Every new expansion of Final Fantasy 14 brings a plethora of new job actions, upgrades, and reworks—and with the 81st Letter from the Producer LIVE, we finally know what to expect for our favorite jobs in Dawntrail.
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Of course, it wouldn’t be a new FF14 expansion without at least one or two jobs getting completely gutted and remade around a new playstyle. This time around, director and producer Naoki Yoshida stated that, while 8.0 will focus on strengthening the individuality of each job, 7.0’s upcoming changes are targeted at streamlining the main gameplay experience.
As such, the changes shown in the Live Letter seemed to focus on simplifying resource and buff management, as well as reducing the amount of button input needed during busy damage burst phases. The changes listed in the Live Letter are by no means a comprehensive list of all the new abilities and adjustments in Dawntrail, and you won’t know the exact experience until loading into the expansion yourself.
All new job changes in Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail announced in the 81st Live Letter
One major rework that applies to all jobs across the board is the new Action Change Settings, which will be available under every job action that automatically changes to its next combo upon execution.
With the release of Dawntrail, players will be able to configure whether they want to keep the automatic change or separate the combo actions into different hotkeys.
Other upgrades across roles and jobs we can expect to see in the 90s level range are:
- Rampart and every Tank job’s 30 percent mitigation abilities—Sentinel, Vengeance, Shadow Wall, and Nebula—will be enhanced. The 30 percent mitigations will also acquire additional job-specific effects.
- Role-specific 10 percent enemy damage debuffs—Reprisal, Feint, and Addle—will have their durations increased from 10 to 15 seconds.
- Second Wind’s potency increased.
- The Physical Ranged DPS defense buffs—Troubadour, Tactician, and Shield Samba—will be enhanced from 10 to 15 percent damage reduction.
- The recast cooldown for Swiftcast will be reduced from 60 to 40 seconds.
Paladin
90’s range upgrades:
- The main Confiteor combo will be extended with a new ability that can be executed after Blade of Valor.
Retroactive reworks:
- Goring Blade will only be available during the Fight or Flight buff window.
- The three executions of Atonement will be changed to a three-step combo with two new abilities. Atonement will change into the new abilities (unless configured otherwise in the Action Change Settings), keeping the input execution identical.
Warrior
Upgrades:
- The main Inner Release damage combo will be extended with a new ability that becomes available after three executions of Fell Cleave or Decimate.
- Primal Rend will combo into a new ability.
Reworks:
- The animation for Inner Chaos will be reworked.
Dark Knight
Upgrades:
- There will be a new damage burst ability available after summoning Esteem with Living Shadow.
Reworks:
- Blood Weapon and Delirium will become the same button input, with Blood Weapon leveling up into Delirium with a passive trait acquired at higher levels (similar to how Darkside Mastery upgrades Flood of Darkness to Flood of Shadow at level 74). Delirium will have the effects of both its current iteration and Blood Weapon.
- Living Shadow will be adjusted so it doesn’t consume Blood Gauge points to execute.
- In the job action trailer, Plunge—Dark Knight’s gap-closer—seems to have been replaced with a new movement ability that does no damage.
Gunbreaker
Upgrades:
- Fated Circle—the only AoE Cartridge ability—will gain a combo follow-up through Continuation.
- Execution of Bloodfest will allow for a new three-step combo that doesn’t consume any Cartridge charges.
- A new ability called Lionheart will be added.
Reworks:
- Sonic Break—Gunbreaker’s DoT—will only be available during the No Mercy buff window.
- Similarly to Dark Knight, Rough Divide seems to have been replaced with a damageless gap-closer.
Monk
Upgrades:
- You’ll be able to unlock a second layer of Chakra during the Brotherhood buff window for a total of 10 maximum Chakra charges.
Reworks:
- Disciplined Fist (buff granted from Twin Snakes), the Demolish DoT effect, and all animal Forms will be replaced by a new mechanic that focuses on increasing potency with correct combo execution. Apparently, the gameplay flow of the job will be largely unchanged, just streamlined with less buff timer management.
- Six-sided Star’s potency will be enhanced with accumulated Chakra charges.
Dragoon
Upgrades:
- Vorpal Thrust and Disembowel will be upgraded into new abilities with higher potency and new animations.
