Unplayable lag

[Raist]

It's less likely to be serverside and more likely to be along your route. That is why it improved when using a VPN--it allowed you to bypass the problematic routing policy. This has been shown extensively to be the case for Verizon lately---especially where they are peering with Level3 to get people into Montreal (they don't HAVE to use Level3--they also have peering agreements with Cogent, TATA, and their own Business Class peers directly with Ormuco as well, who is SE's ISP). Lots of people have resolved most if not all these problems by using a VPN, and not just Verizon---it is because of the routing problems getting to Montreal (and in some cases Japan as well).

Need to look at your route...likely to find signs of congestion along the way that need to be addressed. If you aren't comfortable/knowledgeable enough to run the tracert and interpret it, lean on your ISP to investigate. Give them the DNS names to the lobby servers in Canada for testing:

neolobby02.ffxiv.com
neolobby04.ffxiv.com
neolobby06.ffxiv.com

(for Japan, they use the odd numbers 01, 03, and 05 in the names)

And 10ms to the servers in Montreal? Do you live down the street? That sounds more like a ping to something local.