Final Fantasy 14 Reveals Patch 7.4 Job Changes

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While Final Fantasy 14’s Patch 7.4 includes a lot of new features, it also significantly changed how the Gunbreaker job plays during its most powerful attack phases. In addition to these changes to Gunbreaker’s gameplay, players of Red Mage and White Mage will find some helpful improvements that make those jobs easier to play.

The latest update for Final Fantasy 14, Patch 7.4, nicknamed “Into the Mist,” launched on December 16th after a short period of server maintenance. This update acts as a transition between the current story arc and the next, currently unnamed, expansion. Patch 7.4 includes a continuation of the main story, the conclusion of the Arcadion raid series, and a major update to the glamour system. Now, most armor and accessories can be used to change your appearance regardless of your job, level, or role – though weapons and tools still have job-specific appearances. The patch also adds new cosmetic items inspired by rewards from the discontinued Feast PvP mode, a new strategic board for raid planning, and a customizable command panel to help players organize frequently used actions, emotes, and macros without cluttering the user interface.

The Gunbreaker Received Some Surprising Changes

With the recent 7.4 update to Final Fantasy 14, the Gunbreaker tank class received some notable adjustments. The Bloodfest ability now has a shorter cooldown – reduced from two minutes to one – and grants a 30-second buff after use. This buff allows Gunbreakers to store up to six cartridges in their Powder Gauge, visually indicated by a golden glow on the game’s interface. The Gnashing Fang ability was also updated, meaning players can now use both the Gnashing Fang and Reign of Beasts combos more frequently. To balance these changes, the power of all Gunbreaker attacks that rely on cartridges has been slightly reduced.

The Gunbreaker class, added in the Shadowbringers expansion, uses a gunblade and abilities inspired by Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy 8. As a Tank, its main job is to defend allies with skills like Heart of Light, Aurora, and Reprisal. However, when attacking, the Gunbreaker plays more like a close-combat damage dealer, rapidly chaining together attacks such as Gnashing Fang and Blasting Zone. The Gunbreaker received a minor update in the post-launch updates for Dawntrail, alongside more substantial changes to the Black Mage in Patch 7.2, released in March 2025.

What Other Jobs Received Changes?

The latest update to Final Fantasy 14 (patch 7.4) included improvements for Red Mage and White Mage players. Red Mages can now use a key combo from a distance, making it easier to coordinate powerful attacks with other magic users. White Mages will start battles with a full resource gauge, giving them a stronger initial advantage. Additionally, ranged physical DPS jobs received overall damage increases to bring them more in line with magic-based DPS, and the Ninja and Viper jobs saw adjustments to their area-of-effect damage.

Other Features Coming In Final Fantasy 14’s Next Updates

Final Fantasy 14 will keep getting new updates throughout late 2025 and into 2026. Starting December 17th, the yearly Starlight Celebration will be back in Eorzea, offering players a new quest and rewards in Gridania. This event runs until December 31st, and will be immediately followed by the Heavensturn event, which is expected to celebrate the Year of the Horse.

Early in 2026, Final Fantasy 14 will receive smaller updates featuring the continuation of the popular Hildibrand story, a new dungeon experience called The Merchant’s Tale (with both Variant and Criterion difficulties), and the next installments in the Cosmic Tool and Phantom Weapon relic quests. With at least one more large update planned for the Dawntrail expansion in the first half of 2026, it’s still unknown which other jobs might receive significant updates similar to the recent Gunbreaker changes.

Final Fantasy 14 Patch 7.4 Job Changes (December 16, 2025)

PVE

All Roles

With Patch 7.4, we’ve adjusted the power of several jobs following a review of overall balance. Specifically, we increased the effectiveness of physical ranged damage dealers and healers. We’ve also continued refining area-of-attack abilities, increasing ninja’s potency while slightly reducing viper’s. Gunbreaker and red mage received changes to how some of their abilities work, aiming to smooth out their combat rotations in various situations.

Dark Knight

We’ve increased the length of time Living Shadow lasts because the copy it creates was sometimes disappearing before it could complete all its attacks, depending on where it appeared. The number of attacks the copy can perform hasn’t changed, just how long it stays in the fight.

Gunbreaker

Previously, Gunbreakers could run out of resources during powerful attack sequences if they weren’t careful with their abilities. To fix this, we’ve improved Bloodfest to allow Gunbreakers to hold more resources, preventing this issue.

Previously, Gunbreaker’s gameplay sometimes suffered during fast-paced combat because of how long it took to reuse Gnashing Fang after moving away from the enemy. We made Gnashing Fang a charged action to fix this, but worried it might make the optimal combat sequence too complicated while using No Mercy. To strike a good balance, we’ve reduced Bloodfest’s cooldown and lowered the cartridge cost of Double Down.

