Gunbreaker class fantasy?

[Fingerhut]

Since I don't know anything about FF lore:

what is the concept for Gunbreaker?
The other 3 tanks have a relatively consistent concept throughout their skillsets. Paladin is somewhat of a royal guardian angel, Warrior is the classical barbarian and Dark Knight has it's dark magic.
So far (not knowing the story behinde the class) Gunbreaker has a random skill set and I can't realy see a consistency in the skills and animations. It is like a mix between Paladin and Machinist.
What is the class fantasy of Gunbreaker?

[Kaedan]

We don''t really know the details, but we can make an educated guess based off the lore on the Shadowbringers site and what we know about FF8.

What we do know is that the Gunbreaker job started off as a "Queen's Guard/Elite" position. Basically the elite guards/soldiers of the Queen of the Hrothgar. Not unlike how PLDs are the elite guards of the Sultanate in Ul'dah.

The Gunblade was likely developed as an answer to the occupation of Garlemald.

The skillset of Gunblade isn't really random at all. Their main abilities are all "fierce" sounding abilities. Gnashing Fang, Savage Claw, Wicked Talon, Ready to Rip/Tear/Gouge. The image is a very "beastly" one... which makes sense since it was developed by Hrothgar.

At the same time, the Hrothgar (or at least Helion Hrothgar) are stupidly loyal to the Queen. So the "Heart" skills make sense as well, and harken a bit back to the "Lionheart" of FF8. They have a deeply ingrained feeling of wanting to protect.

That's all I got for now, I might add more later.

[Hierro]

When you play FF8, you notice there's a theme of timing. Squall's attacks are enhanced when you press the trigger buttons at the right time, and his limit breaks revolve around pressing buttons during time windows. Dissidia kind of develops this further by dubbing Squall's character archetype as the combo king, and his kit excels at racking up big points through said combos.

So, there's the idea that the gunblade first and foremost revolves around stringing attacks together, and we see this pronounced in the cartridge gnashing fang combo with continuation. That's pretty much all you need to know as far as source material goes.

[Lambdafish]

It's all about combos and burst. Continuation and the skills it interacts with is exactly this fantasy, and should feel like squall's limit break in FF8.

As for visuals, it seems to be more offense like WAR, but with fast, heavy hitting relentlessness, giving it (to me at least) a very "lone swordsman" vibe. I expect it to feel somewhat like MCH in the same way that SAM and NIN feel similar in some aspects, considering MCH and GNB are of similar origin too.

[Lyth]

We'll have a much better idea in a few days, since most of the Gunbreaker job lore is going to come out of a questline from 60-80. We'll also probably get a better idea once Encyclopedia Eorzea Vol. 3 comes out.

As Kaedan pointed out, Gunbreakers seem tied to the Hrothgar, who live in a matriarchal society centred around Queen Gunnhildr. Gunbreakers themselves form the Queen's Royal Guard (hence the name behind their enmity stance).

How this pans out from a player perspective is going to depend on how the Hrothgar gunblade techniques get passed on to the player character. For example, the original "Sultansworn" Paladins swear oaths to protect the Sultanate, but the player gets trained as a 'Free Paladin', whose oaths are to the people of Eorzea rather than any one nation.

It's also going to depend on how much inspiration they draw on from Final Fantasy 8. Without going too much into it, the running motif in FF8 is this theme of a knight (i.e. the gunblade user) and the sorceress whom he protects from the people who have ostracised her because of her power. FF8 is also centrally a love story, so it's also less about placing yourself in service to a cause than it is placing yourself in service to a specific person.

The other thing that we have to go on is Thancred. As is implied in the promotional material, Thancred seems to have switched jobs from Rogue to Gunbreaker. He's also seen with Mini-filia in tow as his ward. Is this supposed to play off of the 'knight/sorceress' dynamic from FF8? Either way, as a non-Hrothgar Gunbreaker, his story is probably going to give us a better idea of what we, as the players, are supposed to be when taking on the job.

As for the combat, the official site describes Gunblades as combining a sword with a firing mechanism that uses aetherically-imbued cartridges. Essentially, you hit something with it, and then pull the trigger to land a second hit. Thancred's scene from the Shadowbringers trailer captures it pretty well. It's about darting into combat and launching a flurry of sword strikes and explosions.

And now that I think about it, while Save the Queen is my favourite named sword in the series and I still want to see at least one iconically named Greatsword relic (for the weapon type with the greatest number of named legendary weapons in the series, this game is still yet to do us justice), I could see it as the final form of a Gunblade relic, especially in light of the above lore points.

I'll leave you with this, for reference. I'd still recommend either playing the game yourself or watching a condensed playthrough if you don't have time, but you can compare it to the Shadowbringers trailer and get a sense of the flavour.
Final Fantasy 8 Opening Cutscene

[Lambdafish]

I'll leave you with this, for reference. I'd still recommend either playing the game yourself or watching a condensed playthrough if you don't have time, but you can compare it to the Shadowbringers trailer and get a sense of the flavour.
Final Fantasy 8 Opening Cutscene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eXRV0naY-E

This video too, which shows off how Squall's limit break works, is also a very good reference.

[Valic]

Gunbreaker's "fantasy" is basically just the fact it's got a sword with a barrel on it that interacts in a unique way. From FF8, it was apparently rare to have gunblade users because of how unique it was to hold, how you swing it, etc.... Realistically, it's pretty awkward to actually use compared to say the gunblades the garleans use. All of the jobs in this game are ripped from a final fantasy series in one way or another. DRK being Cecil, PLD likely the warrior of light from FF1, etc... Mechanic wise, it follows the same formula of Squall's gunblade needing to press the trigger as you swing the blade.In FF14's mechanics, they did that same idea but instead made it so when you use a skill, you trigger follows up combos to them in such a way that it feels like you're triggering the ability. As far as lore goes, I know they're based around the H'rothgar using them as apart of their lore for being knights/guards of their queen and etc... So I'm expecting GNB's story to involve being a mercenary of some sort just like how you are one in FF8 or becoming an elite tasked with using a very unique weapon that takes a very specific mastery to properly wield.

The consistency in it's skillset is that it's a blade that can ignite an explosion on contact. Anything else comes from FF8's limit breaks or was made on the spot to help it be a tank like all of it's mitigation buffs with the hexagons and etc.

[Daralii]

We'll have a much better idea in a few days, since most of the Gunbreaker job lore is going to come out of a questline from 60-80. We'll also probably get a better idea once Encyclopedia Eorzea Vol. 3 comes out.

As Kaedan pointed out, Gunbreakers seem tied to the Hrothgar, who live in a matriarchal society centred around Queen Gunnhildr. Gunbreakers themselves form the Queen's Royal Guard (hence the name behind their enmity stance).

Minor nitpicking: Gunnhildr is described as an ancient queen in the Hrothgar blurb on the promotional site, and the Gunbreaker blurb says that they've "Passed on the art of the gunblade from one generation to the next." Their society's definitively stated to be a matriarchy(Eorzean scholars called the loyalists Helions because "The people's lives all but revolved around their queen's needs, as planets circle the sun."), but the era of Gunnhildr's Blades is long gone.