Letter from the Producer LIVE XXXVI Set for May 22!

[Prothescar]

Just read the tooltip translations. It's as I suspected, the new WAR ability halves Beast point consumption on a 2m cooldown. So you'd do something like

Build to 100 gauge -> Berserk -> New ability -> Fell Cleave x4 -> Infuriate -> Fell Cleave x2. You can only do 2 with a full bar, 3 with Infuriate, without the new buff.

[Lucavi]

I mean, nerf or no, Warriors will still be the kings of Tank damage and a selfish playstyle out of the 3 tanks. If tank damage goes down and healer damage goes up (which it will unless they do a straight nerf across the board to all healer damage) and melee DPS remains the same, I care not. I play War to be a giant meat wall that gives and takes with reckless abandon, not to output as much damage as a DPS while never having to worry about dying to mechanics like they do.

[Takiwaki]

As someone who is normally very critical about XIV things, I like a lot of what I saw today. The addition of new resources/mechanics to some of the more simple jobs (WHM for example) and wide sweeping changes to some other jobs looked pretty good. A lot of the new abilities look like they either add to the job in a way that it was lacking before, or amplify its strengths sufficiently to a point where they appear to have some impact.

Warrior is my main class, so I'll talk more about that. The changes are interesting. Removing Wrath stacks and replacing them with a universal Beast meter is cool. It also seems that the generation and consumption of these points/the meter has changed dramatically. From my observations and the information we have available from translated tooltips:

-Combo generators now provide 10 points of Beast Meter charge (BM). This is a 100% decrease from before, where 1 combo generator would provide 1 stack out of 5, or 20 out of 100 points. That said, points no longer carry the same weight.

-Actions such as Vengeance no longer produce BM.

-Infuriate possibly only gives 50 BM instead of 100, which would still technically be the same as what it did before and in fact it would be more potent if the cost of finishers is truly 15-25BM.

-There is now a cost attached to stance dancing. It costs half of your BM to change between Defiance and Deliverance, so you can't just do it willy nilly, build up all your BM in Deliverance and swap to Defiance to IB, etc.. We needed a balancing point on our stances; this may seem like a strong penalty to some but honestly, considering Warrior's breadth of utility and flexibility, I'd say it's fair.

-Berserk may no longer cause pacification. That'd be cool.

-Finishers/spenders now have variable costs and can be used in greater quantities at once, though not necessarily more often. From what I can see, spenders like Fell Cleave either outright cost 25 points, or that new fire shield ability thing reduces the cost of BM spenders. Lesser spenders (like the gap closer and that uppercut thing) seem to cost between 15 and 20 BM. Before, it would cost 5 stacks (100 of 100 "points" of Wrath) to use Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone/Fell Cleave/Decimate, or 5 generators. Now it costs 25 BM, or 2.5 generators, to use a finisher if the cost is 25, or possibly they have made it cost 50 points with 25 being the reduced cost while under the effects of that new buff. For the purposes of this post we'll assume it's just 25 BM to use a finisher. Theoretically this means we will be using BM finishers 30-40% more often than before, and if you store a full meter and Infuriate you can use up to 6 BM finishers in a single burst, or Berserk. This is either an enormous boost in burst damage potential, or something is going to change to make Fell Cleave less devastating, such as...
EDIT: Finishers cost 50 BM. The new buff halves costs. So you can do up to 3 Fell Cleaves without the new buff (2 from max gauge, 1 from Infuriate) or potentially you can build to 100 gauge -> Berserk -> New ability -> Fell Cleave x4 -> Infuriate -> Fell Cleave x2.

-STR is being shifted back into the spotlight for tank DPS. This would be great, except they are also making it so that tanks can only wear VIT accessories. One of several things can happen here:
a) Tenacity's damage boost will be enough to compensate for the loss.
b) They will put a small amount of STR onto VIT accessories or raise the amount of STR on tank gear.
c) Neither of these and tanks face another blanket nerf to damage output.

For warrior in particular, it's possible that certain job abilities and mechanics allow it to continue to deal elevated damage, however the possibility exists that the changes to tank stats will come out to another decrease in tank damage output. 6 Fell Cleaves in one burst sounds really, really strong... until you consider this, then 6 Fell Cleaves sounds more like Warrior's way to compensate for a possible damage nerf. We don't have enough information to say either way. No matter what though, unleashing that many finishers at once is going to feel tight as fuq.

-More on stats: removing Parry and replacing it with Tenacity was a great move. Tenacity sounds like it could be an incredible stat, however I'm tempering my expectations and assuming it will give less damage than Determination and a minor DR (like 1% DR per 400 Tenacity or something). Either way, it's nice to see that they've actually replaced it with something rather than just removing it entirely and saying fuck it.

