New Dawntrail Abilities & Graphics Showcase - FFXIV Live Letter Summary

In this video, I'll give you a brief summary of the recent FFXIV Producer Live Letter #80, where the developers showcased the graphics update and provided a trailer for the benchmark, which includes the reveal of various new abilities. What ability's visuals has you the most excited?
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Dawntrail Benchmark
na.finalfantasyxiv.com/benchm...
00:00 Introduction
00:23 Graphics Update
01:06 Water Effects
02:12 Anti-Aliasing
02:57 DLSS & FSR
03:15 PS4 & Xbox Series S Changes
04:05 Blacklist, Mute list, Term Filter, Estate Expulsion
06:00 Schedule until Dawntrail
06:29 Trailer Breakdown
06:37 Gunbreaker
07:00 Dragoon
07:18 Sage
07:38 Black Mage
07:55 Summoner
08:30 Monk
09:12 Dancer
09:36 Paladin
09:55 Red Mage
10:19 Samurai
11:13 Machinist
11:44 Astrologian
12:23 Ninja
12:53 Pictomancer
13:01 White Mage
13:27 Dark Knight
13:41 Scholar
13:53 Reaper
14:14 Bard
14:38 Viper
14:41 Warrior

[@HyouVizer]

"It might be high thunder?" Thunder: Hi o/

[@LiorVolf]

Lol

[@barryward2128]

High thunder Dude you ever shock yourself

[@rigormortex7568]

When thunder was the only one not having the high ground.

[@panosarampatzis8825]

I think they gave healer gcd heals job specific animations. Both astro and WHM seems to be casting their aoe gcd heal but instead of generic green heal-y effects they have job-themed ones. Neat overall

[@Scyclo]

I have reason to suspect Aspected Helios on Astrologian might be getting a unique visual effect to make it more unique but I can't tell, it's the Aspected Helios/Helios animation. AST doesn't have that visual effect in any move but with it's rework coming in 7.0 it could just be a new visual to go with the rework. Having to wait till May to get AST rework info is gonna be killer. Same with dragoons.

[@DevilSeiji]

I mean, the gcd heal animation are different already

[@soxfan9551]

I feel that during Phoenix, SMN might get a new set of primals, Ramuh, Shiva, and Leviathan.

[@antonicanmage]

I have had the same thought/wish for awhile now, really just want to summon my guy Leviathan :)

[@datboi04]

Job action trailer hype Job action trailer hype Job action trailer hype I love the cinematic trailers, but it's the skills trailer that gets me really excited for the expansion release

[@shanty2782]

When do you think we will get the job trailer?

[@StefanS03]

ty for going through each spells shown in the trailer!

[@isevery]

So pleased to see the graphics overhaul in engine finally, knowing that it will be even better in game without youtube compression is just getting me so excited! Thanks Jolsn!

[@NinesIng]

I wouldn't keep my hopes up for better

[@GirlsChase]

@@NinesIng Go use the benchmark. It's heads and shoulders above its current state, especially in 4k.

[@Jay-mx5ky]

So DRK used both the regular hard slash and syphon strike earlier in the benchmark (the first part you skipped over at 12:39). Those three abilities we've seen are entirely new. Currently, there's buzz going around that, since they share visual similarities with Delirium, it's possible that they've reworked delirium to allow access to this enhanced combo rather than free bloodspillers.

[@ssenjii]

Some timestamps for the traile breakdown by class: 06:37 : Gunbreaker 07:00 : Dragoon 07:18 : Sage 07:38 : Black Mage 07:55 : Summoner 08:30 : Monk 09:12 : Dancer 09:29 : Tricky part to analyze 09:36 : Paladin 09:55 : Red Mage 10:19 : Samurai 11:13 : Machinist 11:44 : Astrologian 12:23 : Ninja 12:38 : Ability B-roll with Pictomancer stuff and previously discussed abilities 12:53 : Pictomancer 13:01 : White Mage 13:27 : Dark Knight 13:41 : Scholar 13:53 : Reaper 14:14 : Bard 14:38 : Viper 14:41 : Warrior

[@Jolsn]

Thanks, I put that into the description too

[@JediMentat]

I think the new monk ability is the sickest looking one. But I'm a biased monk since ARR day 1

[@meriwidget3474]

Staring to get hyped! Thanks for the recap!

