I really don't understand the use of the word "Warrior" in this world

[Beytran70]

You must be referring to the movies. They are wrong about many things - that is just one of them.
In fact when they are leaving Rivendell it is explicit that "Aragorn had Anduril, but no other weapon"
Legolas was the only one of the Fellowship to carry a bow.

This is off-topic, but while I don't think it is ever explicitly stated that Aragorn had other weapons, I think it is highly likely that he did have a bow at least before the Fellowship assembled and then left. He was a Ranger, a woodsman who would have had to live off the land himself most of the time, so like proper medieval rangers who were basically game wardens, he would have had to have had a bow since good luck getting a nice deer with a sword.

[Beytran70]

Hell, way back I used to play City of Heroes; they only had nine powers per moveset, no required mechanic gimmicks, and all of comic books to borrow from, and their Archery and Assault Rifle powersets still had to get wacky. (Specifically Archery had to pack some Green Arrow-style trick arrows, and Assault Rifle had to make its default model a 'Frankengun' with multiple barrels, a flamethrower, and a grenade launcher.)

Assault Rifle was good, too. Almost every big team would have at least one there, just blasting guys with bullets. Usually had a cigar in his mouth. I think every good fantasy team should have one person who is mundane but still awesome.

[SeverianLyonesse]

I get the complaint, because... well, some people's favorite Avenger is Hawkeye or Black Widow. There is genuine appeal to the guy that can keep up with crazy superpowers because he's Just That Good. I have a friend who actually hates the Shadowbringers Machinist rework not because of playstyle, but because it moved so much of Machinist away from 'good at guns' and into 'has Batman's utility belt'. I'm not even sure what I'd want to recommend to someone who wants to play a 'naturally good and that's it' character in this game. Monk, maybe, if you ignore the outright Hadokens? Samurai, but basically only if you love Kurosawa enough to accept the theatrics as theatrics instead of magic?

I think the main problem comes from the fact that, in games like this, it's actually really hard to stretch the concept of 'just that good' into the entire skillset. Samurai only barely gets there, Monk falls short, and those two actually have the easiest job since it's just a melee skillset, and there's been a lot of media that's found ways to stretch those. You go into something like a range toolkit? Every FFXIV job has to have thirty-something powers and animations over its lifetime, how many things can you give someone with just a gun before you run out of ideas? Hell, way back I used to play City of Heroes; they only had nine powers per moveset, no required mechanic gimmicks, and all of comic books to borrow from, and their Archery and Assault Rifle powersets still had to get wacky. (Specifically Archery had to pack some Green Arrow-style trick arrows, and Assault Rifle had to make its default model a 'Frankengun' with multiple barrels, a flamethrower, and a grenade launcher.)

I will grant your "just that good" argument as something that appeals to people with different personal preferences. But I slightly disagree that SAM/MNK/WAR hit that job fantasy...you're right that they come the closest as far as melee jobs go but I think they are just further evidence that "no supernatural assistance" jobs just don't exist in FFXIV. I would argue BRD, DNC, and MCH--one of which is already fulfilling the "bow" job archetype, and all of which still needed a little extra pseudo-magic on top of their kit (songs, dances, automatons) to fit in with the rest of the spread--come even closer. But thank you for supporting my observation that there are only so many ways to shoot a bow.

[Cleretic]

Assault Rifle was good, too. Almost every big team would have at least one there, just blasting guys with bullets. Usually had a cigar in his mouth. I think every good fantasy team should have one person who is mundane but still awesome.

I remember pretty much all of the 'mundane fighter' powersets in CoH being good. Granted, CoH eventually embraced power creep so hard that every build was extremely capable, but I remember Katana and Broadsword being similarly 'no-nonsense good' to Archery and Assault Rifle. Later on you saw some really impressive stuff out of Willpower, Shield Defense, and Street Justice. I don't remember Dual Pistols being all that impressive, but it was very popular, and being one of the only DPS sets that could do a lot of Toxic damage was something.

And agreed, every fantasy team of any level needs a 'Mundane But Cool' person. The Scions have one in Thancred, but even then, we can't be exactly his type of 'not-special special'.

[Stepjam]

I will grant your "just that good" argument as something that appeals to people with different personal preferences. But I slightly disagree that SAM/MNK/WAR hit that job fantasy...you're right that they come the closest as far as melee jobs go but I think they are just further evidence that "no supernatural assistance" jobs just don't exist in FFXIV. I would argue BRD, DNC, and MCH--one of which is already fulfilling the "bow" job archetype, and all of which still needed a little extra pseudo-magic on top of their kit (songs, dances, automatons) to fit in with the rest of the spread--come even closer. But thank you for supporting my observation that there are only so many ways to shoot a bow.

It's not "supernatural assistance", it's just aether. Aether is a natural part of the XIV setting, it isn't supernatural or mysterious, it's down to a science.

[Beytran70]

It's not "supernatural assistance", it's just aether. Aether is a natural part of the XIV setting, it isn't supernatural or mysterious, it's down to a science.

I think the main bit here, at least for me, is that there are ways to make the obvious aetherial power less obvious. I think some of the issue comes down to power creep, as earlier during ARR and HW I don't remember things being quite as flashy, at least not for the majority of moves. As time has progressed though newer abilities tend to keep upping the scale of fantasy to make higher level and more advanced abilities more flashy, but the core kits are often fairly mundane. Monk, for instance, is what I play, and I'd say about half my attacks are relatively tame; I punch, kick, do some kung-fu moves, with mostly minimal particle effects. At max level though I am doing frequent kamehameha blasts, breakdancing maneuvers, anime power-ups, and more. I'd be just as happy seeing the mundane stuff continue, even if it costs a bit of visual spectacle.

Also, I don't know about anyone else, but I turned other players' particle effects to limited, so I don't see as much of that from others anyways. The visual clutter is TOO strong sometimes.