Because of the changes to posts, I'll go through here once more and apply the new votes in the other topic.
I orginally had Job Abilities/Traits/Stances as one category, but with the popularity of Stances being it's own update, I'm going to split them into 2 different categories.
Thank you, Returner, for that inspiring post. I really hope Square Enix gives us a job trait that lets us swing a weapon while spellcasting. That would be amazing.
Kagato, this is just my opinion, but I think you should list suggestions as straight-up job traits, job abilities (this includes stances), and spells, because that's how things are in the game. We understand a samurai's Hasso and Seigan to be stances, even though they're technically job abilities, so there shouldn't be a reason to list any "stance-like" effect as anything other than a job ability. You could just say in its description that it's a "stance-like" effect, similar to things like Hasso and Seigan, or Yonin and Innin.
Which reminds me. The suggestions for a dark knight's "stance" job abilities need work. I don't think your position in relation to your attack target should matter one bit. Think about how a thief or ninja works; of course a stealth-based or sneaky job is going to fight differently from behind a monster than from in front of a monster, which is why things like Sneak Attack and Innin make sense to be position-based. This is not true for a dark knight. We fight differently based on whether or not we're tanking, and that's about it. Even then, right now, it's only a question of whether to cast Dread Spikes or not, since we have pretty much no other defensive capabilities. Here's what I recommend for "stance-like" job abilities.
Interimere
Dark Knight Level 91 Job Ability
Duration: 1:30
Recast: 3:00
Increases casting and recast timers for all magic and lowers defense, but improves critical hit rate (this includes weapon skills) and weapon skill damage.
Ferocio
Dark Knight Level 91 Job Ability
Duration: 1:30
Recast: 3:00
Impairs attack and critical hit rate, but lowers casting and recast timers for all magic, and increases their potency well enough to match an expert Red Mage. Also improves parrying rate and evasion.
I took the Latin words for "to deal the death blow to" and "defiance" for the names.
So we have one "stance-like" job ability that powers up our melee aspect, and another that powers up our magical prowess and physical defensive ability. I admit I'm no expert on the subject, but I really, really don't think the dark knight's position in relation to the attack target should matter one bit.
All right I've received a few comments on this so I'm gonna follow up on this statement. SE will never allow us to swing while we cast, first off to program that in would be problematic, remember how cures tend to stun us when they hit us especially when we get up from raise. Second, assuming the new team can accomendate this we have the biggest problem with this suggestion, BLU and RDM. If we can swing while casting why can't they? Their own players while continue to complain til they steal this from us and then NIN and PLD will be like hey wtf is up with that, soon it will be universal and won't be a benefit for us. Third as I mentioned if your lucky enough a slight move while casting allows you to swing while casting and not be interupted, I have done this on DRK and NIN extensively and many other jobs subbing NIN, and let me tell you it has very little benefits, so to put those on a larger scale is not gonna help this job overcome its current hinderance. As for the claiming that absorb att and absorb def not being so useful, well it is true that it depends on their strength but ultimately the increase lasts for an extended period of time thus increasing the drk's capabilities for that entire duration thus makin the drk much better, not to mention that absorb def makes the mob weaker to all who are attacking meaning that the drk has helped the entire alliance and therefore is looked at with renewed light. As for stances I have suggested my own versions in the thread "How to fix DRK" and they focus on increasing drks physical capabilities on one and magical on the other, which is what a drk should be about, we are the job of pure damage, war can tank, we can kill its how we are intended to be, to say hey I want to tank as well is a bit greedy, but I understand having spells like dreadspikes can help tank for short time, which is perfectly acceptable for a drks tanking capabilities (I'm not including sub skills because that ultimately can help define a jobs capabilities in its own regards I'm just speaking about drk only), but instead we need to focus on whats drk true calling is. Ultimately drk has to be the heaviest hitter, but with slower delay to maintain balance, but with usage of spells we should be able to increase our own performance and to hinder our opponents.
On another topic I forgot to mention in my previous post that Souleater needs to be addressed, first a drk should get a relaxed hp drain on it as he lvls to help make the ability more useful, second the HNMS need to have the gains resistance to souleater removed or massively degraded, its not fair to have a good ability like this stolen from us cuz we couldn't figure out how you wanted us to fight AV, which btw is now a near worthless HNM to fight. Finally MP attack my favorite ability from FF9, I love this ability so much and to give it to drk is perfect, it allows us to use our mp to increase our damage, but it needs to be done at a reasonable rate, after all breaking 666mp outside of abyssea is hard so draining to much would be a terrible mistake.
