It’s Preliminary Patch Note day! I always love combing through the notes, as we almost always get some new information tucked away somewhere. There weren’t as many surprises in this batch (though I’d imagine once we get the full list of items on Monday there will be many new points of interest).

Before I get to the new bits relevant to glamour, there are actually some pretty nice additions in other areas of the game. The ones on most people’s minds are going to be class adjustments:

• Ninjas got a pretty amazing buff to their AoE potential. They should, all things considered, rival Monks for the top melee AoE now, and they may actually surpass them, though I’m not enough of a numbers guru to be able to say that definitively.
• Bards got a number of potency increases for their single target damage, and they also got some pretty nice adjustments to their party support. All of their songs had their casting times cut in half; Army’s Paeon and Mage’s Ballad now only reduce damage by 10%; and Battle Voice had its cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, presumably to bring it more in line with Machinist’s Hypercharge.
• Astrologians got a nice adjustment to Spread, with the cooldown being cut in half. The shields for Nocturnal Aspected Helios also got buffed. I can’t really see either change making Astrologian more popular, as it’s still not going to fit in well given the synergies White Mage and Scholar have with one another.
• Dark Knights got a couple small PvP buffs (with the Sole Survivor change being pretty nice for focusing a particular target), and Ninjas got a minor adjustment as well (they brought back the healing received debuff for them, on Shadow Fang instead of Dancing Edge).

On the Crafting/Gathering side of the game we’re getting some very welcome changes:

• Ixal Daily Quests have been given a new lease on life: they now provide Grade IV Crafting and Gathering Materia (which is honestly something that should have been done ages ago).
• Word is, from a Famitsu interview, that Grade V materia will also be available from the new Moogle Beast Tribe Quests. Gearing Gatherers and Crafters for high end usage is going to be much more straightforward now, and it’s honestly about time.
• Concealed nodes for Favor items have had their spawn rates increased, too: hopefully it’s enough to actually make a dent in the availability of Red Scrip materials.
• Additionally, they’ve made Red Scrips easier to acquire for Gatherers, and a number of the Blue Scrip turn ins for Crafters are getting buffed, too.

With all this and the new gear for the two specialties, 3.3 looks to be a pretty nice patch for the industrious members of the community. I’m definitely excited to be able to get materia without massively destroying my wallet.

Other little nuggets include increased reputation gains for A Realm Reborn Beast Tribe Quests; the Gauss Barrel animation toggle; buffs to Esoteric Tomestones rewards (which will help a lot for the Unidentifiable stage of the Anima weapons; and modifications to Wildfire and Provoke animations (I’m really curious about the Provoke one, since we hadn’t heard about that before).

But as for the real important thing (glamours!) we didn’t get too much that was strictly new info this time. However, there are a few things to note. Firstly, we got still shots of the new body suits that were previewed in the trailer:

Contrary to my expectations, the Vanu and Vath suits are all individual pieces, as well. That might make them appealing to some folks for glamour, though I can’t see myself using them. They didn’t say much about the one from the Gold Saucer: my guess is that it’s a full body set like the Chocobo Suit is.

We also got another look at the gear from Weeping City of Mhach, with the individuals spread out for a clearer look (and on new races to boot):

It’s still somewhat unclear which sets belong to which role, thought the one on the left is most certainly Casting gear. If the third set is the Fending gear (it could just as easily be Maiming), I’ll at least spend awhile wearing the body piece, I think. I rather like it. I can’t decide whether the last set is Striking or Aiming, but my gut still says Aiming. We might be able to tell from the item names once we have the full patch notes, though!

We also got a look at what I assume is the new gear from the Expert dungeons:

My guesses in this case are (left to right as usual) Striking/Scouting, Casting/Healing, Fending, and Aiming. We’ll have palette swaps of the Striking and Casting sets, of course, to be more appropriate for the respective roles. I’m most excited about the Aiming gear, though: I’ve wanted a look like that for Machinist for ages! It even (apparently) has my normal aesthetic built right in with thighboots and shorts. The other three sets don’t really inspire me much, but I’ll have to see them in game (and also what color variations are available). I’m not sure where Maiming fits in for this batch: it could either be not shown, or it could be a palette swap of the left-most set or the Fending one.

They also showed off a new glamour set alongside the new Disciple of the Hand/Land sets:

While that set on the right could be male-locked, I’m guessing it won’t be, since the developers have mentioned that they’re going to start moving away from that. The shirt in particular should be really useful, and depending on how it looks on females, I’ll likely end up using it for either Ninja or Scholar. It probably comes from Aquapolis materials, so it might take a bit of doing to craft, though!

The patch notes do also confirm that we’re getting dyable Dreadwyrm gear, which should breathe some life into Final Coil (which is my favorite raid, so I’m all for that). Curiously, we’re not getting Replica weapons though, and I do wonder why they didn’t do that, given that they did so for the other Replica sets. Additionally, all i210/i230 Anima weapons will be able to be dyed on Tuesday, which is a welcome change!

On Monday, we’ll have the full patch notes, which will include information on recipes, as well as a full list of items, which will likely include hints of other glamour items we haven’t seen yet. We normally get at least two glamour sets per patch, and we’ve seen one now. I’m very curious about the other one.