We have been graced today with a very long Live Letter From The Producer, featuring this impressive job action trailer for the upcoming FFXIV expansion, Dawntrail. Most of the new abilities look very spectacular, but if you are a veteran of the game, even without seeing what actions are pressed, you will be able to make out some changes to your current skills based on the visuals alone. While I don't know much about melee dps jobs like Monk and Samurai, seeing my favourite casters and healers and guessing how my rotation will look like, where will I use my new abilities and what has changed was a fun guessing game.

For those, who only know which icon to press and don't even know the names of their skills (don't worry, you are not alone, Yoshi-P also struggled to recall the names of certain abilities), let alone recognise the visual effects, there was a nice recap of major changes during the 5 hours broadcast. Here is a list of some changes which I found interesting and looking forward to see them in action:

Basically if you got a skill on lvl90 you will most likely get a follow-up to it on lvl100, extending your big damage burst window.

Certain mitigations will last longer above lvl90, which suggests that either bosses will shower us with long-lasting damage, or there will be back-to-back mechanics we will have to cover with one mitigation.

As the level cap increases we also get more skills, which can be quite an overwhelming amount of buttons to press. To help with this, for certain combo actions you will be able to set if you want to place them on a separate button, or you want them all to be on the same button, changing from one to the other. I really like that they implemented this as an option feature, leaving it up to the players if they want to use it. You will be able to set this skill by skill, which gives a lot of customisation and accessibility options.

Every job has a burst phase and some kind of damage buff or skills which hit hard but are on a longer cooldown. Linking up with the reduce buttons theme, some big burst actions have been changed in a way, that they will be accessible once you have activated your damage buff. I think this will make it a lot easier for newbies to learn the optimal rotations and use their big damage skills at the ideal time.

And to make the burst phase a little less stressful, those actions which were filling your job gauge instantly to the amount you needed to start your biggest damage combos will now instead of increasing the gauge just let you execute your combo skills for free, so you won't recap on resources if something went wrong earlier in the fight and you accumulated more resource than you would need before your big damage burst.

Healers, it's time to do more damage! Because if the boss dies faster it will hurt the tank less, right? Every healer got some additional damage action as a follow-up to their damage buff, giving them a more exciting burst damage phase than just pressing one button. If you have read my FFXIV history lesson here you know how much I miss certain skills from years ago which we don't have anymore, now we are getting back something similar to them, and I'm so happy!

Speaking of healers, Astrologian is getting a bigger rework. Currently this job can be a bit stressful to play since you are pulling random cards, and then have to decide who is the best target for that card, have to redraw if the cards don't have a favoured receiver in your party, or if they don't give the right symbols you want to collect for your own benefit. You with me still? No? I don't blame you, I can't follow it either. I'm an okay-ish healer, but I can't play Astrologian for the life of me. In the upcoming changes there won't be random cards anymore and you don't have to collect different symbols either. Instead of one card you will draw 4 with damage buff, mitigation and healing benefits, then use them to your liking when you feel like it.

Black Mages are the bane of every healer's existence as they refuse to move out of their damage enhancing LeyLines. Now we get a solution, because they will be able to call to LeyLines to them should they have to move out of them. (I bet they will still not move... but at least if I pull them into safety, they will moan less, since they can bring the precious LeyLines with them.)

Ninja is getting a similar treatment as Black Mage did in the previous expansion, and a buff which you had to keep up constantly will become a passive trait, making the job a lot easier and giving you more time to focus on the fun part of the rotation.

Both new jobs, Viper and Pictomancer look very cool, in the broadcast we got to see a longer presentation from Yoshi-P beating up some striking dummies for us and showcasing the new abilities. I can't say much about these jobs myself yet, as for me to understand how the skills work and what is the best way to use them I need to read the descriptions, see the recast timers and place them on the hotbar myself.

Yes, yes, I have been keeping my main job, Summoner as last because.... what is better than one Bahamut? Two Bahamuts of course! There were many guesses what kind of new summons we will get, but an upgraded version of Bahamut was definitely not among my guesses. I feel sorry for my raid group, they will have to put up with me drooling over my good boy even more. Because Bahamut is a good boy, yes. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out this video from my hero, Larry. I blame all my Bahamut-addiction on him.

So excuse me while I sit here and grin like a child on Christmas Day because my favourite jobs look even more awesome than they are now and I can't wait to get into the new expansion at the end of June.

If you want to see the full 5 hours broadcast you can watch it here.