Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

In all fairness, the OP's proposed Spellblade model is not physical damage with pitiful elemental damage as a side effect, but rather turning melee damage into purely magical damage, which has very different implications. I can't say I'm wild about the idea of doing it, but at least recognize that it's not entirely the same as a RDM.

In theory it's more like an odd combination of a BLM and a BLU, and would be the only job so far that actually damages the enemy with pure magic damage (i.e. not the physical variety BLU uses) over time, instead of in big hate spikes like BLM does. The only thing that comes close to that approach is NIN spamming the Ni wheel, but that has a limited level range in which it's both useable and useful, and even then few ninjas will go /BLM or /RDM for an all-out casting approach. A Mystic Knight would have to gear for Acc to land swings, but would rely on INT, MAB, and -Elemental Resistance for damage like a BLM would.

/nod

Armando wins the box of Thin Mints today. The sword would not Enfire, the sword would become Fire.

Spellblade would be like an elemental version of Formless Strikes. The Idea of MK is appealing because it would play be different rules than other sword users. It would gain TP like a melee, but much of the magic damage would play by the rules of a mage. They could likely modify the DMG calculation for Quick Draw to work with Spellblade since physical elements are caculated into elemental damage on QD

You could even take this idea a bit further and use Kam'lanaut as a basis, when they align with an element, they essentially become that element and can be cured by it or heavily damaged by the opposing element.

[DakAttack]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

Spell-based weapons only lasting for a single hit would be uninteresting. I think something along the lines of two-minute duration with a two-minute recast would make timing part of the job. Not enough to bother players, but every once in a while they'd find themselves unable to absorb and stuck with normal damage.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

Spell-based weapons only lasting for a single hit would be uninteresting. I think something along the lines of two-minute duration with a two-minute recast would make timing part of the job. Not enough to bother players, but every once in a while they'd find themselves unable to absorb and stuck with normal damage.

Oh I'm just saying the way it could be calculated could be similar to QD, didn't mean for it to be a one-shot ability like QD is one shot per minute.

[Malacite]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

^^ yay some people finally see the merit of the job. And I said in my OP that the spell's potency and duration would be based off enhancing skill level, but with a maximum duration of 3 minutes. The recasts (along with MP cost) should also be higher then their spell's counterpart.


I really think this job could have potential as a DD or Tank, depending on the mobs. It was generally used as both in FFV, though more so a DD and as Armando kindly pointed out for me, it's the only job that would really go for pure magic based DoT.

The biggest issue I can see for the job is damage calculation though. There are a lot of possible factors that can come into play (attack, MAB, STR, INT VIT def etc...)
and the damage can't be so high that it outclasses BLM outright. But so far not a single job in the game melds magic and melee into a single force like this job would.

BLU may be a fighter magic, but it's spells are still separate from melee and enspells just tack on a tiny fraction of elemental damage. This job actually takes existing spells and attacks with them with it's weapon. Show me another job that does this. Oh that's right, there isn't one.


Now I'll admit that SE has practically written RDM into a corner, but that's no reason to take it out on MSK.


>. > I wasn't expecting so many responses in one day wow, I was sure everyone was ignoring this thread since yesterday.


The job has all kinds of applications too, from dealing raw magical damage to forcing specific enfeebles. I think a good way to balance it might be to impose a timer similar to blood pacts, but maybe on a shorter length as switching spellblades could be critical in a bad situation. Either that, or the debuffs from a spellblade might not last as long on an HNM as say a RDM, BRD or NIN's debuffs so as not to step on their toes.

[Armando]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

A damage formula would be simple. Let's take a quick look at the magic damage formula.

[(INT difference) * (Tier multiplier) + (Spell Base Damage)] * (MAB/MDB)

You could easily put in DMG here:

[INTd * TMult + SDMG + WDMG] * MAB/MDB

Now your weapon's DMG is added to the spell's base damage. The spell's base damage would have to be a much smaller number than the real spell's damage, otherwise you'd be swinging for 300 damage every few seconds in the case of Tier III Spellblades. You could throw in fSTR as well, but I'd rather exclude it just to encourage different gear choices from most melee's.