Finally, Scythe, scythe, scythe, scythe, scythe. Thats all I hear about, I know we havew an A+ in Scythe, but we also have the highest rating in Great Sword too, granted A- another change that needs to be made. Great Sword also needs increase in power as far as ws is concerned. I have been and always will be a GS drk, and I have stood strong against many strong scythe DRK's so before we get in the GS vs Scythe argument, stop, this is not what its about, GS has its strengths and so does scythe, either one can be very strong in a drks hand and thats how it should be, for instance despite my love of GS I haven't used anything cept my twilight scythe since i got it, why, cuz its hits work like formless strikes and thus it has high consistent damage at all times and can even bypass many forms of damage ignore and drain, also the death proc is fun, but the point is both of these weapons are drk's main weapons and therefore if Scythe needs boost so does GS.
1) Increase Last Resort duration.
2) More stunning capabilities / battle control.
3) Stances to divide magic and melee.
4) Blood Weapon nerfed and reduced to 5 min. recast to stack with Souleater.
5) A serious critical-hit trait that begins early and scales with levels. DRK is a spike damage job- it should definitely specialize in critical hits, not lack them. (Would effect weaponskills)
The reason I think meleeing while casting spell should be an exclusive JT for drk is the fact that pld can block while casting spell, and on the other side of the spectrum, we should be able to have an unique trait that help us cast while not diminishing what we are designed to do, which is to kill. I wouldn't mind they make it darkmagic only, but there is really no reason for blu or rdm to cry since they are mainly casters hence the mage label. Ninja should probably get something of this sort I agree, but they do have stance JAs that help either their melee or casting/tanking, and their primary role is more enfeebling and tanking, less in damage dealing. At least that's what SE said, I know they do great damage.
Yes, there will be times where you can move a bit, get your swing off, and then get back to the spot and still able to get the spell off, but it is inconsistent. Whether SE can implement it or not is another issue, but I don't see how difficult it is. JPs are suggesting the same exact trait if you go to their forum. They are so concern about losing DoT during casting they even suggested getting a JT that will allow you to always get a bonus swing right after casting to compensate for any possible swing lose. I don't see how ppl want new spell etc etc without worrying about the very basic reason that we are not casting. I am the kind of person who is very specific about meleeing, even JA activation bothers me a bit with the 1 sec delay after every JA use, those messive casting time drives me crazy without a doubt.
Quick response, yes pld can block while casting, as can any other job with shield skill, and also any job with parry can also parry while casting, and any job with guard can also guard while casting, nothing about these skills is by any means pld exclusive and is initiated by the mob attacking, therefore the spell cast animation is interupted by the mob. By this thought here to make it so that Drk is the only one to get away with melee hits while casting will cause a massive out cry by the other magic melee jobs, and then SE will cave and then we will be on even grounds. I understand your frustration with delay but for a good example Utsusemi has a long cast time on it, don't you think nins will want to have melee swings during that, especially if they are tanking. The thing is your complaint is not realistic as you stated ja's also have a delay til next swing, and it can be annoying but it clearly demonstrates the problem with programing i mentioned, second why not do the sensable thing and just ask for faster cast times, like 1 sec cast times on our spell that we use IE our drains and spikes, aspirs, and god willing they fix them our absorbs. People are throwing to much stock into this when its nothin but a can of worms, just look at it objectively, what can we have that others can't, and this will be the next Zanshin/Sekkanoki/Convert/Refresh/Manifestion/Accession/Haste/who knows what else will be a once was unique to certain jobs but now belongs to all ability.
The reason I keep up with this is yes it would be nice to swing while casting, but unfortunately your asking for something that will eventually benefit everyone, and this is the drk thread, keep it to only ideas that benefit drk and stop trying to make this a drk only ability because you know, I know, everyone on this forum knows that if we get that then they are gonna complain til they get it as well.
And for the record the reason most the time drks don't cast is because 1.) Drains and Aspirs recast timers are too long and we gotta wait for them to come up again, also not every mob has mp and Undead obvious. 2.) Our other spells are either circumstancial or useless, example our nukes are super weak and have a large mp cost to our small pool of mp, which we need to save for our good spells. 3.) Mobs tend to have high resist rates to drk magic, SE doesn't like it when ppl cast sleep on mobs, they want mobs to be awake and kill people, thats why only brds and whms can sleep them most the time, course break isn't better on mobs, which btw i can see us gettin that next update. Hell only non drk magic spell i ever cast anymore is poison, why cuz i gotta pull with something, although ever once in awhile i get to hit a t3 trigger spell or Impact for fun.
Now that the nonsense is over back to the main point of this thread improving drk.
Only thing i got for this post is allow us to use our absorb spells with abyssea buffs and increase the duration of these buffs and none of the BS deteriorates over time, just straight buff/debuff for i'd say a minute isn't askin for to much or perhaps make it based of drk magic skill for duration, also the stats drained need to be higher, i was able to get 21 on my absorbs on mobs outside abyssea at lvl 90, it should be higher I think 50 at lvl 99 (Higher with skill merits and or new merits at 99) that way we can at least contend with other dd's by throwing on our own buffs to increase our ws multipliers, plus it would be nice to hit the enemy hard enough to make us look even more shiny to endgame ls's.
