5.3 COMPLETE patch notes

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

DRK gets rebuilt every expansion, I'm sure 6.0 won't be any different. The job team just seems to have no idea what to do with it.

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They had it right in HW.

I actually loved the Stormblood version, aside from the Dark Arts spam. Can't comment on HW because I didn't have the nerve to try tanking yet.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I actually loved the Stormblood version, aside from the Dark Arts spam. Can't comment on HW because I didn't have the nerve to try tanking yet.

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It was the most complex tank, but everything flowed really well. Parrying had a chance to pull Reprisal off cooldown (meaning you could spam it practically if you were MT), crits had a chance to pull Low Blow off cooldown so you could spam it, a constant MP degen while Darkside was up so you had to balance doing damage with keeping your MP up, possible to always have cooldowns up and on rotation, an actual 2nd DPS combo (I miss HW Delirium), Abyssal Drain was spammable (if you had the MP for it), and a DoT. Just from that, you can tell what all was ripped from my poor boy.

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Originally Posted by Saix027

Bit disapointed how SCH once again got forgotten, less MP for its AoE Heal, nice but, i wish it would play more around, SCH has it the hardes on healing still, OCD Heals rely a lot on its aether stacks while WHM and AST have so many instant heals without conditions. I love paly SCH still but the class simply has to work far more to get the same effect then the other healers, it is a shame how it got butchered since the mass rework.

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I mean, Emergency Tactics is on a 15sec CD and now Succor is more in line with the cost of Medica.

I think it's in a good spot.

So is AST now, thankfully! If anything I'd kinda worry we might have like... too much MP? I guess it depends on how well people were utilizing Lightspeed's 50% cut before. Either way, much hype for updated AST even if I may miss the chaos of that first sleeve draw.

WAR Changes: Storm's eye duration increased to 1 min and "Nascent Flash - No longer requires a target party member to execute."? I love the devs so much right now.

Also, all the junk got taken out of DNG treasure coffers, which is cool.

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Gear that required the exchange of a base item and upgrade material can now be obtained directly in exchange for Allagan tomestones of poetics.
The base items and upgrade materials for such gear can no longer be obtained from shops or dungeons.

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So no more doubling up on tomestone rings with one augmented and the other not.

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Originally Posted by Pells

So no more doubling up on tomestone rings with one augmented and the other not.

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Since they explicitly mention poetics, I guess that only applies to old gear which you won't be using for long anyway.

Absolutely retarded ast changes, as expected, enjoy your randomly thrown useless divinations now I guess.

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Originally Posted by Fourbestintoner

Absolutely retarded ast changes, as expected, enjoy your randomly thrown useless divinations now I guess.

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Okay, go into more details, please, because the only negative thing I've seen so far was specifically the fact that Sleeve Draw seems to be one card 180s cooldown.

WHM remains untouched. Thank goodness. I'm always afraid there will be a nerf.

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Originally Posted by Ammokkx

Shoutout to all the junk loot being removed from the dungeons. Maybe now people will stop going off in a completely unrelated, time-wasting direction for a grand total of 3 potions you can't even use because they heal too little.

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it's actually sad, how else will you get the zombie looking chest pieces.

list of things I will miss.

Blunt Bastard Sword
Cracked Daggers
Damaged Cudgel
Brittle Picatrix
Worm-eaten Square Shield
Tarnished Hoplon
Greasy Half Apron
Cracked Shepherd's Belt
Moth-eaten Coatee
Frayed Chef's Belt
Nicked Viking Sword
Splintered Cane
Dented Celata
Frayed Cotton Doublet Vest
Blackened Smithy's Gloves
Rusting Scutum
Stained Chef's Apron
Ripped Chef's Hat
Blackened Scale Mail
Mildewed Thighboots
Blunt Goblin Scimitar
Notched Buckler
Rotting Round Shield
Ripped Hose
Moth-eaten Seneschal Coatee
Blunt Goblin Longsword
Chipped Hora
Scarred Kite Shield
Moldering Jester's Cap
Torn Coif
Ripped Haubergeon
Notched Bill
Crooked Guisarme
Warped Bow
Tattered Robe

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p.s. I also hope people will still run off to other rooms, as I prefer full clears.

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Originally Posted by Gothicshark

it's actually sad, how else will you get the zombie looking chest pieces.

list of things I will miss.

