Concept for a Magic Melee DPS

[Wayfinder3]

The problem with Wayfinder's argument about combining the Red Mage with Spellblade is that they're independent concepts as-is, with enough design clout behind them to make two separate jobs, as has been done in the past -- Red Mage still has plenty of room for expansion purely in the magic department that it hardly even needs to touch on adding new melee skills (which as I explained would actually be detrimental to the job at this stage). If we attempt to push two job concepts together that would actually have depth on their own, you end up with a disjointed abomination that plays exactly like a mishmash of two jobs and doesn't know what it wants to be. Push more melee skills into a caster job and you'll end up not with an elegant hybrid, but a job trying to have the best of both worlds and failing to achieve either.
We already have enough complaints as-is about Summoner and Scholar for similar reasons: they each retain elements of the other which can feel out of place -- for lack of a better word, "clunky" -- as a player.

Couple things, 11 is a very different game than 14. 14's combat design requires that jobs be able to do the same things amongst their roles. this means, Rune Fencer, Mystic Knight, etc... wouldn't be this vastly different job from the actual melee dps in the game. instead, it'd just be a new flavor of MNK, DRG, SAM, and NIN, that happens to be thematically similar to RDM. 11 didn't have this issue so the comparison can't be made. proof of this claim is that every jobs utilities and kits are all fundamentally similar in this game, all tanks have invuls, all melee have gap closers and weak defensive cds or none at all, Healers kits mirror each other skill for skill except their unique gimmicks, all ranged have a troubadour equivalent. casters are the exception to this and thats only because BLM stubbornly won't get a raise. raise is currently the biggest issue plaguing casters so thats not even a good thing that the role is different in this way. in 11, RDM COULD actually substitute a healer

this means your new spellblader wouldn't be allowed to do alot of what you're hoping it can do and would instead just be another melee dps(we have 4 already) with weak or no defensives and a gap closer as well as a gimmick. the problem now comes in, regardless of how this job feels to play or if this gimmick is fun. If it doesn't do anything, people will perpetually dislike it. Look at SAM as proof and, you're asking for another job that'll invalidate SAM or get invalidated by NIN, DRG, and MNK. it's not worth it imo and, improving RDM seems like the better way of doing this instead of giving the melee dps role 5 jobs when it at best can only have 2 slots. you're also claiming the only way for them to expand on RDM is through magical ranged combat only but thats not entirely true either. they can expand on the melee dps nature of RDM without overstepping it's place as a caster dps by simpling making the melee combo refined and precise, my previous comment mentions a efficient way of adding new melee to RDM without comprising it's position as a ranged.

THe Summoner and Scholar example doesn't apply here very well because these were 2 seperate concept/jobs with nothing alike being tied to one base where as, fundamentally. RDM can easily stand in as the avatar for all other spellblading jobs because spellblader as itself is just a concept, it doesn't imply anything more than magic with a sword. Nobody here has asked for anything unique from this spellblader that RDM can't do, they just want another spellblader. Summoner and Scholar aren't remotely similar in concepts and the devs have openly stated regret in treating them as they did. Im not trying to say red mage monopolizes the spell blade position, im saying, the amount of jobs in this game is getting to become alot and we don't need to add another job to expand on a small concept that RDM can fill.

eventually, this game will have to stop adding new jobs. this holy trinity limitation means that the more jobs we get, the more jobs need to be able to clear content, which intern means more homogenization in what jobs offer. Look at the jobs as they are now, compared to Heavensward especially tanks. nearly pruned dry

[Duelle]

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.

I'd say it's more that there's a concern SE will just simply leave RDM where it currently is and give everything being suggested or asked for to Mystic Knight, which is something I don't put outside the realm of possibility.

In terms of lore, I'll agree that stuff can be retconned or added to. My go-to origin for Mystic Knight would be the Allagans, since Phlegethon sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the other bosses in Crystal Tower. Since aetheric limitations are already a thing (see: SMN), you could use that to explain why player character Mystic Knights can't do things like room-wide Abyssal Slashes or Megiddo Flames. If we were to go the dual-wield route suggested by the OP, you could also say that our puny bodies can't successfully channel the amount energy needed to bring about Mystic Knight combat into one blade, which is why PCs have to use two swords instead. I had different ideas for a Mystic Knight design, but it is entirely possible to use Phlegethon as a sort of base for the job.

