphascape V3.0 when the balls come down for the soak mechanic that even with a shield will still give you the damage down debuff even if you cover invulm the healer and sometimes it does not always work. Has this really just never been a thing and the times I have seen it done or used it just a false memory and my clears I have duo things as tank and healer are all just a dream of a butterfly?

Edit: At some point before endwalker, months before, it this stopped working to where hollowed would work as a regular mitigation rather than an invulnerability or not at all. I noticed it changed during old Praetorium when attempting to use the trick on the main tank during the drop ships. It no longer worked as it use to. The co tank took no damage but I had gone down to less than half health. Which is fine, but just something I noticed. It is strange this was never a thing. Do wish I could find more information on this as I have just my memory to go off of and the check mark of clears for instances I have done without a full team.

[Cabalabob]

Is this a case of the Mandela Effect. I used this a bunch duo ing content. Haven't played much recently, but before endwalker dropped I was able to cover my partner who was whm through alot of stack markers and even recently E2n recently being maybe a few months ago. I have seen this mentioned alot that it did not interact in this way. One of the reasons I picked up paladin was after watching a paladin cover invulm through haukke manor hard when we did not dps the last boss slowly enough. The healer was alive, he took no damage. Healer raised us and we won. I am confused though because many are saying this never worked this way and still does not. I haven't tried it recently, but I am beginning to think I might be an orc from warhammer 40k and because I believed it would work it just randomly worked. I wish I could have taken a recording of events if it has indeed changed to no longer work this way. I know it interacts differently depending on mechanics like in Alphascape V3.0 when the balls come down for the soak mechanic that even with a shield will still give you the damage down debuff even if you cover invulm the healer and sometimes it does not always work. Has this really just never been a thing and the times I have seen it done or used it just a false memory and my clears I have duo things as tank and healer are all just a dream of a butterfly?

Edit: At some point before endwalker, months before, it this stopped working to where hollowed would work as a regular mitigation rather than an invulnerability or not at all. I noticed it changed during old Praetorium when attempting to use the trick on the main tank during the drop ships. It no longer worked as it use to. The co tank took no damage but I had gone down to less than half health. Which is fine, but just something I noticed. It is strange this was never a thing. Do wish I could find more information on this as I have just my memory to go off of and the check mark of clears for instances I have done without a full team.

As someone who has played since 1.0 alpha and mained GLA/PLD since ARR launch, I can tell you Cover and hallowed ground have never interacted. In the case of AoE you will take 0 damage from your portion of the damage but from the covered portion you’ll still take damage. As a tank you’ll still likely survive a 2 person stack taking only one persons portion of the damage and other mitigation besides hallowed does still apply so it’s entirely feasible you covered someone and still survived their portion of the damage, same for haukke, you would only be taking the explosion damage of 1 person and your healer would be protected.

There is definitely some Mandela effect going on with it because you can find testimonials of all sorts including people claiming they covered + hallowed eruptions in ifrit hard in ARR, but there’s so much wrong with that (not only does cover not interact with hallowed but in ARR cover didn’t even protect people from magic damage).

[Faafetai]

As someone who has played since 1.0 alpha and mained GLA/PLD since ARR launch, I can tell you Cover and hallowed ground have never interacted. In the case of AoE you will take 0 damage from your portion of the damage but from the covered portion you’ll still take damage. As a tank you’ll still likely survive a 2 person stack taking only one persons portion of the damage and other mitigation besides hallowed does still apply so it’s entirely feasible you covered someone and still survived their portion of the damage, same for haukke, you would only be taking the explosion damage of 1 person and your healer would be protected.

There is definitely some Mandela effect going on with it because you can find testimonials of all sorts including people claiming they covered + hallowed eruptions in ifrit hard in ARR, but there’s so much wrong with that (not only does cover not interact with hallowed but in ARR cover didn’t even protect people from magic damage).

Aye thats what I mean, so if it is an aoe or stack marker you will not take your damage but will take your party members damage. It doesn't negate all damage completely but it does work individually on yourself and cause some fun cheeses if you are trying to duo something with a healer. It is times like these I wish there were more details within patch notes and stuff because there was a time effects would go through cover so if you covered someone in neverreap you would go to space.

I am wondering something it is a very real possibilty that the attack was dodged or missed giving the illusion of hollowed mitigating everything...hmm. The times this would for the most part work was when duo ing content, it was never exactly at level for practice usually stuff like stack markers in 8 man content but with gear either at level or one tear higher. Or recently it was E2n in cryptlurker with a scholar. It is very possible shields being given out could have caused more of a stop gap for damage. It has been a while since I have tried to use the cover hollowed trick besides getting depressed about omega giving the damage down debuff. I think we were in scavean gear at the time so I must test if having higher gear effected this illusion of it working well.

It is honestly strange though because I only played for a bout a year or so when I first leveled paladin I swore it worked that way, but by the time I got to stormblood about 5 months later maybe earlier it stopped interacting in the way I thought. I could have just missed something, but until the time I tested it outside of Rhalgr's Reach it suddenly was acting differently. That was when I was testing when damage comes in and at what point the mitigation is calculated and if when covering someone if I mitigate if their damage will mitigate when it gets to me, which at the time it did.

I could sware it use to work when taking damage from the drop ships in prae when I first was leveling paladin where both I and the other tank took no damage, they didn't have holmgang up and the drop ship did nothing, next time I tried it way later after I was testing things in Rhalgr's reach it went through everything even hollowed didn't work on myself at all and just went right through like I didn't even have it up. I am sad I can't test this in old praetorium to see if the drop ships just ignored hollowed ground every time or if I activated it slightly too late. It was around 4 seconds which is usually the time it takes for mits to start working on my end due to latency so 3 seconds of ever mit is no mit usually. Unsure if this is just normal.

I know at least I think I know currently magic damage might still go through some things. Crits definitely go through mits sometimes as well as I really hoped they have since fixed this but dots if applied before hollowed would still cause you to die being the dot was applied and the damage would still be coming in even if you had hollowed ground up at 1 hp. With at level gear when watching friends level paladin the damage in dungeons ranges from getting nailed to getting tickled by the enemies and when you look at the battle log it has the full crit damage and no parried whatever percent next to it but regular attacks will indicate with fly text blocked or dodged.

I am wondering if the made a stealth change to things similar to updating player names to a high resolution version and saying nothing about it making me think I was going insane and than I found out they did indeed update the names to be clearer to see. Maybe it was interacting in this way for short times and they changed it and many just thought it was working the same since it always has.

Edit: Meaning many tried cover hollowed it didn't work so it would never work but one update or another it would randomly work, but currently it does not work. But at some point it might have or randomly.

[krislox]

Thematically since Cover is used to protect another player, it would be cool if they add an ally targeted dash and create a tether from there. It fills in that fantasy of "jumping in to protect you" visually without compromising it's usage. I'm not sure if that's worth 50 Oath gauge and 120 second CD though. Maybe in addition to buff sharing I can see it being worth it.

[VictorSpoils]

Any of the following: increase the range, lower/remove the cooldown, lower/remove the Oath Gauge cost, or rework it so it treats you as the recipient of the damage so you benefit from your mitigations and don't receive debuffs.