How would you improve the Paladin's Cover skill?

[HyperiusUltima]

As for cover it would have been better used as a role skill at like lvl 20 and remove rampart. Rampart in the game is just button bloat as many of the tanks short cds already provide the same effect, and then some. However I see role skills as tech options and not another avenue to gain a mitigation cd. Things like shirk, reprisal, provoke are good examples of what should be role skills. Rampart is no longer needed even for the expansion its designed for because most cases you just over gear it or there are generally better options available to you job exclusively. That being said, the options of how I think cover should function as a role skills are either:

-Functions as it currently is
-Drop a small aoe for one person to stand in, still take dmg from individual
-Small radial aoe passage of arms, <5 yalms

The last two offer unique tech choices. Lets say a healer need to stack away from the party for a mechanic. Drop a cover aoe and they stand in it, even if its >10 yalms. The last option I'm more partial to as in dungeon pulls you can just pop cover and melees don't need to worry about dmg, as long as they are near the tank and the tank can afk for 10-15 secs to grab a drink of water. It could also have a neat aoe animation like Sheltron but a full 360, think of a Roman testudo formation and you get my idea.

Nobody is going to remove Rampart. Removing Rampart is essentially gutting everyone's kit so they won't have a 20% available. Every tank would be struggling to mitigate the tank damage otherwise, and some jobs (GNB, DRK) would have an abundance to use from to replace Rampart while others (WAR, PLD) would be left in the lurch to not have the mitigation abilities to cover the current damage output from Tank Busters.

Also, there's a problem with your thought for making Cover a role skill at Lv 20:

Imagine having to maneuver around that kind of skill just like you have to maneuver around for a BLM - except worse since it takes up more space and if you sit near it close enough, you'll give the tank damage you could've taken on your own. It sets up for horrible things to happen to the recipient on raid-wides especially, which from your design suggests it to be used for(which is a bad implementation due to damage intake). Taking ~83% damage from all that only to have it apply 8 times over will kill you due to how Cover works currently too. In case people don't know(yet again) Cover does not interact with Defensive Mitigation!

So Sentinel, Sheltron, Bulwark, Rampart, none of those mitigations will interact with Cover; the main reason being cheesing Tank Busters like PLD did in O8S. Cover currently is an archaic ability that needs replacement - and is something we were all hoping to get rid of in 6.3. Looks like we're going to be waiting until 7.0 for them to actually have an answer to Cover being near useless.

[Sqwall]

Nobody is going to remove Rampart. Removing Rampart is essentially gutting everyone's kit so they won't have a 20% available. Every tank would be struggling to mitigate the tank damage otherwise, and some jobs (GNB, DRK) would have an abundance to use from to replace Rampart while others (WAR, PLD) would be left in the lurch to not have the mitigation abilities to cover the current damage output from Tank Busters.

Also, there's a problem with your thought for making Cover a role skill at Lv 20:

Imagine having to maneuver around that kind of skill just like you have to maneuver around for a BLM - except worse since it takes up more space and if you sit near it close enough, you'll give the tank damage you could've taken on your own. It sets up for horrible things to happen to the recipient on raid-wides especially, which from your design suggests it to be used for(which is a bad implementation due to damage intake). Taking ~83% damage from all that only to have it apply 8 times over will kill you due to how Cover works currently too. In case people don't know(yet again) Cover does not interact with Defensive Mitigation!

So Sentinel, Sheltron, Bulwark, Rampart, none of those mitigations will interact with Cover; the main reason being cheesing Tank Busters like PLD did in O8S. Cover currently is an archaic ability that needs replacement - and is something we were all hoping to get rid of in 6.3. Looks like we're going to be waiting until 7.0 for them to actually have an answer to Cover being near useless.

With part II of P8S....removing rampart....just...no. My static healers are sweating enough

[Sqwall]

IMO:

Cover just needs to be removed. It has long out lived it's very niche welcome. It doesn't need to be "reworked". Paladin doesn't need to be the lopsided tank with so much utility it hampers DPS. I haven't acknowledged the existence of Cover in quite some time (6 years) and I don't even have it placed on my hotbar. Intervention is hands down...BETTER then Cover ever wished it could be.

Let it die....instead of trying to re-invent it some how to some lackluster use.

Let's look at Monk for a second.

Anatman
Six Sided Star

These 2 skills are SHINING examples of niche...and they were tweaked so that "we would use them more". And yet....I almost never use anatman unless under extreme circumstances. I never use six sided star as I have thunderclap to move about the arena instead of running.

Monk took literal YEARS to be course corrected...YEARS! I get it...balance is hard...development is tight and costly...and hindsight...is always 20/20.

I feel Paladin has taken a page directly from Monk rework...and streamlined it's playstyle...rotation...DoT management (only scorn to worry about now). It's no longer that incredibly optimized tank...that had 12 different rotations, 6 openers, and I for one...am glad. I got my first P8S ph1 clear on PLD, and that makes me happy. DRG, AST, and possibly BLM are pretty much their apex of "what can we add". They have come to a point in the game...where they can NO LONGER add any more bloat to skills and abilities. SMN is a PRIME example of the direction it's going to go....trait up skills....Cannot assign to hotbar...and an incredibly flexible rotation. Just having to change where I place Ifirit due to the mechanics is challenging enough.