I am arguing that your design could be adapted in part for exactly the kind of Magic Melee DPS this thread is discussing

Here's some barebones concepts to show why I disagree with you:

Using the OP's suggestion as a starting point, Mystic Knight wields twinswords and shifts between 3 stances. Each stance is aligned with two elements (fire & earth, ice & water, thunder & wind), with the primary element affecting auto attacks and weaponskills. oGCDs include things that I call "off-hand strikes", which are attacks using the off-hand blade that take on the effects of the secondary element and have different properties depending on which stance you have active. For example, one of these strikes primes the target(s) to take more damage from a follow up weaponskill (off-hand strike that applies an earth debuff, which becomes a molten rock debuff that deals DoT damage if followed up by a certain fire weaponskill). The token ranged skill (which I call "sonic boom but with swords") also changes properties depending on which stance is active.

As of right now, the gameplay loop would be to activate a stance, then use weaponskills + oGCDs to generate a resource. When the resource caps, the Mystic Knight gets a signet related to the stance. This is their cue to swap to another stance (I'm thinking of adding a penalty for staying in a stance for too long). The goal would be to cycle between the three stances, get their signets and use that to activate a mode that reduces the GCD for all weaponskills (and possibly reduces or eliminates the cooldown of oGCDs?) for a duration determined by the number of signets active. Kinks have to be worked out and there's likely going to be changes (like coming up with a way to use up signets on stuff outside of the super mode).

An alternative would be to have it swap through elements the way MNK shifts through Raptor/Coeurl/Opo-opo forms, but via its weaponskill combo finishers. This I admit sounds a lot more attractive if we want to focus on abilities that change depending on which element you have active. In this version you'd also have a skill that shifts you between two different elemental rotations composed of the primary elements (fire, ice, thunder) and secondary elements (earth, water, wind). The only issue is that I'm very tempted to give this version skills that offer utility depending on which element is active, though it's the sort of utility SE doesn't use for anything (a skill afflicting the mob with Slow if you're attuned to earth, but stuns the mob if attuned to thunder). For the sake of simplicity, we could just trim down the number of elements the job has access to.

The other stuff:

Let's not get wires crossed here. "More than once every 45 seconds" could be "Once every 45 seconds unless you hit Manafication to bring that down to 20 sec every 2 minutes" or flat out "Once every 40 seconds" and still fit that criteria, which is closer to what we have with Scorch anyway -- but we both know that's not what you're asking for, is it?

The gameplay would still consist of spell spam until you reach an arbitrary number on the resource bar, so yes, I would still have a problem with it.

That said, if the devs increased the frequency of the melee combo, I'd take it. I wouldn't be entirely kind to it, but I would also recognize it as a step forward.

Yes, it's at the end of the combo, which means it's right before the next combo.

That's a very questionable stretch of logic. Even ignoring that, you're still casting a spell after it if Dualcast procs.

Slight aside: Have you considered "Imperil" as an alternative to Death Blossom? It's a skill from FF13 that increased the target's vulnerability to magic.

Death Blossom in FFXI reduces magic evasion, which was close enough on a concept level. It also has name recognition (hence why NIN's AoE knife attack being called Death Blossom was so baffling to me, specially if you take the Japanese name of that ability into account). I could use Imperil for another ability though, so I appreciate the suggestion.

1) The boss is moving, probably because they have some kind of dash attack. Your best bet is to close the gap as quickly as possible so you can return to comboing, not to stand still hardcasting a spell.

If a boss is moving and you know about it, you'll keep up with them to continue attacking. Same thing if they spin around like Construct 7. In such a scenario you're gonna be moving and comboing Quick Thrust => Iron Thorn => Instant Spell unabated. If you proc Dualcast you'll follow that with a spell. That, however, is not the context in which my reply was written.

2) Bullet Hell phase. Your best bet is to keep moving and throw what ranged attacks you have that won't stop your run, because if you stop moving for any considerable period, it's very likely you'll die. It's exactly the scenario that would have doomed an unprepared BLM's DPS before ShB, exactly what RDMs gained Reprise for in spite of Dualcast (and bear in mind, without the guaranteed Dualcast, you can't reliably slidecast either), and exactly why every single melee's ranged attacks are instant effects.

My original version of Jolt (200 potency, 30 gauge, instant cast, ranged, can proc Dualcast) was in part there to serve this purpose. So it's good that I already had that scenario covered.