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"Aged and otherwise damaged items used to craft vintage gear can now be purchased from shops."

As I stated elsewhere I hope the Nascent Flash change applies to PvP if not this patch and unlisted, in a future patch. It's kind of hard to always have a party member in Rival Wings.

All in all otherwise pleased.

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

Okay, go into more details, please, because the only negative thing I've seen so far was specifically the fact that Sleeve Draw seems to be one card 180s cooldown.

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So the idea with Divination is that you want it to align with raid buffs. To do that in your opener with Sleeve Draw only granting one card is impossible now. Raid buffs are up around 7-10 seconds into the fight, at that point you'll still be waiting for your Draw to come back up.

Basically if Sleeve Draw doesn't grant 3 cards then the earliest possible Divination is around 33 seconds in, significantly misaligned and costing the AST a ton of rDPS.

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Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

Basically if Sleeve Draw doesn't grant 3 cards then the earliest possible Divination is around 33 seconds in, significantly misaligned and costing the AST a ton of rDPS.

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Fair enough, thank you.

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Originally Posted by LittleChickenNugget

-Pouts in Viera and Hrothgar neglect.-

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"People keep complaining that Viera and Hrothgar haven't gotten any new hairstyles so now no one gets any." Correct me if I'm wrong but it sure looks like there's not a single new hairstyle coming in 5.3, every other time they've been mentioned and at least one shown in the patch notes. I guess there's still the possibility that Bozja will have a new hairstyle though, but that's another month and a half of waiting. And yes, it's definitely still appalling how they haven't touched on Viera and Hrothgar, though personally I'm done waiting. At this rate we'll be lucky to get anything by 6.0 and if they think Viera and Hrothgar getting 2 new hairstyles is a great selling point for 6.0 then good for them I guess?

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Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

So the idea with Divination is that you want it to align with raid buffs. To do that in your opener with Sleeve Draw only granting one card is impossible now. Raid buffs are up around 7-10 seconds into the fight, at that point you'll still be waiting for your Draw to come back up.

Basically if Sleeve Draw doesn't grant 3 cards then the earliest possible Divination is around 33 seconds in, significantly misaligned and costing the AST a ton of rDPS.

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You draw one card as you load in. When the battle starts you play that and immediately draw a second card, maybe redraw, play it. Now you have two seals. Sleeve Draw gives you a guaranteed third.

Are you working around other things you need to do first?

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Originally Posted by Iscah

You draw one card as you load in. When the battle starts you play that and immediately draw a second card, maybe redraw, play it. Now you have two seals. Sleeve Draw gives you a guaranteed third.

Are you working around other things you need to do first?

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I'm not, merely working on the assumption that outside of savage the mere thought of waiting 30 seconds to pull will never happen.

I agree it doesn't cripple AST in the high end (though not being able to layer lord/lady with div will be bad) but it will make playing it in DF content even more of a chore. No other job feels so extra bad without an opener, sleeve draw mitigated that enough for me to AST some casual stuff but no longer.

I'm excited to try unreal shiva and the minigame, fly in ARR zones and check out the new achievement certificate rewards. Also, I've been waiting a long time to change the size of the mouse cursor. I keep losing it and clicking random things.

Nascent Flash No longer requires a target party member to execute.

https://media.tenor.com/images/fb55c...978e/tenor.gif

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Originally Posted by Brill_

Nascent Flash No longer requires a target party member to execute.

https://media.tenor.com/images/fb55c...978e/tenor.gif

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Might level my Warrior now, I never liked the idea of having to press a party member like that.

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Originally Posted by Brill_

Nascent Flash No longer requires a target party member to execute.

https://media.tenor.com/images/fb55c...978e/tenor.gif

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Preach to the choir!

Also, one unsung qol that I will laud: Enmity reset on training dummies. It's been one of my biggest requested qols and I'm so glad to see finally here. The next step is being able to reset your cds when engaged with a training dummy, thus making rotation training a snap.

Also very happy with the recipe lookup via mats. It always felt bad for me to have to either alt tab or dedicate my second monitor just to google recipe search via mats.

Flying in ARR... I can now go back into those zones and do beast tribe quests without getting annoyed that I can't fly... Yes, first world problems.

Oh, and the Puppets' Bunker. If it's anything like Copied Factory, let the fun times begin!

