Exactly how hard is Dragoon?

[Elkanah]

This is my concern, even for my own learning.

I don't even think it's possible here, but in other games if there's something that doesn't trigger the GCD, I'd macro it to another ability to auto fire it on CD. That's how much I dislike having to deal with them. I can't reach anything past 6 on my keyboard easily, and I can't use an MMO mouse. So I'm limited to about 12 hotkeys unless I figure something out.

Have you considered playing with a controller (either an Xbox or playstation controller) on your PC? The Xbox controllers (or mostly all controllers of various brands) tend to be useable on PC. A lot of players (myself included) play on PC with controller, as well as Keyboard and Mouse (depending on whether I feel like being lazy or not-- but still want to do the best optimal dps at the time on said configuration).

If either of you aren't comfortable with KBM setups (and have played a lot of games with a controller on a console), this might be the way to go to play jobs in ffxiv. Especially starting out!

On a typical layout for a controller:

Your actions of skills used will be on the D-pad (directional pad located on left side of controller)
And the other set will be on your right side (4 buttons on the controller)

Your movement will be the left thumbstick/joystick (on a keyboard, this is usually WASD)
Your camera movement (up, down, left, right) will be on your right thumbstick/joystick

Left bumper (above the left trigger on controller) will be your shift button to allow you to shift through various hotbars (depending on how you want to set things up, or how many tab bars you want at one time)

And right bumper (above your right trigger on the controller) will be your auto run button (you can press RB once again to cancel the auto run feature), or move your joystick different directions to stop your character movement as well