Made in Japan instead of America: I got a Xbox (controller)

It's been confirmed. Playing FF14 on a PC with a keyboard and mouse will result in a far lower camera zoom height. How did I know? Well, it started from the recent fanfest involving Sakaguchi "the Original Guchi" Hironobu trolling Yoshi-P. From the footage, the game was played on gaming monitors. At the same time, I read somewhere that the オリジナルぐち was using a combination of an Xbox controller and keyboard. Emboldened by this, I decided to purchase an older model of the Xbox controller (i.e. it was a 2020 model) since it should be good enough for the PC version. That was during Halloween although I don't celebrate it. Since I ordered it from the Singaporean Xbox online store, I got it on 2nd November.

As it turned out, my 80+SGD gamble paid off. After wiring the device and updating the controller software, I started the game. The increased camera zoom was only slightly higher in the major city zones (I tested it in the Empyreum, where my private housing is and my home destination of Gridania). However, the difference was clearly seen once I ran Thaleia and P12N. In fact, having a much larger visual field greatly helped my rotation efficiency as the stress on my focus was significantly eased. At the end of the day, FF14, unlike other games I've played, involves plenty of stuff happening at the far end of the arena.

That's a Viper, not a snake

It's official. Dawntrail will NOT feature its second 2nd Amendment job. Before the big reveal, many of us believed the new melee DPS job would be Corsair. After all, the original trailer did exude an explorer's vibe. While the extended version retained the same old feel, what we saw belted at the waist wasn't a gun but a sword.

Interestingly, despite the view that it's an original job, connections were made to Zidane.

Wait, that's the wrong Zidane.

Yep, that's the correct Zidane.

With that said, the Viper job actually reminds me of R.A. "not rated R" Salvatore and Drizzt Do'Urden. The former is a writer while the latter happens to be a POC protagonist (technically speaking) in high fantasy created by... well, the former. The reason is that like the Viper, Drizzt is a wielder of two long blades. In fact, fans of Dungeons And Dragons would know one of the ways to play a Ranger is dual-wielding. Aesthetics-wise, the hood gave off an Assassin's Creed feel. As for when the weapons were sheathed, that reminded me of the Witcher series where Geralt of Rivia also has two swords strapped on his back albeit in a different manner.

If you think the above music sounds as Iberian as Princess Leanor, you're not alone. Of course, there's no way anyone would play this during her oath-swearing ceremony. But still, it sounds as Iberian as the Spanish royalty, Portuguese armada, and the stereotypical Catalan genius.

For the rest of this post, I will speculate on how the Viper gameplay may turn out.

DISCLAIMER!

Whatever is stated here is purely the product of speculation based on the teaser trailer. I do not claim to be a genius, let alone the stereotypical Catalan type.

In the introduction, the Viper was said to be a job focusing on alternating rotations. Apparently, attacks are stance-based. What this possibly means is that we may end up seeing a stance switch ability similar to the Black Mage's Transpose. At the same time, how technically complex would the job rotation be?

First off, let's count roughly how many GCD abilities were on display in the teaser. By my guess, it'd be 4 where the dual-wielding aspect is involved. At the same time, stance-switching seemed to include an attack as well. Assuming the joint-swords rotation would also involve 4 GCDs, that'd be 5 abilities in a single rotation for either stance since the stance-switch would give an extra attack. Of course, is it a given that the joint-swords rotation will consist of 4 GCDs? It depends on whether each GCD ability has two versions. If the answer is yes, then the number of dual-wielding GCDs will mirror that of the joint-swords version. FF14 is no stranger to this due to examples like Dragoon's Nastrond and Samurai's Kaeshi abilities. At the same time, the rotation would involve numerous OGCDs as well. As a Dragoon main, this reminds me of the OGCD rotation involving Nastrond, Stardiver, and Wyrmwind Thrust where I can either use it after the first rotation or in the middle of it. In fact, a tactic I tend to use whenever possible is using the OGCD rotation after executing Disembowel as I can benefit from the Power Surge buff without breaking the GCD rotation. If you're using a controller, I can only say good luck. But if it's keyboard and mouse, I'd say it's 100% doable so long as you adopt a linear clicking approach.

Of course, this comes to the question of what the OGCD abilities would look like. This is impossible to predict although I doubt the developers would want to create a Dragoon 2.0. When it comes to the definition of numerous, however, my own guess is possibly 3-4 OGCDs.

For the GCD rotation(s), a vital question waiting to be answered is whether we will deal with DoT damage. In FF14, we have jobs that give DoT damage by the end of a GCD rotation. But we also have jobs which don't have that. At the same time, it's possible for the developers to utilise any DoT damage ability for the Viper in the same way they did for the Machinist and Dark Knight (i.e. Wildfire and Salted Earth). My greater concern is whether each GCD rotation would end with a specific buff similar to the Samurai's Shifu and Jinpu buffs.

On how rotation alternating may work, there are two possibilities: Linear and fluid. Linear would mean dual-wield rotation>joint-swords rotation>rinse and repeat. As for the fluid approach, it could involve a main stance rotation and a support stance rotation. Either the dual-wield rotation is supported by the joint-swords rotation or vice versa. One possible outcome is that joint-swords attacks may have a longer cooldown or an execution delay of 0.5 seconds when Dawntrail comes out. In short, it's not easy hitting the ground running when it comes to DPS momentum. You probably have to find a way to create a pace you're comfortable with before stepping on the proverbial accelerator. It's not like some other DPS jobs where you can fly off the traps (e.g. Dragoon and Machinist because I main one and alt the other). Try to think of it as going along with the flow before going fast.

Lastly, we come to the buffing. Or the blue aura, if you will. One question I have is whether this is related to the Viper's job gauge. Interestingly, the blue aura buff actually resulted in two changes:

1. The attacking speed was greatly increased.

2. The attack animations were changed (assuming we're dealing with GCD rotation).

If the blue aura is the result of the job gauge, the question would be what else is part of it. There are job gauges in FF14 that don't function singularly. An example of this would be the Dragoon where you have Life of the Dragon and Firstminds' Focus. Another example would be the Black Mage where the job gauge consists of multiple aspects. Then you have jobs with two separate gauges like Dark Knight and Samurai. At this point, anything goes.