Oh i forgot any job with counter can also counter while casting, its hilarious, mnk/nin main tank and the mob says screw you buddy you can't have shadows, and i'm like the hell i can't bam.
No matter what the request, I can't deny it and I will gather the votes and place it on the list. It's not my job to determine whether or not an idea is good or not. It's the developer's jobs. I just provide the feedback in one easy-to-access topic for them.
Thankfully the popular requests are ones that can be more manageable, such as the widely popular Last Resort Duration request.
a straight buff/debuff for absorb for 1 min isn't asking much because it is pretty worthless and no one will waste time casting worthless things in continuous fighting.
and pld has shield mastery where they don't get interrupted casting magic, but so does rdm and war now
Forgot to add I don't cast because it cuts into my DD
I don't see what's wrong with other jobs getting the trait tho. We both know that it will benefit drk the most. When SE fixed the shield blocking problem, they aimed at pld. Yes rdm and war get them, but hardly have any use. If this trait helps blu and ninja, so be it, but like I said, melee damage is our main damage source, interrupting our main source for magic is the biggest reason we don't cast. Blu will cast regardless, cuz their magic does more damage than their melee, they don't give a crap if it hurts their melee damage. Ninja will cast regardless, cuz their magic is their main source for tanking and enfeebling, so again, they have to cast to do what they do (and wouldn't you think that will help ninja keep hate better? bingo, another way to save another job that likely won't be as powerful once we are out of abyssea). Those jobs really don't have a choice not to cast yet for drk, magic is just a throw in and in many ways a counter productive throw in. And like I said, you don't have to worry about SE not able to implement this, if they want to, there will be a way, it is our job to suggest. I am all for faster cast similar to how blms got fastcast exclusively when casting elemental magic, I can see SE giving drk something similar to that while casting darkmagic. But to me, casting while meleeing, if they can implement it, will be the ultimate fix, even if that means it applies to all jobs. We are suggesting what will help drk, not what we are hoping to get exclusively. I don't see any other jobs suggesting this, cuz to them they don't care.
I hope Square Enix's developers don't have too much trouble reading all of this internet speak.
At any rate, when it comes to people complaining, isn't it better to know who the complainers are than try to "fix the game" repeatedly to satisfy everyone? It's a fact that dark knights need help, and there are many ways to prove that using facts alone. If we did get a job trait that let us swing a weapon while casting a spell, even if it's restricted to only our dark magic, I would say to let the paladins, red mages, and whomever else complain that they don't get something similar. They don't need such a job trait. Paladins get extra TP just for blocking with a shield. Who else can do that? Certainly not a warrior. Would they like to? Probably, but do they really need more tricks up their sleeves? No, they're fine as they are. Dark knights are not. When it comes right down to it, if paladins and whomever else complain that they don't get a job trait like dark knights might that would let them swing a weapon while casting a spell, they're really just running their mouths out of jealousy. Ultimately, yes, I do think reducing the casting times on most of a dark knight's dark magic spells would be the best fix, along with removing the decay on "Absorb" spells, but at the same time, such a job trait wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Basically, this is my point. If dark knights get a job trait that lets us swing a weapon while casting a spell, even if it's just for dark magic, and other jobs complain about it, I'd like to point out the fact that arguing using opinions is a waste of time. If a red mage can present solid, undeniable facts that support the argument that they should get a similar job trait, even if it's restricted to just their enfeebling magic, then by all means, grant them such a job trait, as long as it doesn't unbalance the jobs all over again. In fact, I honestly think that red mages should focus on enfeebling magic and their sword enhancement series of spells (i.e. "Enthunder") a whole lot more than healing or elemental magic, because that's what they should be doing best. Leave the elemental magic to black mages, and the healing magic to white mages.
So using the idea that people will complain about an "attack while you cast" job trait for dark knights as an argument against having it does not work. Personally, I think it's unfair that summoners got Odin, whose Zantetsuken Blood Pact deals Death in an area, got him before we dark knights got an instant-kill attack (see my idea for getting "Bonecrusher"), even if it does require Astral Flow. What if the summoner's an accomplished alchemist, and can make revitalizers like nobody's business? So much for waiting two hours once Astral Flow wears off. This is especially true in Abyssea, where a summoner could just synthesize a revitalizer, activate Astral Flow, summon Odin, have him use Zantetsuken and vanish, then use the revitalizer, and finally make a new one. Of course, I am assuming that Odin doesn't miss in this scenario, but still, that's kind of unfair to pretty much everybody else, especially the job that's known for doom and death-dealing just from the name.