Ranger?

[Renathras]

The likely answer is that it's not. In the same way that I wouldn't expect Thief to come to FF14 because Rogue is already a class, I don't expect Ranger to come to FF14 because Archer is already a class. Both are classes that could have been their own thing all the way to level cap, but they got absorbed into a different class and thus never got to reach that potential.

I pretty much agreed with this idea...
...until EU Fanfest where Viper was introduced.

Now I'm not so sure.

I highly doubt there will be a "can use bows and guns" business. It will have one weapon type, just like everyone else does, with the RARE gag/exception (like PLD having a pickaxe from the Dwarves and WAR having a couple hammers here and there).

Thing is, I'm not sure what type of weapon it would have. Shortbow with some extra gameplay based around traps and stuff? Maybe, but ARC/BRD has a lot of those already. Longbow? Same story.

It could have a crossbow, and it WOULD be nice to see a crossbow Job added to the game, probably with a more medieval themed expansion setting, but is that what people think of when they think of Rangers? Crossbows? Maybe the little hand held, light and short range ones, but not a medium or heavy one. Maybe it could use a shortbow and shortsword and to the RDM thing, going back and forth between the two, or some kind of combination thing.

The thing is, it needs to be distinct ENOUGH from existing Jobs. NIN gets a lot of crazy long daggers, but they're still very obviously supposed to be daggers/knives/short swords as opposed to PLD's long swords/bastard swords, or DRK's claymores. So NIN's daggers are contrasted well enough by Viper, which has both long swords (the base form of them is a long sword, not a short sword) and they further combine into a dual-bladed sword/staff/thief sword/swallow. Collectively, those make it unique from both NIN (daggers/short swords), PLD (long sword/bastard sword + shield), and RDM (rapier/tuck + focus).

So it's less that Ranger is impossible and more (1) what weapon(s) would it use to stay distinct from other Jobs and (2) what playstyle/mechanics/types of abilities would fit the aesthetic.

I do suspect if they added it, it would be less Archer and more Melee/close combat with ranged option/phase, though. But at this point...they could do just about anything and it wouldn't surprise me, considering what they've done lately and the way they've pulled some Jobs out of nowhere.

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EDIT:

What you're saying doesn't track, so I'm guessing you may not be aware of the history of this class. Initially, Arcanist only became Summoner. Later on, Scholar was added.

Wait, this I have to ask...was this EVER true?

In 1.X, Arcanist was one of the classes that didn't make it into the game. So neither did Summoner (or Scholar) when they later added Jobs in patch...1.18? 1.20? Whenever that was.

In 2.0, ARR, they remade the game and carried over all but one of the original game's classes (the one dropped was the shield wielder - and yes, that...that was a thing) and they added Arcanist, but with books instead of the arcane staff...thing...they were originally planned to have (look at Urianger's 1.X model sometime to see it, since that's what he was equipped with; early on, before the game was headed for doom, they had planned out things they wanted to add and some dataminers found stuff, but Arcanist was semi-complete and had a description sounding kinda like WoW Shaman in that they could set down these things like Shaman Totems that they'd use for different effects and abilities).

...but that was all scrapped and, for whatever reason, they didn't think only having 7 classes/Jobs would work, not to mention only WHM as a healer (THM had some weird abilities in 1.X that could do some healing, but when Jobs were added, it was just 2x WHM per party of 8). So they added two more Jobs. But for whatever reason (dev time? Who knows), they didn't add two more classes, only the one, Arcanist, so SMN and SCH both had to come from it.

I'm pretty sure SCH was added in 2.0, the same time SMN and ACN were. While ROG/NIN were planned (apparently) to be added and launched with 2.0, they didn't make it, which is why it was released with 2.4 instead, the only time a Job has ever been added min-expansion, possibly because they were mostly done with it but couldn't quite get it in in 2.0 itself.

So I'm PRETTY sure SCH was added at the same time as ACN and SMN.

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I do agree that the devs complained this was a problem (though personally, I love that they share a base class and wish other Jobs did more often; for years I've wished WHM and GEO both split from CNJ so I'd get another two-for-one deal ), but devs think it's harder to balance since if you buff, say, Ruin for SMN (if it's doing too little damage), it also buffs SCH (so it's now doing too much), so they had to be more careful with what abilities they tweaked for balance issues. Honestly, I don't think that was as big a problem as it was made out to be, but...it is what it is, so they'll probably never do it again.

I personally THINK this was more an ARR/HW thing and less an issue now that so many things in Jobs these days are Job actions (not class that would be shared - classes get no abilities passed level 50) and Traits. So it wouldn't be THAT hard to split a class into two Jobs and have all the stuff you balance around being in the Job-exclusive abilities and traits. For example, Gladiator could easily split into a Melee DPS on one side and sword and board Tank on the other, with the defensive CDs and holy spells all being PLD Job abilities/Traits while the "Bloodsander" or whatever had DPS actions instead, and then tuning would be based on those things.

So I honestly think that's a relic of the ARR/HW era...but it caused the devs ENOUGH problems they won't likely ever do it again.

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Again, look to Viper. If they add Ranger, it'd be like that - it's own Job that starts at <expansion_levelcap - 20> and do it that way as an entirely new thing, I'd think.