Do you think the Magic Knight Job is too redundant?

For context, the Magic Knight (aka, Rune Fencer, Spellblade and some combinations of he above) is a Job that uses magics to enchant their weapons, usually with elemental spells.

Red Mage however is a class that not only also uses a sword and elemental spells, but in this game also enchants the sword. On top of that Elemental affinities had been depreciated for a while now outside of Limited Jobs.

With all that in mind, do you think that the Magic Knight class is too redundant for implementation as a full job (and likewise that RDM is in a similar scenario as BRD being an amalgamation of two Jobs) or do you think they can be differentiated in some form?

Well...pld and drk are also "magic knights" so I guess magic knight-the hypothetical addition of it-is redundant.

I would say yes.

I see a lot of threads where people say something like "I wish we had X job" when the lore for that job or the core identity is baked into another existing one, and the only thing really different is the name it goes by. Additionally there are simply some core design aspects of jobs that exist in other games that don't work here either because the job won't fit into the paradigm of strictly tank/healer/DPS and thus the job has to becomes something different with aspects of that other job baked in (see astrologian and time mage) or because the identity of the job is baked too heavily into things that don't matter in XIV like elemental affinity (as you stated)

The act of enchanting your sword to do damage is part of the red mage gameplay in this game, and so to create another enchanted sword job would start to step on the toes of that job's identity.

A Disciple of Magic who uses one of the three melee DD gear sets could be easily differentiable from RDM by being the opposite of what a RDM is: a mostly melee DD who occasionally casts ranged spells. And even though elemental damage means nothing mechanically, the various elements can still be present in their attacks by providing various effects similar to how BLM doesn't deal elemental damage but the elements have meaningful effects on their job mechanics and rotation. Bonus points if they actually make significant use of the Water element in their action set because nobody else does.

In terms of Mystic Knight in particular, one idea would be for them to have a normal 1-2-3 melee combo that does pitiable damage until it's imbued with an element via an oGCD. E.g.,

Fire Blade - Melee weaponskills deal (1.2x, 1.8x, 2.4x) damage but cost 10% MP per weaponskill
Blizzard Blade - Melee weaponskills deal 1.0x damage but the the next three weaponskills restore 20%,30%,50% MP, respectively.
Thunder Blade - Melee weaponskill chain deals 1.0x damage but apply a DoT to the target. DoT stacks up to three times, maybe.
Drain Blade - Melee weaponskills absorb some of the damage dealt as HP, but some use-limiting criteria needs to be set so this can't be kept up for more than one or two combos.

Then they would be melee DDs whose rotating elements have the MP bar going up and down in a way that feels very familiar to BLM players. And more powerful, build-up-to-these imbuements like (Burst/Flare/Flood) Blade might be Spells or Weaponskills on their own, imbuing the weapon and performing a finishing strike in one action.

I would say depending on the role it was introduced as would affect my thoughts on the redundancy.

It’s my same thought on Geomancer vs Conjurer. As a healer it would be too redundant, but as a caster I don’t think it steps on the same toes thematically.

So if it was to be put it, let’s say, a melee dps role I think it would be just fine. It would also depend on the weapon it was given.

I don’t think it should be a DoM though.

I don't think it's redundant, but as a general rule if it's a well established job I don't see any job as being redundant. Doesn't matter what job or what role, jobs cover a lot more territory than people seem to want them to.

Not if they make the job play like Gabranth from dissida, use Quickenings as its magic and share maiming gear.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

A Disciple of Magic who uses one of the three melee DD gear sets could be easily differentiable from RDM by being the opposite of what a RDM is: a mostly melee DD who occasionally casts ranged spells. And even though elemental damage means nothing mechanically, the various elements can still be present in their attacks by providing various effects similar to how BLM doesn't deal elemental damage but the elements have meaningful effects on their job mechanics and rotation. Bonus points if they actually make significant use of the Water element in their action set because nobody else does.

In terms of Mystic Knight in particular, one idea would be for them to have a normal 1-2-3 melee combo that does pitiable damage until it's imbued with an element via an oGCD. E.g.,

Fire Blade - Melee weaponskills deal (1.2x, 1.8x, 2.4x) damage but cost 10% MP per weaponskill
Blizzard Blade - Melee weaponskills deal 1.0x damage but the the next three weaponskills restore 20%,30%,50% MP, respectively.
Thunder Blade - Melee weaponskill chain deals 1.0x damage but apply a DoT to the target. DoT stacks up to three times, maybe.
Drain Blade - Melee weaponskills absorb some of the damage dealt as HP, but some use-limiting criteria needs to be set so this can't be kept up for more than one or two combos.

Then they would be melee DDs whose rotating elements have the MP bar going up and down in a way that feels very familiar to BLM players. And more powerful, build-up-to-these imbuements like (Burst/Flare/Flood) Blade might be Spells or Weaponskills on their own, imbuing the weapon and performing a finishing strike in one action.