3) The boss has some kind of physical impediment preventing you from reaching them with melee for an extended period, like the Ice phase in Thunder God. Assuming the boss isn't completely immune to damage at this point anyway, there is probably something else for you, as a melee, to be doing other than standing around spamming spells on the boss, like wailing on an Icewolf instead.

Well, yes, add phases are to be handled as expected.

You talked about being out of melee range and how no RDM would attempt to do anything until they were able to close the gap. I argued to the contrary, and you decided to bring up unrelated situations (movement phases taken on an entirely different meaning when you're able to attack and continue your combos) and absolute no brainers (Who would ignore adds during an adds phase?) in an attempt to counter.

So, use an instant to pop Dualcast. Good luck making us any less of a rezbot in that case.

Hey, you're the one that wanted guaranteed Dualcast; I'm perfectly happy with it being purely a proc to react to. That said, considering you're spending a chunk of the Aetherblade bar to cast Jolt, that means Dualcast Verraise has a considerably greater trade off than it currently does (delaying the enchanted sword combo by up to 9 GCDs depending on how much Jolt were to cost and whether Swiftcast is off cooldown). I could bump the cost back to 30 if you're that worried about it. Or Verraise could be removed, which wouldn't be a bad idea since I could replace it with a Moulinet-like skill instead.

And if you loathe the idea of buffing casting somehow, you could just straight-up reduce the cost of melee.

Reducing mana consumption sounds attractive but the tough part is deciding how low. I guess if we were to go this route, making making the melee combo cost 60/60 might work. That cuts out roughly 4 GCDs, which I guess is better than nothing.

Sounds like there's demand for Spellblade then. Why not just let them have it, rather than holding that fantasy ransom to RDM?

You seem to have forgotten some people came on to FFXIV's RDM expecting a sword & spell hybrid. Especially after how FFXI's RDM turned out. And that sentiment, while not unanimous, has existed since 1.0 was announced (one of the first topics in the FFXIV section of the fan forum I was a member of at the time was a melee RDM topic).

Just adding more melee abilities would not increase the ratio of melee comboing! At least, not in melee's favor.

Just additional melee abilities wouldn't cut it. You need mechanics to support it as well. I think that is a given, however.

if you were truly interested in 'expanding Red Mage's melee potential,' you'd start by focusing on the Mana economy

Adjusting mana gain and consumption might increase the melee combo's frequency, but it does nothing to address the problem I have with the job's gameplay: that the job spams spells for most of its gameplay and that sword use is gated behind a set of numbers on the mana bar. I'll still take it, but I wanted to make my stance on this clear. Needless to say, my write-up addresses that very problem.

I'm not adverse to making adjustments to the current design, but as I said in another thread, to give melee a bigger role in regular gameplay you'd need to give incentives to use melee skills or being in melee outside of 80/80. Leaving everything else alone, you could add a melee skill to use as a opener for spell chains or a second melee combo that does same (I'd probably go with the former). Yes, you'd have to stand in melee range. No, that's not a bad thing.

[Vendalwind]

This isnt a dang rdm rework thread. My god go make your own thread. Especially when the posts start getting as lengthy as they have.

[Wayfinder3]

This isnt a dang rdm rework thread. My god go make your own thread. Especially when the posts start getting as lengthy as they have.

Op said RDM doesn’t count in his opinion as he would prefer something that’s more of the opposite. The very first comment on this thread explains what I’m trying to say. What would make this job mechanically different from the 4 melee dps that we have. I’m not going to even mention RDM. Why do we need 5 melee dps when this game only as 8 slots per raid and at best, 2 of them will be dedicated to melee. Melee dps is one of the hardest roles to balance and currently it’s the most overpowered one. This thread is only concerned with the thematics of a spellblade job but, doesn’t have a meaningful explanation for why we should even get another melee DPS and what that dps would do to set it apart from Ninja Dragoon, Monk, and Samurai.

Thematically we have 6 jobs that use swords
Dual Swords NIN
Katana SAM
Gunblade GNB
Rapier RDM
Broad sword PLD
Great Sword DRK

Do we really need a 7th sword user that will be the 5th melee dps thats currently tied with tanks as the most bloated role that’s also historically the most tedious to balance, just because you guys want something that can easily been implemented on another job.

