FFXIV Patch 5.5: Class Balancing

Final Fantasy XIV Patch 5.5

FFXIV Patch 5.5 released only two days ago, and amongst its many additions, it brought us a few tweaks to the class balancing of the game. As the only patches left will be 5.55 and 5.58, it’s unlikely that the classes will be further adjusted. As a raider myself and someone who likes to look at the available data, I figured I’d talk a bit about the class balancing at the end of Shadowbringers!

As a disclaimer, I’ll be using values from the 95th percentile of parses uploaded containing data for the past two weeks in the current Savage raid tier. Very little changes through the percentiles, though, aside from Ninja being higher at lower percentiles and Black Mage being lower at said percentiles. Looking at a high bar for some of the most skilled players gives a good idea of how far the jobs can be pushed.

DPS

So, technically parsing isn’t allowed in the terms of service, but assuming one doesn’t flame others, you won’t be reported for it. Additionally, I’m just using currently available data, which I don’t think is too bad in itself.

FFXIV DPS Chart
Credit: FFLogs

As one can see, this is actually pretty good balancing for the most part. The clear outliers are the Physical Ranged DPS, of which while balanced extremely well against themselves, all are at least 1500 DPS below even the worst competition.

The Casters and Melee DPS are also pretty well balanced against each other, all within 1000 DPS of one another. This is actually some of the best DPS balance the game has ever had where no class is “bad.” All the Physical Ranged as a chunk, as well as the Casters and Melee, are near identical in their damage and rely on preference.

It just perplexes me why the devs feel that the Physical Ranged need to be so much lower. Yoshi-P stated it was due to their defensive utility, but Casters and Melee also have defensive utility that any group worth its salt will aim to use. Maybe with it being more general in its cooldowns, I can see a slight DPS reduction, but not to this extent.

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As a small note, it seems the tiny buffs Dragoon received in FFXIV Patch 5.5 came in handy and brought it up compared to its competition.

Tanks

The tanks, by and large are also balanced better than they’ve ever been in XIV’s history, and I love to see it.

FFXIV Tank DPS Chart
Credit: FFLogs

Ever since Shadowbringers released, Paladin and Gunbreaker had been leading the pack in damage, with Warrior and Dark Knight both lacking behind by a few hundred DPS.

As one can see, FFXIV Patch 5.5’s adjustment to Warrior’s DPS put it on par with the other two, and it feels a bit sad to see Dark Knight have the lowest damage by far.

Even so, one tank’s max output being a few hundred lower than the others will never practically make a difference in a fight assuming players know the mechanics. Additionally, all the tanks’ cooldown kits feels decently balanced against one another, and Dark Knight has the best universal cooldown in the game for damage mitigation.

Healers

Once again, I have to say that the current balancing is the best FFXIV has ever seen.

FFXIV Healer DPS Chart
Credit: FFLogs

Amusingly, though, the healer damage is… the same as practically every past expansion at the end.

Near every time, Astrologian would be the worst healer at an expansion’s release, then be overbuffed to compensate. It and Scholar are consistently the best healers at the end of an expansion.

White Mage lags slightly behind, but not NEARLY as much as it had in the past, and it remains more than viable as a pure healer who likes to see big individual numbers. I’m also told this is the most fun the class has ever been, so seeing the balancing be so close is very nice.

Overall

As I’ve mentioned, this is inarguably the best class balancing the game has ever seen. No class is unviable, and fights don’t feel intensely punishing for certain tanks or DPS, which has been an issue in the past.

My only real issues are the bottom end, which feel lower than their peers by too much, especially the Physical Ranged DPS. Even so, bringing one does give the party a 1% boost to all stats, so near all groups will be bringing at least one of the three.

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FFXIV Patch 5.5 may only have offered a few class changes, but it did bring all affected classes up to their competition. I’d call it a success, and for that matter, near all of Shadowbringer’s attempts to balance all the jobs.

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