Did you know that with the official release of FFXIV Dawntrail on July 2nd, you’ll still have access to some really nice changes in the game even if you don’t own the in-app expansion?

Here I’ll highlight some changes I know from the preliminary patch notes that affect all players, including base gamers. If you’re preparing to jump into the new expansion, don’t miss this guide. Let’s get started!

Before Entering

Before we get started, I want to remind you that these patch notes are available on the official FFXIV website. The patch notes will let you know which items require which paid expansions to unlock. For example, if you only own Stormblood, any 2.x items will work for you, but as soon as you sign up for Shadowbringers, you’ll also get access to 5.x content, and so on.

But here I’m going to focus on the content that all players have been able to access since the official release of the expansion on July 2nd.

Quest Changes

The first item we saw was the quest they added to give everyone a free Fantasia to go along with the graphical upgrade. This will show you where you can pick up the quest, the name of the quest giver, and the requirements. For example, if you are class level 1 or higher, and you complete the quest “Scions of the Seventh Dawn”, which is about 30 quests in ARR MSQ series.

You can temporarily hide the display of nearby player characters when interacting with quest-related NPCs or objects. It will be in your character configuration menu under General and “Quest Progression Settings”.

You can also choose to automatically advance on-screen text dialogue during voiced conversations. And, quests where you type in “say” chat will be a little more lenient with your input. Think of some quests that had punctuation or uppercase letters before, which looked like lower case letters.

Some Former Beast-Tribe Quests will now be Allied Society Quests in an attempt to improve relations with the more refined members of the aforementioned groups.

Also, some quest battles can no longer be played with limited jobs. For example, Blue Mage is OP, and Beastmaster is even more so. They won’t let you play with them on MSQ.

Quality Of Life Changes

The studio has added new craftable items for any FC leader, as well as new areas and items for Airship/Submersible programme, and new levels for Submersible.

They have also changed the settlement classifications for sparsely populated worlds. You can now kick people out of your house and lawn (10 days).

There will be new prizes in Gold Saucer, including new Furniture, Orchestrion Rolls, Aquarium Fish, and Seeds! Card numbers have been added to the item descriptions of all Triple Triad cards.

If you already own Shadowbringers, you can also play as a female Hrothgar, with a new hairstyle.

The layout of Blue Magic Spellbook has been adjusted, and the execution of Monk and DRG Limit Break animations has changed. Buffs may disappear when changing areas, and each job below your highest level now gives a 100% Armoury Bonus until level 90. Then 50% from levels 90 to 99.

New World and Preferred World character rewards now apply to all jobs at level 89 or below. You can pick up Viper and Pictomancer weapons from Deep Dungeon Vendors (like PotD vendor).

Duty Finder has been reorganized. Level 50/60/70/80 Roulette is now High-level Dungeon Roulette. You can now leave mid-fight if you enter out of sync.

New Items

New items in Wolves’ Den for Trophy Crystals and Wolf Marks! New PVP Serieses Face wear becomes a slot. Some fashion accessories will become face slot items, so if they are missing from your fashion accessories list, make sure to pick them up from Calamity Salvagers in your starting city. They will give you an equippable item of equivalent.

Fantasia and Retainer Fantasia now looks different. Dyes have also changed a lot, you can add 2 colors to many pieces of gear, and more colors will be added in additional patches. As long as you have enough FFXIV Gil, you can change the appearance of your gear to any amount you want!

Men and Male Viera can now wear princess dresses. And new armor can be obtained in exchange for Silver Chocobo Feather.

Allied Society now has some new items. Survival and Engineering manuals now tell you when you need to read them again. Crafters’ and Gatherers’ Scrips have changed color. Spiritbond when gathering will be based on the gear level of the gear instead of the item level. You also get extra Spiritbond when you catch a big fish. Desynth caps and stacks still work even if you accidentally click on a single item.

There are also new mounts, minions, and fashion accessories. After using Fantasia, you have 60 minutes of in-game time to re-edit your appearance.

Other Changes

The new and improved Blacklist has a bunch of new features. You can also mute people and filter messages with specific terms from the chat.

What’s more, Retainers can now be assigned adventures from the companion app! This is a big deal for people who actually pay for and use the app, as any additional features will make it work.

That’s all for today. While not an exhaustive list, here are all the things I felt were noteworthy in the latest patch notes. Hopefully, this helps! We’ll see you guys in-game!

With the release date of FFXIV Dawntrail getting closer, here I will talk about the two new jobs that will be added in the new expansion, Viper and Pictomancer.

In this guide, I will give an overview of these jobs and their play styles. I will not discuss job potential at all, mainly because this is pre-release, so the numbers are not final. At the end, we will also talk about my personal thoughts on the two new jobs.

