Will continue the game for the story but will avoid dungeons as much as possible

[Sandoran]

I'm an ex WoW player, although i stopped at the end of MOP and did my part in raids an whatnot as a fury/tank warrior and enjoyed it very much. I tanked in dungeons and was second tank when needed in the raid. I wasn't the best player but good enough to do the content

I came to FFXIV to see what all the fuss was about and i must say that the story and questing is good but my experience took a turn for the worse once i started doing dungeons. The lower lvl ones were a disaster for the caster i now am. Due to the vety limited instant abilities i have i mostly tagged along during thrash phases and then some dps on the boss. But suddenly at like lvl 30-40 the bosses have insta kill abilities and whatnot so you try to dps on the boss half looking at your spells your still learning and half looking at no standing in shit or the wrong place but still dying of something you didn"t see coming. My record is like 8 deaths in one run but that was also partly because of the tank we had that didn't clear the trash next to the eather portal you need to take to get back when you die. Now i"m almost lvl 60 and it gets worse and worse. Some bosses do constant aoe all over the room so you get confused as to were to run too to avoid it and even if you walk out of it in time you still get hit ???? It's like you enter a war zone to end up with ptsd. Also there is so much light and sound show of spells you don't jnow what are yours and what are the bosses ones. Also everyone seems in some jind if rush not even taking time to look at the loot. Got outrunned many times and had to portal in boss zone very iften cause they already started in the boss while u wan't there yet. So now i guess i will do the strictly minimum of dungeons to advance in the questline and do other stuff to enjoy myself like crafting, events and making money etc... As i am a sum/sch i was thinking about being a healer for a while but seeing how i cope with being a dps, i certainly will never go heal.

[Rayne6665]

You will have to do the dungeons for the story eventually if you want to progress further.

[Curisu]

There is something called Slidecasting.
You can already start moving when the cast timer has about 0.49sec left.
So that's about half a sec additional time for more movement.
It also gets better with higher levels, especially for black mage.
You get more abilities that allows you to insta cast spells.
What class are you playing? Maybe you misinterpreted some skills and use unnecessary long cast spells.

For the amount of effects, you should check your in-game setting's.
I'm not at my PC right now to show you exactly where but there is a setting that you can reduce or completely disable your and your teammates skill effects.

You can also try other classes.
Physical ranged don't need to fast and can stay in good distance to the boss.
Just go the gridania and pick up the archer.
Later in ishgard you also could play the Maschinist.

[Sandoran]

I am a summoner and because of all that trouble i avoid using gemshine which is a very long cast of 2.43 sec and mostly use Ruin II or fester when i have aetherflow. I looked up whatever i can imagine to give me an edge like adapting my hud to have castbar if the biss right in the middle and my buffs)debuffs right next to it. I also disable the spells if the other players to have more visibility. But still not enough. I just did Syrcus tower miniraid, survived everything up to last boss the emperor. Around the last 40% of his health he spawns like a few orange circles on the ground right were i'm standing so i me and another player run out of the circle like at least 5 to 6 paces out of it. BOOM i still get ine shotted but not the player standing next to me and who also ran out. Like i'm not crazy abd also don't have lag so wtf i should start making screenshots to prove it. So i'm dead and like 39 sec later i'n resurrected. I resummon my carbuncle and get healed up and 20 sec later i get another ability on my head like a huge circle with arrows on it so i"m confused as to what to do and BOOM one shotted again. I mean i like playing Summoner it's quite fun in PVE. But with all the dying every timeit all gets really tedious

[MilkieTea]

Summoner has the shortest amount of casts. Gemshine is your strongest tool.
Your rotation at level 50 should be:
Summon Carby when needed (if he disappears)
-> spam carby skill
-> open up a summon (green, yellow, red lego, your choice)
-> spam *gemshine* skill (it'll change, during your "Titan" phase it'll be an instant cast on a 2.43 GCD, garuda it'll be instacast on a... shorter GCD i forget how long. And ifrit has the only casts youre going to have, 2 casts of ifrit's "gemshine" skill.)

This means you'll be casting your 2.5s skill roughly twice every 30-ish seconds. If your rotation doesn't look somewhat similar to that, youre doing something dreadfully wrong.