Explain what would make this job different from our current melee, what it would contribute, and how it would fit into the balance of the whole role. Will it be Utility, will it be pure or middle road. Explain the benefits of making a melee dps that does magical damage when the last magic only damage buff( contagion) was removed and this game currently and historically favors physical damage. Brotherhood and Embolden still do. This job would be dead on arrival if it game out as a melee dps doing magical damage for no reason, and if it had utility comparable to contagion. It’d make caster comps completely busted and limit the way the job will be used. Nobody would want one unless you’re in a hyper magic comp. RDM would still not play with it but BLM and SMN would love it

There are things that matter beyond how cool a spellblader that does magic damage instead of physical.

[Archwizard]

Couple things, 11 is a very different game than 14.

And it's also just one example I can provide of distinction between Red Mage and the (Spell/Mystic/Rune)(Blade/Knight/Fencer) archetype. They're considered separate jobs in 5, 11, Tactics, Record Keeper, Bravely Default, and so on -- and that's only including games with that type of explicit job naming. I would also venture to use FF6 as an example, with Terra as a Red Mage (using curative/offensive magic and light swords) versus Celes as a Spellblade (explicitly called a Rune Knight, who has stronger equipment, largely learns offensive and status spells, and can absorb magic).
I can find only one FF game featuring Spell Fencer that doesn't separately have a Red Mage (4 Heroes of Light). That's not something you can say about any of the other jobs you named in your example.

But as you say, the two are separate games. Where in 11 Ninja was infamously turned into an accidental Evasion tank, here it's a pure DPS whose Ninjutsu effects largely resemble the Black Magic the job dabbled in during early titles. As you said yourself, where Red Mage could sub in for a healing role, in 14 it's more restricted by the Holy Trinity.
The gameplay of a Spellblade is expected to be different as well -- that doesn't make it exclusive with Red Mage. In fact, in 11 it was an anti-magic tank, a role that is now occupied by the Dark Knight in 14 -- which was instead a magical melee DPS in 11, so a swap would just bring it full-circle.

this means your new spellblader wouldn't be allowed to do alot of what you're hoping it can do

All I'm hoping it can do is imbue attacks with elements, for both itself and the party. That's largely doable in 14, and a thread like this is where more would be intended to be hashed out -- if we hadn't gotten side-tracked with defending its very existence.

and would instead just be another melee dps(we have 4 already)

it's not worth it imo and, improving RDM seems like the better way of doing this instead of giving the melee dps role 5 jobs when it at best can only have 2 slots.

Nobody here has asked for anything unique from this spellblader that RDM can't do

eventually, this game will have to stop adding new jobs.

Explain what would make this job different from our current melee, what it would contribute, and how it would fit into the balance of the whole role.

And if this were a concept for a caster or a healer, you might've had a point there. Please do take those arguments any time someone brings up Chemist as the "inevitable" next job and only mentions Mix and throwing potions to separate it from the chaff.

Here's the thing you're ignoring: Nobody is saying the devs have to add a Spellblade today, or even next expansion. Yoshi-P has already said a big part of why DNC got added in ShB was because he wanted to start balancing out the roles we already had (where we only had two ranged DPS), so the general expectation is that next expansion will bring two of either a Caster DPS, Physical Ranged DPS, or a Healer.
You're right: melee DPS is one of the most bloated roles at present. Were there to be a new melee DPS added, it would be at least two expansions down the road after every role is "balanced" again, and who knows what design choices will be made before then, so it's a moot point to go into "well what can it bring to the utility table that any other job can't" when we don't know what the meta will even look like at the time such a job is even being considered.
It wouldn't surprise me if at that point the devs made one just because they got tired of making only ranged roles for 4 years.

Besides, it's not like SAM exactly revolutionized melee either when it was introduced. I still see complaints that RDM was brought in during a time when the casters were already imbalanced.

This thread is literally just about having a space for people to design a melee job with some magic -- OP literally asks if anyone has thought one up. The thread is getting side-tracked with arguing over whether we need one or not; we already know we don't, so quit thought-policing and just let people have their fun, savvy?

Here's some barebones concepts to show why I disagree with you:

You aren't really showing "why you disagree", you're just discussing an alternative concept that would allow your ideas for RDM to go unabated.
That there are multiple avenues such a job could take only goes to my point that the RDM and a Spellblade could co-exist, and in fact goes to defeat previous points about "robbing potential" from RDM.

