FFXIV 6.55: PvP buffs Dancer/Black Mage and other balances, explained

The jobs are rebalanced for PvP once more, and there are even adjustments to Frontlines and the maps. The nerfs and buffs this time may surprise you as they did me — here are the FFXIV 6.55 PvP balances.

6.55 PvP Rebalancing: Buffs for Dancer, Nerfs for Bard, Frontlines changes, and more

The overall changes to the jobs are pretty mild this time, but some are rather unexpected.

On the buffs side, we’ve gained this:

• The Purify action now grants Resilience no matter what. Resilience is a five-second buff nullifying any status afflictions the move removes. Previously, Resilience only happened if you successfully removed an effect, but now you can use Purify as an anticipatory action if you’re about to be inflicted.
• Paladin: The damage reduction from Knight’s Resolve, a buff given by Holy Sheltron, has increased from 15% to 20%. Now Paladin is even more unkillable, because why not give me more incentives to work up the will to play it in Crystalline Conflict?
• Black Mage: The developers see the need to grace Black Mage with yet another small survivability buff: The maximum HP of Black Mage in PvP is now 49,500 instead of 48,000. That’s approximately 1.5 more seconds to survive doing your Limit Break.
• Dancer: The potency of both the damage and barrier granted by each stack of Acclaim during Honing Ovation got buffed. It now starts at 2,000 and ends at 6,000 maximum.
• Ninja: The area of effect radius of Goka Mekkyaku has increased by exactly one yard. Now it’s 6 yards total in-game.
• Bard: Blast Arrow’s potency went up from 8,000 to 10,000. More sniping people with arrows incoming. The Warden’s Paean also reduced its recast from 30 to 25 seconds.
• Reaper: The duration of Enshrouded given by Tenebrae Lemurum has increased from 15 to 20 seconds, so you have longer to go all out and look scary doing so.

But the law of equivalent exchange looms, and to enjoy these buffs, we must sacrifice the following nerfs:

FFXIV 6.55: PvP balances: Job nerfs

Related: FFXIV Dawntrail Female Hrothgar reveal: Were they worth the wait?

• White Mage: Miracle of Nature, White Mage’s infamous transformation-based stun attack, increased its recast timer from 30 to 45 seconds. Now, White Mage is a little less annoying to deal with.
• Monk: Riddle of Earth’s Earth Resonance buff decreased from lasting 10 seconds to only 8. A deserved nerf, in my biased caster opinion.
• Bard: If you thought Blast Arrow’s potency going up meant Bard was being pat on the back, it’s more like being slapped across the wrist. Empyreal Arrow’s potency went down from 4,000 to 3,000, the recast time of Silent Nocturne increased from 20 to 30 seconds, and The Warden’s Paean’s barrier is now only 8 seconds long instead of 10. As a Bard PvP main, this is a sad day for me.

Frontlines Adjustments

For those looking to get in your daily roulette EXP, you have changes in Frontlines to look forward to. Frontlines has decided it no longer likes Gunbreaker, Astrologian, Dragoon, Summoner, Samurai, or Dark Knight:

• Astrologian and Dark Knight’s damage modifiers decreased to -5%.
• Dragoon and Samurai’s are even worse, decreasing a whole -10%.
• But Summoner and Dark Knight now have it the worst off with -15%.
• Summoner, Dark Knight, and Gunbreaker also get 15 seconds added to their limit break gauge fill time as the icing on top.

But that’s not all. The Fields of Glory Shatter map underwent some promised adjustments:

• Small Icebound Tomeliths: Instead of a mere 5 able to be active at once, the cap has increased to a whopping 15. That being said, as a tradeoff, everything else about them takes longer now: It takes 420 seconds for them to activate and reactivate instead of 5, and 360 to respawn instead of 5. They also only have 300,000 HP instead of 400,000 now.
• Large Icebound Tomeliths: Two can now be active at once, they have three million HP instead of four million, and they respawn every 60 seconds instead of 120. But the data gained from each is now only 200 instead of 250.
• The data awarded from knocking out another player went down from 10 to 5.

Increasing the number of Tomeliths while decreasing payouts and HP and increasing respawn times will allow the map to be less overly focal on just a few Tomeliths, forcing teams to spread out more. This will be, in my opinion, a welcomed change to encourage exploring the map more rather than pure bottlenecking.

That’s all of the FFXIV 6.55 PvP balances. Do you feel vindicated or robbed?