Appearently a Square Enix employee did not take account security very seriously. Japanese Patch Notes abount incoming class changes have found their way to the internet and I tried translating them to the best of my ability(which ist not very good sadly =/). As we all know, this is SEs attempt at keeping class skills at a comparable amount to what we have now, while also making their core mechanic more tolerant towards failures. And from what I can tell, this is not nearly what I would have expected.
Blackmage
We felt Blackmages were forced to move out of Area of Effects too often, leading to a higher degree of damage lost than we initially intended.
- Ley Lines will now link Blackmages to their current target, significantly reducing damage taken from those targets.
- Fire has been reduced to a single spell, dealing increased damage in relation to the caster's mana spent.
- Casting Thunder while under the effect of Umbral Ice will now result in electrocution and cause paralysis for 10 seconds.
Ninja
- Mudras are now subject to global cooldowns. This is to prevent evil rabbits from showing up too often on newer players.
- Both posions now leave a damage over time effect on their targets. Hitting a target suffering from Kiss of the Wasp posion while using Kiss of the Viper, will now result in increased damage, and vice versa. We felt poisons were not implemented very well, so our new poison swap mechanic will compensate for that.
Dragoon
- Dragoons will get 2 new tiers to their main combo chains which will trigger randomly. Both new tiers do exactly the same thing, they do have different positional conditions however, the same way Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust work. We ran out of new ideas for Dragoons, so instead we built upon our most popular Heavensward Dragoon mechanic, going more in-depth with it.
Monk
We felt Monks were feeling too stationary in combat. To compensate, we increased the amount of positional conditions specifically for this class. Other physical damage dealing classes ramain unaffected from this change.
- Added inter-cardinal direction positionals, up to a total of 6 possible striking positions. One position for each of the Monk's main skills.
- Missing a positional condition will result in Greased Lightning wearing off.
- Greased Lightning no longer has a duration timer.
Machinist
Yes, we heared you! Gauss Barrels will no longer clumsily deform your weapons. All Machinist weapon skinns have been replaced by uniform-looking Gauss Barrels.
- In order to reduce the amount of skills required, Slug Shot and Clean Shot have been removed from the game.
- Split Shot now has a 50% chance to trigger Bullet Hell, increasing the amount of damage dealt by the next Spit Shot to 200% and removing it's casting time.
- Reaload and Quick Reload were removed from the game, since the new Machinist weapon does not require ammunition.
- Wildfire no longer has a duration. Instead it now automatically waits for invincibility frames before triggering.
Astrologian
- To make handling cards more manageable, Bole, Balance, Arrow and Spear have been removed.
- Collective Unconscious now also includes the effects from Synastry, Time Dilation, Lightspeed and Essential Dignity. The respective skills were removed.
- Malefic and Malefic II were removed. Stella has always been intended to be Astrologian's main spell for dealing damage.
Warrior
- when under the effect of Uncontrollable, Inner Beast or Berserk, Warriors become dominated, attacking random enemies or party members.
Paladin
- Flash now takes a screenshot
Scholar
- The effect of Cleric Stance has been implemented into the classe's core, and can no longer be removed. To compensate the amount of healing lost, AI of fairy companions has been greatly improved and automatized.
- Healing and supporting spells are now integrated into Eos' and Selene's arsenal of spells.
Bard
- Mage's Ballad, Foe Requiem and Army's Paeon now correctly root bards in place and activate /songbird.
- We felt bards in Heavensward were still too mobile in comparison to other ranged classes. Casting times and damage dealt have been increased by 150%.
Whitemage
- To increase feeling of elemental closeness, Stone I-III can only be cast in areas where actual stones are available.
- Light effects and sound volume of Holy have been increased by 200%.
Summoner
- Broil has been removed from the game
- Carbuncles can now be summoned in up to 16 million different color styles!
- Summoning spells have been removed. Carbuncles and Egis are called by typing /summon "Carbuncle Name" in chat.
- Each Carbuncle color variation has to be given an individual name for summoning purposes.
- Summoner's Auto-Attack has been renamed into Broil.
- Pets now randomly switch behavior types during combat.
(Important annotation: Did we forget someone? Please re-check)
General
In order to increase the value of parry, all other stats have been removed from tanking gear.