Concept for a Magic Melee DPS

[dinnertime]

Maybe you would benefit from going back and actually reading my post. I never said what you seem to think I said.

As someone who plays RDM, this idea (implementation of Mystic Knight) gets a big NOPE from me. It's not that it's inherently bad so much as it's just another job that would overshadow red mage and make it even more irrelevant. Bring a job like that in and now RDM really would be nothing but its raise and people would still use it as an excuse to keep the job down. I agree with the poster above me, just give RDM more options for melee attacks. That will never happen of course because square is full of cowards and devoid of any and all creative energy but yeah it would be nice.

???
If you mean "I don't want RDM getting overshadowed from getting melee magic" instead of "Only RDM should have melee magic" that's basically the same thing in context worded differently.

stuff

Alright, lore again. First of all...they're not as adamant with the lore as you think. They've retconned lore in favor of new things/jobs/races getting added. It's not always set in stone, instead it's a stepping stone, otherwise things would be too restrictive and Red Mage wouldn't even be a thing.

Let's talk about what Red Mage even is in the lore. Red Mage is a product of Mhaci Black Mages and Amdapori White Mages who've banded together after being persecuted for causing the 6th Umbral Calamity, however instead of 'borrowing' aether from the land to cast magic like Black and White Mage do, they use their own aether which produces less potent magic but it's to prevent their past mistakes. It's what makes them 'weak' compared to Black and White Mages but this is quite dangerous and can kill them. This is where RDM's spellblade comes into play. The sword and fencing is more of an afterthought as they were experimenting on how to be efficient with using less aether, with the help of some Ishgardian friends with the fencing and their own improvisation, they enchant their sword fighting with the black and white mana they've accumulated. Yes, spellblade (but the RDM mentor actually call it red magic) is part of Red Mage but...it's not something they primarily do honestly and Mystic Knight is much more than that. That and they don't even point out that RDM's sword magic something super unique to them, especially when the job is designed to be so accessible.

Mystic Knight doesn't need to be from a different shard to even be reasonable. You're too concerned that they might be too similar or contradict with lore when the job you're comparing it to something that literally borrows black and white magic. Not only that, Norvrandt has their own version of Black and White magic that it's not out of the realm of possibility that their own version of Red Mage can exist in there, but whatever. Also Red Mage isn't very restrictive as it's not forbidden like Black/White Mage is labeled as and was designed to be accessible so there can be more Red Mages if they want. The art became ancient because people lost interest and faded away but I'm not too sure.

Yes, there's going to be different iterations of the similar art but that's actually realistic because things can either influence each other, borrow from one another or just shared the same idea but found independently. There's Conjury and Sharlayan Astrology being similar to Geomancy, and Thaumaturgy and Conjury being basically Black and White magic except with a different way to take aether and a more safer practice in casting magic, then Allagan summoners actually using the same concept as Arcanima which is basically using math to shape aether into creatures, and Scholar and Summoner being the same in concept is literally not an issue since their main thing is shaping aether. That and Red Mage by itself is the same thing. Some of the arts of magic i've pointed out are actually playable even though they have similar concepts. Yes, all of them are actually tied to each other in gameplay but I'm pointing out the lore here. Mystic Knight and Red Mage's little sword magic being in the same realm is fine and won't hurt the lore.

There's actually so many room open for Mystic Knight in FFXIV, I don't understand why some of you think it doesn't.