Reflections on the "Majority Opinion"

The majority of people who play bard are part-timers who don't like the job or enjoy playing it. These are also the people who form popular opinion inside the game. Although the loosely-confederated "bard community" of the popular FFXI forums is most often made up of people who like and enjoy the job, that doesn't keep the negative element from expressing their opinions.

Someone who doesn't enjoy bard may prefer to play in a different way from those people who, like myself, prefer to play bard over any other job.

Conclusion:
This is especially true when deciding what subjob to use in merit parties. Part-time bards or people who most often play melee jobs tend to prefer using /NIN and Utsusemi. I've spoken with many career bards -- or people who most often play mage jobs -- who are relieved to discover that /RDM is a legitimate and viable alternative to /NIN.

Popular opinion is so set against a /MAGE in a merit party that I had a WHM fuss at me to change support jobs while I was pulling chain 100+. Meanwhile, the same WHM was perfectly okay with the COR/WHM leech in the pt who did nothing but use dice rolls. Delightful.