Mystic Knight (Magi) A potential new job and how it could work

[ChazNatlo]

I would say that my first argument to Severian's basic argument that we only want Mystic Knight to retread old ground covered by other classes by suggesting that if we start by believing that it doesn't need a sword, that opens up a whole slew of design options. I usually go with a whipsword, or a double ended sword (You usually hear "Judge weapon" or "Zidane's weapon" here, but I think the most iconic explanation is Darth Maul's weapon, which should be kinetic and flashy enough to work as a weapon) but I can see the argument that these are just more swords with extra steps. I've also heard a mace, or axes, going with a sort of Viking esk rune magic sort of vibe, though I think those extra steps are important.

Second, beyond changing the weapon, you could in theory change the application of magic. I'd be cool with fire ice lightning, but if we assume these are overplayed, Spell blade from FFTA2 used status spells as it's main effect so there is precedent for non elemental magic, if they needed that wiggle room. (this is not saying that they should use those status spells for their blade magic, just that it allows for a break from the elements as a required feature). I don't think elements are a deal breaker so long as the weapon choice is creative enough, but not being elemental isn't a deal breaker for me.

Now, to address the "You've already got DRK/SAM/GNB if you want to be an elemental focussed melee combatant". Besides the fact that you chose sword classes because obviously all we want is a sword mage that goes whackity whackity whack with our Fire Ice Lightning weapons because it is us that lacks any imagination, I don't feel that these answer the desire for our job fantasy. There is more to what we want than just the colour of the particle effects that enshroud our weapon. We want to be a magical warrior enchanting our weapon with spells to gain power and effect (this is where I usually mechanically distinguish the Job by making the chosen magic imbued into the blade change the core combo, rather than just "more power"). Dark is a angry knight that taps into that anger to empower their weapon. Not a mage using spells to achieve the effect. Samurai is a martial artist swinging their sword, their battle prowess giving their swings visual flair due to... I'm not entirely sure to be honest. Red Mage is a long range caster with the odd DPS phase. Moving on. Gunbreaker is the worst example because it's not creating a fire blade. It's creating explosions by detonating enhanced shells (which at least based on my VIII understanding are actuallt just creating vibrations down the length of the blade and not damaging the enemy themselves, but whatever.) That'd be like me throwing out your Cannoneer example because BLM and RDM both already create big explosions. (also Scholar, Summoner, what have you.)

In short, they can change it up beyond just "dude makes their sword go whoosh fire and hits the enemy", in the same way your suggested water mage wouldn't just be a Black mage with blue particle effects instead of Red... and a different shade and shape of blue.

[Tulzscha]

SAM's basic combo skills have Moon/Flower/Snow effects. The Moon and Flower skills have different buff enhancements you need to keep uptime on. So it already is a job with "buffs and job gauge" related to imbuing your sword. The only reason people don't see or feel it is because the "elements" are a bit more esoteric than fire/ice/lightning, but the central gimmick of SAM is collecting Sen through various elemental attacks, to imbue your sword with various iaijutsu spells.

Ah, but there's no interaction with the buffs - no skill changes, no combinations with them, they just boost your damage with 100% uptime. They're functionally the same as dots or RPR's Death's Design except they're harder to apply and are applied to you instead of an enemy.

as long as there are weapon archetypes that are not used, they will likely be prioritized for new job designs.

That brings up a couple interesting questions.

What's more important: A job with a more unique weapon/aesthetic or a job that garners more interest from the player base?

Also what's more important: Unique aesthetics/weapons or unique gameplay/mechanics?

Blitzballer - We don't have an "athlete" archetype yet.

Hard to see Blitzball becoming a combat job over a side activity, plus throwing a ball at something 'till it dies is kinda... lame. As for an athlete job Monk comes to mind - Martial Arts are both for combat and sport. Also Dancer in a way. If Blitzballer were to be implemented I'm assuming it'd be ranged physical, yeah?

Green Mage - We don't really have a "druid" archetype anymore and Green Mage leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
* Illusionist - No "light magic" DPS yet.
* Any kind of water mage would be pretty unique since the closest we have is BLU.