That said, if the devs increased the frequency of the melee combo, I'd take it. I wouldn't be entirely kind to it, but I would also recognize it as a step forward.

Which I expect is the direction that the job will most likely take for advancements in future expansions, especially considering Scorch and Improved Manafication in ShB -- hastening the melee combo little by little.

That's a very questionable stretch of logic. Even ignoring that, you're still casting a spell after it if Dualcast procs.

Semantics, unless you fully expect a possibility of hitting two melee attacks as a starter and being able to string together enough Dualcast procs in a row to spend the next 20 sec purely casting so you have time to step away to deal with mechanics and step back without significant damage loss.

You talked about being out of melee range and how no RDM would attempt to do anything until they were able to close the gap. I argued to the contrary, and you decided to bring up unrelated situations (movement phases taken on an entirely different meaning when you're able to attack and continue your combos) and absolute no brainers (Who would ignore adds during an adds phase?) in an attempt to counter.

No, I said that there is no reason a melee job out of melee range for any given period would be in a position to sit still and hardcast a spell for the duration they're at range, and that there are reasons why all of the ranged attacks available to other jobs are instant. Simply giving the job a greater variety of effects it could use at range compared to a dedicated melee is a moot point, since at the end of the day you won't have the time to cast more than a couple times before it becomes a damage loss and will still get more value out of being close-up.

Hey, you're the one that wanted guaranteed Dualcast; I'm perfectly happy with it being purely a proc to react to.

Only because the alternative you provided was hardcasting, though I admit I had missed that Jolt was instant at the time.

You seem to have forgotten some people came on to FFXIV's RDM expecting a sword & spell hybrid. Especially after how FFXI's RDM turned out. And that sentiment, while not unanimous, has existed since 1.0 was announced (one of the first topics in the FFXIV section of the fan forum I was a member of at the time was a melee RDM topic).

I have not forgotten that, actually -- why do you think we're in this thread.

Yes, you'd have to stand in melee range. No, that's not a bad thing.

In a vacuum, no, being in melee range for a brief period isn't a bad thing, that's how RDM can get away with spending about 7 seconds in melee every minute, especially when they have enough leeway to hold off on jumping in immediately.
The problem comes when the job is expected to spend larger swathes of time in melee range, since we have a fraction of the survivability of your average melee. We would be more vulnerable to risky maneuvers than other melee yet just as required to take the same risks to maintain DPS, unless we get lucky with procs.

[Wayfinder3]

your perspective

my contribution to this thread is that, we don't need a new melee job that is worse off for doing magic damage just so that it can give out damage buffs, we can just improve the RDM experience so that we reach a the desired out come. (Elemental status doesn't matter in this game) You could literally argue that Embolden imbues the weps of physical jobs with magic to increase their power because adding fire element doesn't do anything in this game. also FF6 has no job system(Terra and Celes could be considered paladins, Red mages, and rune fencers if you really wanted to and none of them would be wrong) and all of those other games aren't MMOs besides 11 which means the jobs have no limitations in what they can do and thus aren't relevant talking about here. if RDM wasn't apart of the trinity in this game, the job could literally do whatever it wanted and would be able to be this hyper melee spellblader. this thread isn't off topic, there are more angles to job implementation beyond what it would look like. what it does, how it balances, and other ingame similarities are also valid things to consider when designing a job.

Chemist is a valid option for a new job because there isn't anything inherently similar to Mixing potion from WHM, SCH, and AST. but every person that plays healer knows the job will have a AoE Regen, some sort of shield, a cure 1/2 and healer dome, and a Raise because these are things that all of them share. the gimmick is the full emphasis in this comparison because there is nothing quite like chemist unless we're talking about the Crafter class Alchemist. Right now the whole premis of this thread is that, lets get a melee that does magic dps and is a spell blader. Then we get a random assortment of things like, it can imbue magic to others weps and do elemental strikes.

Im challenging this from a fundamental level,
Imbueing magic doesn't matter in a game where elements don't matter, so it's either a Damage Buff or a Defensive Buff of which, nothing is inherently unique
Doing Magic Damage isn't even a good thing is this game, why get a melee DPS that does magic dps when historically, NIN's Bhav getting changed to magic was a nerf for the job.
Elemental strikes: elements don't matter

I'm not trying to suck your fun away, im handling this like the Devs likely would when discussing a new job. What would this job do IN the context of final fantasy 14 thats different enough to make it a job on it's own. saying mystic fencer, rune fencer, mystic knight etc... was different from RDM in another game thats not FFXIV isn't saying anything when the games you listed aren't HEAVILY limited by the Holy trinity of Tank, Healer, and DPS.

