Cover (ability)



Cover, also called Guard, is a recurring ability in the Final Fantasy series. It allows a character to take physical damage in the place of an ally. It is usually associated with the Paladin or Knight classes.

Final Fantasy III
The Cover ability is available for the Knight class. The Knight will automatically take physical attacks for any allies in HP Critical status.

Final Fantasy IV
Cover is used by Cecil as a command ability once he becomes a Paladin. Cover has a Charge Time of 0. He can use it to take damage in the place of an ally of his choice. He automatically covers any characters who are low on HP.

Cease Cover removes the Cover status and places Cecil into Defend until his next turn comes up. Cease Cover has a Charge Time of 0.

Due to a glitch, in the WonderSwan Color port, Cecil covers allies even as a Dark Knight.

Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-
Cover and Cease Cover return as Cecil's exclusive abilities. Cover allows Cecil to take damage in the place of an ally of his choice. He automatically covers any characters who are low on HP.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Cover is an ability used only by Cecil. It has a Charge Time of 0. Cecil will block physical attacks on allies and will automatically cover allies in critical status. He will not use Cover when he himself is in critical health.

Yang has a variation on the move called Cover Counter. He will use Cover on an ally, and after taking a hit, he will counterattack the enemy. Cover Counter has a Charge Time of 0.

Cease Cover removes the Cover status and places Cecil and/or Yang into Defend until their next turn comes up. Cease Cover has a Charge Time of 0.

Final Fantasy V
Cover is the Level 1 ability for the Knight class, learned for 10 ABP. It covers characters who are low on HP. Cover can be useful when combined with the Guard command, which makes the Knight immune to physical damage.

Final Fantasy VI
Cover is enabled by equipping the Knight's Code relic, which allows characters to cover allies who are in Critical status. The effect will not activate if the wearer is under the Petrify, Invisible, Zombie, Sleep, Confuse, Stop, Frozen, Chanting, or Hidden status, or if the critical character is under the Invisible status.

The relic can first be found in the Returner Hideout. If multiple characters are equipped with a Knight's Code, all will attempt to cover for an attacked ally, and one of them will be selected at random to take the damage.

There is also an enemy attack called Overture that forces an opponent to Cover for the caster when attacked physically.

Final Fantasy VII
The Cover Materia makes a character shield other allies from single-target physical attacks. For each level, Cover gets a boost of +20%, to a maximum of 100%, and will cover all physical attacks, including several items such as Elixir and Grenade. The character covers allies regardless of anyone's HP, unlike in previous installments. The Cover Materia stacks with no coded maximum. Overflow occurs at every 256%, reducing percentage back to 0.

The frog type enemies' physical attacks are not covered for if they are inflicting or toggling the Toad status. The character with the Cover Materia can't cover under status ailments that lose the control of the character such as Stop or Sleep or Berserk. Characters with Mini or Darkness also cannot cover. Enemy attacks that use visible projectile animations (attacks that merely cause hit graphics do not count) are also impossible to cover, such as flying sickle attacks. If more than one character has a Cover Materia, the covering character is chosen at random. Hits that trigger Cover will never miss. A character covering for an ally still takes half damage from attacks if they were placed in the back row, even if covering for an ally who is in the front row.

Cover is found in the garden outside Aeris's house in Midgar Sector 5 slums. Cover can also be bought for 1,000 gil in Wall Market after the fall of Sector 7.

Final Fantasy VIII
Cover is taught by the Guardian Force Brothers for 100 AP. Damage is halved when covering. The ability is unique in that the character equipped with Cover must be one space away from another character to use it. Cover does not work for multi-target attacks. If a party member is attacked by a physical attack that would otherwise kill him/her, the character with Cover will take the damage instead.

Final Fantasy IX
Cover is a support ability learned by Steiner, Amarant, and Freya. Zidane can learn the ability Protect Girls, which allows him to cover a female party member. Steiner and Freya can learn Cover through the Linen Cuirass, Gauntlets, and Mythril Armor (Steiner can learn it for 20 AP, while Freya learns it for 30 AP), while Amarant can learn it for 90 AP through the Red Hat. Zidane can learn Protect Girls for 35 AP through the Butterfly Sword and Leather Shirt.

Protect Girls is a modified version of Cover, which activates when a female character is at 50% or below HP, while Cover activates when a character is at 80% or below. Protect Girls covers Dagger, Freya, Eiko, and Beatrix.

Final Fantasy X
Guard is a Special ability appearing in Auron's section of the standard Sphere Grid. When a character uses Guard s/he will intercept physical attacks on the party, regardless of the health status of their allies. The ability remains in effect until the character's next turn.