Overall I feel like this could make WAR more interesting and varied to play. Right now it's easily the simplest of all 3 tanks to play optimally, the BM gauge and managing that resource properly could potentially lead to a more in-depth playstyle. We'll have to see what goes on.

Defiance
Basics are the same (25% more HP, increased healing received, cooldowns etc)
Using certain actions will raise Inner Beast gauge, in Defiance this raises parry rate by up to 10%
Upon removing Defiance, Inner Beast gauge disappears
Upon switching to Deliverance, Inner Beast gauge is halved

Deliverance
Basics are the same (5% more damage dealt, cooldowns etc)
Using certain actions will raise Inner Beast gauge, in Deliverance this raises crit rate by up to 10%
Upon removing Deliverance, Inner Beast gauge disappears
Upon switching to Defiance, Inner Beast gauge is halved

Onslaught
Ranged physical attack that brings you to the target
Additional effect: Increased enmity
Costs 20 IB // Cooldown 15s // Range 20y

原初の解放 (Release the Inner Beast)
Halves IB consumption while active
Makes you immune to stun/sleep/bind/heavy/knockback while active
Only usable in Deliverance, shares cooldown with Unchained
Costs 20 IB // Duration 20s // Cooldown 120s

Fell Cleave/Decimate
Potencies unchanged
Costs 50 IB

Berserk
Increases physical attack power by 30% [Reduced from current 50%]
Duration 20s // Cooldown 60s [Shortened from current 90s]

Infuriate
Increases IB gauge by 50

[Alkar]

So many good changes... accuracy and Cleric Stance gone, damage based on MND, WHM got a lot more interesting to play all of a sudden. So much win on the healer side, I'm so excited to try them all out!
And Summoner can summon fucking Bahamut?!? And it's not a shitty small Egi but a smaller version of his real character model...

[FHT]

How do you think Healers feel having 20% oops 10% less DPS output in general? Assuming that 90s Clerics buff still remains 5% boost for 15 seconds. That and no more Blizzard II on SCH anymore iirc, so that's one less AoE option for them on big packs.

If anything they need to scale the threat generation on tank skills up in general, both at a low level and high level. Pre-30 tanking sucks ass, and upper-level tanking you need gear to keep hate off geared DPS who know wtf they're doing.

I completely agree, wonder if Yoshi and his goons just woke up a morning and thought "oh wait we gotta nerf that" or if the crying idiots were listened toand SE decided to say amen. This whole damage nerf for heal:tank is pant on the head retarded;

[Prothescar]

Also, that zone in the PLD portion of the job actions video looks exactly like Sarutabaruta.

[Almalexia]

Yoshida lifted the Penetration stat and Equal Footing PvP buff from The Secret World right after the game shut down. Smart!

[The Stig]

I sometimes wonder if they got 1.23abc running somewhere on some backwater server in their office just to occasionally tap into for ideas lol

[Spider-Dan]

Has anyone taken that series of role ability screenshots and mapped them to existing abilities (as much as possible)?

Referring to these:

Spoiler: show

https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat5.jpg
https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat6.jpg
https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat7.jpg
https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat3.jpg
https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat8.jpg

Additionally, spells "now" scale to level and are dropped down a tier when you level sync down. But wasn't this the purpose for creating the "scaling MP requirements" that was introduced way back in 1.2, then reapplied to tiered spells in 2.0? Seems like the real outcome here is to obsolete B1/T1/Aero1 as options when you have low MP. I mean, I get that we want to make an omelette, but I don't understand why MP costs need to scale up by level in the first place; just reduce base MP growth instead.

[Pooky]

The total whitewashing of the stats and itemization for example is a huge flaw.

That's really one of my only gripes about the whole stream. It's bad enough that there's almost literally one set of gear and no class customization outside of glamour, now they're dropping the pretense and just stripping off stats because "the gear system is too complicated." I really would have liked to see a GCD reduction, but that's a pipedream at this point.

[Lucavi]

Well, to anyone complaining, consider this:

Look at how much shit SE just changed based on people's legitimate complaints. Post wherever you have to with your concerns and who knows? They literally just spent all morning proving to us that they are, in fact, listening. Not only are they listening, but they're showing that they're looking at games outside of their own for inspiration, instead of the hubris and stupidity that plagued 1.0.

They may not change everything, but they aren't outright ignoring shit either. This is leaps and bounds beyond where SE has been in the past. Its beyond comparison at this point.

[Mina]

Look at how much shit SE just changed based on people's legitimate complaints. Post wherever you have to with your concerns and who knows? They literally just spent all morning proving to us that they are, in fact, listening. Not only are they listening, but they're showing that they're looking at games outside of their own for inspiration, instead of the hubris and stupidity that plagued 1.0.

Which is what I keep telling people. Just see how it is. If you hate it and it's horrible and enough people are like "yeah this sucks" they will fix it. :/ Dunno why everyone's losing their minds over them trying to fix what people are complaining about.