For AST. Sleeve Draw now only draws one card but is guaranteed to be a different seal. That sounds great but how does that work for Divination now? Typically on boss fights, I open up with Sleeve Draw, then make my way around the group handing out the appropriate card buffs, then activate Divination. With this change, it sounds like you only get one card per cooldown? Or does it stack three times similar to Redraw?

If it's the former, then what's the purpose of Draw? Other then its MP reduction. I guess for the Lord/Lady buff?

Neutral Sect. I use this on big pulls while under Diurnal Sect. But with this change and being able to stack HoTs while under Nocturnal Sect, will this be the preferred sect to use now in all group content?

LOVE the change to Horoscope. I hate it when it runs out because I mistimed its use.

I feel like, if it doesn't have charges it probably should be a slightly lower cooldown (ie, still greater than 90 seconds to not replace every third draw for a complete set, but still have it be slightly more available), but I admit I am not an AST main and the inner workings of AST still throw me off.

Monk change to Form shift is great but I just want Greased Lightning gone in 5.4 already. If they manage to make it a "trait" like they said, and make it passive like WHM lillies that would fix so many of Monk's problems.

Other than that I'll be honest, this patch looks pretty empty. It won't last beyond the first week. One of the changes I'm hoping for in fanfest is this announcement:
-Relic quests will start at the beginning of every patch starting with 6.1.

My take on the Storm's Eye thing:

I did feel it should be changed so it has a max length longer than what the actual Storm's Eye combo gave you. As it is now, sometimes it was better to let the buff go down for a GCD (as long as you were not spending gauge), because whenever you do the combo, you don't have 30 sec of time added; it is set to 30 sec, and you want to avoid "wasting" the time added by maximizing Storm's Path usage instead. I get the nuance of the optimization has appeal, but just from a game design perspective, it feels better if you want to keep the buff up all the time.

I would have settled for 40 sec max duration (still 30/10 sec from your combos). 60 sec is a lot, and going to be interesting. I don't really care too much about what raiders want out of it and think more about what your everyday WAR wants; doing their trash pulls and stuff, WAR more often will be inclined to max out their timer since they will be able to refresh it at the start of the next pull with their AOE more often, which is good. Will feel a lot better.

Having it extended by 15 sec on IR... Well, okay. Feels excessive but for all in all inoffensive.

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Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

I'm not, merely working on the assumption that outside of savage the mere thought of waiting 30 seconds to pull will never happen.

I agree it doesn't cripple AST in the high end (though not being able to layer lord/lady with div will be bad) but it will make playing it in DF content even more of a chore. No other job feels so extra bad without an opener, sleeve draw mitigated that enough for me to AST some casual stuff but no longer.

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Outside of savage, raidbuffs are all over the place anyway so I doubt people care too much about how it affects any non-endgame content.
Even if a tank pulls right as the barriers drops, if you Draw right as you zone in, first Divination is a bit delayed but will most likely realign later unless everyone keeps everything perfectly on CD regardless of mechanics. Only few people do a proper raid opener in normal content because they either don't even know their opener or there's simply no time with a tank pulling any second. Even precasting on BLM or RdM is hit and miss.
For savage, it's a not an issue. Wether you wait 30s or 15s between pulls hardly makes a difference for 9min+ fights.

I certainly won't care about a slightly misaligned Divination in casual content. What I don't like, however, is the fact that they simplified something that only affected the skill ceiling while people not liking it or not wanting to go through the trouble of optimizing it never had to. Using Sleeve properly is incredibly low on the AST priority list, optimizing it an endgame content-only thing.
Balance discord was on fire the whole day because of it.
I just hope that SE changes it again to something that offers more than basically an additional Draw on 180s cooldown. That's about as underwhelming as Impro from DNC in a fight without downtime and really lackluster for the 70 capstone ability.
Outside opener Divination, you always had plenty of time to fish for seals so the guaranteed seal is nice for opener but unlikely to make a difference for subsequent Divinations.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

I certainly won't care about a slightly misaligned Divination in casual content. What I don't like, however, is the fact that they simplified something that only affected the skill ceiling while people not liking it or not wanting to go through the trouble of optimizing it never had to. Using Sleeve properly is incredibly low on the AST priority list, optimizing it an endgame content-only thing.

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This makes it sound like every other healer change the past two expansions.

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

Other than that I'll be honest, this patch looks pretty empty. It won't last beyond the first week.

