Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker, Reaper and Sage, the 2 new classes analyzed in detail

Final Fantasy 14

In Final Fantasy XIV there are no skill branches to unlock: the development of the classes is direct and well defined within specific roles. Here the progression is linked to two simple factors: your character can level and use every single specialization, and each of these has such a quantity of skills to understand and exploit properly that it cannot be used at random. The class, in other words, grows with the abilities of those who use it, and to achieve total mastery it takes hours of study and instances of increasing difficulty.

There is no need to be frightened, on the other hand In an MMO, this is a natural process and virtually everyone learns to properly use at least one or two classes over time. During a media tour for a few hours, however, it is almost impossible to achieve such a competence, considering that even an experienced player finds himself in his hand two new specializations at the highest level without tutorials of any kind. The new classes, however, must always be analyzed in detail, so we spent a lot of our time reading the various skills of Sage and Reaper - the two new entries, respectively a healer specialized in barriers and a melee DPS that he would be the center of attention at any Halloween party - and brutally beating a wooden mannequin in hopes of at least partially understanding their rotations.

Things went, indeed, better than we hoped, because the Reaper turned out to be a class suitable for DPS newbies (among the most intuitive in the game), and the Sage, despite its remarkable complexity, seems built on rather logical and understandable systems. Today, therefore, we will try to draw conclusions on these two new "Jobs" before the launch of Endwalker, also going into the details of the skills.

Reaper: edgy, brutal, and very welcoming

Final Fantasy XIV: Reaper and Sage, a nice couple of novelties The Reaper as mentioned is a melee DPS with rather powerful abilities, whose operation in battle boasts a rhythm similar to that of the Samurai. In practice we talk about performing some basic combos to recover resources and then consume them in a riot of burst damage (even if, where the Samurai throws his most powerful moves in a few seconds, the Reaper remains transformed for some time ).

Let's start with the basics, because practically every single Reaper will start fights with Whorl of Death or Death's Design: they are very similar skills that inflict a penalty on enemies that increases the damage inflicted on them by 10% ( only that of the Reaper, or it would be a crazy ability), and if used while the 30 second penalty is still active they extend it by another 30 seconds. Their difference is only in being area or single target respectively. Once this is done the Reaper must start working to raise his two main resources: the Soul bar and the Shroud bar, and the first bar simply rises with the execution of two fundamental combos composed of various skills. The single-target one is for three attacks and closes with Infernal Slice, the one on area is for two hits and closes with Nightmare Scythe.

Attention, none of these combos leads to a particularly fast reload of the Soul bar (usually each hit increases it by 10 points), but constantly performing them is important because the resource is essential to use the attacks they fill the second bar, the Shroud. These other attacks are Blood Stalk and Soul Swathe (also here the usual division between "single target" and "area"), and when used they activate a status that allows you to use extra attacks that finally fill the Shroud bar. When this reaches 50 points, the Reaper can activate Lemur Shroud, transforms into a sort of ghostly reaper, and all his attacks change to inflict enormous damage. Not only that, he has five charges during this mode (necessary to use his unique attacks, which replace the normal ones) and if he consumes them he can - before exiting the mode - use the already consumed slots to add more hits to those already launched, maximizing the damage in an extreme way. At level 90, however, he gets a devastating area finisher named Communio, with which it is practically mandatory to close the transformation.

Now, said this way, we can understand that everything looks very complicated, but the truth is that, once we have found the rhythm of the basic combos, the rotation on the targets consists only of a couple of alternating series of hits, which are then closed with a handful of possible skills. Things get slightly more complicated at higher levels, where you get powers that dryly fill the Soul bar by 50 points (obviously they have a very long recharge time) and an additional attack that adds 50 points to the Shroud one (but requires a status offered by an additional skill first). Even in that case, however, we are talking about powers that become rather easy to insert into the rotation during a battle - especially if you want to do gigantic damage right away - and should only be used once.

