I think they might actually go the route of Arcanist as far as that description goes. If you've seen them in the various quests, they have these staff things they carry around that looks like you could shoot magic out of them or something. Pair that with debuffing and they could fit that mold well.

I don't think SE would want to butcher an iconic class liked Red Mage by limiting it to a ranged class only. Even though that's how I primarily played it in FF11, that's just one style of play, and I know many others who played it just as well while fighting in the front and doing their magic stuffs.