Rune Knight

[Kotemon]

I thought of this once a while ago, It was mostly based on FFXI's Rune fencer, and was a loose mix of Monk/Sam weapon was a long sword described as a tuning fork for aether, because the relic sword in FFXI was split in the middle like a tuning fork.

Attacks would fill a gauge like Samurai, then there was three elemental seals to choose from, activating a rune applies a stacking buff that adds that element to attacks and a damage modifier. Runes stack to three of any combination with each element giving a stacking buff while adding non elemental magic damage to physical attacks. The last rune generated will be the primary effect.

Fire Rune, weakens magical damage and boosts physical damage by an amount, +X physical potency for each Fire Rune.

Lightning Rune boosts magical damage and weakens physical damage, +X for magical damage. This includes the runes additional damage effect. So En-thunder would be noticeably stronger then Enfire, while physical damage from weapon skills increases with enfire. Like warriors Surging tempest.
This was a way to get around damage resistance back then it might have mattered more (but not really now days), but the overall dps between +3 Fire or Lightning would be about the same.

Water Rune boosts defense by 30 and increases cures by 5% for each rune

Each rune is generated by a combo path like samurai, a three hit for Physical (Vorpal Blade, Burning Blade, Shining Blade) for Fire, three hit for Magical (Vorpal Blade, Red Lotus Blade, Scourge) for Lightning, and a two hit, Torrent, Shockwave, AOE for Water with the second half adding a knock back chance per water rune.

Similar to Monks elemental stance, Rune Fencers could hit one of three runes to generate a single rune of that type every 30 or 40 seconds. Most other abilities that manipulate runes use that aether gauge generated by attacking. Along with a couple attacks that change with the active rune. There would be an ability to convert all active runes to the last one made. One that consumes a rune to add a 15 second 25 potency counter shield: Fire can inflict a stacking burn dot of 15 potency per stack up to 5. Thunder can inflict stun (the chance increases with the number of lightning runes active). Water adds a shield with a 45 potency refresh +5 for each active water rune. An ability to expend all runes to buff the party Fire and lightning affects that type of damage. Water will add a 60 def buff and the Regen. A Mixed variety of runes can give all three buffs at a low potency. It would be better to make all runes the same type first. A rune can be consumed to self-heal for 400 potency on a 90sec timer. A FF15 like teleport that can target an enemy or party member.

And that's all I went with it.. It was a passing thought back pre Storm Blood, for class that could use some form of en-spell and spike shields.