My stab at creating a melee/caster hybrid (Red Mage/Mystic Knight/Rune Fencer)

[lvl27_cubone]

Spellswords have always been a class I've enjoyed, and a few months ago I decided to think about what it'd play like, down to each ability and a theoretical rotation. I iterated a bit and came up with the following

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

I honestly feel like I developed something worthwhile. I'd like to discuss it with people that can pick apart what would be interesting to play mechanically, and further push this into something that might even get into the game. Ambitious, and a lot of people might find it silly, but game design is something I've always aspired to be a part of

If things are difficult to piece together for the class, I would appreciate ways to improve the cohesiveness of the document. I realize that it's a substantial amount of information to convey how everything fits together

[Anova]

I'm going to point out first that the game currently does not handle elemental damage very well. All damage is the same, whether it be fire or ice, whether the enemy be Ifrit or Shiva. So your Aether Stance (and its intended damage support for casters) and Tetra Slash are going to require substantial recoding of all the bosses and mages to compensate for this. I'm not saying it can't be done, but just remember that it's going to cost you 100x more to take existing code and change it than it is to design it from scratch.

Now, you could do a workaround with the existing elemental attributes system or something. We need to do some hard testing with elemental resist materia to tweak the existing system enough for the intended damage buffs to work. If it does, that's your solution to the idea of an elemental support dps. If not, we are going to have to develop a new mechanic unique to the spellsword. It might just be a % damage buff and effect for the mystic knight alone.

Also, what is your intended meta for the class? You more or less described the gameplay as a smattering of bard support with Aether stance and spells, dark knight with runic stance, and warrior with the juggling of combos and stack building. It does sound interesting, but I'm curious where you think it might fit between the existing 3 dps: monks, ninjas, and dragoons. Are there any shortcomings in the current meta you think need to be addressed? What might change in the party compositions meta when this class is introduced?

These were obvious considerations for DRK, AST, and MCH during the Heavensward launch. DRK was intended to fulfill the magic tank role, AST for the support healer, and MCH kind of failed at distinguishing itself from late-game bard. It does deliver a very fun gameplay style that makes sense for the class. It just didn't turn out to be the dps class people wanted.

[lvl27_cubone]

Ah, something I did fail to mention is that this in no way is supposed to take advantage of the actual elemental resistance stat in this game. Your skills are meant to buff your other skills. You hit with an enemy with a fire debuff, which buffs your next ice weaponskill. Etc. It's a self-contained debuff system that you are supposed to rotate through.

As for the utility, it is meant to fit in with casters, as it has an elemental damage debuff [Enervating Mind] (it would apply a direct damage vulnerability to elemental skills, so something like a 20% debuff would increase a Fire 4 hit from 6k to 7.2k, etc but only apply to aspected damage skills). I may need to just spread this to magic damage in general, to give it utility for things other than just BLM and whatever caster may be using Blizzard 2 or things like Dragonfire Dive, which are rare. So this is something that would definitely need to be looked at.