Most Escha-Zi'tah T1s are actually quite doable in starter gear for smaller groups (2-4 ppl) using tank+healer trusts and ranged jobs to avoid aoe and TP feed issues. I've run sparks geared mages thru before as a non-master BST to provide the sc, and we actually made it thru all of T1 and T2 w/ no deaths other than a one of my own (due to player error ^^;; not difficulty). Try to find one helpful BST or SCH and you should be able to trio your way thru with a bit of practice. They only cost about 6k/pop using fishkabobs from Curio, so losses on learning runs don't make you wince at least. XD