Following some maintenance, Final Fantasy XIV’s new patch is here, ushering in the Savage difficulty version of the new Pandæmonium: Asphodelos raid. Before you and your party set out to get wiped in battle repeatedly, though, you may want to take note of some tweaks to various FFXIV DPS jobs.
Some of the more notable changes have come to the Ninja class. Fleeting Raiju has been changed to a melee-range attack from a gap closer, so the striking distance has been greatly reduced though the attack potency has been increased to 560 from 450 to compensate. Forked Raiju is still here, though it’s a separate action instead of a combo move, and the attack power has also been increased to 560. So how will this work in full flow? Now when you use Raiton, you’ll be ‘Raiju Ready’ instead of ‘Forked Raiju Ready’, so you can start with whatever attack you fancy. The status effect duration has also been increased to 30 seconds from 15, so go wild, shinobi.
You’ll also find that using Phantom Kamaitachi no longer uses a stack of Bunshin, and the increase to Ninki Gauge has been changed from ten to five. The ‘Phantom Kamaitachi Ready’ status effect will no longer expire when the effect of Bunshin ends, instead lasting for 45 seconds.
The Dragoon’s Wyrmwind Thrust, Geirskogul, and Nastrond attacks now do more damage, while the Summoner has also received some potency boosts to their Fountain of Fire and Brand of Purgatory spells. Monks will still get chakra and nadi from area-of-effect attacks executed under Perfect Balance regardless of whether the move lands or not. A few Samurai moves have more range, and the Dancer has had some abilities changed to weapon skills.
As many expected, the Reaper has been nerfed, though not as heavily as you’d think. Square Enix has only reduced the cure potency of the Crest of Time Returned effect to 50 from 100. While it’s still early days in Endwalker, popular combat analysis website FF Logs has the Reaper at the top of the pile for rDPS in Extreme Trials and endgame dungeons when it comes to DPS classes. The new melee DPS’s damage output is primarily to thank for that, but the party damage and healing buffs have also made this an early favourite among players – like me!
It’s not all about DPS classes – the range of the Scholar’s Fey Union heal has been doubled.
Final Fantasy XIV’s Endwalker expansion has been out for nearly one month. Server congestion had been easing, though it looks like the release of the new raid’s savage difficulty has caused a wee flare up in some servers.
Regardless, though, we reckon the new expansion is a good time. In our FFXIV Endwalker review, we gave it a nine-out-of-ten score because it’s “better than it has any right to be”.
If you’re looking for some help, though, you can check out our FFXIV Reaper and FFXIV Sage guides to get the low down on the new jobs. You’re going to be seeing a lot of the former for a while, we reckon.