[@God-of-all-monsters]

I beyond hyped for dawntrail , it will be my 1st dlc release as brand new player , while I choose black mage to start , I will be going into dawntrail as a summoner. Amazing video keep up the great content

[@JediMentat]

Monk is my all time favorite, but I find it so incredibly difficult now to consistently maximize my dps efficiency, so I swapped back to pld and whm/sch for a while. This expansion has me so hyped to get back into melee DPS and master it

[@Mithril0s]

Usually I dont comment any Videos. But I have to give you credits to your insane Videos and Content around FFXIV. I enjoy your videos most on FFXIV content. Keep up the great work!

[@MagiaErebea028]

Agreed

[@Lumivito]

I'M SO HYPED FOR THE SKILLS THAT'S THE THING I WANT THE MOST FROM THE XPAC

[@eolendes6432]

If you want to know wether something falls into a weaponskill/spell/skill just look at whoosh effect around the character as the ability is triggered. Weaponskills are GCDs and they trigger a yellow/golden whoosh around the character. Spells have different effects, usually depending on their associated element. Healing spells also have associated colours: Green whoosh for WHM and SCH. Blue whoosh for AST. Pale blue for SGE. Skills are oGCDs and they have a marked teal coloured whoosh around the character. Notably, GBN, RDM, SAM and SCH use a skill in this video. You can see the teal effect before they use their abilities. Something to note. SMN's Fester is a skill, so it has a teal whoosh. But the animation of the attack we see from SMN doesn't have said effect. Though it is possible its not shown.

[@needingmorepatience]

Thanks so much for the breakdown!

[@MacTaipan]

I think the Dancer move in the background looks pretty cool. As does the chainsaw attack.

[@NikolaiHildenyar]

I love how the Dragoon's new skill looks like a mix of Nidhogg's Design and Dragon's Crest, the "strongest" attack of FF9's Freya. Seeing how this expansion uses some of FF9's enemies/monsters, this is really fitting and absolutely satisfying to watch♥.

[@axylum4453]

As people have already pointed out, DRK showcase seems to be a 3 part combo. The swings also happens to look really similar to "Resolution" from FFXI which also uses greatswords

[@grimacetexas9719]

As someone pointed out in another comment it might be a rework of delirium giving access to this 3 part combo rahter than 3 bloodspillers. Tbh he doesnt need any more ogcd or gcd, drk need to improve its current rotation and maybe fuse abyssal drain and its mono target counterpart (forgot the name)

[@celphalonred1999]

Man I so can't waittttt

[@handlerone5172]

Been taking a break, coming back in August for 7.0 when I can renew my sub! Excited to jump into Viper and relearn the entire game again XD

[@LegendaryDorkKnight]

You missed a very sneaky DRK skill right after WHM on the right. It appears to be a double swing then a downward slash. Also, at the end, that WAR in question is Wuk Lamat so that might be an NPC skill exclusive to her. Kinda like Engravement was for Zero.

[@tetsuotools]

i might just be optimistic because i main warrior, but i dont see why they would put so much focus onto an npc skill in a trailer that shows many other weaponskills ? interesting thought though!

[@LegendaryDorkKnight]

@@tetsuotools That's possibly true, but you also have to remember that the benchmark was also meant to show many of the changes graphically. I do think you might be right, but you never know.

[@Azdaja13]

Important to note about Dark Knight: they snuck in a second ability during the Scholar part where the Dark Knight does a follow-up downward slash with loads of darkness spikes coming off of it. I do think it's an upgraded 1, 2, 3 combo. Also important to note about White Mage: Holy III has a lily animation but isn't a lily ability. But the new spell is probably "Medica III" or something.

