Dawntrail Physical Ranged DPS Impressions

Key Takeaways

It’s important to play it safe with ranged attacks, they have poor DPS but are great at buffing and supporting.
Bard will get a QoL change and a longer Battle Voice, but no major skill improvements.
The mechanics are finely tuned and the bursts lively, the dancers remain simple with fewer changes.

Playing it safe is the foundation of physical ranged classes. You don’t need to be very close to the enemy’s hitbox. Your damage may not be the greatest, but what you lack in DPS you make up for with buffs and support. During the Dawntrail media tour, we had the opportunity to try out the three ranged classes, and the reaction was somewhat mixed. There are some quality of life improvements added, but no major changes to the formula.

This article is based on play of an in-development build of FINAL FANTASY XIV: Dawntrails, and content may be subject to change in the final version.

Bird

Although it’s a physical area that originally had no competitors back then, Bird feels some quality of life has changed.

Bard and Reaper have something in common: they’ve both made very few changes. For Bard, at least, the biggest attraction is that they no longer require a target to activate their songs, a major and long overdue change that endgame players have been clamoring for. Any downtime can throw off your song rotation in some extremely unfortunate ways.

Battle Voice has been increased from 15 to 20 seconds, Bloodletter has an upgraded version called Heartbreak Shot, button consolidation has been implemented, Wanderer’s Minuet turns into Pitch Perfect when used, Barrage turns into Resonant Arrow, a level 96 skill, and Radiant Finale turns into Radiant Encore, a level 100 skill.

As you can see, the main focus is to allow you to use songs even when you don’t have a target. It also adds some new damage skills. The increase in the length of Battle Voice is also a surprisingly appealing change that surprised us.

Mechanic

Introduced in the first major expansion, Heavensward, the Machinist has undergone several significant overhauls, but the job has held up well since Shadowbringers, at least mechanically, so it doesn’t seem like Square Enix is looking to reinvent the wheel just yet.

Similar to Red Mage’s Manafication, Barrel Stabilizer no longer gives the job 50 gauge, but instead allows one use of Hypercharge without consuming resources within a 30 second window. As someone who finds myself overcapping my gauge more often with Machinist than Red Mage, this is a nice change. However, again in comparison to Manafication, I wish there was a visual indicator to identify when this is activated. It’s still likely to be used right after triggering Wildfire, though.

Other than that, the Drill now has two charges, Gauss Rounds and Ricochet now have upgraded versions at level 92, and Heat Blast now has a cooler animation. The Chainsaw now has a follow-up attack called Excavator that not only increases the battery gauge but also deals the same amount of damage, and using the Barrel Stabilizer turns it into a full metal field that makes the character go on a rampage with machine guns and missiles. The Machinist now has better usability for the Barrel Stabilizer and his bursts are somehow even busier.

Dancer

Very simple, yet extremely versatile, the Dancer was first introduced in Shadowbringers and became one of the most popular in the raid. In Dawntrail, not much has changed; the Dancer can be considered the Summoner and Reaper of the expansion, in that it retains almost everything it was before.

The only moderate addition is that there’s a new attack called Last Dance that activates after a Standard Finish. There’s also an upgraded Saber Dance that’s only granted if you achieve a Technical Finish. And finally, Standard Step has an upgraded skill called Finishing Move that can be refreshed with the press of a button, but it can only be used when Flourish is active. This is especially useful if you need to change party members mid-battle, but still, it’s a niche situation.

That’s basically it: Dancer plays and feels the same as it always has, and that’s probably for the best.