Please do not lock Jobs to the Weapon Class that unlocks them.

[Duelle]

Ideally each class should eventually have 3 roles available: DD, tank and support, whether this is accomplished by mixing-and-matching jobs to classes or by having a unique set of jobs for each class.

I say that it would make sense for certain jobs to have multiple roles available. Dark Knight being tank or DPS, Red Mage being melee DPS or healer, Samurai being tank or DPS, Ninja being ranged DPS or melee DPS, and so on. I don't think it's something that can be done with all jobs. Using the weapon classes for that makes things a bit awkward, IMO.

[ZephyrAM]

I say that it would make sense for certain jobs to have multiple roles available. Dark Knight being tank or DPS, Red Mage being melee DPS or healer, Samurai being tank or DPS, Ninja being ranged DPS or melee DPS, and so on. I don't think it's something that can be done with all jobs. Using the weapon classes for that makes things a bit awkward, IMO.

I don't know...

The Jobs are, seemingly, only really meant to expand on or specialize the capabilities of the Class that they work with, so to me, it seems like it would make more sense for each Class to be capable of the different roles by way of different Jobs attached to them.

The downside to that, of course, would be that it would pretty much just be a spec system at that point, with each Class having three available Jobs, each working for a different role. So in the end, what started out looking really flexible, actually leads to very few options.

I say just give all Classes/Jobs abilities that enable them to perform the different roles, and from there just restrict them in such a way as to not allow omnipotence . High price point abilities or 'if you take this, you can't take that' setup's are very minor examples.

[Malakhim]

The sword and shield for Red Mage isn't just aesthetic, but if they had meant for RDM to have an emphasis on melee, then they probably would have called it a Magic Knight or something, instead of a MAGE. The sword is meant as a fallback.

[Physic]

The sword and shield for Red Mage isn't just aesthetic, but if they had meant for RDM to have an emphasis on melee, then they probably would have called it a Magic Knight or something, instead of a MAGE. The sword is meant as a fallback.

they are supposed to be whm/blm/melee hybrids.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Mage