Just want the tl;dr version of the Patch 5.5 Notes? We’ve got the highlights right here!
This post contains light spoilers — if you haven’t completed the story up through patch 5.4 and don’t want to reveal anything, stop here! Otherwise get your sprinkle of salt below.
The Usual
Every major patch comes with some variation of the following, and patch 5.5 is no exception:
- New main scenario quests (MSQ)
- Side story quests
- Chronicles of a New Era (the Nier questline)
- The Sorrow of Werlyt (Gauis & Weapons questline)
- New craftable items & recipes
- New housing furnishings
- New orchestrion rolls
- New fish for aquariums
- New Mounts & Minions
- New miner and botanists gathering points and new items at existing gathering points
- New Achievements have been added
This recap won’t go into the finer details of everything here, but check the gallery below for additional images pulled from the patch notes!
And there’s also these standard changes to duties:
- Expert Roulette adjusted to include the new dungeon
- Level 80 Roulette adjusted to include the “bumped” dungeon from Expert Roulette (The Heros’ Gauntlet)
- Duty Finder & Raid Finder adjusted for the new encounters, and old ones moved to their respective categories.
- Current craftable battle gear (ilvl 510) can now be exchanged for upgraded versions that are ilvl 520. However, do note you cannot penta-meld the i520 pieces.
- Tomestone item upgrades can now be purchased by exchanging currency acquired from hunts (Sacks of Nuts)
- The weekly restriction on Eden’s Promise loot has been removed (this doesn’t apply to savage, nor does it apply to the Blade token obtained from completing the last fight of the raid tier, Eden’s Promise: Eternity)
- The number of token items required to exchange for a defragmented tomestone has been reduced from 7 to 4. These tokens can be obtained from the fourth floor of the normal raid fight once per week and can be exchanged to obtain an item level 520 weapon.
Combat Job Changes
Job changes were light this time around, as was expected from the coverage in the 63rd Live Letter.
Warrior
A general potency pump was given to some of their main actions:
Dark Knight
The “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature!” job change:
Monk
Functionality-wise it’s not hugely different. However, testers are still trying to figure out the mitigation amount. It looks like it may actually mitigate 27-30% at three stacks.
- Grants 3 stacks of Riddle of Earth, each stack reducing damage taken by 10% and nullifying all action direction requirements.
- Duration: 10s
- Maximum Charges: 3
- Effect ends when time expires or upon execution of three weaponskills.
Dragoon
General potency bumps to help balance the job against other melee DPS.
Potency when executed from a target’s flank has been increased from 370 to 380.
Potency when executed from a target’s rear has been increased from 370 to 380.
The text for the Lance Mastery trait to Increase to Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust potency has been changed from 100 to 110.
Scholar
Because SE can’t go a patch without absolutely needlessly and for no discernable reason buffing scholar. Succor spam away!
Blue Mage
Blue Mage didn’t recieve gameplay change, however some quality of life improvements were added. Your active set will now also save hotbar slots! Taken right from the patch notes:
Hotbars Affected by Saving
Only the slots on blue mage-exclusive hotbars will be saved to an active set. This means that creating an active set while playing as a different job or class will not save those hotbars, leaving your blue mage hotbar layout unchanged. Slots on shared hotbars are also excluded.
Actions Affected by Saving
The hotbar layout of all blue magic actions, whether active or inactive, will be saved to a set, along with any macros.
* Macros that do not include blue magic actions will also be saved.
Loading Sets
Loading an active set will only affect blue mage-exclusive hotbars.
PVP Updates
The 19th season of The Feast has begun and some PVP actions received adjustments:
Warrior
Nascent Flash: Now reduces damage taken by 10%.
Monk
Tornado Kick: Potency has been increased from 1,600 to 2,000.
Dragoon
Life Surge: The additional effect “Absorbs 100% of damage dealt as HP” has been removed.
Maximum charges have been increased from 1 to 2.
Ninja
Trick Attack: Increase to target’s damage taken has been reduced from 15% to 10%.
White Mage
Temperance: Increase to damage dealt and healing potency has been reduced from 25% to 20%.
Instanced Encounters
We have our usual slew of new repeatable to-dos to queue for:
(please read that aloud, it’s fun to say.)
Dungeons
Paglth’an
Unlocked during MSQ progression.
You must be an average item level of 490 or higher to queue.
Trials
The Cloud Deck
Continuation of The Sorrow of Werlyt.
You must be an average item level of 495 or higher to queue.
The Cloud Deck (Extreme)
The same thing, but a bit harder.
You must be an average item level of 510 or higher to queue.
Duty Rewards:
- A random ilvl 525 weapon
TWO totems per kill, 10 totems can be traded for a weapon of your choosing. - Chance to drop the Diamond Gwibber mount.
- Chance to drop the orchestrian roll
- Chance to drop a crafting material
24-Man Alliance Raid
The Tower at Paradigm’s Breach
You must be an average item level of 490 or higher to queue.
Duty Rewards:
- At various stages of completing the encounter players have the opportunity to roll on a piece of ilvl 520 gear. Players can only obtain one piece of gear from Paradigm’s Breach per week.
- Completion also includes one Breach Coin per week. The Breach coin can be exchanged for items used to enhance equipment purchased with Allagan tomestones or revelation, bringing their ilvl to 530.
