During the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVI, Yoshi-P and the DEV team had a wealth of Endwalker Job Changes to discuss ahead of the game’s sixth expansion launching this November 23rd. With servers filled to the brim following certain social personalities joining the game, new job changes are always what players are looking into ahead of any new expansion to see how their favorite jobs will be changed. There’s also typically a battle system change introduced such as with Stormblood adding job gauges and Shadowbringers adding charged actions. Needless to say, Endwalker has some pretty large shoes to fill and it looks more than up to the task. Here are 5 Huge Endwalker Job Changes announced during FFXIV’s Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVI that could be total game-changers.
Many Primary Ability Cooldowns Will Be Shortened
At the top of the show, before the stunning twenty-minute-long job actions video, the team announced the goal of bringing most primary job abilities to the 60 or 120-second mark versus the wide duration range they are now. The logic here is for raiders and everyone else, they will be able to more easily sync up their abilities for big damage on some major pushes or ensure their important defensive cooldowns are ready. Examples of this change were bringing Warriror’s Inner Release action down to 60 seconds from its current 90 meaning more frequent Fell Cleave spam. This idea is being applied across the board which should lead to a lot more actions being used more often, quicker damage being dealt, and more awesome last-second saves.
Summoner is an “Actual” Summoner Now
So good news, bad news. Bad news, Summoner is getting reworked entirely and DoTs are being removed from their kit for better or worse. Good news, after years of pleading, FFXIV will finally be giving Summoners a true full-sized Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan to wage war with and really bring the hurt! According to Yoshi-P, after performing the Bahamut summon, players will “unchain” these more powerful summons and once all three have been used up, will then be able to replenish these summons by casting Phoenix to be able to use them again. In addition to some much-needed variety for the job, the rotation should feel a lot more streamlined following this change and add some nice flashiness to boot. We’re excited to see how this new version of Summoner plays!
Tanks Will Be Rewarded For Using Cooldowns Correctly
Don’t you just hate running a dungeon and the “veteran” tank refuses to pop a cooldown? Well, we do and luckily, this is one of many Endwalker job changes the team took into consideration when adjusting the Tank role. While no specific details were provided today, the team’s aim is to have tanks be rewarded for using their cooldowns effectively. They mentioned:
- This will not be a parry/timing mechanic. No need to try and perfectly time a shield right before a big move.
- The benefits will be things like damage up or certain actions being enhanced when a defensive cooldown is active.
While the first piece is great to hear, the second should encourage tanks, even off-tanks, to use their defensive cooldowns more often to max their damage or reap other benefits for smart cooldown use. While shaming is definitely not encouraged, this should make it easier to see who the truly skilled tanks are after this update and those who are just using it to level up quickly.
Enochian and Dragon’s Blood Will Be Traits
There are a lot of actions within Final Fantasy XIV and within these are moves necessary to be weaved in to increase damage output. With the level cap moving to 90, two major pieces that mad Black Mage and Dragoon a bit difficult to master are being turned into traits instead. Enochian will no longer need to be used but instead will be automatically applied once the effects of Umbral Ice or Astral Fire are active – this means that access to Fire IV and Blizzard IV will be more readily accessible to lower-skilled players. Similarly, Dragon’s Blood is also being moved into a trait lowering the entry point for newer Dragoons. While this won’t make every fan happy, rarely used DPS jobs like these becoming easier to play should add more variety to what players bump into during battle content.
Healers Are Getting a Bit More Personality
Healers have unfortunately become fairly similar as their identities have been merged across each other. Well, take this as you will but healers are getting quite a few Endwalker job changes with the upcoming inclusion of Sage to the game. Of note:
- The four healers will be split between cure-based (pure) healers and barrier-based healers. White Mage and Astrologian will become cure-based healers while Scholar and Sage will be barrier-based.
- With this change, Astrologian will lose Diurnal Sect and Nocturnal Sect and now will only have a few barrier spells instead.
- All healers will have a reduced casting time for offensive spells from the 2.5 second cast time it currently is to a very nice 1.5 second cast time instead. This is expected to not only free up Healers to swap between DPS and healing quicker but relieve some stress as well.
- Healers will be getting a single target buff – no, we don’t know what exactly this means but it could be like casting Haste or Brave.
- The healing limit break range will increase from 30 yalms to 50 yalms allowing you to save your party even easier than before.
- Scholar got a buff! Well sort of. A new action will be added for Scholar that allows players to move faster during Combat, unlike the ranged DPS Peloton. Now you can force those DPS to get out of the way of AOEs even if they don’t want to.
- Not an adjustment but the newest healer Sage can attack and heal at the same time which is pretty dang cool.
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