I'm pretty sure the design intention was to lock some part of the kit behind a close-range move. It seems like every other Ranged class has something like this, Bard can only use his bind when 10y away from someone (Otherwise his whole kit screams "Stay away from me!" considering everything needs distance to increase potency), Summoner needs to dash in to get his big-boy Ifrit hits, Red Mage needs to sword, Dancers (I have no Idea, I haven't even set my Dancer bar yet.) And Black Mage needs to Burst to get that extra recuperate shield (And I don't know about you but my typical way of doing that is right after Manipulation into an enemy, can't waste a 12k potency hit just to get a silly shield.)

So I get it, I'm supposed to have a move that makes me close the distance. Can't we just have that be Scatter Gun? Or maybe Scatter Gun is not enough of the kit locked behind closing the distance, but if you also lock the machinery I'm down 3 of my 6 buttons if I don't get into the angry mob of people wanting to kill me. I can't use Scatter Gun (Because obviously), I can't use Bioblaster and therefore I can't use Analysis because locking machinery means also locking Analysis as a whole. So that leaves me spamming Blast Charge in the HOPES I get a well-timed Overheat window to throw Wildfire and MAYBE the target will be around some of his friend to cause some damage that would actually matter. Oh, and ofc, hope that people MIGHT stumble into my tiny, tiny Bishop so I can get that 10% mark.

None of our Kit has even something resemble a shield unless I bunk down under my Bishop, so why lock half my stuff behind closing the melee distance? Is that the Idea? That I'm supposed to always engage people at melee range while under Bishop?