Greetings, adventurers!
Matsui here with some information on July’s version update.

The rainy season is in full-force here in Tokyo, where Square Enix is located, and I’ve got to be honest with you—I’m not really feeling it. The sudden changes in temperature between outdoors and their places of work make it easy for people to come down with colds. Thankfully I’ve been spared so far—knock on wood.

I’d like to offer a few words of gratitude and apology before we get into July’s offerings. First, the thanks—thank you for all your wonderful feedback surrounding the white mage job adjustments. We’ve heard the various and at times divergent opinions that you have shared, and it has helped shape our direction with the job going forward.

The development team tried to bring a fresh new look to the white mage, and unfortunately we fell a little short of your expectations. To that end, we will be reverting the changes to Esuna and Sacrifice, a move that we feel will be the most impactful for you, our players, even though it may cause a little bit of temporary confusion. We’d like to take the lessons that we’ve learned from this and apply them to other job updates that we have in store for the future, and hope that you will continue to look forward to future adjustments.

Next up is the meat of the July update, which includes adjustments to the ninja and white mage jobs. As alluded to earlier, we will be reverting the changes to Esuna and Sacrifice, as well as to certain pieces of equipment. The merit point adjustments and improvements to Protect, Protectra, Shell, and Shellra, however, remain.

With the ninja, we’ve elected to turn some merit point ninjutsu abilities into scrolls, much as we have for previous jobs. In line with this, we’re decreasing the number of merit point categories from eight to six in order to better line it up with the number of augments available. This means to the Suiton: San and Raiton: San merit point categories will be going away and any points placed into them will vanish into thin air, so I recommend that you re-allocate your points so that you have only one point in them—this will enable you to obtain the spells automatically without buying the scrolls separately and minimize the amount of merit points that you lose.

The development team tried to bring a fresh new look to the white mage, and unfortunately we fell a little short of your expectations. To that end, we will be reverting the changes to Esuna and Sacrifice, a move that we feel will be the most impactful for you, our players, even though it may cause a little bit of temporary confusion. We’d like to take the lessons that we’ve learned from this and apply them to other job updates that we have in store for the future, and hope that you will continue to look forward to future adjustments.

Next up is the meat of the July update, which includes adjustments to the ninja and white mage jobs. As alluded to earlier, we will be reverting the changes to Esuna and Sacrifice, as well as to certain pieces of equipment. The merit point adjustments and improvements to Protect, Protectra, Shell, and Shellra, however, remain.

With the ninja, we’ve elected to turn some merit point ninjutsu abilities into scrolls, much as we have for previous jobs. In line with this, we’re decreasing the number of merit point categories from eight to six in order to better line it up with the number of augments available. This means to the Suiton: San and Raiton: San merit point categories will be going away and any points placed into them will vanish into thin air, so I recommend that you re-allocate your points so that you have only one point in them—this will enable you to obtain the spells automatically without buying the scrolls separately and minimize the amount of merit points that you lose.

In terms of high-tier battlefields, we’ll be adding ★Champion of the Dawn, the famed battle against Cait Sith. We’ve got some very feline goods in store for those who emerge triumphant, and we hope that battle itself is something that you can really sink your claws into.

For Ambuscade, this month’s new foe is a fearsome hydra. As you would expect of such a hulking beast, it sports a truckload of HP, but if you execute the battle properly you’ll be able to deal huge damage to it in a short time—I’ll leave it up to you to discover exactly how.

Below is the usual table of additions and adjustments for July. As always, last-minute issues may arise that prevent us from implementing some of them, but we’re doing our best to bring them all to you.

Mission and Quest-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
JulyRecords of Eminence・Update the monthly objectives-
JulyRhapsodies of Vana’diel・Make reward items re-obtainable-
Content and System-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
JulyHigh-tier Battlefield・Create high-tier battlefield
・Create reward items
-
JulyAmbuscade・Add new notorious monsters
・Replace reward items
-
JulyBattlefield・Add display for time occupied-
JulyCurrencies・Add entry for display-
Battle-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
JulyNinja・Change Merit Point items-
JulyNinjutsu・Adjust certain ninjutsu effects-
JulyWhite Magic Spell・Adjust certain spell effects-
Item-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
JulyItem・Add new items
・Adjust certain gear stats
-