| Re: Dilemma for potential future FFXI player... You say that you don't really wish to play a healer again. In that case, you might find Summoner to be a bit of a struggle. Not because of the abilities in general, but because players have pretty much pigeon-holed the class to be an extra healer class.
Let me explain: White Mage is an extremely useful job. People want WHMs for things, so naturally, lots of people levelled White Mage. However, in my opinion based on my views on my server, a good majority of the people who were interested in levelling WHM already have it to either 75, or 37 (the highest subjob level you can have), and don't wish to touch it again.
Thus, seeing a general lack of healers, Players made do with other classes. Of course, RDMs are part white mage already, so they can be easily assimilated, Bards, seen as pure-support, were pretty much forced to sub Whitemage, but hey what have we here? A job with lots of MP? Let's put that pool to work! Sub Whitemage please! (They say)
It's sad, but it is true. My friend struggled with this a LOT, because he refused to be the main healer for his parties (Backup was okay), but the majority of invites came because parties lacked main healers. He still got it to 75 somehow, but he's since joined the Black Mage legion and hasn't looked back, except to solo farm every now and again.
Anyway, I'm not trying to discourage you, but know that oftentimes, parties won't want to let you keep your summon out to normal attack, but instead restrict your casting to Cures, and the once-a-minute special abilities of the summons. It is possible though (My friend -did- get to 75 insisting, and proving, that he could be a valuable damage dealer).
As for overplayed/underplayed...
Ninja is definitely one of the most overplayed jobs. Yes it's useful, yes, it makes things 'easier,' but yeah, it shouldn't be the end-all job for everything.
As for underplayed, unfortunately, the most hard-to-find jobs day-by-day are most often the healer or support characters, your Redmages and Bards, and Whitemages. Blackmage can be a rarity as well. There's *almost* never a lack of melee characters seeking. Dragoon is probably the melee class that shows up least, despite being a useful and powerful job. Puppetmaster also seems to have quickly fallen out of favor with people, so there's that as well.
Seriously, don't worry about Race when choosing jobs. Pick a character that you like the look of, and compensate with gear. If Galka can be mages (my friend is 75 in Summoner and in Blackmage), and TaruTaru can be Paladins, then you can be anything.  Wevrain - Shiva | 
Gave me a ton of useful info.
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