[Wayfinder3]

So lets discuss this Mystic Knight under the lense of FFXIV

Q: What would Mystic Knight be?
A: melee dps that does magic damage and doesn't cast like Red Mage (according to OP)

Q: but why does it do magic damage as a melee dps, what benefit would this give the job, how would positionals come into play, will it have alot like MNK or a little like SAM?
A: IDK

Q: What gimmicks might it have?
A: It can do the following:
Imbue Weps of Party Members with Elements(What effects would these be if Elements inherently don't matter in this game?)

Q: Where would this job place relative to the other jobs in it's Role, Monk, Dragoon, Ninja, and Samurai
A: Since we've decided this job will empower party members, this job will be a utility DPS which will place it around Dragoon, and Ninja

Q: will this job have more utility than Dragoon but less damage similar to Ninja, or will it have less utility than Ninja but more damage akin to Dragoon. what is the target balance in relation to them?
A: IDK

Q: This job has elements very similar to Red Mage, what is the distinction between this job and Red mage beyond the range they fight in?
A: there really isn't as RDM can and has done many of the things these jobs are being sold as in this thread but you're free to tell me some.

Q: How would the Melee Role balance now having 5 dps in 1 role when raids only can take at most 2.
A: Melee dps would for sure need to have 2 slots and this will give additional benefits to dissuade groups from taking 3 ranged roles. Melee dps would need to be significantly stronger which will translate to the role being stronger on average to prevent the 2 worst melees from being outcast. (it's currently the strongest role in the game)

these are just some of the questions that the dev team likely considers when approaching a new job, if we're going to talk about a new melee dps that does magic damage, lets start with these.

Resource gauge tracks the current Enchantment timer and stocked Runic Charges.

For the time being, consider all attacks in each "Chain" section to be interchangeable within each step of a combo.

Chain 1 attacks:
- Smite: Deal unaspected damage to the target
- Sparkstrike/Thunder Stroke: Deal minor lightning damage to the target and gain Enthunder, causing auto-attacks and weaponskills to chain additional lightning damage to nearby enemies; mutually exclusive with Enfire and Enblizzard
- Nightblade: Deal minor damage to the target and siphon off a percentage of the damage dealt as HP

Chain 2 attacks:
- Flamestrike/Flametongue: Deal fire damage; if used as a combo action, gain Enfire, causing auto-attacks and weaponskills to deal a modicum of additional fire damage and inflict a stacking DoT effect; mutually exclusive with Enblizzard and Enthunder
- Froststrike/Icebrand: Deal ice damage; if used as a combo action, gain Enblizzard, causing auto-attacks and weaponskills to deal a larger amount of additional ice damage and return MP; mutually exclusive with Enfire and Enthunder
- Aquastrike/Liquid Steel: Deal increased water damage to the target; does not interfere with current enchantments
- Blitz: Deal damage to surrounding enemies, inheriting the element of your active enchantment

Chain 3 attacks:
- Galestrike: Deal wind damage to the target; if used as a combo action, gain Quickening, causing your next spell to become instant and reducing its GCD
- Whirlwind: Deal damage to surrounding enemies, inheriting the element of your active enchantment; if used as a combo action, gain Quickening, causing your next spell to become instant and reducing its GCD

Spells (5 sec cast time apiece):
- Imperil: Deal minor unaspected damage and increase target vulnerability to your magic damage for a modest MP cost
- Banish: Deal heavy unaspected damage to a single target for a high MP cost
- Alterna: Deal moderate damage to the target and diminishing damage to nearby enemies for a heavy MP cost

For each use of a finishing spell, the user gains a Runic Charge. Upon accumulating 3 Runic Charges, the user has access to one of two Finishing moves:
- Ars Arcanum: After a cast time, unleash a devastating multi-hit melee attack on the target
- Aetherial Slice: After a cast time, unleash a wave-motion attack against enemies in a cone before you

Gap closer:
- Warp Strike: Throw an aetherial blade toward the enemy and teleport to it, dealing damage to the target; 30 sec CD
--> Improved Warp Strike: Allows the accumulation of charges on Warp Strike, allowing it to be used twice in succession
--> Link Strikes: Allows Warp Strike to be used on allied targets as well, restoring the target's HP and causing your next Warp Strike within 15 sec to critically hit

Ranged attack:
- Strike Raid: Instantly toss your weapon at the target in a spinning slash before summoning it back to your hand. 20% chance to gain Quickening in the process.

