Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LI Shadowbringers Preview - 1:30pm PDT/4:30pm EDT

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Don't get excited quite yet. If bosses and mobs still do the damage they currently do, and heal potencies remain the same. You'll just afk for 80% instead of DPS. This game simply doesn't deal enough damage to warrant a pure healer focus. They have to drastically increase that or nerf heal potencies otherwise this will be a disaster.

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I have these dreams that since they are adding a buffing job, that they will slowly start to flesh out the buff/debuffs that you can use and mobs can use on players. Something to keep us more active while not just having to do DPS.

But either way, I'm quite excited now :) Had been feeling a bit ho-hum about things, but looks like they have a lot of interesting changes (not just on the healing/buffing side).

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

It's never felt right that I spent 80% of my time tossing rocks at mobs.

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The new WHM dps spell they showed in the actions trailer has the same cast animation as Stone IV, so they might just be changing stone into something more healer-ish and tossing out the lore with the bathwater.

Where do we download the benchmark?

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Originally Posted by Reinha

I think they said 80 minutes from now.

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Yep. 7 PM PST.

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Originally Posted by Arngrim_Greyashe

Where do we download the benchmark?

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If I remember correctly, they usually have it linked from the launcher somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Arngrim_Greyashe

Where do we download the benchmark?

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They’ll make an announcement on the Lodestone. We’ll be able to download it from there.

BENCHMARK HYPE!!!!

So if I use the benchmark and do a character creation my PC and then back that up to the server can I then download that to my PS4?

Oh god. I hope my laptop will be able to handle the benchmark...

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Originally Posted by Fredco191

They’ll make an announcement on the Lodestone. We’ll be able to download it from there.

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Thank you!

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Originally Posted by Arngrim_Greyashe

Where do we download the benchmark?

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Presumably they would update this page: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/benchmark/

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Originally Posted by Spark123

7 p.m. pst tonight.

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:D Yeah! :D

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Originally Posted by Roda

Removing synergies from bard
Emphasizing synergies for dnc.
https://i.imgur.com/e3kNEXN.gif

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"we wanted to remove syngergies so people wouldnt be forced to use specific classes"

15 seconds later

"heres this 30% crit and hit buff for the dancer and dance partner"
"dancer will be based around synergies"


Uh........

Red Mage changes I'm all like..

https://tinyurl.com/yy2n32y9

Everything else I'm all..

https://media.giphy.com/media/3rgXBO...RutG/giphy.gif

So Hyped!

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

So it's confirmed in the live letter today.

Offensive stance is gone. Tank stance penalties are gone and toggling tank stance is solely for generating aggro and nothing else.

That means you can stay in tank stance the whole time if you're main tanking with no penalty and nothing to worry about. No obnoxious stance dancing, no wasted gcd's swapping stances as pld or drk (if you turn on grit), and no more stupid arbitrary damage penalty. I'm ecstatic, I wanted tank stances gone entirely, but I'll take this as it's nearly as good. I'm VERY satisfied with this as it's something I've basically wanted forever.

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I actually think removing stances is a terrible design decision.

Not removing TANK stances (those needed to be changed) but the concept of stances in general.

It would let them add abilities without causing bloat (Just make a LOT more stuff work like Fell Cleave / Inner Beast), and emphasize certain aspects of classes.

Imagine if the monk fists were a stance that allowed access to specific skills, and part of the rotation was switching back and forth between stances to hit specific abilities in order.

Or with Warrior, one that emphasizes slightly lower damage skills with secondary effects, and one that is about maximum frontload damage, so you have an obvious "be here in Inner Release" and one that you can use for swapping in debuffs or more defensive cooldowns.

So excited for benchmark! Hrothgar here I come!

Will the benchmark be out shortly?

Benchmark will be out at 7:00 p.m. Pacific 8:00 p.m. mountain 9:00 p.m. central 10 o'clock Eastern

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Originally Posted by Senn

Will the benchmark be out shortly?

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Another hour I believe.

Thanks.
/10char

I’m confused. I saw 0% Viera character creator in the benchmark trailer unless I’m blind. Is the character creator not being added?

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Originally Posted by CraftOs

I’m confused. I saw 0% Viera character creator in the benchmark trailer unless I’m blind. Is the character creator not being added?

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...it a trailer, it not going to show you character creation. It was only meant to show the video of the benchmark.
When the benchmark is released, you'll be able to create both races.

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Originally Posted by Barraind

"we wanted to remove syngergies so people wouldnt be forced to use specific classes"

15 seconds later

"heres this 30% crit and hit buff for the dancer and dance partner"
"dancer will be based around synergies"


Uh........