Before I get into it, I want to remind you that it is very important to have enough FFXIV Gil if you want to unlock the new jobs in the new expansion as soon as possible and make it to the level cap. Let’s get straight into it.

Viper

Viper is a job that combines Monk, Samurai, and Reaper with an extreme simplification. Its Awakened mode is basically like Enshroud, but somehow even more busy and flashy, and the base rotation is a more complex version of Monk Combo Tree.

One of its attacks applies a debuff to enemies, just like Reaper, while the other two buffs apply damage and speed buffs to you, just like Samurai. On top of that, it also has a resource giving attack that gives you access to three more attacks.

Let’s break down the most confusing part, the main combo. This is probably because, despite being very similar to Samurai, the combo is condensed down to just two buttons.

We have the basic form with two buttons, one of which applies a debuff to your target for 20 seconds, stacking up to 40 seconds. Whichever button you press, both will move to the second step. One of them will give you an attack buff, while the other will give you an attack speed buff.

Depending on which of the two buttons you press, they will move to a different pair of buttons. Two rear position skills, or two flanking positions. The speed buff always results in the rear position, while the damage buff results in the flanking position. The way these positions work is that they have a set pattern. You can start the fight with any of them at will. After that, they will combo with each other specifically.

This part is mostly automated. The on-screen sword gauge will tell you which skills you should use, but the game will also light up the skills you need to hit in the correct order to follow the buff sequence.

All in all, the only part you really need to pay attention to is the first time you hit the combo to ensure the debuff on the boss stays put. The rest of the time, you just need to press another button.

Next, for its two skills, they share cooldowns and recharges, but we’re only focusing on this single target version. This will grant you one Red Gem, up to three, and apply your debuff to the target.

Red Gems are used for this skill, which is also an AoE, and each use of this skill will enable you to make three additional attacks. The two “proc” skills are hooked up to your buffs, and they will give you damage and speed buffs, respectively.

They also have positions, the same as the main combo. The attack up button is the flank position, and the speedup is the rear position. You’ll want to use these, of course, but it’s not as simple as just pressing them.

Using a Red Gem or attack buff will cause the button on the left to light up, and pressing that button will cause the button on the right to light up for the combo. Pressing the speed up skill will cause the button on the right to light up, combo with the button on the left. You can use oGCD exactly twice, so you need to follow the correct combo order.

Overall, this is actually a pretty simple job. The confusing part is what’s hidden behind the button condensing and procs.

Pictomancer

Moving on to Pictomancer, this one is completely different. I would describe it as an upkeep job. You have to constantly upkeep on your paintings to get the most damage.

At the start of any mission, you need to paint on all three canvases, which have long cast times in combat, but no cast times outside of combat.

We have a basic spell combo for a single target and AoE. Completing this combo will grant you 25 gauge and a color splotch. With 50 gauge, you can use Subtractive Palette, which turns one of your color splotch into a dark splotch.

If you don’t have it on the palette, the buff will be applied the next time you get it. If you have a dark splotch, you can spend these on Holy or Dark Comet. Naturally, Dark Comet is more powerful because of the restrictions.

Subtractive Palette also allows you to use a combination of minor spells with three Aetherhue GCDs. These spells take longer to cast, but do more damage. Despite requiring Subtractive Palette, this combination also gives you a white splotch.

With the paintings, things start to get complicated. We have creature, weapon, and landscape, in that order. The creature section will cycle through four different paintings.

The weapon painting here is a little weird. Hitting oGCD does not cause an attack, but gives you access to a dedicated button to instantly cast a three-hit combo. Finally, the landscape painting gives us access to a two-minute cooldown.

Next up is Inspiration. The cast and recast time of Star Prism and Aetherhue spells will be reduced by a quarter. Star Prism can be used once, which also gives you Starstruck. Hyperphantasia is the stack you want to deplete by using Star Prism, Aetherhue spells, and Comet.

Your special Rainbow Drip skill will go into effect immediately after you use up all your mana, and it has a long cast time, so it might also be a good pre-pull cast.

So let’s wrap it up. The key to this job is to use your base combo to get gauge and paint splotches. Subtractive Palette can darken them and get a more powerful combo.

Your entire toolkit is pretty much AoE skills, too. You just need to swap AoE versions of the two combos to switch between the two.

We also have other non-offensive skills. The first is Tempera Coat, a 20% max HP shield. The other is Tempera Grassa, which turns your coat into an AoE that gives 10% max HP to the team. So protect yourself or protect the team. It’s your choice.

That’s all I know about the two new jobs, Viper and Pictomancer. If you know of some details that I didn’t pay attention to, please share! Good luck!