Extend Classes into full Jobs?

[RiceisNice]

I just had to respond to this...
One of the Sangam literature works, the Kallaadam, contains a story as to how the first yaaḻ harp was created from a bow.
Allen a dale was a wondering Minstrel (depicted as playing a Harp) who in Robin Hood legend became part of Hood's Merry Men. He is cited as inspiration for D&D Bards, and D&D inspired the original Final Fantasy.
Also in the Hobbit, the character named Bard is an Archer. Mythril is from Tolkien Mythology as well.
So yeah...I care about lore too, and there exists plenty of inspirational lore to support Bards to be Archers.

The problem I have with the bard and archer thing (and by the same extent, gladiator and paladin) is that the job aspect of it seems incredibly unrepresented, or has very little presence.

Archers are already capable of singing and using a harp (Swiftsong) before ever advancing to a bard. It doesn't help that the 3 songs you gain from bard use the same animation for the cast... or the fact you get rain of death as a job ability when it really seems more like an archer ability. This ultimately dips into redundancy. We're dipping into the territory that we're just bards by name...heck we can't even use the Artemis Bow as both a weapon and the harp for songs (which imo, would be really nice and justify the pre 2.4 relic quest grind a bit more).

As for paladin...the two oaths match what the what the job does; Warrior has defiance to defy and tame their inner beast, represented by wrath stacks and their following abilities). Paladins swear an oath (being an elite guard of the sultana) to hit things with their sword or actually use their shield to protect. But its two abilities (and to this date I'm still wondering why shield oats is level 40 considering GLD's innate mediocre aggro generation) that take out of the job skill pool, and neither do the rest of their abilities really cover the whole paladin thing imo well too.

...that and I personally dislike the paladin questline compared to the other jobs. Lack of feels being tugged and more facepalm where I'd usually see in slyph quests.

But that's just me nit picking on the aesthetics of how the jobs are presented. I personally prefer a functioning gameplay (which they do have) above all else, and aesthetics second. Doesn't mean I still wouldn't want these changes or have ranger/some other physical ranged dps class...