Bows and arrows... without melee weaponsFollow

From what I have seen about Archer on the official website. There is nothing listed about using melee weapons with the archer. In FFXI it was a bit awkward seeing a ranger holding two daggers that magically disappear just as he uses his ranged attack. I think this will make the Archers in FFXIV much better looking. It does make me wonder if the Archers are going to be crippled in soloing because the lack of close ranged attacks.

The possibility of no use of melee weapons at all is what is holding me back from making archer my main. Not necessarily for gimped soloing ability, because in addition to cross class abilities as previously mentioned you also have "Shadowbind" which would allow you to keep enemies at bay while barraging them with arrows, but rather I like the idea of mixing it up a bit and not being entirely dependent on ranged weapons.

OP, I just got done watching a video of an Archer in Beta and the "magically disappearing melee weapons" of FFXI old are out. The animation when you shoot in FFXIV looks absolutely amazing! You actually have a quiver full of arrows strapped to your back; you are holding your bow the entire time; just before you take aim, you reach over your shoulder and grab an arrow from the quiver; knock it; loose it. It looks super hype.

And to anybody else that is thinking that Archer's won't be able to equip any other weapons, you are sort of right. To learn "Archer skills and abilities," you will have to be using a bow (or perhaps generalized "ranged weapon") but ANY character can equip any weapon - it changes your class, though. Lots of videos on people changing equips on the fly to be able to do different things while grinding. Check 'em out. =)

Limsa Lominsa's storyline has a heavy emphasis on gun-usage, and there are already many models of guns / animations created, plus the Roegaydn using it in the first CS. Plus some shops with guns behind the stalls (but don't sell them yet). So I can gaurantee you Musketeer will exist, probably not soon after release since all the groundwork is already in place.

Anyway, I've been soloing on archer and not having a melee weapon doesn't really matter, point-blank shots don't seem to be any weaker, and if they are, it's not enough to really cripple you.