The Mystic Knight (Magical Melee DPS)

[PatronasCharm]

The Mystic Knight

Weapon: Great Hammer

Class: Magical Melee DPS

Gear: STR based

*Though it's abilities are Magic driven, it's empowered by STR
Thanks Archwizard for feedback =)
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First and foremost I'd like to thank those that contributed to the discussion in these forums about "If a Magical Melee DPS" could be a thing. I believe it can, and it won't steal from the Magical Ranged DPS class =)

[The Story of the Mystic Knight]

[A Tale of Destinies... One that's rivaled by the ambitions wrought by the Garlemald to manipulate the magic of the Black Mage]

How would a Mystic Knight operate in the holy trinity system of the world of Final Fantasy XIV

The Mystic Knight will bring Elementally Charged Weapon Skills, and their goal is to utilize Elemental Weaknesses to empower their Weapon Skills.
The Mystic Knight will have:
• Six Single Target Elemental WS composed of all Six Elements

• o Closer Finishers composed of “Dark” and “Holy”

• Rotations will be based by Elemental Weaknesses, so the Mystic Knight can do whatever it wishes if the element is weak against

[The Elemental Weakness is the Mystic Knight's own Mini-Game, it's an internal gimmick, based on Eureka's Elemental Wheel.]

• The Mystic Knight will build up Elemental Enchainments, x3 Enchainments open their more powerful Combos.

o One Powerful Combo is “AoE”
o One Powerful Combo is “Single Target”
o One Ultimate Combo if 3/3 Charges are held “Single Target”

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The Mystic Knight’s Elemental System
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The Mystic Knight has a gauge that looks like a Pentagon:

Top Left is “Astral” ( Fire / Lightning / Wind)

Top Right is “Umbral” (Earth / Water / Ice)

Bottom Left: Holy
Bottom Right: Dark

1 Rotation grants a single charge from each element, x3 Charges triggers (Holy or Dark)

3/3 allows the Mystic to conjure an “Ultimate” Mode WS series of attacks called: Chain Rush.

Chain Rush is further explained below in the abilities.

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How does the Mystic Knight stand apart from the other Melee jobs?

The Mystic Knight will be up-close and person using “Elementally charged Weapon Skills” not casting spells. The Mystic Knight will NOT wield a sword, but a big Great Hammer (Unconventional). The Mystic Knight will chain its Weapon Skills for more powerful attacks. It’s simplified too, to not make it overly complex.

The Gimmick? Just know elemental weaknesses. This is what the Mystic Knight is all about. The Player controls what WS it chooses to use and must strike with the opposite element to increase overall potency.

Examples:

• Water >>Lightning >> Earth
• Ice >> Fire >> Wind

Utilities: Below is a set of Raid Utilities it can bring to the table that can empower its Party Member(s) and self.

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Weapon Skills / Abilities 1-80 [This is the entire list, further down you can break it down by category] This Google Doc. may be an easier read too: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

[Level / Name of Ability or WS / (Recast / Charges) / Description]

(1) Skullbreaker – Delivers an Attack with a Potency of 250

(4) Stone Shatter – Deals Earth Damage with a potency of 100

• Combo Bonus Skullbreaker
• Combo Potency: 320
• Combo Potency Elemental Bonus: 360
• Combo Finisher Umbral Charge

(6) Magic Shell – [45s] Reduces Damage Taken by 10%. 5 % of Damage Taken is returned to HP and MP.

• Duration: 5s
• Recast: 15s

(15) Thunder Strike – Delivers a Ranged Attack with a Potency of 100.

• Combo Bonus: Enhanced Thunder Strike
• Combo Bonus Potency 200
• Combo Bonus Liquid Steel
• Potency Bonus 250

(18) Flametongue – [30s] Deals Fire damage with a potency of 100.

• 400 Potency When attacking from Flank
• Flametongue Requires 2 Astral Enchantments to Execute
• Combo Additional Effect: Increases Attack by 5%
• Additional Effect: If performed after Ragnarok, Attack Bonus increased by 10%
• Duration: 10s

(26) Liquid Steel – Deals water damage with a potency of 100

• Combo bonus Skullbreaker
• Combo Potency 320
• Combo Potency Elemental Bonus: 360
• Combo Finisher Astral Charge

(30) Elemental Seal – (90s) Increases Magic Potency Bonus for Elemental Weaknesses by an additional 15%.

• Duration: 20s

(30) Climhazzard – (30s) Self and Party Member(s) within range attacks are infused with the next Element on the Mystic Knight’s rotation.