Yeh mages tend to be more unique by default and this game could really use another proper mage of some kind. Full agree.

Cannoneer - People want corsairs but pistols are taken by MCH. They want a chemist job but it never seems to work. We don't have a long cast-time Aiming job yet.

True but a long cast time Aiming job is mechanically identical to magical ranged, phys ranged in this game are defined by their instants and mobility. Cast times were added to Bard back in Heavensward and people hated it so idk if that will ever be a thing again.

As for melee weapons well the vast majority of them involve a hunk of metal on a stick that you swing at people but there are many many different kinds. We currently have two 2-handed swords, daggers. 1-hand sword + shield, 1-hand rapier + focus, spear/polearm, 2-handed axe, 1-hand gunblade, fists/claws, and a scythe.

We're lacking blunt weapons or whips/chains but also curved or dual wield swords which is what I would expect for a Spellblade and honestly I think they are different enough from current weapons especially in how they're used - not as different as clubs or whips but we have at least 10 more years of FFXIV to add more jobs, there's plenty of space for all of them (so long as the team gets enough funding to support them all).

I don't think it's at all unreasonable to consider a job like Mystic Knight being added to the game at some point though it's not likely to be soon since we did just get a new melee job, unless there's enough demand to add it sooner.

[jon041065]

Mystic knight/rune fencer can be a tank. Doesn't have to be a melee dps.

Anyway, really hope we get this job fantasy in the game in next expac or two.

[Tulzscha]

it doesn't need a sword

Mystic knight/rune fencer can be a tank. Doesn't have to be a melee dps.

True, true. The most important bit is enhancing their weapon(s) with something, so long as the job is focused around that (in a more obvious and gameplay-altering fashion than SAM) the rest can be whatever.

[SeverianLyonesse]

I would say that my first argument to Severian's basic argument that we only want Mystic Knight to retread old ground covered by other classes by suggesting that if we start by believing that it doesn't need a sword, that opens up a whole slew of design options.

I don't think elements are a deal breaker so long as the weapon choice is creative enough, but not being elemental isn't a deal breaker for me.

Now, to address the "You've already got DRK/SAM/GNB if you want to be an elemental focussed melee combatant". Besides the fact that you chose sword classes because obviously all we want is a sword mage that goes whackity whackity whack with our Fire Ice Lightning weapons because it is us that lacks any imagination, I don't feel that these answer the desire for our job fantasy. There is more to what we want than just the colour of the particle effects that enshroud our weapon. We want to be a magical warrior enchanting our weapon with spells to gain power and effect (this is where I usually mechanically distinguish the Job by making the chosen magic imbued into the blade change the core combo, rather than just "more power")....Samurai is a martial artist swinging their sword, their battle prowess giving their swings visual flair due to... I'm not entirely sure to be honest.

Thank you. These are ideas worth considering. Granted, I still think the untapped design space is slim with NIN and SAM, but thank you for thinking beyond swords.

You might be okay with non-elements (I could maybe get on board with that), but fire/ice/lightning imbuement is inherent to the job fantasy that most of these people are clamoring for.

I still argue that SAM hits on your described job fantasy pretty solidly. It's just a more original/esoteric implementation of the concept than what we have seen previously. Again, snow/moon/flowers act aesthetically like elements would, and moon/flowers have different buffs to keep up.

I would actually further argue that for a game that is so heavy on rotations, SAM might be the most we will ever see of this kind of "swap imbuement" job. Imagine how slow and disjointed the rotation would be if imbuing were an ability separate from attacking. Imbue, then swing. Imbue, then swing.

Mystic knight/rune fencer can be a tank. Doesn't have to be a melee dps.

Anyway, really hope we get this job fantasy in the game in next expac or two.

I love how after all this discussion of how limited this concept is, you just try to conclusively state that a fourth magic-sword tank is a good idea.

[SeverianLyonesse]

Ah, but there's no interaction with the buffs - no skill changes, no combinations with them, they just boost your damage with 100% uptime. They're functionally the same as dots or RPR's Death's Design except they're harder to apply and are applied to you instead of an enemy.