I'm just amused at listening to people cry in Idyllshire right now over "they've ruined bard".

[Rionel]

I for one am shocked that a BG thread about FFXIV actually had a decent amount of people sounding like they could actually have some semblance of enjoyment with the game rather than being exhaustingly apathetic and killjoy unimpressed all the time. I mean, I guess enjoyment for some can be being completely dissatisfied all the time.

Snark aside, I'm really looking forward to to the new innovations and retooling that seem to be happening all around. Very excited! It seems like a really overall positive change happening- while most of the nay saying seems pretty eyeball roll worthy at this point.

[Voyage1970]

Has anyone taken that series of role ability screenshots and mapped them to existing abilities (as much as possible)?

Referring to these:

Spoiler: show

https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat5.jpg
https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat6.jpg
https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat7.jpg
https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat3.jpg
https://www.novacrystallis.com/wp-co...17/05/bat8.jpg

I'm limited to katakana and a very small amount of Kanji but I can take a crack at it.
Left > Right, Top > Bottom

Tank Role: Rampart, Low Blow, Provoke, Convalescence, unknown, Reprisal, Awareness, Interject, Ultimatum (AoE Hate), Shock

Melee: Second Wind, Arm's Length, Leg Sweep, Diversion (Quelling Strikes), Invigorate, Bloodbath, Goad, unknown, Clutch?(Possibly Crutch cause engrish), True North (removes directional requirements for combos as stated in live letter)

Ranged: Second Wind, Foot Graze, Leg Graze, Proton, Invigorate, Tactician, Refresh, Head Graze, Arm Graze, Palisade

Caster: Addle (Virus), Break, Drain, Diversion, Lucid Dream (Sleep?), Swift Cast, Mana Shift (Convert), Apocatastasis, Sure Cast, Erase

Healer: Crusade Stance (Cleric Stance), Break, Protect, Esuna, Lucid Dream, Swift Cast, Eye for Eye, unknown (icon is for Divine Seal), Sure Cast, unknown

[Shenrien]

the music in the skill demo reminds me way too much of adoulin reive music.

[Spider-Dan]

So it looks like BLM is losing Physick but BLM+SMN are gaining Erase.

Also appears that Stoneskin is going to be WHM onry, probably to balance against shields.

[arus2001]

Which is what I keep telling people. Just see how it is. If you hate it and it's horrible and enough people are like "yeah this sucks" they will fix it. :/ Dunno why everyone's losing their minds over them trying to fix what people are complaining about.

I'm just amused at listening to people cry in Idyllshire right now over "they've ruined bard".

More of a generalization on my end, but I hate having to wait for expansions for this type of stuff, which tends to mean 1.5-2 years before some flaws do get addressed. So, I can't really decide if wanting things taken care of sooner makes me impatient or what. Nonetheless, I can still feel for some who are unhappy, presuming their grievances legit. Majority of the time, if it's just a "Casuals are ruining everything!" kinda rant, I'll do the whole laugh/shrug/eyeroll thing and reminisce about the hardcore masterpiece that was Wildstar.

[Pooky]

So it looks like BLM is losing Physick but BLM+SMN are gaining Erase.

Also appears that Stoneskin is going to be WHM onry, probably to balance against shields.

Was Stoneskin even on the whm bars? I can't remember seeing it.

[Silenka]

I for one am shocked that a BG thread about FFXIV actually had a decent amount of people sounding like they could actually have some semblance of enjoyment with the game rather than being exhaustingly apathetic and killjoy unimpressed all the time. I mean, I guess enjoyment for some can be being completely dissatisfied all the time.

I mean it is sorta like they addressed most of this community's biggest grievances about jobs.

But muh leylines > you can now teleport back to them
DPS wont stop standing in shit > healers can move them now
PLD needs more love > here's a bunch of cool shit
Parry is shit > we took it out
Xclass abilities are shit > bam, gone
Egis are shit > here's bahamut gaiz
Bardmage is shit > it doesn't cast anymore (bonus: neither does MCH)
Casuals are shit > here's some specialize HUDs for those re-re players

Of course everyone's being pretty optimistic in light of that kind of stuff, it's like SE looked at the most complained about things here and addressed things that way XD Only after we start playing and see how good/bad it is in practice is another story...

[Lucavi]

Of course everyone's being pretty optimistic in light of that kind of stuff, it's like SE looked at the most complained about things here and addressed things that way XD Only after we start playing and see how good/bad it is in practice is another story...

Like every other MMO in existence. The difference here is that I cannot think of a single time SE has addressed so many consumer complaints/concerns within a single game of theirs at once. Can you?

Can anyone?

Hope springs anew when one's prayers feel as if they have a chance of being answered. That isn't simply with gaming... >_>