Concept for a Magic Melee DPS

[SaberMaxwell]

I don't inherently dislike your idea. Never played Priest in WoW, nor played long enough to get a feel for the meta. What you're describing sounds like it would, itself, be a class that has specs, and after SCH and SMN, SE has sworn off of that. As far as "it could queue as either role," SE avoided that possibility with RDM and BLU, I think they're avoiding that idea as much as they can.

If Elementalist were 100% healer it would still largely be able to fulfill your fantasy of a healer that does damage. It just can't be a healer that can take the place of a DPS, or vice versa, because then you end up with it as an almost mandated job in the meta due to how DPS focused this game is.

[Duelle]

I don't inherently dislike your idea. Never played Priest in WoW, nor played long enough to get a feel for the meta. What you're describing sounds like it would, itself, be a class that has specs, and after SCH and SMN, SE has sworn off of that.

Legion's version of Disc Priest is what I was exposed to most, and that one had a spammable buff that could be placed on party members, and when the priest dealt damage to a mob, party members with the buff would receive a heal. The idea being that through dealing damage, the priest was also healing their allies without spending GCDs casting direct heals. And yes, it was insanely hard to balance.

And the only reason the ACN/SMN/SCH experiment failed was because SE could not set the ground rules for how dual job classes worked. If ACN had been capped at lv30 and designed around having a rudimentary kit, with one job stone expanding said kit (SMN) and one job stone altering parts of said kit before growing in its own direction (SCH), the devs would have had a much easier time doing things to SCH and SMN while keeping them separate from each other. Honestly, not capping classes at lv30 in general has repeatedly bitten the devs in the ass.

Blunt weapons and fighting sticks are woefully underrepresented. Spellblade aside, I wouldn't mind seeing a 'magic melee dps' swinging around a meteor hammer that gets imbued with the magic.

I can get behind this. Maces and hammers in particular would be a nice weapon for a Mystic Knight. With the popularity of the Marvel movies, I'd probably see a bunch of Thor cosplayers using "hammer that suspiciously looks like Mjolniir" smashing the ground using the job's mandatory AoE attack.

Here's another rough idea I wanted to share, though this one is from way before we got the resource bars all over the place: Mystic Knight would imbue their weapons through an oGCD or weaponskill aligned to an element. Performing certain actions helps keep the weapon enchant active, the enchant growing more powerful the longer it is active. Once the enchant reaches a certain potency, the player can "release" the accumulated power through a powerful attack that also prevents them from using that same element immediately.

So for example using Firebrand would grant a "deals additional fire damage with X potency" buff that could be extended or refreshed the duration by using weaponskills. Every 6 seconds the buff was active it would gain a potency stack (similar to the old Wrath icons we had for WAR) until you hit 4 or 5 stacks, at which point you'd use the release ability. This also applies the debuff "Overburn" on you, which prevents the use of Firebrand or won't allow Firebrand to grant you the elemental buff until the debuff expires. Something like this would severely clash with the way stuff is designed in this game (bosses with untargettable phases would screw over this version of Mystic Knight), but I think there's merit in the idea of harboring an elemental enchantment and releasing it once enough power is accumulated.

[Shurrikhan]

Legion's version of Disc Priest is what I was exposed to most, and that one had a spammable buff that could be placed on party members, and when the priest dealt damage to a mob, party members with the buff would receive a heal. The idea being that through dealing damage, the priest was also healing their allies without spending GCDs casting direct heals. And yes, it was insanely hard to balance.

Honestly, even as much as I had been milking my healer for as much damage as I could even since Vanilla, so long as it wasn't delaying the next pull too much to recover that mana from my mage's Conjurered Mana items... I could never get into Legion's Vamp-Priest. Heck, I got into Shadow Priest healing more than Legion's Atonement-and-DPS Discipline priest. None of it felt like Discipline like me, as it had ever been or lore had ever indicated. Moreover, it just felt... squished. On a Holy priest I could deal more damage, just not at the same time as healing, and of course far more healing in any given moment, just at the cost of damage. Discipline priest just felt like it only had a half or even third the ability of other healers to match the given situation by varying healing or damage output. You got 60% healing and 40% damage priority or 40% healing and 60% damage priority.