The improved version, Sentinel, has a similar effect, except the character will also take a defensive stance and damage from all attacks will be halved.

If Tidus uses Guard or Sentinel to shield a party member, the player earns affection points toward the person whom they guarded.

Final Fantasy XI
Cover is a job ability available to Paladins upon reaching level 35. Cover relies upon the character wishing to be covered to physically position themselves behind the Paladin for it to be effective. Cover does not negate damage, but allows the Paladin to take damage in place of the intended target for 15 seconds.

This is usually used when a particular party member has gained a great deal of unwanted enmity, though the use of this ability does not actually shift enmity. The effect of Cover can be increased if the Paladin is wearing certain pieces of equipment (ie: Gallant Coronet or Valor Surcoat) and Cover also enhances the effect of some equipment, such as the sword Save the Queen. Cover may be used once every three minutes.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
Cover is used by Basch and allows him to take damage for his allies. He learns the ability at Level 45. If he has the Hero's Monograph support, damage will be greatly reduced when covering.

Final Fantasy XIV
Cover is an ability available to Paladins upon completing their Level 40 job quest "Power Struggles". For 12 seconds, all damage inflicted upon the targeted party member is redirected to the Paladin and reduced to 80%, as long as the Paladin remains within 10 yalms of the party member. As of Patch 4.0, the Level 66 trait Enhanced Cover further reduces the damage by 20%. In PvP, Cover takes 100% of the damage and reduces the Oath Gauge periodically by 20 while Cover is active. The action Uncover removes the cover status.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance


Cover is a job ability available to Paladins who choose a unit within range to Cover. If that unit is attacked, the Paladin temporarily switches places with him or her. Any reaction abilities the Paladin has will trigger. The ability can be learned from the Save the Queen for 200 AP.

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift
Cover is a job ability available to Paladins, learned for 300 AP from the Save the Queen. The Paladin chooses a unit within the range of four spaces to cover. If that unit is attacked, the Paladin temporarily appears in front of him or her to take the attack (an improvement over the previous game that means even if the Paladin and the unit being covered are both targeted by the same attack, only the Paladin will be harmed).

Cover now works on any counter attacks that the covered unit may trigger, and negates any knockback that would be done by critical hits/skills. Neither character can activate their reaction abilities when the Paladin covers an attack.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
Cover is a level 10 research ability for the Warrior job, which caps at level 100 for the ability. The higher the level of Cover, the more effective the ability is. The ability Defend is the initial ability for the Warrior job, and has a chance of reducing physical damage by half. The ability's level caps at level 100, and the higher the level, the more effective it is.

Final Fantasy Legend III
Guard acts like Cover, it will guard a particular character for a turn and if that character is attacked. The character will take the attack or special attack and receive the damage.

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light
Cover is an ability learned by the Paladin and allows the Paladin to receive damage in place of a chosen ally.

Bravely Default
Protect Ally is the Knight's specialty support ability. If an ally with less than 20% of HP left takes a single-target attack, the character with the Protect Ally support ability will take the attack instead. It can be learned at the Knight's job level 5.

Full Cover is a Chivalry ability learned by Knights at job level 10. During the entire turn this is used, when the specified ally takes a single-target physical attack, the Full Cover user will take the hit instead, but only suffers half the damage.

Bravely Second: End Layer
Protect Ally is the job level 4 support ability for the Knight. If an ally with less than 20% HP is targeted with a single-target physical attack, the user will take the attack in their place. Any job can equip it for the cost of 1 slot.

Full Cover is the job level 7 command ability for the Knight. It triggers at the beginning of a turn. During the entire turn this is used, when the specified ally takes a single-target physical attack, the user will take the hit instead, but only suffer half the damage.

Final Fantasy Dimensions
Cover is the level 5 ability of the Paladin class, requiring 130 AP to learn. It requires 1 slot to equip for characters not a Paladin to use it.

Final Fantasy Explorers
Cover is unique to the Paladin job, with a cooldown time of 15.0 seconds. Activating the ability and holding the button creates a barrier around the paladin, and the paladin and any allies inside the barrier will not take damage from enemy attacks. The paladin cannot move while the barrier is active, but can be pushed or pulled by effects such as gravity spells. This effectively defends against many enemy attacks, with few exceptions, similar to the sword skill Deflect. However, Cover drains AP very quickly if the barrier is sustained, and has a much longer cooldown than Deflect. Since the area of effect is quite small, allies must stand very close to the paladin to receive protection.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper
Cover is granted via some characters' Legend Materia. When a party member is targeted by most physical attacks, there is a chance that the hero with the Cover ability will block the attack, taking reduced damage from the attack.