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This is a "catch-up" and QoL patch. There will be a big influx of new people playing because of the trial game including HW as well as just general changes to ARR (I have so many people going to start tomorrow because they were waiting on the ARR fix). They also added a weekly in the Unreal fight and a daily that'll last for a least a few weeks with Dwarves.

What Warrior really needs is to do the most damage of any tanks, but not by a little bit, it should be significant.
WAR, the most damage
PLD, the most defense
DRK, The option to use their shadow energy for a lot of defense or to do a lot damage
GNB, Medium damage. Option for high self healing or high defense

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Originally Posted by Infindox

This is a "catch-up" and QoL patch. There will be a big influx of new people playing because of the trial game including HW as well as just general changes to ARR (I have so many people going to start tomorrow because they were waiting on the ARR fix). They also added a weekly in the Unreal fight and a daily that'll last for a least a few weeks with Dwarves.

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Notice how the Faux thing is weekly
The game needs more daily activities outside of rouletes.
Dwarves...yeah crafting, ok I guess.

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

This makes it sound like every other healer change the past two expansions.

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It pretty much falls in the same category, yes.
Things get simplified for accessibility. That's not inherently bad because you need to take every type of player into account, from new players to highly skilled top tier players. If the gap between skill floor and skill ceiling is too wide because the skill ceiling is too high it means that even if you want to play it on an average level you still have to bring above average skill compared to easier classes.
It leads to a lot of frustration among players because you feel like you work your ass of for nothing.

But constantly bringing down the skill ceiling will not suddenly get everyone to switch from WhM or SCH to AST. QoL changes are good, they did that with MP management. It makes leveling AST much less of a nightmare in ShB dungeons than it was on release.
But to also touch the skill ceiling just seems unneccessary. Before 5.3 you always had the option to ignore it if it felt too much for you or really use and potentially optimize it, if you wanted to. Now that choice has been taken away and the players it affected most are the ones who enjoyed it.

I'm salty, I know. And come Tuesday, I will probably jump off the platform as soon as we zone into e5s because I will thoroughly miss rushing through the busy openers and reopeners and feeling great when I nailed it.

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Originally Posted by LittleChickenNugget

-Pouts in Viera and Hrothgar neglect.-

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You got mannequins!

Thank fights like Ultimates where every job need to be the same or the meta will exclude certain jobs.
It's funny how all mmorpgs get into this problem where they want to push difficulty so high that you either have people crying about balance or about how all the classes are so basic.

They might have to separate job balance into PVP, PVE, and PVU (ultimates).

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Originally Posted by Ammokkx

Shoutout to all the junk loot being removed from the dungeons. Maybe now people will stop going off in a completely unrelated, time-wasting direction for a grand total of 3 potions you can't even use because they heal too little.

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Looks also removing chests with just crafting items in them too. No indication how we will receive them now, such as the crafting items in Qarn.

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

Notice how the Faux thing is weekly
The game needs more daily activities outside of rouletes.
Dwarves...yeah crafting, ok I guess.

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I mean yeah, the game needs more and I'll agree with that. But I think it'll last a little longer then a week with some people (not all).

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Originally Posted by Amnmaat

What Warrior really needs is to do the most damage of any tanks, but not by a little bit, it should be significant.
WAR, the most damage
PLD, the most defense
DRK, The option to use their shadow energy for a lot of defense or to do a lot damage
GNB, Medium damage. Option for high self healing or high defense

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These are excellent suggestions...for a game that provides the depth for them. FFXIV is not that game. Because it's dps-centric, the first one out the door is GNB in this scenario. WAR would always be requested, with DRK right behind it. PLD would be an instance-to-instance job case.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that this is for ex/savage pf parties, since you can't control who you get in DF. Nonetheless, I'd expect the general populace to groan every time they'd get a pld or gnb in their party.

I can’t believe they added attack indicators to Councounter’s attacks in AV. Wow. Making it easier I guess.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

These are excellent suggestions...for a game that provides the depth for them. FFXIV is not that game. Because it's dps-centric, the first one out the door is GNB in this scenario. WAR would always be requested, with DRK right behind it. PLD would be an instance-to-instance job case.

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PLD would be what RdM was before the buffs and still is for many parties: training wheels.
Once prog time is over, WAR/ DRK would be standard. Why bring a tank with stellar defense or self heal if it's overkill and doesn't save your healers GCDs?