Euphrosyne feels a bit lacking

[DiaDeem]

Yeah, me too. I've been playing for slightly over a year now. So far as I can tell, I've hit my skill ceiling and it is, sadly, very low - I've tried and tried and tried but I just don't seem able to either react to mechanics quickly enough and never actually remember the patterns. More often that not I just end up confused and therefore dead.
And I've followed advice, watched guides etc - none of which helps. Video guides are no help as I don't have the reaction speed of the person in the video. Written guides don't help much as I can't apply what was written into my gameplay. Practice? Yeah, definitely do that but again, my reaction speed lets me down.

Something you can try to do is ask a friend who knows safe zones if you can mark them with a Square of Safety which is one of the markers you can have, and just follow them as best as you can. Something you can try too, is see who's remained alive for a while, select them and pick Focus Target. You can do that with any player as only you will see the constant marker above them, and then you can follow them around. I've done this before sometimes. And as general advice (that worked for me) try to think of XIV as a dance you have to learn. Most fights are choreographed, so you can learn the dance by following friend or Focus Targeted player. Then you can start gaining more confidence next time you're participating in the content.

Best of luck!