The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

[Packetdancer]

My original suspicions were confirmed. The party that got to enrage was a unicorn/fluke. The ones since then have been lucky to get to Harma, let alone get past it to Overflow. There is enough despair in PF at this point to turn a certain blue bird grey again. I will reiterate my argument - unless you are significantly more skilled the the average player there are only two types of PF groups - [Duty Complete] that you can't get into and Practice/Completion groups that will remain that way forever without 5-6 experienced players to drag the rest through. There is no kind of uniformity, might as well be starting fresh in every group. Even the ones that are posted as "practice X mechanic" take multiple pulls just to get there if you are lucky and "seen enrage", which is just a euphemism for "walled at enrage".

I mean, it's certainly very frustrating at times! But as I said, party finder is not a fast way to progress the tier. It is a viable way, but yes, you will find yourself sometimes having parties that do very well, and sometimes having parties where it's a P4S "Act IV cleanup" party that can't even make it into phase 2 at all, much less to Act IV. PF is a grab-bag, and what you get can vary widely.

Doing it in PF does not take more skill than doing it with a static; it just takes a lot more patience and stubbornness.

But again: if you find PF frustrating, I highly recommend looking around for a static. There are still statics forming at this point in the tier; not nearly so many as when a tier is fresh, no, but there are people who had life commitments that kept them from starting the tier earlier, or who only just got to endgame, etc. Or people who did PF and want to do a static for next tier, and so are looking to put one together now.

Were I you, I would probably be looking for one of the last of those sets -- someone looking to put together a static for next tier now, but who'll be running the current tier to help the group gel (or to help newcomers feel more confident in savage).

I can't help too directly other than pointing at /r/FFXIVRECRUITMENT, because I'm not on your datacenter; I don't know the datacenter-specific resources that would best help you. (If you needed them on Primal, I've got you covered; I can point to half a dozen different places to help. But for Aether...? Alas.)

[Issaella]

I got my clear on my alt. Died 3 times, no one else died. I'm out of the Practice/Duty Completion zone finally.