Expansion - classes: weapons and skills.

In the expansion job speculation thread many people were brainstorming possible secondary jobs coming from already established classes.

Namely the gladiator getting a DPS variant.

but a particular dilemma arises. The foundation of the gladiators skills are based around enmity gain and damage reduction skills. Regardless of the job specific skills this class can use as a paladin, the core skills are still based on tanking. So a gladiator will always be a tank.

Now there are two ways that I can see SE working around this:

1) Job Stones - by equipping a job stone it alters core mechanics of how a job operates. i.e. Emnity gaining skills now reduce enmity, and a bonus to damage.

or

2) Classes are allowed to use a small variety of weapons. The weapon used dictates what skills are available. The currently equipped weapon also dictates what job stone you can equip. The Job stone dictate what cross class skills are available. (a variation on the 1.0 skill system)

There was an interview with Yoshi P stating that there might be some changes to the class system with the expansion to allow multiple jobs coming from a single class. So something is in the works at the core of the class system.

The problem I see with #1 is that regardless of what job stone you equip let say as a marauder you can equip Warrior (tank) job stone or Viking (DPS) job stone. It would make since using an axe for both jobs, The weapon skill rotation would largely be the same between both Warrior and Viking as the same core skills will be available, with the difference between Warrior get enmity gain and Viking get a enmity reduction and a damage boost.

Which leads me to suspect that maybe they will go the route of #2 and expand the available weapons used by certain classes and tie weapon skills to the weapon currently equipped. This would allow classes like gladiator who core skills are based on tanking to open up more easily to a DPS role like Dark Knight.

for example a gladiator can equip a one handed sword and a shield which allows access to the current set of tanking skills. Or, you can equip a great sword which opens up the DPS skill tree. Regardless of which weapon you use you are still a "gladiator" at the core and you level the class. Job stones are tied to the current weapon in use. In this case if you are sword/board then you can only equip the Paladin job stone, If you have a great sword equipped than you can only equip the Dark Knight job stone.

How do you guys think they will handle secondary jobs coming from classes that are build to perform a very specific role?

How will they handle second jobs? Sloppily and they will probably feel very much like their original jobs.

How should they handle second jobs? Get rid of classes and make everything unique unto itself.