with FF14 Dawntrail now that they’ve been free for a week, players have spent many hours exploring Tural, seeing the new story in the Final Fantasy 14 7.0 update, and trying out his new Viper and Pictomancer jobs. One key talking point in any new expansion is job balance, and game director Naoki Yoshida has announced the first round of fixes to be rolled out in the first two patches after launch.
Dawntrail’s relatively smooth launch has resulted in Final Fantasy 14 reaching “a record number of concurrent users that we haven’t seen since the launch of A Realm Reborn in 2013,” Yoshida revealed. Considering how many players were trying to log in at the time of Endwalker’s launch, this success is probably as much due to the new server infrastructure for the MMORPG as it is to the demand for the game.
“It’s been a pleasure watching you play, each in your own unique way, but we’ve become aware of a few issues that may have hindered your overall experience. For which I sincerely apologize,” Yoshida wrote. He notes that some key issues are under investigation, but it’s also taking time to address some of the planned fixes and fixes for work actions in patches 7.01 and 7.05, both of which will arrive in the coming weeks and introduce normal and wild version of the first Dawntrail raid series respectively.
We will begin by addressing the two newcomers. Yoshida addressed an issue where Pictomancer with paint could manually turn off certain status effects to squeeze a little more juice out of their rotations. This will be fixed in patch 7.01, Yoshida says, asking players to “please refrain from manually removing these status effects when practicing your rotations” in the meantime.
Meanwhile, the Viper will receive several improvements aimed at making their skill rotation less demanding, “including easing direction requirements and changes to the effects of several actions,” all slated for patch 7.05 As a long-time fan of positional skills I hope that haven’t been removed entirely, but the four branching paths of his primary skill rotation may be a bit much to keep track of while dealing with some of Dawntrail’s late-game battles.
Yoshida admitted that the monks suffered from several key issues, including incorrect potencies for some actions and a “bug related to the requirements for applying stacks of fury.” These should be fixed in patch 7.01, giving monks more effective group damage potential. Yoshida apologizes for “the inadequate performance of Monk, which currently differs from what we previously announced.”
The team has also received “significant feedback on Astrologian,” says Yoshida, focusing in particular on the difficulty of leveling up during damage phases. This should be addressed in patch 7.01 with an adjusted time to recast Light Speed and turn it into a charged action. The two draw actions also get shorter cooldown timers and Macrocosmos sees a performance boost.
Tanks have also found themselves struggling to contain enemy aggro during fights as a result of some of the early damage that other classes are already capable of. As such, the tank’s AoE attacks will see their hostility boosted in patch 7.01 along with improvements to their movement abilities to help you capture all of your targets quickly.
The list concludes with improvements to mana regeneration for dark mages before learning Umbral Soul to help with earlier content; extended Manafication duration for Red Mages to make your melee hit easier to land; and reduced cooldown timers for the level 100 Samurai skills Tendo Setsugekka and Tendo Kaeshi Setsugekka.
Yoshida says this list “doesn’t include everything we’ve planned,” but should cover the main points to note. As for when you can expect these changes to arrive, patch 7.01 is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday, July 16, two weeks after the initial launch, bringing with it the first tier of the Arcadion raid series. Meanwhile, patch 7.05 should arrive another two weeks after that on Tuesday, July 30, introducing the more difficult wild variant of the raid.
For now, you’ll want to make sure you’ve unlocked flying in each zone by collecting all of the FF14 Dawntrail Aether Currents. Don’t forget to unlock the FF14 Facewear as well, as it’s easy to miss and an essential upgrade to your fashion game.
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