Unlocking Dark Knight?

[Xenosan]

They discussed it in the last live letter and benchmark release. You don't need Ishgard access to be a DRK/MAC/AST, you can buy a sword/cards/gun anywhere (or get drops from HM Primals; they don't have a zodiac weapons but they do have those and maybe Coil too[?]) and start level grinding all the way to 60. However you DO need to start the 3.0 storyline missions to gain access to their respective guilds, but still you are capable of leveling the new job and doing the storyline/guild-quests simultaneously while progressing it.

We’ll be adding three new jobs: dark knight, astrologian, and machinist, and they’ll start from level 30. The job quests for each of these three new jobs will be located in Ishgard. If you want to start leveling these jobs as soon as you enter Ishgard, you’ll be able to do so without progressing through the new main scenario story. You’ll have to be at least level 50 for the new main scenario. By accepting the first job quest, you’ll be able to level up along with the story.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/230605

tl;dr: It's not until you get your new job to 50 that you need to worry about content gated behind 2.xx content (which you'll be able to do with your newly leveled lvl50 DRK/MAC/AST)

[StouterTaru]

tl;dr: It's not until you get your new job to 50 that you need to worry about content gated behind 2.xx content (which you'll be able to do with your newly leveled lvl50 DRK/MAC/AST)

I don't think you read what you quoted:

If you want to start leveling these jobs as soon as you enter Ishgard, you’ll be able to do so without progressing through the new (3.0) main scenario story.

[Xilibrius]

You could probably buy the weapons on the market but unless this job doesn't have a soul you wouldn't be able to equip it ten to one.

[Rbstr]

If I recall correctly you can't equip a weapon until you've started the first class quest "Way of the [class]"

You have to have the story finished up until you gain access to Ishgaurd. You don't have to do any more 3.0 stuff but you need to have access to the place to talk to the trainers/guildmasters/whatevers.

[Xenosan]

We’ll be adding three new jobs: dark knight, astrologian, and machinist, and they’ll start from level 30. The job quests for each of these three new jobs will be located in Ishgard. If you want to start leveling these jobs as soon as you enter Ishgard, you’ll be able to do so without progressing through the new main scenario story. You’ll have to be at least level 50 for the new main scenario. By accepting the first job quest, you’ll be able to level up along with the story.

I took this as meaning that the first job quest for the new jobs are at lvl50/lvl51 and above

[StouterTaru]

I took this as meaning that the first job quest for the new jobs are at lvl50/lvl51 and above

The first quest for the job will be the one that changes your job level from "-" to "30" and lets you equip a weapon for the job.

They say level up with the story right after talking about the new main scenario story. You finish 2.55, do the first quest of 3.0 to get in Ishgard. Then you can level up the new jobs to 50, and do the Heavensward storyline with them. They are just saying that you don't need to get part way or completely through the 3.0 story before you can unlock the new jobs.

[Gamer3427]

A bit off topic, but I just realized something that makes me curious. Will the new classes be completely unusable for retainers?

The new classes will start at level 30, which means it would be rather pointless in general use to have weapons for them below that point, (with the exception of a few vanity rare drops possibly), as everyone will be at least level 30 on that class. But, you can't level up a retainer class without giving them a weapon. So without a level one weapon to start off at, it would be impossible to send a retainer with one of the new classes on ventures, and thus raise their level so they could use one of the level 30 weapons. The alternative would be to start the retainer at level 30 as well, but that would just be a giant slap in the face to anyone who's spent the retainer ventures necessary to raise their retainers to that point on a different class.....

I'm sure no one knows, but it's just a random thought that popped into my head.....

[Zentsa]

Retainers are only Classes, no Jobs.
The new Jobs have no classes, so yes i think you cant chose one of them for your retainer.