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Yeah dancer is looking HELLA meta rn.

And sacrificing a bard's entire identity to shove into dancer is really sketch.

I am not a doom and gloom kind of guy, but is anyone else thinking there is such a thing as too much simplification? I can't say exactly why but something about the arbitrary cap on MP and things like Blizzard III costing no MP makes me feel uneasy.

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Originally Posted by Roda

Yeah dancer is looking HELLA meta rn.

And sacrificing a bard's entire identity to shove into dancer is really sketch.

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Yea, I agree. BRD played really well in 4.0 so I don't understand why they would change it.

Guess we'll have to wait till June for any details on the farming, the restoration of Ishgard as well as what gear DNC is going to even be using unless they left us a hint somewhere?

I've been away from the game for months, almost a year now. Can someone please explain to me the whole, "taking away synergy from Bard" for me, please? I can only see the piercing debuff from Dragoon. Otherwise I don't see Bard in a bad place going into 5.0.

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Originally Posted by AkashiXI

I've been away from the game for months, almost a year now. Can someone please explain to me the whole, "taking away synergy from Bard" for me, please? I can only see the piercing debuff from Dragoon. Otherwise I don't see Bard in a bad place going into 5.0.

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They're removing the passive crit buffs from the songs.
I'm REALLY hoping they're placing them in a more active spot in their rotations, but a bard without a bunch of party buffs is like a ninja without ninjutsu. ._.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Yea, I agree. BRD played really well in 4.0 so I don't understand why they would change it.

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i think it has something to do with them trying to make people want to take a DNC as much as they want to take a BRD. They emphasized that the fact that people are being selective over who they take into content isn't something they like and I think they fear that DNC will be cut out because BRD is already there. So they went a bit...uh...extra. We'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out. I like the idea. I know they mean well, but it might be a bad way to do it. All BRD needed was quelling strikes back not a compete rework outside of losing tactician.

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Originally Posted by Fredco191

Oh god. I hope my laptop will be able to handle the benchmark...

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* hyperventilating *

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Yea, I agree. BRD played really well in 4.0 so I don't understand why they would change it.

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Okay I didnt catch half of the interpretation of BRD's new changes in the Live letter, can anyone else fill me in?
I currently main bard and since Aimi's mic died and my kid was yelling I missed that part...

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Originally Posted by Roda

They're removing the passive crit buffs from the songs.
I'm REALLY hoping they're placing them in a more active spot in their rotations, but a bard without a bunch of party buffs is like a ninja without ninjutsu. ._.

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Did they announce any future abilities that they would be giving them? I'm ok with this if they allocate Bard's resources into something else (say, i.e, more physical or magical buffs against the enemy, ala Foe Requiem or Trick Attack).

Trending on Reddit right now... :O

https://i.redd.it/8ilzfi64j1031.jpg

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Originally Posted by Mhiro

snip.

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I don't know if BRD will get any new or merged emnity managing actions, but it seems the devs want to encourage the mt to stay in tank stance more by removing the penalties of using it thus other roles like DPS wouldn't need to worry so much about aggro in this case. I didn't see Diversion on any hot bar but Lucid was present so perhaps something is still available just not as many actions.

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Originally Posted by Fredco191

* hyperventilating *

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That's what your laptop is going to be doing when you run the benchmark.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

I don't know if BRD will get any new or merged emnity managing actions, but it seems the devs want to encourage the mt to stay in tank stance more by removing the penalties of using it thus other roles like DPS wouldn't need to worry so much about aggro in this case. I didn't see Diversion on any hot bar but Lucid was present so perhaps something is still available just not as many actions.

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This is true I did notice that. Plus with the role action changes it's possible diversion might be one of the skills we are losing.

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Originally Posted by ElazulHP

Trending on Reddit right now... :O

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That's for Japan though. The sound tech that was on camera is one of the NA staff I believe. He's been on the NA community streams before.

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Originally Posted by AkashiXI

Did they announce any future abilities that they would be giving them? I'm ok with this if they allocate Bard's resources into something else (say, i.e, more physical or magical buffs against the enemy, ala Foe Requiem or Trick Attack).

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They didn't show any names or tooltips for new bard skills as far as I saw

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

Presumably they would update this page: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/benchmark/

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They updated the page.

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Originally Posted by Fredco191

R.I.P. Mana Shift

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Seems an odd thing to remove, doesn't it?

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Seems an odd thing to remove, doesn't it?

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Better start stacking Piety! /s