I’m going to try the game and I can’t decide exactly which class/job I want to do.  I have it narrowed down to Ninja, Bard, and/or Blue Mage or preferably a combination of the three.  I know you can have a secondary job, but I don’t know exactly how it works yet and I noticed that when you start the game, you can’t be any of the classes that I want.  So I’ll just explain what I’m looking for in a character and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.

I want to be a mix of melee and magic, preferably dual wielding.  I would like to have the best melee dps possible, while still having useful magic.  I would like to be able to solo if possible (I know this is more of a group oriented game, but think of soloability while suggesting classes).  I would prefer to have some type of healing ability, but it’s not a must.  Ideally I’d like to be a jack of all trades and be able to cast effective offensive and defensive magic, but if that’s not feasible, I’m open to all suggestions.  

Which class/job should I start as?  Are Ninjas the only job that can dual wield?  Can you mix two of the advanced jobs (ie can you be a Blue Mage/Ninja, or are you restricted to having one of the base jobs (warrior, black mage, etc) as your primary job and only one advanced job as your secondary? (if that made any sense).  Thanks in advance.

1. as to which job you should start as I guess you would like red mage since they have some decent meele and can use both black and white magic and eventually also get some redmage exclusive spells 

2. ninjas are not the only class able to dual wield but ninjas get the passive ability dual wield very early on (lvl 10) compared to say thief that cant dual wield until lvl 83.

3. you can mix any of the jobs to make any main/seconday combination you want but the support job is always caped at half the level of the main job for example if you wanted to be a NIN/THF and had your ninja at lvl 50 and theif also at 50 you would only get access to your thief abilites lvl25 and under

it is possible to solo in this game but you will level MUCH slower then if you were to group and also ninjas in FFXI are tanks you can gear them with a meele dps set but they are ment to be tanks so most of there abilites are focused on tanking

I only played the game through the first 2 expansions, but it's my understanding that not much has changed as far as classes go.  Either way, take my words with a grain of salt.  

Last I played, ninjas were indeed the only class that could dual wield.  Apparently theives also can now, according to the poster above me.  Makes sense, so thieves aren't pigeon-holed into rolling /nin as a subjob, as so many classes always were.  One of the other new jobs may be able to dual wield as well, I don't know.  

You can only choose from a few of the basic classes to begin with.  Once you reach level 30, you can go on various quests to unlock the other jobs one at a time.  It's actually a decent alternative progression system that not many other games have ever offered.  Collecting the jobs and doing the quests can be some of the most fun tasks the game has to offer.  Your sub-job level will always be half of your main job level, rounded down; and you will only have the abilities of those jobs that unlock at those respective levels.  For example, ninja learns to dual wield at level 10.  If you are leveling a warrior sub ninja (WAR/NIN), you will need to get your warrior to level 20 before he can dual wield with the level 10 ninja subjob, even if you've already leveled ninja to 75 as a main job.    

You can mix and match any jobs in the game.  Unfortunately, the combinations become pretty standardized.  People would look at you funny if you tried to be Aragorn, the Ranger/Paladin, master of the wild, kingly knight with mild healing capabilities.   

I don't know anything about blue mage, as they had just come out right when I stopped playing.  But red mage always used to be the hybrid caster class.  They would get in the melee mix and execute weapon skills for skill chains (they can wield swords), they could support with heals, they offered some of the best mana efficiency in the game, and they could execute magic bursts with their black magic spells.  Naturally, they tended to use black mage/white mage/summoner as their sub-jobs, but many also ran with ninja sub-jobs for specific tasks.  A RDM/NIN could really be a solo powerhouse, self sustaining with decent damage.  

Sounds like you want blue mage. Blue mage does get dual wield once you set certain spells. I have blu to 99 and its a pretty fun class. learning the spells will take patience.  BLU/RDM, BLU/SCH, BLU/NIN, BLU/etc, etc. They all have benefits based on the subjob. I.e blu gets a spell thats similar to ninja shadows, They can temporarily have more def than a paladin, They can solo a little bit. RDM/NIN is still better. 

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page This website should have all the info you need about the classes if you havent been there already.

Level WAR first as you will need it for BLU. Then you can unlock BLU and NIN. Level NIN using WAR as a sub. Then you can solo BLU/NIN or do group stuff BLU/WAR. Eventually you will want to level rdm as it has some nice benefits for BLU solo.

At first you will mostly use BLU/NIN for just about everything because of the dual wield trait NIN gives you subbed (it will make you swing faster). Once you hit 99 you can get Dual Wield 3 without /NIN so you can go WAR for extra damage output. /RDM is great for tanking multiple mobs at once in events like Campaign battles and such because of the dmage reduction it offers without giving up much DD. 

I pretty much only go BLU/WAR now as I have a WHM mule to follow me around and cure me. You can check out my AH profile here if you like. Feel free to send me a PM on FFXIAH or even if you're on Cerb I have a newbie friendly LS to help you out.