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| Scott Clay |
Battle changes abound in the upcoming expansion!
05.22.17 - 9:40 PM
Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood is right around the corner, and in preparation for its release, Yoshi-P held the second-to-last Letter From the Producer Live (there's still one coming next month during E3!) before the expansion to explain the new battle changes that will be implemented. There was a lot to go over in the Live Letter, so let us get started. Please keep in mind not everything was explained in full details yet, and we will have to wait for the release before everything is fleshed out.
The first major change to the battle system will be the abolishment of the cross class actions from the game and their replacement: role based actions. What this means is no longer will you need to level up other classes for certain skills you need on your main class; e.g. Raging Strikes for Black Mage or Provoke for Warrior. Instead, skills like these will be part of a group of skills depending on your role (tank, healer, melee DPS, ranged DPS, or caster), and you'll be able to have up to five "equipped" at a time. The reasoning for this was to help eliminate ability bloat as well as make it easier to synergize classes together.
Each job will be getting its very own graphical display. The new job HUD — or Job Gauges as they will be called — displays useful information for each class. They will help you use the job's unique actions more effectively as well as increase visibility regarding certain stances. These new gauges will help those who rely more on visual cues than numerical cues, by presenting pertinent information in a quickly-digestible way.
To battle ability bloat as well as well streamline battle in general, removal of unused and underused actions has taken place among all jobs. Much of this streamlining was accomplished with the new Role Actions, but abilities such as Stone or Thunder that have multiple levels of the spell (but only the highest ever see use) will now automatically upgrade and downgrade depending on your level sync, without the need to manually manage hotbars. One button to rule them all!
Another huge change will be that Bards and Machinists will no longer have casting times. Ranged DPS can now once again freely move around the battleground firing their arrows and bullets willy nilly at will. And finally, for all classes, Sprint will no longer consume TP, making it viable for tanks and DPS classes to use in more situations.
We knew it was coming, but a few of the stats many players have felt of questionable usefulness are being changed, if not outright replaced or removed.
Parry is being removed from gear and replaced with "Tenacity." Tenacity will increase damage dealt by the player and will lower the damage they receive as well. It will be a tank-only attribute.
Accuracy is also being removed as a gear stat (to clarify: Accuracy will exist as a stat, but won't be increased anymore via gear) and replaced by "Direct Hit." Hitting enemies from the front will now happen at a 100% success rate and hitting from the sides or back will have an even higher rate. Direct Hit will only appear on DPS gear and will essentially be a sort of mini-crit that can occur. The best part about this new stat is that you will also be able to proc it alongside a proper Critical Hit for even more damage.
Block now works from all angles instead of just from the front. You can now also block magical attacks which was not possible before 4.0.
Piety will no longer be a primary stat and will only be available on healer gear.
For a quick look at all the new job abilities, you can check out the video below and gawk in awe at all the cool new stuff for each class.
There have been some major changes made to PvP for 4.0. The general idea behind these changes is that less complexity will give you more maneuverability and increase the fun and skill level in PvP. Here is a quick breakdown of all the important information regarding PvP.
- Level restrictions removed so that any job over level 30 can participate.
- PvP attributes are determined and normalized by role.
- Gear no longer effects performance and is for glamour only.
- PvP will now only allow 9 actions per job with two selectable actions and the adrenaline rush limit break.
- The melee directional requirements have been removed from all skills.
- Combos are now consolidated into one button to free up space on the hotbar.
- No more stuns in PvP.
- Sleep potency reduced.
Boosting items — commonly known as "jump potions" — will be entering Final Fantasy XIV come 4.0. The development team's reasoning behind it is simple: They want to reduce the playtime gap between veteran and new players, lessen the time for players to reach endgame where a great deal of the content is, and increase the time friends can play with each other.
There will be two versions of this potion. The first is called the Scenario Shortcut Items which will allow your character to pass through the main scenario of A Realm Reborn for $18 and another for Heavensward for $25.
The second of these items is the Job Level-Boost Item, and that will instantly grant a character a single job of level 60 with a full set of gear. The item will allow you to have all actions learned and all job quests completed for the specific class except for the two new jobs Red Mage and Samurai. This job item will cost $25, and for now, will be limited to one class, so you won't be able to spend hundreds of dollars and make every class level 60.
And that's all the news released in this Live Letter. Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood will be released on June 20th with early access for pre-orders on June 16th! Stay tuned to RPGFan for more as the release approaches, plus some hands-on impressions from E3 next month.
