Please give archer a dagger.

[Dreamer]

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.

[Rinsui]

Well, if you call slapping a monster with your palm an attack...

[Kallera]

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.

"Oh no! I have to actually PLAN my attacks!? No archer does THAAT! I should be able to fire willy nilly shouting in the air like Rambo!"

[AlexiaKidd]

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.

That would make soloing with Archer extremely difficult unless you could keep the mob bound and you would need to be constantly running away from it to stay out of melee range.

[SuzakuCMX]

That would make soloing with Archer extremely difficult unless you could keep the mob bound and you would need to be constantly running away from it to stay out of melee range.

Speaking of binding, I hope they fix ranged attacks being on every single monster. It makes binding useless in 99 out of 100 situations.

[AlexiaKidd]

Speaking of binding, I hope they fix ranged attacks being on every single monster. It makes binding useless in 99 out of 100 situations.

They did mention they were looking into removing having every single mob have a ranged attack.

[Amas]

"Oh no! I have to actually PLAN my attacks!? No archer does THAAT! I should be able to fire willy nilly shouting in the air like Rambo!"

You're sitting here, and saying with a straight face that you want to play a video game where you have to plan your individual attacks?

Really?

The fun is figuring out how to beat boss mobs, or the mechanics of an instance, or how to get the most damage out of a class.

The fun is not sitting there optimizing your timing for when you're hitting the /ra button, to keep yourself from playing at a disadvantage against those who the system hits the button for.

And since it's an MMO, and thus intended to be played for a long, long time, mindless tedium like mashing buttons to attack should be kept to a bare minimum. The mindless tedium should come from having to repeat the same content for a while to fully outfit a group (you know, the normal MMO way to keep people playing between updates).

[Arkine]

If they get a weapon, it might conflict with the whole weapon = class concept, and if the melee is good and thus was used for TP gain, then their bow damage will have to be nerfed or they'll be over powered or if the melee is removed and bow hits are automated then if the ARC runs out of ammo they'll be dead weight.

Then you'll have to remove ammo all together and that means pulling out a bunch of recipes, DoH books and raw materials from game, which in return will kinda if atleast bother the CRPs, not to mention that ARC isn't th only class with a form of range attack (GLAs got daggers, PUGs got chakarms or whatever that ring thing Xena uses).

Will those be automated, or stay as an ability?

I'll just trust Matsui on this.

[Rinsui]

You're sitting here, and saying with a straight face that you want to play a video game where you have to plan your individual attacks?

Really?

Welcome to a Mage's world!
...
Unless, of course, you actually expect us to melee.

[Amas]

Welcome to a Mage's world!
...
Unless, of course, you actually expect us to melee.

No, I was actually hoping mage ranged attack would stay in too. Neither mages nor ARCs should ever really be in melee range unless soloing, so the auto attack is all but worthless for them.

Then again, Matsui has always been more of a Tanaka than a Yoshida, so trusting him to have a clue is fairly dangerous.