If your new to a dungeon.

[Clavaat]

A lot of the early dungeons in this game are fairly self-explanatory, and actually give you clues to how fights will work later. For example, interacting with the water bubbles on the final boss in Sastasha prevents adds from appearing. This mechanic appears in several places later in the game, or something similar to it. Aurum Vale has almost the exact same boss appear in Halatali HM, so even without a guide, you knew what was going to happen. If you remember several mechanics from Ultima, you will know what to do in a few of the phases of Ultima HM, albeit to a less forgiving extent.

If you've ever seen Egoraptor's Sequilitis series, particularly on Megaman X, this kind of system comes to mind. You may learn best through the gameplay, not someone telling you what to do.

Also, as stated before, guides, both video and written can be incredibly unreliable. They will explain the mechanics once and how they dealt with it, and not offer alternatives, or they will not update their content when a new idea comes up, so you have to cross-reference dates and information. This has been happening to me frequently with T5, as everyone seems to have done it a different way, and do not explain the mechanics well. "Do this." is much less helpful than "Do this because this can happen." Depending on your group, there is not 1 end all be all strategy that will get you a clear.

[vanityobscene]

A lot of the early dungeons in this game are fairly self-explanatory, and actually give you clues to how fights will work later. For example, interacting with the water bubbles on the final boss in Sastasha prevents adds from appearing. This mechanic appears in several places later in the game, or something similar to it. Aurum Vale has almost the exact same boss appear in Halatali HM, so even without a guide, you knew what was going to happen. If you remember several mechanics from Ultima, you will know what to do in a few of the phases of Ultima HM, albeit to a less forgiving extent.

If you've ever seen Egoraptor's Sequilitis series, particularly on Megaman X, this kind of system comes to mind. You may learn best through the gameplay, not someone telling you what to do.Also, as stated before, guides, both video and written can be incredibly unreliable. They will explain the mechanics once and how they dealt with it, and not offer alternatives, or they will not update their content when a new idea comes up, so you have to cross-reference dates and information. This has been happening to me frequently with T5, as everyone seems to have done it a different way, and do not explain the mechanics well. "Do this." is much less helpful than "Do this because this can happen." Depending on your group, there is not 1 end all be all strategy that will get you a clear.

Great reply. I alluded to some of what you said in an earlier reply about how you simply won't get the full grasp until you're in the thick of it. My main class is tank, and I feel very much like a bafoon on every new dungeon I enter because I'm fumbling around all the time figuring it all out, even after checking a guide to get some idea. Moving up the lvl30s, I'm now finding guides to almost be an information overload, and I often forget everything I watched or read until the last second anyway.

There's a lot of pressure on the tank, and after feeling really quite dull the last few dungeons I've decided to go back to basics and practice my skills, and not move on till I feel confident. But this pressure isn't helped by the fact that as a new player I didn't know to join the servers that were new because I didn't know they were newbie servers. So I find myself on coeurl, often teamed with people much higher leveled than I am, and often expecting much more from me than I am currently capable of. But to digress, I've come this far and that means I've committed to the server I'm on. No point in changing now, and paying for a transfer seems a tad silly.

[Clavaat]

-snip-

I understand the tank pressure. You'll get the hang of it as you go along. Just remember the lessons you learn while going along and you can pick up on certain mechanics quickly. And like I said, guides are different from player to player, so what someone thinks is the "right way" of doing may be different from what you've found or learned. In all honesty, I've met more players that will help you along and discover/explain strategies to you in a calm manner as opposed to particularly rude people. As a tank, you have the most control over the pace of a dungeon, and that can irk some people if it's not up to their standard. For the most part, though, people will either not say anything or not press the issue if you aren't going super fast.

I'd also recommend starting a PF group for new people when it's your first time. It may take awhile to find members, so I'd recommend doing other stuff while you wait (you can change jobs once registered and it won't reflect that). You can make a lot of friends that way and generally you might have a better time. Good luck!