Other oGCDs:
- Breaker Blade: Deal Earth elemental damage damage and extend your current enchantment's duration
- Tempered Saber: Increase personal attack power and accuracy for a short duration
- Endrain: Enchant your allies' weapons, causing all weaponskills and spells to siphon off a percentage of damage dealt as HP
- Runic Shell: Create a barrier, absorbing magic damage received by all allies for a brief duration to charge your own MP

Rough idea is:
- Chain Smite -> Flametongue -> Galestrike -> Imperil to open or keep debuffs up
- Chain Smite -> Liquid Steel -> Galestrike -> Banish as your core combo to build up to Ars Arcanum
- Weave Icebrand in place of Flametongue/Liquid Steel when Flametongue's DoT stacks to its maximum
- Chain Thunder Stroke -> Blitz -> Whirlwind -> Alterna for AoE damage to build Aetherial Slice
--> Alternately, Thunder Stroke -> Liquid Steel -> Galestrike -> Alterna in two-targets
- Spam Strike Raid at range unless a proc comes up to cast a spell
- Nightblade to recover, since Bloodbath won't really be an option with all this magic damage now will it

Lets assume this is how the job played. This is fine and i can get behind it however, What would the job do in the bigger picture. All of this is just conjecture of how it would play, but none of this talks about it's synergies, it's strengths, it's weakness, it's contribution. It's just an identity and concept given a skeleton but none of the actual meat that jobs require to be realized.

edit: alot of the skill names are Keyblade abilities, it feels like you want that as a playable job and are using mystic knight as a vehicle for it.

[Archwizard]

my contribution to this thread is that, we don't need a new melee job that is worse off for doing magic damage just so that it can give out damage buffs, we can just improve the RDM experience so that we reach a the desired out come. (Elemental status doesn't matter in this game) You could literally argue that Embolden imbues the weps of physical jobs with magic to increase their power because adding fire element doesn't do anything in this game. also FF6 has no job system(Terra and Celes could be considered paladins, Red mages, and rune fencers if you really wanted to and none of them would be wrong) and all of those other games aren't MMOs besides 11 which means the jobs have no limitations in what they can do and thus aren't relevant talking about here. if RDM wasn't apart of the trinity in this game, the job could literally do whatever it wanted and would be able to be this hyper melee spellblader. this thread isn't off topic, there are more angles to job implementation beyond what it would look like. what it does, how it balances, and other ingame similarities are also valid things to consider when designing a job.

And I completely agree. Hence why this thread means to crowd-source those considerations beyond simple aesthetic.

Chemist is a valid option for a new job because there isn't anything inherently similar to Mixing potion from WHM, SCH, and AST.

AST cards were designed as such due to previous attempts to create a Chemist back in Heavensward. Presently the Divination system is more like you would expect to see from a job "mixing" ingredients.
Furthermore, SCH is as much a physician as can be expected of the three healer jobs, given its storyline as a plague doctor, simply with magical assistance for dealing with unnatural ailments.

But the point I was trying to make when naming CHM was that the ice-cold perspective of "what does this add, really" would better fit more imminent positions if you're looking to shake up the current paradigm.

Imbueing magic doesn't matter in a game where elements don't matter, so it's either a Damage Buff or a Defensive Buff of which, nothing is inherently unique

Well if that's our limiter, guess we can pack up and say "sorry kids, no other jobs will ever be added, since they only give damage or defensive buffs which all just blend together."
AST tried the "unique buff" route, it just turned into fishing for flat damage buffs anyway (especially since nobody but BLM actually wants Haste in the first place). Meanwhile RDM's melee-specific buff continues to be a subject of heavy debate.

Doing Magic Damage isn't even a good thing is this game, why get a melee DPS that does magic dps when historically, NIN's Bhav getting changed to magic was a nerf for the job.

You're not wrong. Historically the meta has favored melee jobs because of access to physical damage buffs like Brotherhood or Embolden. Assuming at some point one of our other casters doesn't gain a magic-specific buff, this could provide an opportunity for Spellblade to do the same OR, alternately, have a trait that converts physical power into magic power and vice versa.

