I will admit up front to not having read the pages between 3 and 13, so my apologies if this repeats in any way.

I am not for renaming the classes that we have currently, but the term ‘prestige class’ (which I believe is back from my D&D tabletop days and I think KotOR has something similar) keeps coming to mind.

In FFXI, I was happily situated as a White Mage. I loved being one, and in XIV I am running around as a Conjuror. Since I see the Conjuror roll very similar to a red mage, I don’t think it would be too far fetched to add the ability to specialize in a magic type.

I also think that the job/subjob mechanics of FFXI should stay there, and not migrate to this game. As much as I am for some improvements that mirror how things happened in XI, I do not want this game to become a revamped version of it. I really love the armory system and could see a specialization system work nicely with it.

Examples of how it could work

You start as a Conjuror and, say, at level 30, you have the option of running a guest to specialize in healing/buffing magic. You are now a Conjuror, with a specialization in white magic.

You could also add that at level 50, you have the option of running another quest to specialize in attack magic. You can now specialize in black magic.
And with specializations you get magic specific to that combination.

So how would you distinguish between specializations? I think one item should represent the specialization (a pendent or something small). But that is my take.