Next Jobs

[Archwizard]

If you lump casters and ranged physical together, which I bet they do then there are 6 ranged and 4 melees.

Really it's hard to tell how they count it because of unequal divisions. If you put it that way, we've gotten a new Ranged job every expansion, which kinda nudges me to thinking raid composition doesn't necessarily dictate how they choose new jobs.
On the other hand, we only have 6 Disciples of Magic (3 of whom are DPS sharing one gear type) versus 11 Disciples of War (7 of whom are DPS responsible for 4 different divisions for gear).

Yoshi-P said he wanted to balance out each role, but unless they make like a Magical Melee DPS category (which I could only imagine having one job in it unless they move Ninja, and no practical separation from DoW Melee), that's gonna be hard to do. You add a new ranged job of either kind and the melee get upset they have limited options for half the DPS slots in raid; you add a new melee job and the DoMs feel underrep'd in raids since they're already competing for spaces with Ranged Physical. No real winning either way by focusing on "how they count", since I think ultimately the devs aren't attached to any particular meta.

And as for the burst, you wouldn’t HAVE to be more than max melee to use your ranged skills but you could. I haven’t thought it through completely

That's fair, I just think there's only a handful of viable options for Ranged DPS weapons -- pistols among the remainder -- and to throw it on a melee is a huge missed opportunity for the Ranged jobs.

[Beddict]

If you lump casters and ranged physical together, which I bet they do then there are 6 ranged and 4 melees. And as for the burst, you wouldn’t HAVE to be more than max melee to use your ranged skills but you could. I haven’t thought it through completely

They don't lump them together, the three DPS Roles are all counted separately. Back when DNC was revealed people were wondering why it was a Physical Ranged and Yoshi-p went on to answer this in the Letter from the Producer, LXII (05/09/2019):

2. Only Two Physical Ranged DPS Jobs Are Currently Implemented

As of Stormblood, there are three tank, three healer, four melee DPS, three magical ranged DPS, and two physical ranged DPS jobs. We believe that there is value in adding another physical ranged DPS to improve the balance of available roles, and so we decided to use one of our two new jobs to fill this need.

[Vendalwind]

They don't lump them together, the three DPS Roles are all counted separately. Back when DNC was revealed people were wondering why it was a Physical Ranged and Yoshi-p went on to answer this in the Letter from the Producer, LXII (05/09/2019):

That does in fact mean tho that they could subdivide melee into melee and hybrid (nin could be a hybrid) and add one class to later use the same rationale and add a third.

Its a historical precident that actually suggests new hybrid melee could be added as easily as it suggests roles could remain the same.

[BasicBlake]

That does in fact mean tho that they could subdivide melee into melee and hybrid (nin could be a hybrid) and add one class to later use the same rationale and add a third.

Its a historical precident that actually suggests new hybrid melee could be added as easily as it suggests roles could remain the same.

So with all of the gear sets we have for melee is this a suggestion that they be broken up into separate roles? Or would nin and other said class to come into the game in the future be the only two hybrid? So we would have 3 melee and 2 hybrid, or 4 melee and then ninja as the solo hybrid class?

Would they be adding another stat to the game? Since that is the reason the classes are broken up at the moment, they add a main stat bonus to the party.

I think if anything red mage would have been the prototype for "hybrid" in the rigidity of the Holy Trinity, and that ship sailed. I think if they do make any adjustments for melee it would just be consolidating gear sets, not catering to them and creating roles so we get more melee, on top of our melee.

[SeikishiYuuki]

That does in fact mean tho that they could subdivide melee into melee and hybrid (nin could be a hybrid) and add one class to later use the same rationale and add a third.

Its a historical precedent that actually suggests new hybrid melee could be added as easily as it suggests roles could remain the same.

I'd say that this is possible but unlikely. They've mentioned before not wanting to muddy the meta any further by adding more gear sets and roles, especially give how hard it has been to balance just between roles that exist now and that role quests are becoming the new norm over job specific quests it's more likely that we'll see the physical melee and range quests broken as those roles get more identity. The SE team is great but they're not big on breaking out of the box or making more work than they need to for themselves lol. Neat idea though.

[Archwizard]

I think if anything red mage would have been the prototype for "hybrid" in the rigidity of the Holy Trinity, and that ship sailed.

Or failing that, Blue Mage. Another ship that sailed, albeit in the other direction.

[EdwinLi]

I honestly, still hope to see a Garlean Gunblade job either following Gaius's Combat style with the thin blade but lighter range gun attacks or Regula's Combat style which uses a large blade design and heavier fire power. It can easily be the 2nd Job in the game to use Chain Mail armor.