[@Jolsn]

Yep, I mistakenly thought it was the single target spender, but that one makes the DRK spin, doesn't it? Will be interesting to see what that ends up being.

[@Azdaja13]

@@Jolsn Yeah, Bloodspiller. You see the Dark Knight use it just before the new abilities and yeah the animation is the Dark Knight doing spins in the air before bringing the blade down (it's also only one darkness column going up instead of spikes going up and out). That second new attack is definitely not Bloodspiller.

[@evvikijin4517]

@@Azdaja13 It could be a bloodspiller combo, like with paladin's blade of faith thing.

[@sorcorer23]

when talking about the red mage that is them throwing their focus (the thing in their hand floating) at the enemy and controlling it to go where they want

[@strshdw71]

I saw this! I main Red Mage so I was really paying attention to that part and if you slow the video down you can see the focus light up as it moves away from the hand and watch it rotate around the boss and the "thorn" effect is its wake before it returns to the player. I cannot wait for Dawntrail to see this in action.

[@Gaelisk]

I sincerely hope the Warrior's bit implies that tanking will have a more active role where there will be more mechanics that the tank needs to physically step in front of in order to protect allies. I think that'd be peak tanking for me. Otherwise, looks like some decent moves. I think I agree with what you've said for the most part. My only concern is combat isn't going to feel different enough when most of the skills look like they'll just be upgrades of older versions. I lean quite heavily on combat for my fun, so it wouldn't be ideal.

[@KamizuMarz]

Look at the bottom of the animation for that Monk. It shows a tiger head. And towards the top where you see the black paint stroke, it also resembles Byakko weapon glows! I think this has something to do with Byakko of the four lords?! Hmm

[@novar7739]

Came to comment this exactly. Very inky paint looking tiger. Surprised they missed mentioning it.

[@dianavalentine-mj5re]

honestly monk stole the whole scene with that Rising dragon punch and that tiger skill

[@lazyprinny3265]

People severly underestimate the appeal of some guy just punching his way through gods and despair

[@infernotheprotogen5736]

So for the black mage skill it looks very similar to its pvp ability called burst. Burst creates and aoe of thunder around the black mage for high damage, this appears to be similar but centered around the target

[@Yokai_Yuri]

It is similar but burst is smaller

[@Xonz102]

For the SAM move at 11:00, it looks like a new fan AoE (you can see fan animation on the ground after it hits). Probably shared ability with Ogi Namakiri.

[@TastyGamingQc]

Whm/Astro: WE ARE BEAUTIFUL LOVE US 💕

[@CadeAid1]

I think that these might all be upgraded abilities and they’re saving the new abilities for the media tour.

[@Xngelic]

13:27 during drk, you can see some kinda pictomancer move in the back, looked like akh morn 😮

[@devongodin8158]

I think what you were saying about ogi namikiri is more like 2 sen namikiri but an upgraded version. You can see the aoe underneath looks kinda the same

[@snaplash]

5;30.. Filter out chat messages containing specific terms? So, if I enter an RMT bot's URL, it'll block all it's messages entirely I hope, and not just the filtered text?

[@tjbleu635]

with the summoner, it almost looks likes a leviathan summon, you can see a small leviathan on the back side of the enemy. at least that would be my guess

[@technopunkk]

Yes it looks like a new summon yay I can't wait to see it

[@grimacetexas9719]

Maybe a rework of the drain ability ogcd (dont know the english name) but those are lv 50 and untouched since maybe an upgrade into somewhat of a 4th summon like leviathan

[@asterroth8715]

the monk spawns a tiger up looks cool

[@midnighttornado22]

Great breakdown. MONK 2024 LET'S GO

[@RrowdyBeast]

Definitely Toxikon (probably IV) on Sage and (an updated) Saber Dance on Dancer, I know them sounds anywhere lol

[@Roiikka]

Is the graphics update game-wide ? Besides things like area-specific updates like those ocean waves. Asking; If I buy the expansion will it effect all expansions plus A Realm Reborn. I remember when they added swimming and it was game-wide i.e.

