Another age of the DPS dawns with Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail. The latest expansion features three new DPS jobs, but this time around there’s not a single support role in sight for the first time since Stormblood was released.
Funnily enough, the new jobs in 7.0 also match the exact roles introduced in 4.0: A melee, a caster, and a brand-new Limited Job to be implemented in later patches.
All new jobs introduced in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
Melee DPS: Viper
As the first new job to be teased and revealed, Viper was one of the first hints that Dawntrail would be heavily based on FFIX (after Endwalker’s extensive homage to FFIV). This new melee job borrows FFIX protagonist Zidane’s signature style and is the main feature job for the Warrior of Light in every trailer.
Viper shares gear with Ninja, using Scouting armor and Aiming accessories. It has a fast and free-flowing rotation that seems to borrow features from all of the other melee classes, including combo flexibility from Monk, debuff management from Reaper, buff management from Samurai, and branching combo paths from Dragoon.
It even borrows the unique damage burst style from Gunbreaker’s Gnashing Fang, with Viper’s Generation-Legacy combo going off in an alternating GCD and oGCD pattern. Additionally, it has a full three-step ranged combo with respectable damage potency, giving it a greater degree of uptime flexibility. As a trade-off, it seems to be another low-utility DPS in the same vein as Samurai, with no party-wide defense or damage buff actions.
You can unlock Viper in Ul’dah with no story requirements so long as you have at least one other combat job at level 80.
Magical ranged DPS: Pictomancer
There’s always a Scion who gets to showcase one of the new jobs, and it’s Krile’s turn this time around. Dawntrail’s featured new Scion job is Pictomancer, a whimsical and colorful Magical Ranged DPS that’s perfect for the fan-favorite Lalafell.
Like Viper, Pictomancer is another franchise homage/legacy job, borrowed from Relm of FFVI. Unlike Viper, it has an incredibly unique playstyle that’s difficult to compare to any other job in its category. For one, Pictomancer is the only caster job that utilizes a three-step combo as the baseline filler of its rotation (and joins Machinist as the only non-melee jobs to do so). For another, it has an unusually complex Job Gauge system that requires the management of three different resources.
The cherry on top is, despite not being able to raise party members, it may actually beat Red Mage and Summoner out for party utility. It comes down to the fact that Pictomancer’s shielding ability has a unique mechanic where its cooldown is reduced if the shield is completely consumed. There are two layers to this mechanic: Pictomancer will get a self-shield worth 20 percent of their max HP, while their party can get a 10 percent shield. Breaking the 20 percent shield will reduce the cooldown by 60 seconds, while breaking the party-wide shield will reduce it by an additional 30 seconds.
Since the original cooldown is 120 seconds, this means you can potentially get a 10 percent party-wide mitigation every 30 seconds. In a high-end raiding context, this is a ludicrously effective mitigation feature that may put Pictomancer at the top of the Magical Ranged DPS meta for the first tier of Arcadion raids.
Then again, it’s common for the FFXIV team to overtune new job actions on launch and then scale them back in later patches. Players will have to wait and see what niche and identity Pictomancer will settle into as a Magical Ranged DPS. You can pick it up in Gridania at level 80 in any other combat job.
Limited Job: Beastmaster
First teased in the Bozjan Field Operations of Shadowbringers, Beastmaster will be the second Limited Job added to FFXIV. It was finally confirmed for Dawntrail in the Tokyo Fanfest Keynote of Jan. 4, 2024. Unfortunately, there’s very little info on what its gameplay will be like. All we know so far is it’ll be released in one of the later 7.x patches, and you’ll be able to run Limited Job duties alongside Blue Mage.
Since Blue Mage is based on learning spells from monsters, players are hoping for an integrated synergy with Beastmaster’s (presumed) ability to control monsters. For now, we’ll have to stay tuned for more information—in the meantime, that achievement for reaching level 100 on every job in Dawntrail isn’t going to earn itself.