Maybe even a buff that does the same. Just to spitball.

But that's the problem, isn't it? If we get too attached to an imaginary concept as a band-aid on an existing problem, then we flip the situation on its head, where suddenly those in support stop saying "wouldn't it be nice" and start saying "THIS IS NECESSARY, VERBATIM" (not unlike Duelle's RDM concept), and those in opposition then attempt to pick it apart not for its own merits but merely to push those "good ideas" and "fixes" sooner. Plus I'd rather not side-track this thread suddenly discussing an ongoing issue of melee vs. casters.

Fascinated as I am with job design, I'm not too concerned about what niche it fills for the time being, largely because it may not fill that niche at all, and certainly not for some time if it does.

Elemental strikes: elements don't matter

I agree, so much like every other spellcaster in the game, there would need to be more to each element as an identifier. Status effects, resource generation, the works, with each elemental strike as merely a vehicle.
Which, granting, is actually something that has historically been part of the Spellblade identity -- fusing spells into their weapons to inflict status effects on hit, or harboring runes to increase resistance to particular statuses and damage types. "Leviathan's prepping his ultimate, I better increase Water resistance," etc. I simply didn't want to delve too deep into that aspect since CCing statuses are unreliable at best, and selective elemental resistance is delving a bit far into the tanking pool.

But this is why in my concept I had some elemental strikes grant En-element effects of varying effect and potency -- one for AoE, one for DoT, one for burst and recovery, one to hasten spellcasting.

Lets assume this is how the job played. This is fine and i can get behind it however, What would the job do in the bigger picture. All of this is just conjecture of how it would play, but none of this talks about it's synergies, it's strengths, it's weakness, it's contribution. It's just an identity and concept given a skeleton but none of the actual meat that jobs require to be realized.

Yes, and in order to get to the nitty-gritty of complications and support that meat, we need a skeleton first. Polyglot couldn't be added to BLM until it had Enochian, Enochian couldn't be until it had its AF/UI timers; BLM was not complex from the outset.

This is a skeleton in question -- one I'm not even particularly attached to. If you have ideas to flesh it out, ideas to change the bone structure, or even another skeleton of your own, I am open to suggestions, as is OP.

I'm not saying anything you've said is invalid. They're things to keep in mind going forward, but no concept comes out of the primordial ooze fully-formed, and if it was critiqued this acutely this early in its growth, it would crawl back in. Don't put the cart before the horse.

edit: alot of the skill names are Keyblade abilities, it feels like you want that as a playable job and are using mystic knight as a vehicle for it.

Literally two.

Literally Strike Raid and Ars Arcanum.

Strike Raid because I felt it was a better name than "sword toss", because I'd already written a particular rule about spells generating a resource and didn't want to make a cheap way around it, and because the idea of teleporting the weapon back fit well as an alternative to Warp Strike.
Ars Arcanum because a name with "Arcanum" felt appropriate to a Spellblade.

Everything else I wrote was from other FF entries. Warp Strike from 15, Imperil and Galestrike from 13, Nightblade from Tactics, and so on.

[Vendalwind]

Given current role to content distribution with 2 melee slots considered as is the intended nature of fight design anyways, melee and healers need more jobs.

Raid content
Tank to slot ratio 4:2 sometimes 4:1 (24 mans)
Healer to slot 3:2
Ranged phys to slot 3:1
Caster to slot 3:1
Melee to slot 4:2

Healers need the next job hands down, after that its a toss up between melee and tanks, but i think tanks is more likely.

My point: another melee is more justified than any other form of dps.

And im fine with rdm comparison in this thread, but the highjack for redmage problems and for redmage reworks is absolutely a highjack.

[Katie_Kitty]

Given current role to content distribution with 2 melee slots considered as is the intended nature of fight design anyways, melee and healers need more jobs.

Raid content
Tank to slot ratio 4:2 sometimes 4:1 (24 mans)
Healer to slot 3:2
Ranged phys to slot 3:1
Caster to slot 3:1
Melee to slot 4:2

Healers need the next job hands down, after that its a toss up between melee and tanks, but i think tanks is more likely.

My point: another melee is more justified than any other form of dps.

And im fine with rdm comparison in this thread, but the highjack for redmage problems and for redmage reworks is absolutely a highjack.

Yeah no. Melee have enough. And I refuse to accept your suggestion of a baked-in 2 melee standard comp