Quote Originally Posted by Welsper59 View Post
Honestly, Geomancer (in reference to your mention of an elemental tank) would work a lot more plausibly than BST. If DRK in XIV can be a tank, despite traditionally being very low on defensive stats, probably no reason a Geomancer couldn't if they argued a manipulation of the elements to act as magical armor or whatever, and strengthening themselves through INT (since the other stats are kinda overly spoken for) and GEO is typically light armor. BST, being that its core playstyle is through the active use of pets (and a wide assortment of them), would be too difficult to really get to work under an actual tank role (and not just something akin to Titan Egi). Melee ranged would be a little too unusual for this games party setup. They'd essentially be BRD with different animation, afterall.
Yes, melee range is rather strange to me too. Like The Elementalists in GW2 were able to dual wield daggers, and it was still ranged damage mostly. It is strange, but GW2 was very good at their implementation, and thoughts on if it could be applied in this game intrigue me too. To respond about Geomancer, I'd honestly refrain from considering a class that always typically used cloth gear, as was the case with Geomancers usually. It was one reason I thought of something like Ruin Fencer. As far as my melee weapon wielding ranged class, I was considering something magical, like the Red Mage.