Cover Legend Materia obtained from completing a hero's Legend Sphere grants a 40% chance to cover with 50% damage reduction, while Cover granted from relic Legend Materia gives a 30% chance to cover with 20% damage reduction.

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
Cover is a passive that has a 5% chance to take damage for an ally. It is learned by Rain, Cecil, Charlotte and Ollie. It can also be obtained as Clyne's Trust Reward. It can also be equipped via Golem after upgrading him to 2* and learning it on his grid.

Cecil, Warrior of Light, Rasler and Libertus learn Sentinel, which has considerably higher activation rate and 50% damage reduction.

Charlotte's Royal Armlet has a 50% chance of triggering and lowers both physical and magical damage by 50%; if awakened it reduces magical damage by 100%.

Saintly Wall can be learned by Cecil and has a 75% chance to trigger; awakening improves both chance and mitigation while also further improving Cecil's light resistance and allows him to passively recover MP.

Mercenary Ramza has Noble Lineage which is similar to Saintly Wall's base ability.

Zidane, Setzer, Jake, and Desch learn Chivalry, which has a 5% chance to cover a female ally. Cupid Artemios' Rose Custodian has a 50% chance of covering a female ally. Agrias's Royal Guard has a 30% chance to cover a female ally and reduces the damage taken by 50%. Guromu has Manly Disposition, which has a 5% chance to cover a female ally but will also buff his Attack if it triggers. Desch's Casanova materia grants him a 75% chance to cover a female ally while reducing the damage taken by 35%. Pirate Jake has Hahaha Let's Dance! which has a 20% chance to cover a female ally while Avast Matey! covers all allies for 30MP. Cowboy Jake has Biased Chivalry which has a 10% chance to cover a female ally with 50% mitigation.

Demon Rain has Demonic Cover which has a 15% chance of triggering and Cerberus Guard which has a 40% chance and provides 25% mitigation.

Veritas of the Earth has Guardian. For 15 MP it grants him a 60% chance of covering an ally during the next 3 turns (in the JP version it was 20% and 1 turn duration).

Mystea's Magic Barrier has a 30% chance of covering magic attacks with 50% mitigation; Tritelia Wall costs 20 MP and has a 50% chance to cover all allies from magic with 50% mitigation.

Warrior of Light has Light is with us! which for 25 MP grants a 50% chance to cover all allies and lowering damage by 50% whether magical or physical. Charlotte gains a similar ability in Grandshelt Shield which can be awakened to have 60% activation and 60% mitigation. Rasler's Royal Obligation costs 15 MP, but has only a 20% activation and 30% reduction. Libertus' Absolute Guard costs 12 MP, has 50% activation and provides 20% physical reduction and 50% magic reduction.

Illusionist Nichol has Illusion-Redirect which has a chance to cover all allies with 30% mitigation for 18MP.

Sportive Ariana's Dangerous Facade has a 30% activation rate and 50% mitigation.

Gladiolus has Intercept which for 2 which for 25 MP grants a 50% chance to cover all allies and lowering damage by 50%. Royal Guard covers a single ally 100% with 50% mitigation and also buffs Gladio's Defense and Spirit while active.

Barusa's Protector of Olthea has a chance to cover all allies.

World of Final Fantasy
Cover can be used by Goblin Guard, Maduin, Minimantoise, and Sphinx. Unlike previous iterations it will not trigger if the user's HP is low.

Final Fantasy Trading Card Game
Three of Cecil's cards have abilities that approximate Cover. One card featuring his Dissidia art only allows the opponent's effects to target Cecil, and his card featuring his SD art causes damage dealt to the player's Forwards to be dealt to Cecil instead. The third card, featuring his Amano art, bears two abilities with similar effects. The first effect has the player choose a Forward and have Cecil take any damage done to it in its place for the rest of the turn, and the second effect has the player choose a Forward and it cannot be targeted by the opponent's effects for the rest of the turn. Both abilities cost two Light CP to use.

Two Knight cards, one depicting Ingus and the other depicting Arc, have the effect that when they are in a party, any damage that would be dealt to other Forwards in that party is instead dealt to them.

A character can cover for an ally from a physical attack, said character will take the damage in place of the ally they are protecting. The ability is gained through the Defend command, and then selecting the ally that wants to be protected.

Heavenstrike Rivals
Cover is Dark Knight Cecil and Paladin Cecil's ability. For 3 turns, other Allied Units in Target Lane take 0 damage when attacked and this unit takes 100% damage. Removes any other active Cover skill from Allied Units.