Thmatically, why do Black Mage and Summoner need to learn Archer skills?

[Strawberrycocoa]

I am hoping they make a 4th Disciple of Magic class at some point and swap this somehow, because it just seems silly to me to learn the ways of a bow for casting spells.

Time Mage or Oracle, anyone? Mime, Dancer, Red Mage, Blue Mage?

[Michelasso]

I think the main idea is that they all are ranged. A melee class would have made even less sense. A just to mix over and over the three DoM could get quite old. Also Archer is fun!

[JMadFour]

I always wondered about this as well. Lore-wise, it doesn't make sense to me why a Summoner or Black Mage would go to study with the Archers.

I don't see the benefit, story-wise.

[Xystic]

Its probably the idea of aiming with your skills. Although we get the benefit of auto-aiming/targeting in this game. In a sense you could say, just like how archers have to aim at long distances with skills, so do casters.

Just like how when you cast skills against targets, you aren't nuking something 40 yards behinds you, more like you can't and most of the time the target is usually in front of you. Meaning magic also requires some degree of aiming. Just imagining someone in your head does not automatically make them your target.

[Lemon8or]

Quelling Strike
/10chars

[JMadFour]

Quelling Strike
/10chars

well, yeah.

but the OP wasn't talking about Game Functionality, he's talking about Themes and Lore.