Newfound Adventure, the 6.1 patch of Final Fantasy 14, has officially launched today. No doubt players will rush to experience the next chapter in the Warrior of Light's story, set foot in the uncharted corners of Ilsabard, unearth the Myths of the Realm, and stake their claim in the Empyreum, but the content patch brings with it many changes to the game's combat jobs as well.
The meta for healers in Endwalker proved to be a tad different from what the players envisioned, as ultimately it was the White Mage (WHM) who ended up lagging behind in terms of performance compared to its peers. Similarly, the mitigation capabilities of a Dark Knight (DRK) left a lot to be desired when compared to other tanks. Square Enix has done a brilliant job addressing the two jobs that were most in need of a rework, while performing other smaller adjustments across the board.
To start, all tank jobs have had the cooldown of their Enmity stances reduced to three seconds, allowing them to switch between tanking roles with ease both outside and inside of combat. The Overpower ability on Warriors (WAR) has been changed from a cone ability into a radius around the player, allowing them to pick up enemy groups and generate enmity easier. The biggest change for Paladins (PLD) lies in their healing spells no longer breaking their action combos, no longer punishing their rotation uptime for stepping in as secondary healers.
The Dark Knight (DRK) has had its Living Dead ability reworked by adding a healing potency of 1,500 for any weaponskill delivered while under its duration. If Dark Knights restore their own health to a value equal to their maximum health, they will not die when the duration expires, but will instead gain a buff that prevents their health from dropping to zero.
On the other hand, White Mage has had the mana cost of many of its spells significantly reduced, eliminating a significant amount of stress over the job's mana management. More importantly, the Secret of the Lily spell is now only a 20-second cooldown – giving White Mages one more Lily to spend per minute, and by increasing the potency of Afflatus Misery from 900 to 1,240 has brought its damage closer to other healing jobs. Scholars have experienced a similar decrease in their healing spell costs.
While all movement mechanics like Dragoon (DRG) jumps have had their action animations dramatically reduced, the greatest change for the damage dealing jobs lies with the Samurai (SAM) and the removal of Kaiten. In an effort to remove action bloat, Square Enix has taken out Kaiten from the Samurai rotation and spread the damage loss across the potency of other abilities. The Kaeshi abilities have had their potency reduced, but to compensate for the loss, Setsugekka and Namikiri now land guaranteed critical strikes.
Machinists (MCH) and Ninjas (NIN) have been granted a slight flat potency increase across the board, while Dancers (DNC) have had their abilities such as Standard Step, Emboite, Entrechat, Jete, Technical Step, and Pirouette turned into weaponskills. This will make Dancers have more synergies with jobs such as Monk (MNK) and Reaper (RPR) whose buffs rely on party weaponskills being used.
Though it's hard to tell what sort of effect these changes will have on the Final Fantasy 14 meta, signs point towards Machinists and Samurai having a bit of a dry spell in the raiding scene, but will otherwise find their positions unchanged in regular content.
Final Fantasy 14 is available now on PC, PS4, and PS5.
