Skill level necessary to clear HW MSQ content

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That is absolutely contributing to your issues, if not being the entire cause of them.

i90 class-quest armour is well below your expected minimum for Heavensward.

Your MSQ quests will be rewarding you with i115 HQ gear. This is your bare minimum starter level for equipment.

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ilvl 90-100 is perfectly fine when starting HW content. It is just barely enough for the top-level ARR content. (Minimum ilvl to be able to even enter the most difficult ARR content is i90)

As noted you will get i115 HQ gear as quest rewards from the early quests in HW, so you are obviously not expected to have better than that when starting.
As you get further into HW content you will need to upgrade your gear though. By the time you do the level 51 MSQ dungeon you should preferrably have at least i115 gear.

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Originally Posted by Townowi

Right now I am contemplating halting the MSQ altogether and just focus on getting EX primals done synced as well as the Coil (especially savage, from which I will get the greatest skill gains, especially if done synced). Only once I can get that stuff done with any consistency may I resume the MSQ.

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If you are able to clear synced Coils Savage consistently, the later MSQ will be trivial childs play in comparison. Some parts of Coils as well as all EX primals are harder than any of the MSQ-required content.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

As noted you will get i115 HQ gear as quest rewards from the early quests in HW, so you are obviously not expected to have better than that when starting.

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You'll be getting the first key pieces of it before you ever step foot outside of Ishgard, though.

As for where I stand in the MSQ now, I am about 1/4 of the way through the post-Pretorium interludes, and I didn't run Leviathan yet. I still have some time to gear up but even if I got appropriate gear, skill becomes a bottleneck. And even if I tried to gear on the side for the remaining 3/4 of the interludes, the skill barrier will become that much more obvious then.

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Originally Posted by Townowi

Right now I am contemplating halting the MSQ altogether and just focus on getting EX primals done synced as well as the Coil (especially savage, from which I will get the greatest skill gains, especially if done synced). Only once I can get that stuff done with any consistency may I resume the MSQ.

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That's pretty backwards. MSQ is designed to be accessible while raids and EX primals are designed to be hard, optional content. You should be using MSQ and easier content to prepare for EXs and raids, not the other way around.

As concerned as I am about skill, I may be asking about what playing skills actually carry over from a fight at a given level to another fight at a different level in this game. My assumption was that the greatest gains were made in the hardest content, and the "portable" portion of the gains (i.e. the skills that can be carried over across fights) was big enough to make this training strategy work. Of course, there is a "fight-specific" portion that cannot be carried over to another fight.

It's very much not necessary. Not even Shadowbringers is as difficult as EX and Savage fights. I just looked over your gear, and I 100% know why you're having trouble. You need to SERIOUSLY learn how to gear yourself properly.

1: You're still a bit low ilvl for HW. HW starts more around 110-115. While you can hop in earlier, you're going to have a rougher time of it.

2: Your main armor is all on the lower end. Your average ilvl is just an average of the ilvl of all your pieces, and doesn't consider that your accessories give far less stats than your main gear.

3: YOU HAVE THE WRONG ACCESSORIES. You're a summoner, a "caster" role. Most of your accessories are HEALING. Those do NOTHING for you. If a piece does not have INT on it, you should not be wearing it.

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Originally Posted by Townowi

As concerned as I am about skill, I may be asking about what playing skills actually carry over from a fight at a given level to another fight at a different level in this game. My assumption was that the greatest gains were made in the hardest content, and the "portable" portion of the gains (i.e. the skills that can be carried over across fights) was big enough to make this training strategy work. Of course, there is a "fight-specific" portion that cannot be carried over to another fight.

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As someone already mentioned, your gear is not adequate to the task and that is the main source of your woe. You can be a top notch player but if you're undergeared, a poke from the boss will spell your doom. At that point skill isn't a factor.

As far as your actual 'skills' go, you can look up rotations for 50/60/70 and 80 level content but since so much was changed for Shadowbringers, the lower level rotations my be a little different now. My overall advice for SMN, which is what it looks like you're playing, is to keep up your Damage over Time skills (miasma and bio) and spread them with bane. DoT is a significant portion of your damage for this class. Also make sure you have the right pet summoned for the right occasion (generally Ifrit for bosses and Garuda for mobs if memory serves).

I would run whatever low level roulettes give the best Poetics tome payouts and get you a set of the Iron Works gear in Mor Dhona. Or you can splurge on a 115 crafted set (but make sure you get HQ quality). But honestly improving your gear will fix a lot of the issue you're having.

You keep saying "skill," but I derped through this game as SMN and didn't have any idea how to play it until I hit cap (70 at the time).
The fact that you're interested in improving and doing research on how to play better already puts you way ahead of where I was. You can do it.

Also, maybe I just missed it, but you never told us what part(s) of MSQ you were finding so difficult.

I'm not actually maining SMN but I do acknowledge that, while picking ACN for a starting class may have been a boon to level, at lv50 it becomes a nightmare to gear. Just that I prioritized SCH over SMN for accessories at the onset because I intended to use SCH in the group content the MSQ requires of me (and I'd use SCH as well if I decide to just forgo the MSQ and go the route of mastering EX trials and BCoB in both difficulties before hitting HW MSQ) and keep SMN for the solo portion.

It's still early-ish, and I haven't run Leviathan yet (but Leviathan is next), so I still have time to address gearing before going into HW. And, given my history of messing up mechanics in key MSQ fights (Ifrit HM, Titan HM and Thornmarch) it's a safe bet that I really need to shore up that portion of what I called "skill". In fact I may wish to revisit these MSQ fights before tackling Leviathan until I master all three of these, and even run their EX once I have made some gearing progress.