Not enough, the Reaper is a very mobile class: has the ability to teleport towards the enemy leaving a portal behind that lasts a few seconds, and can be reused for a quick escape. It has two rather flexible ranged attacks (even if the second, in area, has a very long casting time and we are struggling for now to find a real use for it), and even a barrier that heals the team slightly when consumed for a few seconds (a power nice, but which certainly doesn't give the class any particular utility). Of course, it will take time to optimize the resource management of this DPS in order to refine its functionality, yet, as already mentioned, we see it very similar to the Samurai conceptually: an easy class to understand, difficult to use perfectly, but still in able to obtain excellent results even in the hands of inexperienced players due to the naturalness of its combos. As a new addition it is absolutely brilliant, and we imagine that many players will test it as soon as the expansion comes out.

Sage: Healers' Gundam is not easy to drive

Final Fantasy XIV: laser and love, the Sage recipe The Sage, as expected, is a much more complicated class. On the other hand, he has two resources to manage in addition to mana and an ability that transforms the effects of four of his spells, as well as a large number of barriers that allow him to significantly limit the damage suffered by his companions (but obviously they go managed with a sensible rotation).

But let's start from the basics: the foundation of Sage is that it heals with lasers. On the one hand this makes him great for eye surgery or tattoo removal, on the other hand it gives his move kit a style that looks to all intents and purposes a more fun variation than the Scholar's. The core of the Sage's healing is in fact an ability called Kardia, which passively heals itself and a companion of your choice when dealing damage. This means that, once the target has been selected, a Sage's job is mainly to unload its floating lasers on enemies, because every hit inflicted corresponds to a cure. This obviously does not mean that the Sage has no other type of heal: whereas Kardia's target is usually the tank, the class can still heal using Ixochole (an area heal), Taurochole (a single heal that mitigates the damage of 10. %), and Druochole (another single heal), plus some abilities, such as Zoe, that improve the effectiveness of individual heals (Zoe even doubles it, but predictably you won't be able to use it very often). And so far all right, only things get complicated when you take into account the fact that the Sage is a barrier healer, and as such his primary talent lies in damage mitigation rather than damage regeneration. To this, then, is added the resource management mentioned above.

You know the skills with "chole" at the end of the name just mentioned? They are unusable if you do not use the charges of Addersgall, one of his two extra resources: the Sage loads a maximum of three tokens that automatically refill every twenty seconds, so they cannot be used at will. In addition, there is a fourth power of that type called Kerachole, which places a nice mitigating barrier capable of protecting from 10% damage for a long time. This effect does not scale with Taurochole's identical one, but if you consider Addersgall's cooldowns it becomes possible to consistently place mitigating effects on your targets without too much trouble. But be careful, because the show isn't over: The Sage also has an ability called Eukrasia, which allows him to transform his main abilities. Using it means making the powers called Diagnosis, Prognosis and Dosis become "Eukrasian", and for all intents and purposes make the first two of the barriers with care attached, and the third - which is normally the main attack move of the Sage - a poisonous blow that does damage over time and continues to rigner. Eukrasia, however, is linked to the global cooldown, and it is therefore not the case to use it without sense in turn, however useful.

Do you think that's all? No, we're not done: when the barriers placed with Eukrasian Diagnosis are consumed, the second resource is obtained: Addersting. A charge that allows you to use an instant attack called Toxikon that does the same damage as Dosis, but is area-wide and instant. The ability to use it significantly increases the DPS (and consequently the heals), but curiously it seems to be the only skill capable of making use of the Addersting charges. The only quirk of the essay is just that, as we were expecting a finisher of some kind related to resource management, and instead the most damaging move in the class - a huge laser obtained at level 90 with attached care and defensive bonus called Pneuma - not makes use of it. Ah, of course, add other passive bonuses, a couple of other barriers (including Haima and Phaima, delicate barriers that regenerate five times, however) and the infinite complications deriving from keeping the damage high while moving and controlling. if your companions are dying or not.

In short, the Sage is seriously very complex and its poor accessibility will reap many victims, since, starting at high levels, using it effectively will be an art of very few players. However, as you can see, here too there is a well thought-out (excluding only the question of offensive moves with Addersting) and readable system that, with the right training, could become one of the most flexible in the magical healer sector. We, undoubtedly, will try it and level out expansion.

What about you? Will you drop one of your classes for these new entries, or do you prefer to use what you already know? If you want to know more about the rest of the classes (even if going into less detail) we refer you to our complete trial of Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker.

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