• Fire, Water, Ice, Wind, Thunder, Earth Enchantment Effect
• Enchantment Potency is 4% of total damage inflicted per strike
• Duration 14s

(32) Firestarter – Deals Fire damage with a potency of 100
Combo bonus Skullbreaker
Combo Potency 320
Combo Potency Elemental Bonus: 360

(35) Realmrazer – (30s) (2 Charges) Delivers an attack with a potency of 350.
Executes a jump to target up to 15 yalms away.

(40) Judgement – Deals Lightning Damage with a potency of 150 to enemies within range.

• Combo Bonus Flood Gates
• Elemental Combo Potency Bonus 400

(42) Burst Strike – Deals Lightning damage with a potency of 100.

• Combo Bonus: Skullbreaker
• Combo Potency 320
• Combo Potency Elemental Bonus: 360

(44) Icebrand – Deals Ice damage with a potency of 100.

• Combo Bonus: Skullbreaker
• Combo Potency 320
• Combo Potency Elemental Bonus: 360

(45) Galeshear – Deals Wind damage with a potency of 100.

• Combo Bonus: Skullbreaker
• Combo Potency 320
• Combo Potency Elemental Bonus: 360

(50) Dagan – Delivers an attack with a potency of 500. In order to perform Dagan, a total of Three Charges must be held by the Mystic knight. Charges are consumed upon use.

• Combo Bonus Perform after Elemental Weapon Skill
• Combo Potency Bonus 550
• Additional Effect: Dagan becomes
• Unlocks: Excalibur or Ragnarok depending on Umbral or Astral Alignment

(50) Excalibur – Deals Holy damage with a potency of 620.

• Additional Effect: Holy Light
• Holy Light: Grants a Healing Over Time effect to Party Member(s) within range with a potency of 50
• Duration: 21s

(50) Ragnarok – Deals Dark damage with a potency of 620.

• Additional Effect: Dark Light
• Dark Light: Creates a Drain Sphere around self
• Target(s) within aura are tagged with “Drain Touch”
• 2% of Damage Inflicted is converted to HP and MP
• Duration: 21s

(54) Astral Illuminance (80s) Increases Cure Effects received for self and target party member(s) by 20%.

• Duration: 20s
• Astral Illuminance requires 2 Astral Charges to be Accessible

(56) Flood Gates – Deals Water Damage with a potency of 320 in a cone shape before you.

• 360 When Performed from the rear.
• Flood Gates Require 2 Umbral Enchantments to Execute
• Elemental Potency Bonus 400

(58) Glacial Tundra – Deals Ice damage with a potency of 100 to all nearby enemies. All nearby targets inflicted with hypothermia that increases the potency of all fire effects.

• Combo Bonus Judgement
• Glacial Tundra Combo Potency 350
• Hypothermia: 3% increase on all fire damage
• Duration: 9s
• Triggers Enhanced Judgement
• Enhanced Judgement Potency 250
• Enhanced Judgement Elemental Potency 300

(60) Ultima Divide – Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 550 to all nearby enemies.

• Ultima Divide grants 1 Umbral and Astral Enchantment
• Enhanced Judgement triggers Ultima Divide

(64) Chain Rush – (40s) Chain Rush requires 3 Astral and 3 Umbral Elements to Execute. It begins a Six-Fold Rotation of Elemental Weapon Skills that triggers either Excalibur or Ragnarok at the end of the rotation.

• Chain Rush grants a Potency Increase for Elemental Weakness by 2% each Weapon Skill
• Chain Rush grants 1 Astral and 1 Umbral Element at the end of the Rotation
• Potency Bonus for each Weapon Skill increases by 2%

[Charge Rush explained in further detail below]

(66) Umbral Sense – (180s) Increases all party wide buffs by 5% and increases duration by 20%.

• Umbral Sense Requires 2 Umbral Element to be Accessible

(68) Attunement -- (60s) Next Elemental Rotation grants an additional corresponding Umbral or Astral Element.
*Thank you Kabooa for recommendation!

(70) Cardinal Chant– (90s) Grants three elemental charges for Umbral and Astral Gauge.

(72) Exudation – (30s) Delivers an attack with a potency of 540 to target and all target(s) in a line in front of the Mystic Knight.

• Combo Bonus Skullbreaker
• Skullbreaker Bonus Potency 600
• Additional Effect: Target(s) Elemental Weakness Increased by 25%
• Duration: 10s

(76) Randergirth – Deals Unaspected damage with a potency of 800.