The main application for the job would be being a top-tier DD against IT mobs. Magic scales up in damage slowly up and down compared to melee hits (since magic lacks a multiplier that'll get bigger the weaker the enemy is.) Much like a BLM, a Mystic Knight's damage wouldn't see too big of a drop against strong enemies, but also wouldn't see much of an improvement against really weak things. To make it more interesting, you could even turn WS's into a nuke as well and allow Mystic Knights to MB with their WS.

If you want to discourage quick-and-easy Spellblade changes (mainly changing from damage to enfeeble Spellblades) you could give fairly lengthy recasts like has been suggested before, or give long cast times (~10 seconds).

[Lmnop]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

I don't like the idea that you'd just cast Thunder Blade 2 every 3 minutes and melee. Or did I miss something in the idea of having them last a duration?

[DakAttack]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

I don't like the idea that you'd just cast Thunder Blade 2 every 3 minutes and melee. Or did I miss something in the idea of having them last a duration?

They would have to absorb the spell from an ally first, that or sub Blm/Rdm/Whatev and absorb it off themselves somehow. I think people would agree that this idea would help bring magic back into the party. It's not the be all end all, but it would help.

The cast time would be have to be low if they had to catch the spell during its cast phase. The duration and cast time would only be minutes, and unleashing the spell could either be similar in damage to the original spell or according to the knight's stats depending on what exactly they're absorbing.

If they just cast a spell on their blade it would be too much like En-spells.

Perhaps, similar to what WTFBBQ mentioned earlier, they could aborb spells into their shields and become immune to or healed by a certain element? It would really only work against Beastmen though, but would be interesting for certain fights.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

The spell absorbtion dynamic is severely underplayed in FFXI, It was kind cool to boost your elemental affinity to a point in FFVIII or FFIX where you'd absorb a fire spell as a cure. We have Kamle'naut, Puks and some BCNM mobs that absorb, but players are only granted elemental resistance gear, Carols, Bar-spells, Shell and Magus' Roll. These can help us null elemental damage to a degree, but not absorb or null it completely.

Being able to absorb elements would make fights against avatars and elementals somewhat unfair to the mob since that element is what they are, but then avatars have physical magic, too (the physical Rage Pacts, anyway).

[Cotners]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

It would be humorous if a blm could cast spells on the mystic knight, and sometimes the obsorbtion fails, killing the knight.

[Malacite]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

The problem with the spell absorption is it means the class basically can't function on it's own though.


g2g in a hurry ^^ post more later.

[DakAttack]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

The problem with the spell absorption is it means the class basically can't function on it's own though.

Sub Blm. The absorb skill would have to be one that could go off during a cast when it's your cast. The game would do a check for it anyways, but I'm betting my money it's a global busy check rather than a specific check. If the check is global for every ability, spell, or item this would have to presuppose it somehow, but when the check goes off and it finds that it's a spell it would simply absorb it.

Or not. Tanks don't do much on their own anyways, except for Ninjas because they have shadows.

[Malacite]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

That would still gimp you, you wouldn't even get all the tier 2 nukes on your own.


Subbing BLM should be done for more INT MP and MAB. We don't need another job that can only function with one particular sub job and not on it's own abilities.

[DakAttack]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

That would still gimp you, you wouldn't even get all the tier 2 nukes on your own.


Subbing BLM should be done for more INT MP and MAB. We don't need another job that can only function with one particular sub job and not on it's own abilities.

That's true, but this isn't exactly a solo game. All jobs should have a niche.

[Malacite]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

This job does have a niche; taking down high level mobs with magic DoT. More to the point, SE doesn't seem terribly concerned with that fact these days (according to their recent interview about the new jobs anyway)

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Proposed Builds Part 2: Mystic Knight

Seems ok to me.