[@DZ1AGWA]

I just hope I can still run this flawlessly on my Legion Go

[@pastaboy1338]

the WAR will have sort of TBN in DT because they did exactly this during ShB benchmark in which we as the DRK jumped out and protected the DNC with TBN before she did the LB3.

[@grimacetexas9719]

Hear me out, the way it looked the war seemed to have tanked it, so maybe its something closer to covert or passage of arm, allowing you to protect someone by being close

[@KlaelDemon]

11:00 The ground effect seems like an upgraded version of Tenka Goken/Kaeshi: Goken, their AoE Iaijutsu.

[@y35n00b5]

My benchmark results: 9330 (High results) Maxed everything possible and used the NVIDIA overlay to get a rough idea of FPS. Averaging about high 50's in high character areas. Spells and everything else going off I got about high 60s to low 70s in certain points of the benchmark. Most likely will average around 50s at all times. Desktop: R5 5600X 32GB RAM RTX 3060 (8GB version) 1TB NVMe drive.

[@dinopower901]

7:03 because of the ring im assuming it'll be an ability to use with/will share a cooldown with Stardiver

[@tobiasisaac6996]

me thinks it combos off stardiver since sd doesnt have a cd, just need to be in lotd

[@dinopower901]

@@tobiasisaac6996 I didn't know that it's been awhile since I played DRG

[@grimacetexas9719]

Remember that dragoon is getting a rework so it might be a counter part or a combo, without knowing the details of the rework nothing is certain

[@TheSilverwing999]

I have been playing since release but somehow I've forgotten this. When can we expect all the tooltips for the new jobs to be available? Because in all other expansions we had access to most of them before release Actually when can we expect the job action trailers to drop? For endwalker we had them 28th of september, so 3 months before release. We are way past the usual timeline with dawntrail. It's creeping up on 2 months soon

[@aelfynnalochoir8249]

Really hoping we can get that holmgang rescue from the instance at the end of Endwalker, just has me oddly excited

[@JamesEdwardsism]

A Vengeance that gives a defense buff to other players ala that Paladin rear cone ability would be amazing

[@xeralexdragonheart3464]

I wonder if they may are developing a new way to cast "limit breaks" of sorts with all these flashy techniques. Like you said in the earlier part, the dancer technique looked a bit like dancer L3 a bit. Ofcourse it could be just new combos so that's that as well 😂. All and all, the abilities look rather big for sure, and makes me wanna jump back to ff once the new expansion is out. I mostly enjoy dungeons and I would really love to try pictomancer and later one beastmaster once it comes out ^3^

[@pugpug1953]

They finally brought the back flip back for Bard !!

[@monieai]

THATS HUGE i like it 4:22

[@GojoXIV]

That mch skill feels very similar to drill, so it might be an upgrade to drill.

[@Saieden]

You can see the AST aoe get applied to the surrounding players, though it could just be a new Divination. Then again, we know ASTpocalypse is coming so who knows? 🤷

[@guilgs94]

For those aren't familiar with AA. FXAA just blurries your screen, but with less impact in your system, CMAA seems more clean and sharp, but it isn't so graphic power demanding like MSAA.

[@grandkaiaki]

That's a gcd and it is a spell from AST. Whm that could be medica 4, because we do need that. Not even talking about reaper, it's just cool. Rdm... That looks like the left hand part of the weapon used as an attack, like a physical magical attack. That could be a skill. Going back to AST, they removed some stuff if you remember. So that is a new spell definitely.

[@hidehide8766]

FINALLY ANTI ALIASING I AM NGL SCREAMING WITH JOY OMG FK YESSS ....

[@Aero089]

Nice recap! Can't wait to see all the old areas anew. Now if they'd fix Mor Dhona, that'd be swell. That ground pattern is sooo bad.

[@l.k.2355]

I just realized that warrior protection Meteor is Wuk Lamat

[@BlackXSunlight]

10:11 it’s a thorny rose vine. Roses are incorporated in a lot of RDM animations.