Reworks:
- Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw—the two-step transitional combo—will be consolidated into Drakesbane, a single action with no positional requirements.
- Life of the Dragon will no longer require Dragon Gauge built from two Mirage Dive executions, and be available for use during the opening damage burst.
- Spineshatter Dive will be replaced with a non-damaging gap closer.
Ninja
Upgrades:
- In the trailer, it seems like there will be various upgrades to Ninki abilities, as well as a new ability executed after using all three charges of Ten Chi Jin.
Reworks:
- The effects of Huton will be turned into a permanent passive trait. The Mudra execution of Huton itself will become an AoE attack that also grants Hidden. All abilities that extended or affected Huton will be adjusted accordingly.
- According to the trailer, the Huton gauge will be replaced by a new job gauge with five kunai slots. Armor Crush—which previously extended Huton by 30 seconds—adds two kunai, while Aeolian Edge consumes one.
Samurai
Upgrades:
- All Iaijutsu will be upgraded to new versions.
- New traits will shorten the recast times for Hissatsu: Senei and Hissatsu: Guren.
Reworks:
- Tsubame-gaeshi will no longer have charges, and instead become available after activating Meikyo Shisui.
Reaper
Upgrades:
- The Enshrouded phase will gain another damage ability.
Reworks:
- Plentiful Harvest will no longer give 50 Shroud Gauge, but instead, allow you to execute Enshroud for free, essentially preventing overcapping or forcing you to use up excess gauge.
Bard
Reworks:
- All Bard songs have been changed to buffs instead of attacks, allowing you to activate them in the pre-pull.
- Pitch Perfect will be changed from single-target to an AoE attack.
- Straight Shot Ready and Shadowbite Ready will be consolidated into one buff, allowing you to choose between Straight Shot or Shadowbite regardless of whether the proc came from Heavy Shot/Burst Shot or Quick Nock/Ladonsbite.
Machinist
Upgrades:
- Heat Blast, Gauss Round, and Ricochet will be upgraded into new actions.
- A new trait will give extra charges of Drill.
Reworks:
- In the same vein as Reaper’s Plentiful Harvest, Barrel Stabilizer will allow a free activation of Hypercharge instead of giving 50 Heat Gauge.
Dancer
Upgrades:
- There will be new combo actions that can be executed after Flourish and Technical Finish respectively.
- There will be a new action that instantly grants Standard Step.
Black Mage
Upgrades:
- You will be able to reposition your Ley Lines once after laying them down.
Reworks:
- Restoring MP during the Umbral Ice phase is now dependent on casting ice spells instead of passive ticks.
Summoner
Upgrades:
- There will be a new summon phase, Solar Bahamut, which will be your new main opener and even-minute burst. Bahamut and Phoenix will alternate as your odd-minute bursts after each Solar Bahamut phase.
- There will be a new ability available after executing Searing Light.
Red Mage
Upgrades:
- There will be a new ability available after executing Embolden.
Reworks:
- Manaification will also grant a free enchanted swordplay combo instead of 50 Black/White Mana.
- The AoE enchanted swordplay combo cost will be lowered from 60 to 50.
While Mage
Upgrades:
- There will be a new three-charge AoE attack available after executing Presence of Mind.
- There will be a rapid movement ability akin to Dancer’s En Avant.
- A new trait will give increased stacks of Tetragrammaton.
Scholar
Upgrades:
- There will be a new enhanced healing mode called Seraphism.
- There will be a new AoE attack available after executing Chain Stratagem.
Astrologian
Upgrades:
- A new trait will give increased Essential Dignity stacks.
Reworks:
- Instead of drawing one random card at a time every 30 seconds, you will draw one of two sets of four cards every 60 seconds—either Balance, Arrow, Spire, and Lord of Crowns, or Bole, Ewer, Spear, and Lady of Crowns. Each card will have different effects, with the Lord and Lady being AoE abilities.
- Astrodyne—an entirely new mechanic added in 6.0—will be removed.
Sage
Upgrades:
- You will be able to cast Eukrasian Dyskrasia, an AoE attack that applies a DoT.
- A new trait will shorten the recast time of Soteria.
- There will be a new AoE buff that acts as a temporary, party-wide Kardia.
