Quote Originally Posted by Underdog2204 View Post
I'm genuinely shocked people are surprised by this...
I don't think it's surprise so much as very interesting. This decision helps to illustrate the direction that SE intends to take RDM in XIV. Given that RDM is historically almost entirely defined by using a very hybridised fighting style, I am personally looking for any indication to see how SE intends to combine that with XIV's incredibly rigid role boundaries.

SE casually placing RDM into the same category as BLM for equipment doesn't tell us much, but it implies that a lot of RDM's hybrid character is going to be stripped away. We've already seen that SE doesn't really care about maintaining the image of a historically established job beyond the most superficial aspects (look at "SMN"); this choice is an indication that RDM may be going in the same direction.

I think that's why people are making a big deal out of this. If SE announced that a dedicated back-line nuking job was going to be on INT gear, it wouldn't be very exciting - very much a "Water is wet" situation. Because it's RDM, with the disparity between its historical nature and XIV's rigidity being somewhat controversial, I personally think it's very much worth talking about.