Final Fantasy 14's latest class fights with a giant paintbrush - yes, really

The second new class for Final Fantasy 14 Online's upcoming expansion, Dawntrail, has been confirmed to be Pictomancer.

Revealed during Final Fantasy 14's Japan Fan Festival keynote presentation, the Pictomancer is a caster DPS class (or job, as it's known in-game) that fights with a paintbrush and palette to conjure spells, support buffs, and familiars to aid in battle. It joins Viper - a melee DPS wielding two swords that can be combined into one - as one of two new jobs coming to the game via the Dawntrail expansion later this year.

Unlike Viper, which is a Final Fantasy 14 original, Pictomancer has its roots as far back as Final Fantasy 6 on the SNES. In that game, the job was utilized by playable party member Relm to support allies and deal damage to enemies with her ability to paint portraits of enemies, thus capturing their abilities to use as her own.

As evidenced by the accompanying trailer for the job, Final Fantasy 14's version of Pictomancer likely won't share this enemy-capturing trait. Instead, we see the Warrior of Light using the brush to cast various more traditional-looking spells. However, one skill does see them painting a starry sky (potentially a party-wide buff), and another has them painting a Moogle, which then fires a beam of energy at the target.

The Pictomancer wasn't the only major announcement to come from this latest keynote presentation. Director and producer Naoki Yoshida also revealed the female variant of the Hrothgar race - the male version of which was added back in 2019 in Final Fantasy 14's third expansion, Shadowbringers. This is to be the last addition to the game insofar as it comes to playable races.

We also got a glimpse at several new locales, including Solution Nine, a hyper-futuristic city that's unlike anything we've seen in the game so far. And given we're talking about an MMO that's taken us from the depths of the ocean to the far-flung edges of the universe, that's really saying something.

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail is currently slated for release in 'Summer 2024,' meaning it'll likely launch somewhere between June and August. Yoshida confirmed developer Creative Business Unit 3 has an internal launch date, but stressed this won't be announced until he is confident the team can meet this deadline.

Taking a break from Final Fantasy 14 before Dawntrail launches? You may want to check out some of the best RPGs or best single-player games to help fill the gap between now and its release later this year.

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