Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
I don't want to see the shared roots go away, but I would like to see there be a more thematic split thereafter. A bow makes sense as a weapon for a Bard, but after their split, any further bow tech should be optional and all actual Bard growth should be, well, more support- or musically-oriented.
Wouldn't it be easier to just make new Jobs themed the way you want them without tying them to existing classes? We're getting to a point where we have most fantasy weapon types present in current jobs, So unless they plan on cooking up funky new weapons for every new Job that comes along we'll run into Jobs that use the same weapon but in different ways.

As long as the way the weapon is held when drawn and used is unique enough, WHM/BLM being a good example, then sharing a weapon type wouldn't matter too much.

Hell, It'd probably help a bit in levelling gear by having a theoretical new Bow Job use Bard bows while levelling, only having a split into unique personalised weapons at the expansion's level cap. It'd save a bunch of time and effort making clones of said weapons for the new Job.
SCH/SMN and WHM/BLM could have gone that way, were it not for the jobs requiring opposite stats.
IIRC, a bunch of early level Shields were used by CNJ and THM.