how long did it take you to learn your dps job to a comfortable level?

[Renathras]

OP: Look up your Job here https://www.thebalanceffxiv.com/

It tends to have a general overview that explains things. Note that it uses the level 90 abilities, so if some abilities upgrade, you might have to open your Actions and Traits and figure out which ones do. Sometimes it's kind of easy like WHM Stone becoming Glare and just having the spell ranks, but other times it's a bit more confusing, like BRD's Straight Shot becoming Refulgent Arrow (I think...), but if you can manage that, the guides there give you suggested openers, which tell you when to use your party buff (after the first time, you use it on CD unless the boss goes untargetable and you hold it for the "reopener" when they come back), and the guides also will give you some explanation of the nuances of the Jobs.

Oh, also, if you want a "preview" of Jobs, you can go into PotD and que for the floor 51-60 runs, and you can unlock PotD at level 30, I think? You need your Job stone to see the Job's abilities, but once you have that, going into PotD you can play with the level 60 kit. Which...is a lot less than it used to be, but is something. HoH and Bozja (sorta) and Orthos also all allow you to play around with more of the kit, but if you're low level and trying to see if a Job might be a fit for you, PotD is good for giving you at least a BASIC idea oof what it does and some of its rotation and abilities. Nothing is perfect, but it's not a terrible way to dip a toe in and test the waters of a Job to see if you might like it.

It was actually pretty easy with SMN because you had to start from the beginning back then.
....
The wonky one was RDM when it first came out,
...
Then I decided... ok well it looks like the Red Button is the first one you use... so... lets try the AoEs now...
*casts Scatter*....
Huh? Why is this taking so damn long to cast!
*Clicks Verthunder2*

Are you...remembering things correctly?

RDM didn't get Verthunder/aero2 until ShB, did it? I think all it had in SB was Impact/Scatter and you just dualcasted it with itself or something:

https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Verthunder_II

"Patch 5.0"

And yeah, as Rongway said, the NPC teaches you this in the starter quests and I thought it was really intuitive. Same with Verflare/Holy as reading it told you exactly what you needed to do.

The only things not really intuitive about RDM were exactly when to use Manafication (since it gave a variable amount of Mana and you didn't want to overcap) and some optimization around that. This persisted into EW (where they did add Verthunder/aero II and yes, I agree it's backward and that drives me batty and I wish they'd reverse it), Enchanted Reprise, and Scorch, but ALSO removed Verholy/Flare and Scorch as separate buttons, making them Veraero/thunder and Jolt's buttons. EW added to the optimization skillcap with the Manafication to 50/50 change making optimal burst more important to pull off and harder, which kinda scoots RDM out of "beginner friendly" territory (though the overall flow of the Job is still easy to pick up), and made Enchanted Reprise far less useful, but Acceleration more useful, so...kind of a wash there.

ARR through ShB SMN was horrible to learn. Few people played it optimally because of how convoluted it was and how things changed as you leveled (Bahamut required going into DWT twice...then suddenly only once...then you got FBT which upended your rotation again. SMN before EW was horrible at teaching you the Job, honestly.

I do agree with you, though, that I think it's good when the game gives you your core rotation relatively early as you level and then adds more of the "extras/side stuff" later, that way you can get a good feel for the core of the Job early. Like RDM gets Dualcast at level 1, even before it gets Jolt (2) and even though you can't actually sync to level 1 anyway (outside of VERY briefly in PotD). I do think it's a good idea to get the core of the Job down by level 50, 60 at the latest, so that players can start getting that muscle memory and just add to that over time from there. WAR is one of the best examples (though I'd give it Storm's Path earlier) because by level 50, you have the full rotation, upkeep buffs, beast gauge spender, filler, and your 1 min burst CD, which basically has you with your full compliment of abilities from that point on for the player to build off of, but they're gained as you level so it's not all thrown on you at level 1, either.