• Randergirth becomes available after the execution of the following:
• Excalibur or Ragnarok
• Additional Effect may one of the following:
• Armor Break – Reduces Enemy Defense by 5%
• Mind Break – Reduces Enemy Magical Defense by 5%
• Duration: 10s

(80) Darkside – (120s) When Executing finisher Astral and Umbral Enchantments are not consumed at the expense of sacrificing 50% of total HP. All healing is nullified temporarily.

• Duration: 9s

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[Final Comments]

The Mystic Knight will deliver powerful magical weapon skills that ultimately are designated to not only be empowered by the proper “Elemental Weakness” but also build Astral / Umbral gauge to perform a series of powerful combos.

The Mystic Knight has fun raid utilities too; if too OP let me know in comments lol.

A standout ability is called: Chain Rush
Chain Rush does a 6-fold Rotation (Sort of like GNB’s Continuation) its combo is based on what Elemental Weapon skill the player uses first, and potency increases by 2% per WS. For example:
Charge Rush >> Skullbreaker >> Firestarter >> Liquid Steel (+2%) >> Burst Strike (4%) >> Stone Shatter (6%) >> Excalibur (8%)
[When Randergrith is accessible] >> Randergrith (10%)

Randergrith’s “Aftermath” effect is RNG, and isn’t determined by finisher.

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[Rotation Examples / Other Comments]

Kept the overall concept simple, nothing too complex, just knowing which Elemental Weakness is best could possibly scramble some brains?

Examples: [Single Target] There are multiple Single Target Rotations

Skullbreaker >> Burst Strike >> Stone Shatter = 1 Umbral Enchantment
Skullbreaker Liquid Steel >> Burst Strike = 1 Astral Enchantment

[The Mystic Knight has no DoT's]

AoE Rotation: Judgement >> Glacial Tundra >> Enhanced Judgement >> Ultima Divide = [1/1] Umbral and Astral Enchantment

(Level 80 Full Rotation Example) Skullbreaker >> Burst Strike >> Stone Shatter >> Dagan >> Excalibur or Ragnarok >> Rendergirth
Consumes (3 Charges of Astral or Umbral to Execute)

[Climhazzard]
Upon using that Ability, and finishing a rotation, the final element is granted to Party member(s) within range. So if the last string of the combo is: Burst Strike self and member(s) will be giving Thunder Enchantment.

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Thanks ahead of time if you did read this! Comment and chime in if you like it or not. Is it too much like other jobs? Could a magical melee DPS work?

I'd like to thank all those that discussed a Magical Melee DPS in first place in another forum post. There were a plethora of ideas and each of them sounded awesome. This is my own interpretation, feel free to give me feedback.

With the community feedback I'll keep updating! Thanks FFXIV Community =)

See y’all in game!

Pat out.

[Archwizard]

Hoo boy, okay. Couple things.

One, nothing in FFXIV has had an elemental weakness since 1.0 -- at least not outside of Eureka. All "elemental" damage typings are purely cosmetic, and are just treated by the game as "magic" damage. Without damage vulnerability effects (which were done away with in ShB) or buffs like Astral Fire or Embolden/Brotherhood, there are no functional differences between the damage types.
If the elemental wheel did still exist, every Disciple of Magic as they are now would be simultaneously screwed. And bear in mind that with the way Embolden/Brotherhood work as now, a purely Magical melee DPS would be unable to inherit physical damage buffs while facing the same cases of magic invulnerability as casters, making them fall behind other melee.
This is a large part of why, when discussing elemental types in the other Magic Melee DPS thread, we made a specific note that the En-element effects would have other benefits to the user, like AoE, resource recovery, DoTs, speed, direction negation, etc., and why I added the note to have strikes do partial physical damage with the magic scaling off of it.
Without those types of benefits adding complexity to the job, your design is very... simple.

Two, Holy and Dark don't exist in FFXIV as elemental typings, and spells that deal their "damage" (including WHM, BLM, PLD, DRK, SCH and RDM spells) are just classed as unaspected magic damage. Yes, RDM has separate White Magic and Black Magic finishers, but they have separate (albeit parallel) functional purposes within their own kit.

Three, "Darkside" is a classical DRK skill, and you're opening a whole can of worms with an Ultima-based skill before any existing caster.

[Raldo]

There isn't really any functional difference in-game when it comes to "the player hit the target with magic damage" versus "the player hit the target with physical damage," so a magical DPS is certainly fine, but it's also a distinction that isn't really worth making. A magical melee DPS is functionally identical to a physical melee DPS. If all of MNK's kit was suddenly classified as magical damage, outside of a few exceptions, no one would notice any difference.

