Why Are Melee DPS Forced Into One Job Through Gear Yet Nobody Else Is?

[Alahra]

It's probably due to "armor class." Though this game doesn't explicitly list that sort of thing the way other games do (like WoW, which has Cloth, Leather, Mail, and Plate), FFXI had a history of types of armor only being for certain jobs and so on, and FFXIV has generally maintained some degree of classification even if it's not put front and center.

As we get more melee, they will likely pair up on existing sets. Samurai (assuming it's a DPS) will likely be on DRG/Maiming gear, for instance. MNK and NIN are separate because they have a separate main stat I suppose (though I personally think they should have just left DEX on Striking gear going forward, since they palette-swap the MNK/NIN gear so often anyway). But a job like Dancer would probably use either Striking or Scouting gear, assuming it's a melee of some kind. and I'm sure with enough sleuthing one can find other FF jobs that could share gear with the current melee.

[FeliAiko]

Yes, they 'could share again' if SE felt inclined to make another short term, cost effective measure without fully compromising the NIN aesthetic (as was the case with adding DEX to i50-i110 Striking gear) but it's unlikely they're going to go back on the direction they've established for the melee classes now. Plus as another person mentioned, this also sets it up for potential future melee classes to share one of the 3 sets, without compromising their respective theme, such as Samurai (Maiming) or Dancer (Striking/Scouting).

[Ultimatecalibur]

We've had a few rounds (3?) of job-specific gear up to this point- Artifact, Myth, and Esoterics gear. This thread is not about those gear sets.

Instead, I wonder why melee DPS gear sets are the only ones without any overlap when every other gear set can be used for at least 2 jobs.

Its mostly because of aesthetics and lack of multiple melee dps that use the same aesthetics. My copy of the 2nd Artbook "Art of Ishgard -Stone & Steel-" shows that they divide currently gear into 7 types: Tank, Mail, Range, Rogue, Melee, Caster and Healer. Currently only Dragoon is the only user of Mail, Monk of Melee and Ninja of Rogue.

See the disparity? An example of issues this creates: I have a friend that has mained Bard since he started playing. Recently, his raid group decided they would benefit more from a Mechanist instead and he found out that he was even better in that role! Yet, if I tried to make a switch like that after a few weeks, I'd be out of luck.

If additional DPS jobs are added, won't this just get worse?

Additional DPS jobs should actually help things. All that is needed to balance things out is the introduction of 3 new jobs: one Mail, one Melee and one Rogue.

Samurai could easily be a Str based "Mail" DpS like Dragoon.
Red Mage could work well as a Dex based "Rogue" DpS.
Beast Master could work well as a Str based "Melee" DpS.