Physical Ranged DPS

In updates 7.2 and 7.3, we improved the damage output of magical ranged DPS jobs to help with challenging battle mechanics that made casting difficult. While physical ranged DPS jobs can move while attacking and have tools to reduce incoming damage, giving them some advantages, their overall damage was lower than magical ranged jobs. To address this, we’ve also increased the potency of their attacks.

Red Mage

Red Mage damage sometimes decreased when fighting at a distance due to how certain abilities worked. We’ve updated Enchanted Riposte, Enchanted Zwerchhau, and Enchanted Redoublement so they can now be used from further away while Manafication is active. We also removed the magical damage boost from Manafication to avoid issues with timing its use during powerful attack phases. To compensate for these changes and maintain Red Mage’s overall damage output, we’ve increased the power of Vice of Thorns and improved the benefits of Embolden.

Healer

We’ve made White Mage, Scholar, and Sage healers more effective to help balance the roles within the game.

We’ve made White Mage’s lily-based abilities easier to use by starting battles with full stacks. We’ve also added a damage reduction effect to Plenary Indulgence to make it more balanced compared to Astrologian. As a result, we’ve adjusted the length of the damage reduction from Astrologian’s Collective Unconscious to be the same as Plenary Indulgence.

PVP

Recent changes to the mana costs of Recuperate and Purify have made it easier for teams to concentrate their attacks on one enemy at a time. We’ve observed that abilities that break through defenses, like Paladin’s Shield Smite, and those that interrupt healing, such as Dark Knight’s Plunge, are now particularly influential. To create more balanced team options and strategic diversity, we’ve adjusted similar abilities across the game.

We’ve tweaked how jobs perform based on how often they’re used and how well they win in ranked matches. We focused especially on jobs that were winning a lot and those that weren’t doing so well.

We’ve also re-evaluated whether abilities that help allies over a wide area – like the pictomancer’s Tempera Grassa – can reach through obstacles on the battlefield. We may make further adjustments to this based on how we balance jobs overall.

Paladin

Shield Smite was dealing too much damage when used against players who were Guarding. We’ve updated the game so that while Guard is active, targets can’t be made more vulnerable to damage from effects like status ailments.

Dark Knight

We’ve made changes to how the ‘Sole Survivor’ effect from the dark knight’s Plunge ability reduces healing. Now, if a target already has multiple instances of the same negative effect, their healing won’t be reduced too much. We’ve also lowered the amount of health and mana players gain when defeating an enemy already affected by Sole Survivor, preventing them from getting an unfair advantage after winning a fight.

Salted Earth is a key ability for the Dark Knight, but we’ve slightly lowered its damage and healing effects. It was a bit too strong after the changes in Patch 7.31, so we’ve made a small adjustment to balance it.

Gunbreaker

Okay, so as a Gunbreaker player, I was feeling like our damage just wasn’t quite there compared to other tanks. The devs listened, and they’ve boosted the damage of our limit break, Relentless Rush. It hits a lot harder now, which is awesome!

Dragoon

To help Dragoons deal more damage during their burst windows, we’ve boosted the potency of the Geirskogul and Nastrond abilities.

Ninja

We made Hyosho Ranryu and Goka Mekkyaku stronger so players could use Three Mudra more effectively and offensively.

Samurai

We’ve made it easier to fight on the front lines by improving how much damage Ogi Namikiri and Kaeshi: Namikiri can block.

Viper

To make Viper more effective when dealing a lot of damage quickly, we’ve improved the power of its limit break, World-swallower.

Dancer

Honing Ovation is already quite powerful, so we’ve focused on making Honing Dance more effective. We boosted the damage it deals with each hit to help players build up to the final, powerful attack more easily.

Pictomancer

We’ve made changes to Clawed Muse so it doesn’t reduce healing too much, especially if a target already has the same negative effect multiple times. We also updated Tempera Grassa and Star Prism so their beneficial effects can now reach allies even when there are obstacles in the way.

Healer

Because Haelan isn’t used as often as other abilities, we’re lowering its MP cost to 2,000. This change aligns with adjustments we made to Recuperate in Patch 7.31.

White Mage

To improve the white mage in all levels of play, we’ve restored the previous effectiveness of the Protect spell, undoing changes made in Patch 7.25. We’ve also shortened the time it takes to cast Aquaveil, making it easier for white mages to quickly protect allies by removing harmful effects and providing a powerful shield.

Scholar

We’ve updated how Accession works, so its benefits can now reach allies even if there are obstacles in the way. We also toned down Chain Stratagem’s effectiveness against enemies with Guard, preventing them from taking increased damage from status effects while Guard is active. Finally, we’ve refined Biolysis to prevent excessive healing reduction, ensuring that stacking the same ailment doesn’t completely shut down an enemy’s healing.

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2025-12-17 00:08