[@leighg9o]

Samurai is either a upgrade of guren or senai. Uses kenki hence ikoshoten

[@SoujiSetaTheFox]

the cone ability the PLD uses seems similar to the ones Ser Adelphel and Ser Janlenoux use during thordan EX

[@grimacetexas9719]

Hopefully a rework of absolution, either something that goes off the aoe combo or just an upgrade to absolution into a 123 combo

[@joshk6929]

Ramuh is some sort of a lesser summon, for the next expansion, most probably there will be an upgrade to the existing Phoenix, maybe Leviathan for the final combo (Bahamut > Phoenix > Leviathan)???

[@WEMAKINITOUT1]

The scholar skill is definitely a new attack. It doesn’t apply a debuff if you look at the animation, it has a blast at the end of the animation on the ground. Think it will be energy drain upgrade to give it a new attack choice like Sage with Phlegma

[@TheLMBLucas]

I hope they give us abilities with stronger effects and different for each job even if it gets a bit unbalanced

[@nitemareriosho5393]

I really hope they increase the inventory space for the armor chest. Im running out of room for full sets. Im only missing astrologian

[@barryward2128]

Im guessing drk is delerium being turned into requiescat like. Drg and ast are getting reworked so not touching that with a 20 foot pole, the nidhogryuken looks dope tho. Sam im guessing iaijutsus are getting upgraded, either just animation or new ones that replace current ones, mnk maybe upgrades for weaponskills or some new chakra skills, sch upgrade for chain, gnb im guessing continuation on fated circle, pld requescat is now aoe, sage i dont know well enough to say maybe toxikon, reaper is tricky since its a bit newer maybe a communio combo, ninja upgraded ninki spenders, smn that looked kinda like painflare to me, blm high thunder, rdm new addition to melee combo holy, whatever, resolution. Bard refulgant arrow upgrade. Mch my guess is reassemble getting a kasatsu treatment were drill, chainsaw, maybe air anchor get upgraded with it. Dnc saber dance but bigger. Whm i know nothing about misery 2 with it getting a heal component maybe. War vengeance upgrade possibly, which means all the tanks are probably getting the big mitigation sentinel, nebula, shadowall upgraded as well

[@MrJammers]

reason im maining the paintbrush, moogles

[@zwei3179]

man i just hope combos get made into a single button so we can get more specialize skills Expect monk since monk uses combo differently

[@ameliatorres1206]

I noticed that most of the attacks are aoe, I really hope they're the desperation attacks from ffVI cause those animations give me that vibe :3

[@Night-fy4fm]

That astro aoe ability kinda looks like the old time dilation ability

[@GamingInstincts]

Are these updates also going to be in the PS5 version? I mean the game is very old at this point, so I'd be very surprised if it wasn't updated on ps5.

[@Jolsn]

The PS5 should benefit from all the graphical improvements, at least they didn't say otherwise anywhere

[@GamingInstincts]

@Jolsn yeah if they plan to support next 10 years they would have too. Thanks for quick response. Good video.

[@coolman5242]

8:54 As a Monk main for years, that's the first time im hearing this O_o I always thought they looked cool, especially the Beast Chakra skills. The new skill looks cool though.

[@Xenwing]

The defiantly don't need to add more spells or attack movies, their are why to many more. Wish they would cut them in half if not only give is like 4 or 6 only all together.

[@MrGamerCaptain]

cool heals :)

[@Hostobi]

I hope we get a new ffx mmo after this expansion, game needs an upgrade in every aspect

[@jtowensbyiii6018]

An mmo takes literally 5+ years to make 😂

[@Jonesman64]

As a black mage main, that black mage's thunder was very... dark.. and part of me wonders if its a DOT that will cost a polyglot charge.

[@keago1000]

Do we think the astro spell could be haste? That seems like it'll be in their wheelhouse lol

[@neggled6574]

Monk looks like a tiger animation

[@Gore-okami]

maybe they are not adding new skills but adding a way to modify the current skills?

