During the last Radio Mog Station,Final Fantasy 14Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida made a guest appearance to chat with the hosts about theEndwalkerexpansion. One of the hot topics of the interview was class balance, where Yoshida revealed his plan to bring the power level of allFinal Fantasy 14jobs up to the highest denominator very soon.
During the interview, Yoshida spoke aboutFinal Fantasy 14’srecord-breakingEndwalkerexpansion’s fascinating story and characters. Though he gave hints as to big changes coming in Patch 6.1, likely some time in March or April, he also focused on incoming job balance coming in Patch 6.08, which players can expect some time in February.
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Players noticedEndwalker’sbrand new Reaper classwas as powerful as it was flashy and fun to play. Most players assumed it and other high-performing classes, like the Monk, would be hit with the nerf bat. However, in the interview, Yoshida expressed his intention of bringing other classes up to the Reaper’s level of strength, rather than nerfing those at the top. Though many jobs will receive tuning, Yoshida specifically mentioned the under-performing Dancer and Paladin and the iconic “busy” jobs–the Black Mage, Monk, and Samurai–will get some extra firepower.
With the release ofEndwalker,Final Fantasy 14downscaled the values on numbersacross the board. Though it did so without breaking too much of the game, it and the addition and rework of several jobs threw off the existing balance between playable jobs. It is no surprise to see some fine tuning needed to job performance after an expansion pack, especially when paired with such a drastic change in calculations.
Final Fantasy 14players were relieved to hear job tuningwas coming soon. Players who enjoy classes like the Dancer and Paladin–both of which are dealing a noticeably less amount of damage compared to their peers–have occasionally been victim to exclusion or harassment by others in endgame content purely because of an underperforming class, regardless of player skill. Reapers, on the other hand, have been terrified their rewarding kits and satisfying damage would be cut at any moment. All of these players can now rest easy with Yoshida’s words.
However, some players have reservations about the impending power up. In duties across the game, players have noticed enemies dying much faster than before. Players even clearedEndwalker’sPandaemonium: Asphodelos (Savage) in 14 hours, the second fastest raid tier clear inFinal Fantasy 14history. These players are worried universal power ups may make characters even more powerful than they already are, trivializing future content.Final Fantasy 14has historically been adept at balance, however, so players will have to wait and see what the balance changes in 6.08 will actually look like, and see how they affect the difficulty of current and future encounters.
Final Fantasy 14: Endwalkeris currently live on PC, PS4, and PS5, but is temporarily unavailable for purchase due to server congestion.
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