My main critique of your job is that elemental weaknesses are an idea that this game has already done away with (BLM would be screwed fighting anything with Fire resistance, as Fire is their main source of damage), so we're unlikely to see that make a comeback. Seeing as elemental weakness is the whole point of your job idea, I'm hesitant to provide any other critique.

Also, Scouting gear seems like an odd choice. Since Scounting is only NIN at the moment, the general aesthetic of it is understated / sleek / stealthy (with many exceptions, of course), and I'm not sure how well that fits someone rocking a giant hammer. I'd figure something with "Knight" in the name might use Maiming instead (if your goal is to spread out how many jobs use a gear type, Maiming is also currently only used by one job).


Edit: D'oh, delayed my post due to a phone call and posted without seeing the person above me. They largely addressed the same points.

[PatronasCharm]

Hoo boy, okay. Couple things.

One, nothing in FFXIV has had an elemental weakness since 1.0 -- at least not outside of Eureka. All "elemental" damage typings are purely cosmetic, and are just treated by the game as "magic" damage. Without damage vulnerability effects (which were done away with in ShB) or buffs like Astral Fire or Embolden/Brotherhood, there are no functional differences between the damage types.
If the elemental wheel did still exist, every Disciple of Magic as they are now would be simultaneously screwed. And bear in mind that with the way Embolden/Brotherhood work as now, a purely Magical melee DPS would be unable to inherit physical damage buffs while facing the same cases of magic invulnerability as casters, making them fall behind other melee.
This is a large part of why, when discussing elemental types in the other Magic Melee DPS thread, we made a specific note that the En-element effects would have other benefits to the user, like AoE, resource recovery, DoTs, speed, direction negation, etc., and why I added the note to have strikes do partial physical damage with the magic scaling off of it.
Without those types of benefits adding complexity to the job, your design is very... simple.

Two, Holy and Dark don't exist in FFXIV as elemental typings, and spells that deal their "damage" (including WHM, BLM, PLD, DRK, SCH and RDM spells) are just classed as unaspected magic damage. Yes, RDM has separate White Magic and Black Magic finishers, but they have separate (albeit parallel) functional purposes within their own kit.

Three, "Darkside" is a classical DRK skill, and you're opening a whole can of worms with an Ultima-based skill before any existing caster.

I see where you coming from lol. The way its composed is that the Mystic Knight has the elemental weakness built around his attacks alone. Its not giving it to all jobs across, it's just an internal thing game. That's the job's gimmick, it chains its own elements together based on of course Eureka's Elemental Wheel. Thus why it shows below its attacks: Elemental Bonus Potency:

Firestarter (Fire based) >> Liquid Steel (Water Based) so the elemental weaknesses is solely internal for the Mystic Knight.

And yeah, I generally keep jobs simple bc over complexity might have folks shy away from a certain job.

Appreciate the feedback too, I'll rename Darkside. =D

[Archwizard]

As another note: why is a Great Hammer-wielding job using Scouting DEX gear saved for NIN?
Wouldn't STR-based Maiming/Slaying DRG gear be more appropriate for a knight?

[Kabooa]

I actually really like the base concept of this. It needs a little refinement on the open-ended combo approach and the elemental integration itself.

Warp Boon and and Realmrazer kind of step on each other's toes. I think you should only get Warpboon, and it traits later for its secondary effect.

As a TLDR: I know you wanted to "keep it simple" but there's like, 17 simple jobs in the game. We can afford to have one that demands a little more.

From an overall structural point, I'd recommend it go as such:

Primary Combo

The single / aoe combos should both progress the 'same' combo. Using an already established job as an example:

Gunbreaker is Keen -> Brutal -> Solid for Single and Slice -> Slaughter for AoE. In this particular example, this means that the Gunbreaker's combo is instead

Keen or Slice -> Brutal or Slaughter -> Solid Barrel

For the Mystic Knight, this effectively means we trim down the "spammer" weaponskills to 4 (even 2 if you're not against Consolidation) buttons, but we can greatly vary their "Combo Ender".

As an example: Single or AoE -> Single or AoE -> Big Hitter or Quick Hitter or Multiple Target Hitter.

The "Not Mana Gauge"

We have the opportunity to better distinguish Mystic Knight from Red mage by moving its "Gauge generation" instead to abilities instead of GCD actions, to play more into the elemental strike. As an example.

