If you’ve recently come over to Final Fantasy XIV from another MMO, you’ll probably be astounded by the amount of choice available to you in the character creator. Not only do you have a bunch of vibrant and varied races to choose from, but there’s even more customization from then on. Every race has two clans to choose from, and these clans have their own customization options too. These can represent pretty dramatic changes in appearance. Take the Hyur, for example. You can play as a Midlander, smaller in stature and more delicately featured. Or you can play as the huge sturdy Highlanders, more like the Vikings of old than the Midlanders. Some of these choices seem particularly exciting. You can choose your character’s name-day (their birthday) from XIV’s calendar, and pick a Patron Deity to watch over your adventure. Unfortunately, both of these choices are totally irrelevant. The name-day has never had any sort of in-game recognition, and the Patron Deity is linked to a mechanic that has been redundant for a long, long time.
Who Are The Patron Deities?
You can select your Patron Deity from a list of twelve:
Halone, the Fury Menphina, the Lover Thaliak, the Scholar Nymeia, the Spinner Llymlaen, the Navigator Oschon, the Wanderer Byregot, the Builder Rhalgr, the Destroyer Azeyma, the Warden Nald’thal, the Trader Nophica, the Matron Althyk, the Keeper
Some very fancy names and titles here, but it’s really just window dressing at this point. Each of these deities corresponds to a month in Eorzea’s calendar, and you’ll hear some of them referred to frequently throughout your adventure. Much like your character’s name day, their patron deity is a little bit of background detail – some lore to fill out their place in the world. This is actually pretty common in tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons. Your character will have tons of extraneous information surrounding them that might not impact gameplay, but helps give your character a bit more substance. They’re your vehicle in this world, and it’s good to feel like they’re actually a part of it.
Why Doesn’t My Patron Deity Matter Any More?
This is a pretty straightforward question to answer: Previously, Patron Deities would provide your character with small tweaks to their elemental resistances. This is now totally irrelevant because elemental damage hasn’t been a factor in XIV for several years, and as such, any changes in resistance provided by Patron Deities is meaningless. Elemental damage is only a factor in a very small set of instances. Eureka, for example, uses elemental damage – but this is designated by a standalone mechanic and does not factor in individual player stats. If you cast a glance over your skill set, you may see phrases like “Deals unaspected damage”, or “deals fire damage”. Unaspected used to refer to damage that did not have an element. But now, in essence, 95% of the damage in the game is unaspected. Even back when elements did count, choosing the right Patron Deity for your preferred play style wasn’t a massive game changer. The tweaks in resistance were so slight that any benefits were negligible. So, which Patron Deity should you choose? I just chose the one I thought would most likely be taking an interest in my character – Oschon, the Wanderer. Take a traditional approach to the concept of “roleplay” and take time to think about it for yourself & for your character!
