Square Enix is changing up several jobs in Final Fantasy 14 following a wave of Dawntrail feedback from Early Access and beyond.
Director and producer Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida explains in a new blog post that we're getting specific tweaks to Viper, Monk, and a good few more, alongside sweeping changes to tanks over patches 7.01 and 7.05.
For the Viper job, Yoshida says the team has received feedback "pertaining to the busyness of their skill rotation." As such, the directional requirements are being eased, and the effects of other actions will be changed. While Yoshida stops short of saying what those changes are, he does say they'll be implemented in patch 7.05 and that some smaller tweaks to the "range of certain abilities" will come in patch 7.01.
Dawntrail's other new job, the Pictomancer, also makes the list, though that's due to an "issue" where you could manually disable the effects of Subtractive Palette, Aetherhues, and Aetherhues II. That'll be fixed for patch 7.01.
Yoshida is also sorry for the Monk's "inadequate performance," which differs "from what we previously announced." The team wanted to preserve the role's playstyle from the Endwalker run of patches, though changes to core abilities like Fury stacks have "significantly changed how it feels to play the job." Some of that is down to actions having incorrect potencies or an error regarding the requirements to apply Fury stacks. Regardless, the situation should be improved for patch 7.01.
There's some good news for long-suffering Astrologian mains, too. Yoshida says patch 7.01 addresses the "difficulty of play" you face during damage burst phases. Part of that is Light Speed having its recast time adjusted and made into a charged action. The developer is also giving the Astrologian's two draw actions quicker recast times and adjusting the potency of Macrocosmos.
Elsewhere, you've got changes for Black Mages to make MP drain before learning Umbral Soul less of a drag in 7.01, and action potency changes in 7.05. Finally, Samurais are getting a reduced recast timer on Tendo Setsugekka and Tendo Kaeshi Setsugekka, and Red Mages are getting a longer effect duration on Manafication.
You've also got sweeping tank changes, on which Yoshi-P says the following:
"Players have cited concerns with holding enmity in battle, due to the fact certain jobs are able to begin encounters with high damaging attacks - an issue compounded by the removal of damage from Dark Knight and Gunbreaker movement abilities. To help remedy this, we will be adding increased enmity effects to tank area-of-effect attacks, as well as their movement abilities in Patch 7.01."
It's a decent sweep of changes that should hopefully make a few mains out there feel better, though the vagueness of some of it means we'll be waiting to see what abilities are getting more or less powerful.
Either way, with Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail's first new raid, the Arcadion, set to release with patch 7.01, we'll hopefully see more jobs feel viable. The 'Savage' version is set to release with patch 7.05, at which point even more changes will be kicked into effect.
Past that, Yoshida says the blog post doesn't cover everything planned for the future, and that the team will see how the changes land while mulling over further changes.
