DPS, progressing story, level up

Duty Finder doesn't seem to favor DPS. If my (and others) experiences mean anything, that means nearly endless waiting. If I'm a lvl 18 archanist, is it okay to switch over to a different style and do quests for it? I'm not sure if I switch to something lower level (or to a tank or healing style), I won't get notified if a party gets found.

I'm not very thrilled on the idea of depending on other players to get through the story. That's what's been keeping things moving for me. So when I have to wait with the duty finder (and if I have to stick with one style), I'll have no idea what to do. My character's level is higher than the available levequests. And as I said, I don't know if switching styles or crafting will not let me know if a party is available.

You can switch to another class (war/magic/crafting) when waiting for the DF and then switch back when the window pops. You will have to switch back to class you queued under to accept, so if you have not yet be sure to make gear sets so you can switch quickly. Depending on your server/data center, selecting all languages in settings may speed up your queue times.

Yes you can switch to other classes and work on other things while you wait for a queue when the commence notifcation pops it will tell you that you need to change your class to what you registered for the dungeon with

edit: since that was already mentioned I will also add that make sure you don't have an enemies aggro if you do you will not be able to switch until you lose it

If you're switched, it will notify you when a party is found. However, you can't join a party (including having a chocobo companion out) without dropping from the queue.

Being honest, getting though the set instance stuff you have to run is a lot easier if you que as healer or tank. This has always been the case simply because less people want to play those roles.

Leveling a dps and a healing/tank spec at the same time isn't too hard. If you do the daily low level roulette with your tank/heals it should keep up pretty close to the level of your dps if you have that class focus on the actual quests. I levelled up Conjurer and Archer at the same time this way.

The reality will be that a lot of the story involves completing instances. This has its good and bad points. Your best bet if your wanting to avoid queues is to use a class that has short queues or find some friends or a FC that is willing to give you a hand when you hit those bits. For what its worth, FF14's story is very well done and quite epic and I think the story instance elements contribute to that a great deal.