I would hate to see that from an XIV healer. I don't think they should be as straight-cut as they are now, and would love to see damage and healing integrated into each other a ways, but I prefer that damage is not literally healing or vice versa, as it is in any typical Discipline priest play. That equivalence made Disc Priest feel like nothing more than a dps with added, albeit choiceful, buff maintenance.

[Vendalwind]

Snip about dual weilding, classic ffxiv mage knight, avwrage attacj speed etc.

Thats completely fair

So i put some thought then into what "blade" would fit the spellblades style while providing significant enough contrast to existing weapons. A extensively curved ornamental scimitar or falchion came to mind. Shorter than pld sword, but the curves kinda denote magic. Empty off hand, as anything at all then in the off hand would be too similar to rdm. Also scimitar is a good complement as its another classical fencing weapon.

Pushing farther into the realm of fiction a blade whip could be fitting as well.

If seperating ourselves from blades, partisans can double as staffs and also happen to be one of the most historically effective weapons (it can blunt, axe, and impale) and could be fitting ish, however partisans are more tank knightly in my mind for whatever reason.
A naginata might be a better choice to differentiate further from dragoon, thus limiting the attack type to slashing.

Moving fully from edges blunt weapons dont fit a mage in my mind.

So of those which would you favor?
-Scimitar
-Partisian
-Naginata
-Blade whip

[Archwizard]

So of those which would you favor?
-Scimitar
-Partisian
-Naginata
-Blade whip

Unfortunately, DRG weapon designs rather go beyond "lances" and "spears", and includes several halberd and partisan designs (including but not limited to several generic ARR spears or the White Oak and Slipstream Partisans). Several of the "harpoons" verge on naginatas as well, and the Doman spears like Iwa-toshi or Rakshasa/Yama Lance remove all ambiguity; while I'm sure you would say that the difference is in the use (thrusting, stabbing and poking vs. slashing), DRG attack animations and the removal of physical damage vulnerabilities make the distinction somewhat moot.
In short, DRG is sort of all-encompassing with regards to pole weapons. The Flame Captain's Spear even appears to be some kind of bladed mace.

The Blade Whip or some other augmented sword isn't necessarily out of the question... although we did just have the Gunbreaker take liberties with augmented sword designs, and the whip is historically more the purview of pet-oriented jobs like Summoner and Beastmaster. I won't say no to it, but it would need to have some pretty solid justification beyond just "it was cool and all we could think of".

Scimitar, I've already suggested and explained my reasoning, so sign me up for those curvy swords. PLD has several curvaceous blade designs BUT they're all designed as one-handers, while we can take more liberties with a longer single blade as a hand-and-half weapon -- swap between enchanted two-handed swings and quick one-handed slashes as you prep a spell with the other hand.
Plus it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the devs just decided to call it a runeblade -- "it's distinct 'cuz it's MAGIC", whatever you say Yoshi.

[Vendalwind]

Snip

That is true, but we already have SMN present without a whip, and I'd personally like to see Beastmaster with an axe. I keep saying this but not sure people get what I mean when I do so for the sake of making my image of Beastmaster clear:
When I say like ranjeet, I nto that ranjeet uses strong physical attacks, BUT uses the lightning attacks from his for AOE, and additionally literally FUSES with his dragon in his final form. Ranjeet as a character was garbage IMO, but as a fighter he was interesting.
Thus my vision of beastmaster would be an axe wielder that does magic and ranged damage with per commands, and has a heightened state where he fuses to his pet. I wouldn't expect the devs to make beastmaster free to collect any pet, cause then it would have the same issues BLU has, but rather I'd expect it to have a few pets which it can utilize. Thus Why my vision of beastmaster would have a melee weapon, but be a hybrid.

HOWEVER WAR already has an axe so... kinda sinks my idea T_T

So although DRG has partisan styled weapons are his animations complement to partisan combat? cause that can be a dividing factor.

Regardless I think I can happily settle on Scimitar as the best choice with Blade whip second best in my opinion.

[SaberMaxwell]

Thats completely fair

So i put some thought then into what "blade" would fit the spellblades style while providing significant enough contrast to existing weapons. A extensively curved ornamental scimitar or falchion came to mind. Shorter than pld sword, but the curves kinda denote magic. Empty off hand, as anything at all then in the off hand would be too similar to rdm. Also scimitar is a good complement as its another classical fencing weapon.

Pushing farther into the realm of fiction a blade whip could be fitting as well.

