Imperial class?

[Enkidoh]

They already did.

(image snipped)

There's also Lightning's gunblade (her default weapon in FFXIII) the Blazefire Saber for GLA/PLD, although the gun portion is non-functional (making it the opposite of that MCH weapon which is a functional gun with a useless blade that is unused by the class wielding it), it still looks cool nonetheless:




As for an 'Imperial class', that's basically like saying you want a 'Gridanian' as a class - the Empire is a country, and in actual fact, most of it's soldiers (that is, regular grunts that make up the bulk of it's army), actually have standard player classes like GLA and THM (this is because most Garlean soldiers are actually drafted from subject nations like Ala Mhigo and Doma). It's clear what you are after is a class that simply uses a gunblade and... well... it's not actually a weapon that is as common even in the Imperial army as you might think.

Gunblades seem to actually be a quite rare weapon and are only issued to Legatee like Gaius and his Tribunes, and elite officer troops like Centurions. The regular soldiers of the Empire never use these weapons, thus making the idea of an 'Imperial class' a non-event. And besides, even when they are used, it seems a simple Protect spell can easily deflect their bullets, let alone their blades, making them far less awesome then they seem.

Really, as has been said certain gunblade type weapons already do exist for players anyway in the game, so this alone, let alone the other points mentioned, means an actual gunblade-using class is highly unlikely. May Yoshi prove me wrong though!

[Keramory]

snip

Yeah I'm aware the majority of their army is simply grunts, when I was referring to a "imperial class" it was just for a lack of a better word to describe the higher ranking officers with weapons unavailable to us currently.

I would argue though they can easily be more then just a gunblade class. Although the standard for the higher ranking officers is the gun blade, we've seen several versions of weapons that involve different technology. As the expansions come out I'm sure we will see even more far out designs then the 5 versions off the top of my head.

[Powe]

Personally, If we do get a red mage I hope we get a rapier as the sword part those things are dangerous, just look at Weiss schnne ( from RWBY)

[Alexander_Dragonfang]

Garlean Class - Riskbreaker.


As we enter the continent of Ilsabard and the fires of revolution follow against the last bastion of the now fallen garlean empire, the resistance groups have joined the ranks of the Alliance after the successfull liberation campaigns of Eorzea and Othard. Between the resistance fighters, a particular kind has risen to the task, an elite group called "Riskbreakers". These fighters use the famous gunblade weapons of the Empire, but thanks to their training in cover operations, guerrilla warfare and small tactical engagement than the larger fighter groups of the Garlean Army, the Riskbreakers are able to switch between ranged and melee combat in the blink of an eye, capable of landing shots from afar to weaken the enemy with diverse status and then closing in to deliver lightning fast cuts to their enemies.

Riskbreaker main mechanic is called Risk.

Each ranged attack builds up risk, increasing critical hit rate while reducing skills range in "ranged stance" and increasing "damage variability" in "melee stance", up to 10 stacks of risk can be built. Reducing effectively the ranged distance of the class to near melee range. After that the "stance switch" happens, and the Riskbreaker can now use all the build up Risk to release their damage dealing combos at melee range, After stacks are consumed or the Riskbreaker thinks is time to pull away, they can return to their range stance to build up again.

[EdwinLi]

My friend's dad works at nintendo and says they are!
/s

Baseless rumors are worthless.

It is just a rumor. No need to get all aggressive over a rumor that may or may not be true.

[dinnertime]

They lost their opportunity in making Machinist a Garlean Imperial-inspired job that uses gunblades.

[Felis]

if you mean something like Legatus, it is a military rank and not really a class.

[Alberel]

Yoshi said back around the launch of 2.0 that he'd like to implement a gunblade wielding job of some kind but it would have to wait until we reach Garlemald in the story. That was a long time ago now though so whether he still has any plans for that... who knows?

[Skyhound]

My friend's dad works at nintendo and says they are!
/s

Baseless rumors are worthless.

Except almost every rumor that Yoshi-p has alluded to has been true or really close to what he had hinted at. Thing about Yoshi-p is that he will earnestly look into actually accomplishing the seemingly crazy ideas he blabs about. The only issue is that the actual execution of his ideas tend vary from the original concept. DRK, NIN, MCH, Gold Saucer, Chocobo racing, and the Au Ra were all ideas that were hinted at pretty early on to be "possible" in the game; now look where we are.

If he hinted at a Gunblade job being part of whenever we go to Garlemald, it is very possible that we can see it as early as 4.0. Everyone keeps on saying "4.0 is totally Ala Mhigo", but Ala Mhigo is technically Garlean territory. HW was not just Ishgard; it included the opposing nation of Dravania too, so we could very well see Garlemald in the next expansion. There already character models for gunblades and it was revealed the Gaius was not the only one in the empire, or even the only Legatus to specialize in the discipline. So we could see a gunblade guild in capital of Garlemald or maybe the disillusioned gunblade master will defect from the empire and teach us his ways; either is really possible.