Enchantment - The Mystic Knight gains the ability to imbue their weapon with elemental energy to perform strikes and grant themselves boons. Enchantments share the same Charges. As the Mystic Knight advances, their maximum charges increase.

The Mystic Knight would learn En-spells that serve both as their attack enhancers and their toolkit expanders. As examples

Enfire - Increase the potency of the next weaponskill by 25% and deal 30% of its damage to enemies near the primary target.
Enthunder - Increase the potency of the next weaponskill by 25% and cause it to strike twice.
Enblizzard - Increase the potency of the next weaponskill by 25% and grant allies minor MP regen.

"Why use anything but Thunder" - We'll get to that.

From here, we have an easy trait upgrade.

Chain Enchantment: your Enchantment abilities weaken the target, causing corresponding Elemental strikes against them to gain bonus potency to damage and effects.

Astral effects weaken Umbral resistance. The next umbral strike consumes this effect. Vice versa for Umbral.

We can translate this into mathematical terms as such - Increases the Potency bonus to 75% and boosts the bonus effect.

It might seem like a cheap way to "Force" the supporty variants - But I'm mostly okay with that.

Why would you ever not use the damage oriented ones in a boost setting? Ideally you don't, but you have the option there if you need it, it just costs you a little.

This leads further into a natural progression to the Astral / Umbral metagame.

Attunement: Using your Enchantment abilities grants you a corresponding Umbral (Earth, Water, Wind) charge or Astral (Fire, Ice, Thunder) charge.

Lastly, moving the charge to OGCD stock abilities means we have an easy way to add some pressure and time constraints.

Re-purposing Cardinal Chant to instead grant full Enchantment charges creates a similar time constraint to old Summoner Aetherflow. Gotta use them all before your free refill.

Charge Rush, in this iteration, could simply let you use X amount of Enchantments at no charge cost. It'd retain a fast, frantic burst window though it'd probably need a longer cooldown.

[Archwizard]

Warp Boon and and Realmrazer kind of step on each other's toes. I think you should only get Warpboon, and it traits later for its secondary effect.

Did I miss something? I never saw anything related to warping.

[SaberMaxwell]

Imagine tanks' faces when a Hammer DPS comes out before, and possibly erasing the possibility of getting, a Hammer Tank.

[Archwizard]

Imagine tanks' faces when a Hammer DPS comes out before, and possibly erasing the possibility of getting, a Hammer Tank.

... That assumes there is another job that works as a hammer tank.

The only way I can see that happening is something based of Nero, and we already have Machinist.

[Wayfinder3]

Well, I see there is a template to start with but there are a couple issues

1. Elemental damage doesn’t matter
2. Great hammer seems out of place (sounds like it was chosen specifically to justify the job being different from RDM, than it actually thematically making sense on this job)
3. The only genuine distinction between your base concept and RDM is that this doesn’t cast, but it’s thematically consistent in all other areas and this further distinction might be in order
4. Why not make it scale off INT if it does magic damage?
5 what justifiable reason does it have to do magic damage?

So really, I think what players o the mystic knight are looking for are skill trees. If Fencer was a class, it’d have the ability to branch into either RDM or MYK and the overlap wouldn’t really matter. The problem is that they would still be too similar at a fundamental level like Arcanist is to SMN and SCH and I doubt players realistically want mystic knight casting anything. Personally I don’t see why that would be a bad thing especially if those cast were instant. There are benefits to having long ranged attacks on a melee dps especially since none of the other melee have a good one worth using. PLD is the only melee ranged job that can do this.

The idea of you using 6 abilities of either polar alignment is also really similar to casting the Ver spells to build mana even if the ver spells don’t require specific elemental consistency(they shouldn’t sing elements don’t matter and the same should be said here) you also phrased having 3/3 as “bringing you closer to the Red” perhaps this was a matter of phrasing but this just makes me think of RDM even more.

A lot of problems with these mystic knight post is that while they’re functionally different enough from RDM to justify it being its own job. They usually aren’t thematically and, lead me to question why we need a new melee dps to focus on 1 aspect of what the current rdm offers (being in melee range) this post also glosses over some of the more finer issues of being a melee dps. What are your positional, who’ll you have any? Why would magic require a positional when there is no skill in the game that does so. What would be the benefits of being magical melee when magic damage is underpowered in the grand scheme.

These are some things to consider. I suggest approaching his from the perspective of making mystic knight it’s own job, rather than trying to justify and design around its obvious comparisons to RDM. Consider what you want this job to do and compare it more towards the melee we currently have. Watch trends