If seperating ourselves from blades, partisans can double as staffs and also happen to be one of the most historically effective weapons (it can blunt, axe, and impale) and could be fitting ish, however partisans are more tank knightly in my mind for whatever reason.
A naginata might be a better choice to differentiate further from dragoon, thus limiting the attack type to slashing.

Moving fully from edges blunt weapons dont fit a mage in my mind.

So of those which would you favor?
-Scimitar
-Partisian
-Naginata
-Blade whip

A blade whip would be pretty neat actually! Maybe look at Seven from Type 0 for animation inspiration.

[Kabooa]

Blunt weapons and fighting sticks are woefully underrepresented.

Spellblade aside, I wouldn't mind seeing a 'magic melee dps' swinging around a meteor hammer that gets imbued with the magic.

[Vendalwind]

Blunt weapons and fighting sticks are woefully underrepresented.

Spellblade aside, I wouldn't mind seeing a 'magic melee dps' swinging around a meteor hammer that gets imbued with the magic.

Yep this is still true. I mean we could just break the niche. Make it SpellHammer! SpellMauler? SpellPounder? MageBasher? It wouldn't have as significant connection to FFXIV's archetypal jobs, but it wouldn't be too terrible a jump.

[Archwizard]

That is true, but we already have SMN present without a whip, and I'd personally like to see Beastmaster with an axe. I keep saying this but not sure people get what I mean when I do so for the sake of making my image of Beastmaster clear:
When I say like ranjeet, I nto that ranjeet uses strong physical attacks, BUT uses the lightning attacks from his for AOE, and additionally literally FUSES with his dragon in his final form. Ranjeet as a character was garbage IMO, but as a fighter he was interesting.
Thus my vision of beastmaster would be an axe wielder that does magic and ranged damage with per commands, and has a heightened state where he fuses to his pet. I wouldn't expect the devs to make beastmaster free to collect any pet, cause then it would have the same issues BLU has, but rather I'd expect it to have a few pets which it can utilize. Thus Why my vision of beastmaster would have a melee weapon, but be a hybrid.

HOWEVER WAR already has an axe so... kinda sinks my idea T_T

I mean, there's always the option of matched dual hatchets/tomahawks, which works particularly well as they're also throwing weapons.
I just don't find it likely when a Whip is slightly more iconic, is completely unique as a weapon type and has fewer alternative jobs it can be on.

So although DRG has partisan styled weapons are his animations complement to partisan combat? cause that can be a dividing factor.

Short version is... it's tricky? In an effort to not make all of Dragoon's attack animations the same thrust/stab, several attacks including Disembowel, Chaos Thrust, Wheeling Thrust, Fang and Claw, Raiden Thrust, and Coerthan Torment all use spinning/slashing attack animations, or a brief flurry of slashes ending in a thrust.
Ironically, with the amount of slashing it does I would say it's actually more accommodating of edged polearms with spear-tips (including the partisan) than actual lances.

Regardless I think I can happily settle on Scimitar as the best choice with Blade whip second best in my opinion.

Admittedly I think the actual "best" choice would probably be a single-wield longsword/bastard sword, to fill that gap between PLD and DRK. Although ostensibly PLD has a few of those too.

If the devs can make up their minds already, I could already see a job with poses matching Tidus or Noctis or Terra or Paine. The series rather has a penchant for sword-wielding protagonists with no offhand.

It really just depends on how all-encompassing the current jobs are with their weapon-types.

Blunt weapons and fighting sticks are woefully underrepresented.

Spellblade aside, I wouldn't mind seeing a 'magic melee dps' swinging around a meteor hammer that gets imbued with the magic.

I suppose there could be some kind of "Witch Hunter"-type job. Maybe tie it in with the aftermath of the Sixth Umbral Calamity?

Although the problem I see with that is, spellcasting generally requires a free hand or both hands around a specifically-designed magical focus, which is why RDM uses rapiers (so as to be light enough to wield with one hand) and several of DRK's animations have it resting the sword so it can free a hand to cast. Part of the differentiation intended with the Spellblade is that it would channel magic through its weapon to bypass this rule.
And ignoring the fact that we already have two jobs that wield staves (even though neither one of them uses bojutsu or quarterstaves), having someone swing a heavy exotic weapon that you can't easily drop would make spellcasting... tricky.

Plus... anti-magic aside, they'd probably avoid doing magic. Also sounds more like a pitch for a tank, which is more DRK's area.