Treasure Hunt
While neither the map item (Zonureskin Treasure Map) nor the instance itself has changed, rewards in the Dungeons of Lyhe Ghiah have been adjusted with some new items added.
Crafting & Gathering Changes
A new Custom Deliveries NPC has been added! You can now deliver items to Count Charlemend de Durendair in The Firmament once you’ve completed all related Ishgard Restoration quests (“Smiles Cross the Sky,” “The Brume Lifts,” and “Go West, Craftsman.”).
In another nice chance for Diciples of the Hand, when using the gathering log you can now see where the item you want to gather actually is; selecting the map will show a blue ring in the area where the item is obtainable.
And fishers can rejoice that they can now streamline the process to release undesired fish when caught.
Ishgardian ResTOration
Fêtes, much like fates, are large-scale events “held to celebrate the completion of the Firmament” — in short these timely events are held once every two ours (12 per day). They offer Fête rewards which contain various prizes, including tokens that can be exchanged for particular rewards, like mounts.
HUD & UI Changes
Targeting Ring Positional Markers
The targeting ring has been adjusted so it is easier to see where the target is facing. This includes for enemies who do not have positionals.
High Resolution UI Assets
In accordance with the PS5 Beta, Windows and Mac OS players can now switch to true high resolution assets. Look at those shiny 4K buttons!
GPose
NEW STICKERS. Also some new frames and options to display certain text details like home world, title, job, class, level, etc!
Duty Finder
The really long and confusing names of Gold Saucer duties have been shortened making it much easier to find what you wanted to queue for!
For Leveling Roulette, full preformed parties of four now have the option to be matched to duties based on the level of party members. With this option enabled, the duty chosen will be within eight levels of the lowest leveled party member.
Menu Updates
You can now search for your favorite emotes from the emote menu.
For achievements, you can now collect your reward right from the achievement menu (though you cannot do so while in a duty). Jonathas in Old Gridania is now likely to be quite lonely as the only thing he’ll manage are veteran rewards. You can also now filter achievements by reward type to quickly see what achievements grant mounts, minions, gear, titles, etc.
Explorer Mode
The dungeons adding during the Stormblood expansion can now be entered through explorer mode. Additionally level sync will no longer be applied and you can even use performance actions too!
New Game+
A few new chapters added, so you can replay the progression all over again and experience the story. Chronicles of a New Era Quests: Eden & The Sorrow of Werlyt and for Side Story Quests: Tales from the Shadows. You do have to complete these quests first before they can be undertaken again with the New Game+ feature.
PS5 Beta
The Playstation 5 Beta has rolled out! However don’t expect it to feel like a beta, this featured-packed release should make playing on a PS5 a fantastic experience. Choose from three different resolution settings (4K, WQHD, or Full HD) – the default setting is the WQHD (1440p). As mentioned for PC & Mac users, high resolution assets have been added.
For the controller side of things, the game also supports the DualSense™ adaptive trigger compatibility – though it seems this will only be usable on certain challenges that require first-person targeting so don’t expect to see it get a ton of use. Haptic Feedback is also being added, where you should “feel” some feedback with actions like character and mount movement, unsheathing weapons, gathering and crafting actions, Gold Saucer and toy chest mini-games, etc.
New PS5 Trophies have been added as well, and the game now has 3D Audio Compatibility if you plug in a pair of headphones into either the PS5 console or the controller directly.
Miscellaneous
On a quick note: a change has been made to the Summoner job quest “To Be Second Best.” If you currently have this quest in progress, you’ll need to abandon it and restart it by speaking to Y’mhitra in Old Gridania (X:10.9 Y:6.3).
Triple Triad
Not only were new cards added, but the chance of receiving Triple Triad cards upon defeating NPCs has been increased. Additionally, the rules for building your decks have been changed. You can now include both four and five star cards in a single deck!
Bozja
Being selected a duel is now easier with the introduction of notoriety. Notoriety is obtained when you participate in the prerequisite critical engagements for a duel. Each time not selected a player’s notoriety increases making it more likely they will be chosen. Notoriety is lost when selected for a duel.
For skirmishes, if the number of players diminishes from when the skirmish began, enemies are affected by Hubris, making them easier to complete. And in an additional ease of play change, all players are granted the power of the Echo when participating in a critical engagement with a small number of players. Completing critical engagements also decreases the time until the next large-scale assault will trigger, making it easier for players just starting out to pop Castrum!
Oh and in one final QoL tweak, it’s now possible to increase your mount speed in the Bozjan Southern Front by purchasing a Riding Map from the Resistance Quartermaster!
For Delubrum Reginae and its Savage (DRS) variant, players now receive both mettle and Allagan tomestones of revelation upon completion. The minimum number of players required to enter DRS has been lowered to 24.
Wrap up
Overall this odd-numbered patch brings pretty much exactly what we tend to expect: minimal job changes, the standard new content swapped in, solid quality of life improvements, and not much else as we all buck down and itch for the next expansion!
Patch 5.55 will introduce a few more notable things, like the conclusion of this expansion’s main story, as well as new content related to the Save the Queen quest line!
Think something in this recap could be done better? Or miss some tidbit you wanted to see? Use the big red feedback button in the footer to let us know! Or join us on discord at discord.gg/saltedxiv.
