Gun Mage would be RDM not BLU. It would resumble Squall Leonhart or FFX's incarnation to a degree.
I fully expect a dual wielding Blade/Pistol or Gunblade incarnation of Red Mage.
Printable View
No thanks to a gun wielding blue or red mage... Sword or nothing.
I think they should have an in game event to determine either to put in blue mage or red mage. Each group could recruit potential mages to battle each other in a Red mage vs. blue mage PvP area where you fight for ground or turf. In order to tell who is on your side, and who you would be trying to kill, you could color their gear, you know red for red mages, blue for blue mages. If you don't want to go in as a level 50 class though, you could go in as a lower level and work as sort of a courier where you pick up goods from your base and sell them to NPCs that are stationed on your side's turf that could provide buffs for your side on that piece of ground. The event could last for so long, and the side that has the most turf at the end would win, and that job implemented into the game.
Well there's a problem with that. The way classes work in FFXIV right now is that you equip a weapon type assigned to a specific class, and boom. You are suddenly that class. If two different classes have the same weapon type, how would that work? And I'm pretty sure Blue and Red Mages wouldn't be using even 3/4 of the Gladiator's skills anyway.
You're aware we're getting a dagger class (presumably for Thief/Ninja), while Gladiator has daggers already, right?
Weapon type has absolutely nothing to do with your Class, the weapon does, but just that. They could make a Lance that when equipped puts you on Conjurer. They wouldn't because that would be silly, but they can make a whole host of new swords which put you on, lets say, Fencer.
Case and point, I already have two of the same weapon types which put me on different Jobs; Omnilex and The Veil Of Wiyu. The exact same can, and will be applied for any new Class which reuses a preexisting weapon type.
They really did develop themselves into a corner with the current class/armoury system. There's basically no second job that will work for Pugilist, for example. But as to your question: there would just be new swords with a fundamental category of, say, "Mystic Knight's Arm" that would distinguish it from Gladiator's Arms even though they were both swords in form.
To build on this, these are both "Arcanist's Grimoires" that build on the ACN job and then rely on a job stone.