[Archwizard]

I honestly, still hope to see a Garlean Gunblade job either following Gaius's Combat style with the thin blade but lighter range gun attacks or Regula's Combat style which uses a large blade design and heavier fire power. It can easily be the 2nd Job in the game to use Chain Mail armor.

I find it far more likely that Gaius' or Regula's sword would just be released on the Mogstation as a glamour for the Gunblades we already have, than for the devs to introduce another Gunblade-wielding job.

[EdwinLi]

I find it far more likely that Gaius' or Regula's sword would just be released on the Mogstation as a glamour for the Gunblades we already have, than for the devs to introduce another Gunblade-wielding job.

You have to remember by lore Garlean gunblade and Gunbreaker gunblade are considered two different weapons due to difference in functions

Gunbreaker follows the Squall style gublade being ammo is used to empower the blade and only projectile used is the Light energy Barrier rounds to create shields since the Squall Gunblade is designed to disperse magical energy released from the gunblade thus can't form solid projectiles to harm enemies, only create explosives and solid light constructs into the blade to hit a enemy. A design more fitting for tank job because how explosive it is to attract attention and how Squall is still considered a Tank of FF8

Garlean Gunblade follows more to real life gunblade design, with some fantasy adjustment, that focus on the blade and gun aspect being separate functions to combine melee for close range combat and the gun for range combat. It is more fitting for a DPS job due to the combat focus being more offensive in both melee and range combat. If anything Garlean Gunblade has potential to be even a Range DPS job if they use the Azure Flame blade slash attacks properly with the Gun function.

edit:

There are some interesting lore covering the differences between Gunbreaker Gunblade and Garlean Gunblade but most of it goes to Gunbreaker side.

The Gunbreaker Gunblade is intended to be a pure melee weapon designed to make melee combat viable against a army of range combat enemies mostly being Guns. When Allagan Empire's army began advancing Gun technology to a point majority of their army had become more modern day soldiers with gun weapons such as AR, SMGs, and etc. The Hrothgar needed a weapon that can counter and Break the advantage Guns give to their enemies. Thus the Gunbreaker Gunblade were created designed to use Aether charged ammo to enhance their slicing power, create explosions via the blade, and create Bullet proof magic barriers on the user and their allies. This style of weaponry of course is one reason why Allagans could not fully become Gun focused army and had to still depend on sword, bows, and etc to advance anti-magic and magic infused weaponry. This lore also explains why the Gunbreaker Job became a Tank Job because it is literally a Job created to take on Gunfire and be resistant to it.

Garlean gunblade, however, is more recent as it became developed due to the conquest of Hrothgar's lands by the Empire. The design is used to be more offensive combat as the Gun and Blade acts as separate functions rather than incorporating the Blade and Gun together to infuse the Blade. Regula Gunblade design is only recently revealed to be a more recent model of the Garlean Gunblade advancement in developing their technology using a Ceruleum powered core which creates the Azure Flames when it fires the range attacks and creates the Azure flame slashes.

[Kaiserdrache]

They should just rework Whitemage back to how it was before of Shadowbringers with 6.0.
In shadowbringers it made sense out of lore reason to massively increase the whm's affinity towards light magic and turn them basically offensively into pure light mages, whose affinity towards light absolutely overshadows thei affinity towards wind, earth and water.
In regard of water has been the whitemage always the poor skill design oversight, back before shadowbringers, where whm's had only 1 single lauchable water skill, annd it wasn't even a magic spell based on the typical spell naming convetions of FF, while lots of enemies thew at us already water magic spell, where you asked yourself only - why can this stupid trash cast Waterga/Aquaga or lower and we learn for 80 lvl still no fu...... Single water spell?


I hope, once all classes get for one day their final major endgame redesigns for Lvl 99 content, that the 8 classic elements will be findable among all classes somewhere and the others

Fire > Blackmage/Sorcerer
Ice > Blackmage/Sorcerer,
Thunder > Blackmage/Sorcerer
Wind > Whitemage/Priest > return of Wind/ra/ga/ja
Earth > Whitemage/Priest/Redmage/Elementalist, return of healers Stone/ra/ga/ja and we should get to see Quake/Shockwave
Water > Whitemage/Priest/Redmage/Elementalist , implemention of Aqua/ra/ga/ja for WHM, water replacing ice for RDM, making ice more a speciality of BLM
Darkness > Dark Knight/Shadowbringer/ Astrologist/Oracle
Light > Whitemage/Priest, Scholar/Sage, Astrologist/Oracle, Paladin/Crusader
All Elements > Summoner/Ritualist based on active High Summon, Ninja/Shinobi based on Finger Sign Combos, Monk/Champion based on Stances/Attunements

Thats how I do see the elements among the classes that do use elemental powers by class design