[@renno2679]

That thunder spell better not be it for BLM. I bet YoshiP just didn't wanna reveal it yet because we're getting something super cool, right?

[@nexelray3207]

So in other words, I need to get myself a Ps5 after this new expansion.

[@recjr7685]

Looks like it. Yeah They said it would play fine on PS4, but my fan would get super loud whenever I bumped the screen resolution up to WQHD, and it looks like that might as well be the default for this update

[@RiveyDestroy2]

cant wait for Gnb triple down and a 4th cartridge

[@purplefreedom1631]

War new skill: Holmgamg other "I'm too angry for you to die!"

[@cyber0198]

That honestly just looked like dancer lb3

[@gohomehero]

They gotta rework the ability visuals to be 10x less gaudy. It's such a shame you have to turn off your teams ability visuals to see anything.

[@7DiceGaming]

Question is how that going to run on Xbox series X

[@MaydaTiger]

i dont think toxi will get upgraded again as it gets upgraded at level 80, this seems to be something else

[@Bherd8160]

As a reaper main I can’t wait to test new abilities out, all jobs look dope though💪🏾

[@tysonwardleigh2728]

ps5 is the 2nd best selling playstation in japan since the ps2..its the 2nd highest selling console in japan at the moment behind the switch.

[@nickeling2776]

DLSS 3 requires DX12, doesn't it?

[@wontononionslicer1004]

I am mad because still no squall’s lionheart skill, you know the final limit break of his.

[@barryward2128]

So is gnashing fang like a reimagened renzokuken

[@wontononionslicer1004]

@@barryward2128 yeah, then should be followed up with a big cool ass looking slash that cut the screen in half.

[@wildheaven1827]

Dragoon gets a new spell to cast, like paladin gets a new spell to cast, and gunbreaker gets a new spell to cast. We are all magical girls

[@wildheaven1827]

But really if they give me one more button to press i swear x.x

[@Setuaro]

The monk is doing some sort of Tiger attack, not a dragon.

[@barryward2128]

Right before when the smn is still on screen you can see the monk doing a shuryuken kinda move with a red dragon coming out of the ground

[@AhsanTheRealOne]

I tried playing this game on ps5 it was so hard to setup an account

[@VaultArchive72]

DLSS 3 is just DLSS 2 with frame generation It's not any better in terms of quality or performance. DLSS 2 is using the same dll version as "DLSS 3" 7.0 is however going to be using FSR 1.0 which is the only out of date upscaler of the two.

[@ExceedProduction]

Chat bubbles when

[@darth_yoda]

The Blacklist changes are MUCH needed but that about it being to hard to make it so you don't get put into groups with people you have blacklisted is kinda Bull... Blizzard have had that in Wow for the last 8 years or so and Swtor have had it build in since the second big update for the game (I think it was patch 1.2) Is they can do that YEARS ago then why can't SQ do it now?

[@Jolsn]

I think the game engine is way jankier than even WoW's, so I actually believe them on this. There are lots of small things that we take for granted in other games that seem hard to accomplish in FFXIV. I think to make this easier, they'd have to completely overhaul a lot of code, which I don't think will ever happen unfortunately.

[@breakthecode4634]

The grass didn't look better though, they just made it transparent to be less noticeable to the eye >.>

[@jtowensbyiii6018]

It's literally like 4x the resolution,

[@breakthecode4634]

@@jtowensbyiii6018 nah

[@Lyres-Liar-In-The-Lair]

I just hope I get one like, cool skill as scholar (I say, inhaling dangerous amounts of copium)

[@Jolsn]

Did someone say Expedient 2

[@Lyres-Liar-In-The-Lair]

@@Jolsn Being fair...if they give me 20 second sprint back, I wouldn't even be mad

[@kobiblade]

Is not AI based upscaling, it's ML...

[@Teletha]

A bit sad they didn't add raytracing

[@purplefreedom1631]

MNK new skill: dragon kick