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Definitely not redundant. This pretty much sums it up.

I think a melee damage dealer magic knight would be cool and not redundant since we don't have one. If you talk vaguely then sure but so is so many other things then, ranged magic caster 'so redundant'.


Golbez, Ex-Death, Sauron inspired DD magic focused knight I think would be pretty cool.

Obviously not. A bunch of attacks of PLD and DRK are magical, but its just aesthetic, not actual mechanic. We can make Mystic Knight whole rotation about different sword enchantments.
And RDM is ranged caster, its just temporary measure for people who crave real meaty spellsword job. It would be also perfect opportunity to use maiming gear for 2nd job.

I would say yes.

I want a mage tank of some kind and while Gandalf was cool and all, a one handed sword caster is not my first choice now because of PLD and DRK being sword user magic user tanks already basically.

Also if there was another sword job, I'd rather see Corsair with sword and gun with the option to dual wield either (probably cosmetic only).

I think taking a job like Geomancer and making it a tank would be neato, and really the same approach could work with a lot of mage type classes.

Time Mage as a magic tank maybe?

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Originally Posted by Waaltar

I would say yes.

I want a mage tank of some kind and while Gandalf was cool and all, a one handed sword caster is not my first choice now because of PLD and DRK being sword user magic user tanks already basically.

Also if there was another sword job, I'd rather see Corsair with sword and gun with the option to dual wield either (probably cosmetic only).

I think taking a job like Geomancer and making it a tank would be neato, and really the same approach could work with a lot of mage type classes.

Time Mage as a magic tank maybe?

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The issue is DoM = Healers/Casters, DoW = the remainder. I don't see them breaking that any time soon.

That and Paladin/Dark Knight are... not exactly the most magey of the group. They're more mages than Gunbreaker/Warrior I suppose but that's kind of a low bar.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

The issue is DoM = Healers/Casters, DoW = the remainder. I don't see them breaking that any time soon.

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This is "the pattern we seem to have always followed", for sure, but there's nothing preventing them from creating a healer who is a DoW or a tank/melee who is DoM.

Even any potential gear considerations, which are what people usually counter with, are artificial, as each job's main stat means nothing mechanically--they are all just flavor coatings of "power", so there are no meaningful restrictions preventing new jobs from wearing gear that is typically assigned to jobs of a different role.

Melee that use Int-gears ? Interesting.

For me it’s less about the theme than it is how fun it is to play/what is in its kit.

I’d imagine it would have to worry more about overlapping with samurai (mechanically) than anything else.

I imagine it would have a normal DPS skillchain of 3 “blades”, possibly a DoT/drain skillchain.

Problem is the game has basically made all the jobs only slightly different from each other by removing a lot of the utility (status effects, party buffs, etc), so I don’t think they really even care about redundancy at this point.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

This is "the pattern we seem to have always followed", for sure, but there's nothing preventing them from creating a healer who is a DoW or a tank/melee who is DoM.

Even any potential gear considerations, which are what people usually counter with, are artificial, as each job's main stat means nothing mechanically--they are all just flavor coatings of "power", so there are no meaningful restrictions preventing new jobs from wearing gear that is typically assigned to jobs of a different role.

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Given how they've approached things I don't see any reason they would change that. I suppose we could certainly argue the roles are meaningless and we could get a DoM melee/ranged or a DoW caster, but as things stand now it doesn't seem likely.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

For me it’s less about the theme than it is how fun it is to play/what is in its kit.

I’d imagine it would have to worry more about overlapping with samurai (mechanically) than anything else.

I imagine it would have a normal DPS skillchain of 3 “blades”, possibly a DoT/drain skillchain.

Problem is the game has basically made all the jobs only slightly different from each other by removing a lot of the utility (status effects, party buffs, etc), so I don’t think they really even care about redundancy at this point.

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The easiest route would be to make it play like black mage. Enfire oGCD to imbue your blade with fire, making your weaponskills stronger and spend lots of MP. Enblizzard oGCD to restore MP, Enthunder to apply a DOT that can proc, turning your Enthunder button into instant Thunder (think of black mage).

Casting an Enspell 2 times in a row would turn your Spellblade into Fire II, Blizzard II and Thunder II for AoE.

Then of course, you have your 1 - 2 - 3 weaponskill combo (3 being Spellblade so you don't Enspell every weaponskill) plus 4 - 5 - 6 to increase attack speed.

Job mechanic could be literally Astral Fire and Umbral Ice, with the reward being rank 3 spells if you keep the mechanic for x seconds.

Maybe it could suffer a bit of Dark Arts syndrome, but I can see it being something unique and fun.

Depends on how it's done.

At present, it wouldn't be hard to argue that RDM having a sword is already redundant... except as a primarily ornamental feature that simply causes that Mage's Foul-equivalent to no longer benefit from downtime and to remove positional freedom for 3 GCDs.

Alternatively, if you actually give it a reason for, and gameplay presence within, having both a sword and magic... by all means.