ARR the game had one direction....make it work...and it did for that era.

Heavensward took what they did in ARR...and amplified it....this would begin the problems.

Stormblood....we begin to see the problems rise to the top....button bloat...meta comps...wildly unbalanced jobs....job identity issues...adding more of what worked back then, but not now....the list goes on

Shadowbringers....Breaking point and "course corretion". Beginning of a more simplified combat expectation. Jobs being reworked and revamped. High end content now dictates much of job design (if it can complete high end content, it's balanced approach)

Endwalker.... reached the point of where Savage and Ultimate is now....streamlined. WAY more skills added...that were flat out "trait up". A few outliers still left need looked at DRG, AST, WHM...but the game is going in a better direction. Shadowbringers job style and combat is now adopted as the standard moving forward into 7.0

Again....IMO

[fulminating]

It can be as streamlined and balanced as they like. If it's not fun there's no point.

Summoner has gone from a relatively engaging job to utterly brain dead. Paladin has managed to acquire a 2% damage loss for pretty much nothing. Monk has been reworked time and time again - and for what? It's still highly underplayed. The only logical reason black mage hasn't been turned into fire4stacks and desparal rend is that a dev who will remain nameless primarily plays it.

This simplification has resulted in every savage fight this tier having body check after body check, vanishingly little boss positioning, 2 fights outright not having positionals, 4/5 bosses having bleed tankbusters lasting longer than invulns, all presumably as a result of this new combat design they're pushing. However I will blame the abnormally tight dps checks on the 2 minute thing rather than simplification.

This direction seems completely miserable to me. Maybe it could work with a borrowed power system or regular game lost actions, but it's just so anaemic.

Regarding cover, I don't see any issues allowing it to share mitigation or having an innate one - after all dark knight gets an entire extra mit of its own and doesn't seem to be that penalised for it.

[LevKresnik]

I was talking about this earlier, when I said there's only been one specific circumstance in which I've used Cover, and that's when I'm mount farming old trials with my husband. I sometimes use Cover to negate phase change damage coming his way, but that's not even necessary. It's just something to do for "fun"? Maybe? If that. Abilities like Intervention and Nascent Flash feel like they have a place when I'm not the main tank, but Cover? Never used it like that. You could remove it silently in the next patch and it'd probably take me a while to notice.

[Elizasylen]

By increasing the range.

[ForsakenRoe]

Did I already say 'by making it so the PLD gapcloses to the person they use it on, giving it longer distance to gapclose from (tether range is still same), and remove gauge cost'? Cos yeh, if we have a DPS that can gapclose to allies (two of them, in fact, MNK and BLM) and a healer that can (SGE), I don't see why PLD being able to would be so out of left field. Also between this 'gapclosing' effect and all the 'you can peel off' GCDs like Conf combo and these Holy Spirits we keep getting now, PLD's 'battlefield mobility' would be pretty cool

or, y'know, just removing the gauge cost would be a nice start

[Rithy255]

Here's my take on Cover and how to "fix it" Mind you I think theirs also quite a few changes that should be still made to Paladin's support kit:
>Firstly remove Gauge cost and increase range, this would already be a good step in the right direction, Right now the small range and the cost when Intervention is generally just better
>Add a Bonus effect or upgrade trait (Upgraded Cover can be called Guardian or something), where you grant a strong healing effect to your target, I don't know it seems like it could be a good ability to "cover" for someone.

Generally I wouldn't want cover removed but it's current state isn't all to great and only there because it's apart of Job identity, I'd like to see some skill expression in PLD's defensive kit in general, This is why I'm in favour of clemency becoming a MP management OGCD thing, generally Oath should also be reworked so PLD's who use defensives properly get a better benefit, currently you could put Intervention/Holy shelltron on 2 charges (sharing charges with each other) and PLD would basically be the same, Personally I don't really see or want PLD to be better then DRK/GNB in terms of DPS, so making it's upsides and defensives more interesting and appealing seems like the right direction Instead of just pushing GNB out of meta by making PLD's damage do slightly more or something, Give PLD/WAR more unique interesting upsides in general, let warrior Holm gang more (Recent fight design doesn't let them use it to cheese mechs much anymore), Let Pld's have cool Progression utilities and interesting upsides

[Corbeau]

Cover needs two changes:

1) Remove the gauge cost.
2) Triple the server tick rate in instances.

The latter is never going to happen, but it's what highly-reactive abilities need in order to be consistent and feel good. The lack of server responsiveness is why there are so few such abilities in the game, mostly relics of early design that was patterned off of games with better server performance.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I don't get these hyper exotic takes like "remove it because its as useless as anatman" or how giving it a dash or more range (or making it like Dragon Sight) is somehow going to make it better. Let me line out the actual issue again:

Cover currently costs the same gauge of your vastly superior defensives (Holy Sheltron and Intervention) for basically providing a semi cheesy redirect when aimed at DPS at best and a bad Provoke at worst.

Solutions:
A) Remove the Gauge cost or:
B) Grant Paladin the effect of Sheltron / Holy Sheltron upon use or:
C) Give Cover its own mitigation justifying the gauge cost somewhat

This isn't rocket science people.