To me that just reads as cutting the fat. The rotation would be really clunky if we had to dedicate time to swapping skills when they could just be integrated into the combo abilities like they are.

That brings up a couple interesting questions.

What's more important: A job with a more unique weapon/aesthetic or a job that garners more interest from the player base?

Also what's more important: Unique aesthetics/weapons or unique gameplay/mechanics?

I think Sage and Reaper pretty much confirm that a distinct job designed around a unique weapon is going to be more popular than just rotely throwing in a "classic" job that players want.

And I think if you start with a unique weapon, the aesthetics facilitate more unique mechanics. If a sword is your jumping off place, it's going to be much more difficult to find design space in a game with 5 sword jobs, when you could just use a flail or a greathammer or a longpole, etc. etc.

Hard to see Blitzball becoming a combat job over a side activity, plus throwing a ball at something 'till it dies is kinda... lame. As for an athlete job Monk comes to mind - Martial Arts are both for combat and sport. Also Dancer in a way. If Blitzballer were to be implemented I'm assuming it'd be ranged physical, yeah?

I think it actually has space to maybe be a Scouting job. I guess Monk is very athletic too, but Blitzer could take some tackles from the mini-game and have a lot of melee time. In a way it would be kind of a "mid-range" Monk though, since I see the ball as kind of being an extension of kicks and punches.

I still think it is a) quite likely after GNB and b) has a fair amount of potential as a weightier blunt-ranged job. Not to mention could have some water effects that would look pretty unique. At any rate, it's a better idea than another sword-mage.

We're lacking blunt weapons or whips/chains but also curved or dual wield swords which is what I would expect for a Spellblade and honestly I think they are different enough from current weapons especially in how they're used - not as different as clubs or whips but we have at least 10 more years of FFXIV to add more jobs, there's plenty of space for all of them (so long as the team gets enough funding to support them all).

Two-handed-sword elementalist treads a lot on NIN's job fantasy. In fact, the Mudra system basically imbues your attacks with elements, so it's already functioning as something very similar to Mystic Knight as well.

[jon041065]

I love how after all this discussion of how limited this concept is, you just try to conclusively state that a fourth magic-sword tank is a good idea.

Where did I say it has to use a sword?? Also, I love how you say it's been a discussion but it's really just been you lecturing as to why you think it's a bad idea. Just your points sound good to you but not to myself and the others asking for the job.

[SeverianLyonesse]

Where did I say it has to use a sword?? Also, I love how you say it's been a discussion but it's really just been you lecturing as to why you think it's a bad idea. Just your points sound good to you but not to myself and the others asking for the job.

You called it a "fencer."

[Tsiron]

I'm biased because I would love a 2H European longsword DPS more than pretty much anything, but... yeah, between PLD, DRK, SAM and to a lesser extent RDM, there's not much room for something like that anymore i'd be okay with them giving SAM more straight swords as a compromise

About the only variant of sword class I can see them adding at this point would be one that uses two swords in a manner like Gabranth (FFXII Judges in general) where they can combine into a polearm. Thing is, there's this weird overlap between Judge weapons and the so-called "thief swords" in FFIX, to the point I wonder if they'd do the reverse of what they did to Reaper, where they made it a Maiming (i.e. heavy armour) Job despite RPRs being assassins, and both of its unique sets being lightly armoured: a "Mystic Knight" Job whose AF gear is heavy armour, but otherwise uses Scouting gear...?

[jon041065]

You called it a "fencer."

I didn't refer to rune fencer in this thread till you brought up Embolden being taken from RUN. The other time I did say "mystic knight/rune fencer". Sure, I could have said "mystic/rune knight" I'll give you that but I never said the kind of job we are asking for HAS to use a sword. I'm actually more in favor of something like a naginata. So something Iroha (XI) inspired after her power up.

You also don't seem to understand what we are requesting by enhancing the attacks by which element is being used. Most of the jobs you've listed off is just a visual effect that has no effect on the gameplay. RDM is currently the only one that does since the "magic enhance" melee combo unlocks the magic combo so there's a difference in gameplay there compared to doing the melee combo without sufficient mana. We want multiple abilities to function differently based on which element you're currently in much like how EW SMN is.