Quote Originally Posted by Townowi View Post
I acknowledge gear counts for something. However I don't think gearing contributes to my issues much, I run the class quest armor and with some Ironwork accessories and main weapon (total I-lvl as of this writing: 100).
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. Ideally you either keep up with this gear or you purchase and augment Ironworks gear which will take you through to midway through Heavensward.

It doesn't matter how long you spend learning high-tier fights in post-ARR because they will not improve your stats one bit - except perhaps from picking up gear in the later Coils. But you'd need to gear up to survive those too.