In your darkest hour: DRK's identity crisis

[Lyth]

Some points:

Cloud
It's hard not to draw a connection to Cloud. Our /bstance, /vstance, and the male DRK /cpose are all homages to him, much like other jobs reference well-known characters in the series.

The Mystic Knight reference comes from an uncited section of the unofficial FF wiki. I'm not sure of its validity. That being said, it's worth noting that there has historically been a lot of similarity between Mystic Knights and Dark Knights. The key difference is in the choice of resource (MP vs. HP) and the theme (elemental vs. darkness). As a matter of fact, FF3 historically listed Mystic Knight as one of its jobs, and it was later replaced by Dark Knight in the remake. To make matters more complex, FFXIV's DRK straddles the line between the two, using MP and blood to power dark magic, while stealing HP, MP, and blood. But no two Final Fantasy games are completely identical in their implementation. There are no absolute rules, only themes.

If you'll think back to Cloud's fighting style across different media portrayals, it's again hard not to see parallels. Souleater is a stylised Climhazzard. A lot of the later scenes of Advent Children feature him drawing in purplish energy into himself before launching into a flurry of strikes. Rewatching the scenes, I wonder if we couldn't see Omnislash implemented someday as a sort of wildfire style burst window which counted up your DA sword strikes.

DRK's playstyle not an unusual aesthetic for later FF games, especially in the wake of the original Playstation era, to be sure. You see it in XV's Noctis as well. My point here is that it carries nostalgia value, and nostalgia plays an important part in drawing the player in. This is not any MMO. It's a Final Fantasy MMO. I'd love to see more emphasis placed on that.

Greatswords
Two-handed swords have a long legacy in Final Fantasy. FF6 makes a visual distinction between larger 'Knight Swords' and traditional one-handed swords based on the swing animation (horizontal vs. vertical), but doesn't really elaborate on it further. FF7 made the aesthetic mainstream, and interestingly enough, FFT and the world of Ivalice was where they really came into their own (in no small part due to the magic swordsman aesthetic). It became standard practice for every iconic end-game sword, be it Defender, Save the Queen, Apocalypse, Ragnarok, and Ultima Weapon, to be a two-hander. The terminology varies slightly from game to game, but it's functionally the same.

Balance
As much as I like the idea of a Deus Ex style balance in which there are multiple approaches to the same problem, there are some fundamental obstacles. Take Hallowed, for example. It completely negates all incoming damage. There isn't an alternate way to achieve the same effect. But if you made it into a role action and made it universal, the job would lose something that made it unique.

I think it's okay for tanks to have weaknesses. It's okay to find yourself wishing in the moment that you were on a different tank to deal with a tough situation. I'm not a fan of this mentality that "X has an ability, so I need to have that ability too". The problem is that the exchange of abilities has been a one-way relationship. There are definitely occasions where you will definitely miss having a WAR or a PLD. You don't really get that sense with DRK anymore, after Stormsblood.