At later levels, particularly level 90 (I forget how it is at earlier levels XD, i've only been doing savage on smn lately)
Your rotation should look like this
Summon bahamut
Spam bahamut *instant cast* skill + Weave in ogcd Energy Drain/Fester
open up a summon (green, yellow, red lego)
spam summon "gemshine" skill + "astral flow" skill (ifrit has a 2-part melee combo, garuda has a hardcast DOT, titan has a secondary instant cast skill that procs immediately after using gemshine.)
Ifrit phase will look something like this: hardcast skill... hardcast skill... gapcloser+melee skill (both instant)
Garuda phase: instacast, instacast, instacast, instacast, instacast, instacast... hardcast dot
Titan Phase: instacast, secondary instacast, instacast, secondary instacast, instacast, secondary instacast, instacast, secondary instacast
Ruin 4 (instacast)

Youll notice there are only 3 hardcasts there. The rest of summoners rotation at level 90 is 100% instant casts unless you need to use a filler ruin

[Carin-Eri]

I'd have to assume that, being completely unfamiliar with WoW, casting doesn't work this way in WoW?

[IckeDerTyp]

Don't give up, pup! Dungeons are laughably easy, especially if you're used to MoP ones!

You'll die at times but soon you'll have it figured out. Could also always try the phys. ranged classes! Less standing in place for those ^^

Either way, enjoy your time in Eorzea!

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Story dungeons are very forgiving for the most part I promise you. Watch MTQ guides for each one on youtube and you will be an expert in the mechanics after just five minutes of viewing. However they are mostly designed in a way where you can figure out the mechanics just by paying attention and following your party.

[Sandoran]

@Milkietea yeah i know what my rotation is as a sum and it is exactly what you are saying but curisu above you was talking about length of spells and although summoning the beasts is quite instant gemshine is still quite a long cast if you have constant aoe from the boss you have to run out of like with Ultima weapon for example

@Carin-eri well in general it seems to be well known that spells are half the cast time they are in FF. At the time my main was a fury warrior (contrary to arms warrior which wields 1 two handed sword fury wields 2x two handed swords) so it is really intense as the system also gives you procs depending on your gear, so you really feel yourself hurting the boss the faster you push your buttons. As ranged i also played shadow priest which was really cool with a lot of insta casts and dots you could apply so if you happened to have to dodge something your dots on the boss kept on ticking. A hunter also pretty fun casting while your moving and a pet like the chocobos we have. And for the rest a monk, death knight, Rogue, Feral druid and a paladin all maxed out. So i would say if a friend of yours plays wow you should try it once just to see the differences

@IckeDerTyp I promise i won't and believe it or not but at the time going offspec tank i even organised achievement runs for glory of the pandarian hero which rewards you a mount and explained each tactic with macros i made for each fight

@AmhWilzuun Thx i will have a look at those in my WoW years i used to watch fat boss guides on you tube

[Espon]

If you're getting 1-shot in dungeons, it usually means your gear is inadequate. Looking at what you're wearing on the Lodestone, you're still wearing wearing some ilvl 90/100 gear. I'm not sure where you are in the story, but buying at least 130 gear with tomestones would give you a nice defense, health, and damage boost.

Summoner rotation doesn't vary a whole lot and has a lot of instant cast abilities. If you're having difficulty seeing what you need to cast and what's going on in the fight, then you might want to rearrange your UI. While this game does not have addons like WoW, you can move pretty much everything with the HUD Layout. I prefer to have both mine and the enemy's healthbars right below my character and hotkeys below that so I can easily see what's going on. You could even set up an extra hotbar somewhere with repeated abilities specifically for tracking your cooldowns.

The game does not explain what the different markers that appear mean, so it's okay to be caught unaware the first time you see them. Thankfully the game frequently reuses markers over different fights so it won't be as surprising the next time. For example, the orange arrows pointing at your character means you need to stack with other players to split damage. Also in Xande's case, that ability will also leave a levitate circle that you'll need to stand in afterwards so you don't get hit by his powerful earth ability.

One thing that might take a while to learn compared to how it works in WoW is the way the game snapshots enemy abilities. If you're standing in the orange circle when it disappears, you will get hit even if the spell effect goes off a second later. At the same time, it's also means it's safe to move into a spell graphic after the orange circle disappears, unless it leaves an AoE puddle on the ground.