Please give archer a dagger.

[SeraviEdalborez]

It would be pretty simple to have a sub-class of daggers that are for the off-hand. Call em bowies or dirks or what have you.

It's not a big deal anyways, especially because A) this is a cosmetic issue and B) we don't know how severe the cooldown on non-AA basic attacks will be. It could be very well possible to do a rotation of Light(buffed), multi1, heavy, multi2, repeat. Or something similar. Or hell, it doesn't matter because we don't know yet.

Still don't think there's any difference in hitting a button vs having it being pressed for me. Other than control.

/flameshield on, because I will surely be called a white-knight for dismissing claims.

[Nuru]

I love how people have no idea what an Archer exactly is.

It's a ranged physical DPS. It fills a niche in MMO's as a class that can do physical damage from range, as opposed to magic damage (for those pesky AOE bosses who have high resistances and low defenses *cough*mage bosses*cough*).

Forcing Archers to melee is about as stupid as forcing a melee class to throw rocks at a fleeing enemy. You say Archers shouldn't be able to shoot while someone's in their face because it adds realism. Ok, cool. Do you think someone could consistently hit another person with a 20 lb broadsword while sprinting? If that's the case, melee damage should be halved while moving... you know, for realism.

Fact of the matter is that it's a fantasy game. Hell, I wouldn't even mind if Archers were forced to melee IF THEIR TARGET GETS IN MELEE RANGE. But forcing Archers to melee even if their target is being kept within shooting range by a tank? No, it doesn't make sense to me. Actually, it ruins the niche that the Archer fills.

Why not just be like every other good MMO out there and allow Archers to use their bow for AA while at range, and automatically switch to punching or whatever if their target gets into melee range? It makes perfect sense, instead of forcing one or the other.

As far as melee animation goes, I've always wanted to see my Archer use the bow as a melee weapon and using it to bash skulls in.

Calm down dude, and stop talking to yourself. Nowhere in this thread mentions anything you are complaining about. :P EX. nobody ever said they are forcing ARC's to be within melee range for AA. However, you're last two paragrpahs are worth a response.

Archer in AA mode would have no control over how many arrows they are using, thus, having to switch to passive mode to control their output. If you add Unlimited Arrows, i can see this working, but as it stands, Archer is already a powerful class due to its gil sink for arrows.

[Capita]

Calm down dude, and stop talking to yourself. Nowhere in this thread mentions anything you are complaining about. :P EX. nobody ever said they are forcing ARC's to be within melee range for AA. However, you're last two paragrpahs are worth a response.

Archer in AA mode would have no control over how many arrows they are using, thus, having to switch to passive mode to control their output. If you add Unlimited Arrows, i can see this working, but as it stands, Archer is already a powerful class due to its gil sink for arrows.

Archer's AA is said to be "punching". Seems melee to me.

And plenty of games have made due with the use of arrows. It's not a complicated system. Maybe lower the cost of arrows altogether and/or add a quiver to store multiple stacks.

[Jynx]

Maybe it's an idea to make archers feel silly for fighting up close. Afterall they are Archers.

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

Apparently on the slippery slope of forum-based logic, giving archers a knife means nerfing gladiator but stabbing an armored foe with a piece of wood is totally awesome.

Let's just give archers a kukri. It's not a dagger.

Or maybe archers will use karate? Or perhaps jarate, the jar-based karate*?

* Jarate is neither affiliated with, nor a substitute for, Karate.

[Corrderio]

Apparently on the slippery slope of forum-based logic, giving archers a knife means nerfing gladiator but stabbing an armored foe with a piece of wood is totally awesome.

Let's just give archers a kukri. It's not a dagger.

Or maybe archers will use karate? Or perhaps jarate, the jar-based karate*?

* Jarate is neither affiliated with, nor a substitute for, Karate.

Jarate!? No-o-o-o-o-o *cries*

[Delmontyb]

I'm all for calling it a dirk or heck, call it a shiv.

[RexSkyborn]

No.

Screw any melee attack.

SE should have done exactly what every other MMO does for a bow-wielding class, and make the freaking arrow the auto attack.

The crappiest part about playing RNG in FFXI was spamming /ra to do any freaking damage (unless you're KC RNGing, but let's be honest... most people, and most posters here, were never KC RNGs).

The crappiest part about playing ARC in FFXIV will be spamming various ranged abilities (now with cooldown, herp derp!).

It puts a job that already has to pay to play at a serious disadvantage on the DD perspective because your efficiency is tied entirely to how close you're paying attention and how little time you leave on the table between possible attack rounds.

Arrows are not something that drives the economy. Replace them with bottomless quivers of a type (e.g. Red Coral Quiver), abolish limited ammunition, and just make Light Shot the default RNG auto-attack.

When you're a higher level archer you'll understand. Same reason they don't have ranged auto attack in ffxi; their damage and hate is too high. You let an archer spam arrows in a party and they'll pull hate plain and simple. Mix in high damage hate building abilities, you need to be able to control your arrow shots after doing massive damage or you're asking to die. Id rather this then having to disengage every time I wanted to watch my hate.
They'd basically have to rebuild the archer class from the ground up.

no auto attack ranged please.

[Scape]

I vote no. I personally think that an archer in melee range shouldn't be able to attack, just like a gladiator out of melee range can't attack, but unfortunately they've already decided against that.

But, all melee jobs have ranged attack weapons. And unlike FFXI, they actually land easily!

So lets assume we will attack with our fists(lame). Will damage be determined by our hand gear equiped? I always thought bows were 2 handed and it just seems odd to use one of those hands to punch things.

[Duelle]

Arrows are not something that drives the economy. Replace them with bottomless quivers of a type (e.g. Red Coral Quiver), abolish limited ammunition, and just make Light Shot the default RNG auto-attack.

Seconded. Killing the pay to play argument would probably serve ARC well in the long run.

When you're a higher level archer you'll understand. Same reason they don't have ranged auto attack in ffxi; their damage and hate is too high. You let an archer spam arrows in a party and they'll pull hate plain and simple. Mix in high damage hate building abilities, you need to be able to control your arrow shots after doing massive damage or you're asking to die. Id rather this then having to disengage every time I wanted to watch my hate.

If this is the case you can rebalance the class around its abilities with auto-shot being supplemental damage rather than being THE damage source. Giving the class actual hate-dropping and transfer tools would also go a long way. RNG in XI could have also used that if the devs had actually bothered to make Camo drop aggro upon use.