Partying: How to be an efficient party member

[Work in progress]

Content

1. Party layout: what to know about the other classes
   1. Party buffs
2. Your class in a party
3. Tips and tricks

1. Party layout
What to know about the other classes?

[Tank]
In most dungeons, the tank is expected to take the lead. This means that all other classes should wait until the tank moves and attacks the monsters first. If your tank is not moving, ask him why instead of rushing ahead by yourself.
Unlike most other MMORPGs, the FFXIV tanks do not have an immediate aggro-taunt skill. It can even often be really hard for a tank to get/keep aggro. Always keep this in mind! If you (as DPS or healer) suddenly get aggro, it is usually your own fault, so look at yourself first before blaming the tank.

[Healer]
The healer is there to keep everyone alive, but this doesn't mean that you can just facetank everything and expect him to patch you up. If you mess up, don't expect the healer to clean up your mess. For healers, their priority list is themselves, the tank(s), and DPS as last. If the healer is completely occupied by healing one person, he won't have time left to heal the rest of the party. Keep this in mind and don't overwork the healer. Always dodge attacks when you can and try to mitigate your damage. Don't take unnecessary damage. A healer can also use Cleric Stance and help DPS when the party is safe enough and not taking too much damage.
Always remember that healers have a limited range for their healing spells. If you stand too far away, they can't heal you. Always try to stick together with the rest of your party, even if you are ranged.
If you die, be patient. Healers without Swiftcast need a full 7 seconds of completely standing still un-interrupted in order to revive you. In some battles this is really hard and it can take them multiple tries. Besides that, reviving takes quite a lot of MP. If the healer is already low on MP or is trying to conserve MP for a specific situation, it may also take some time before he can spare the MP on your revive. Finally, if the rest of the party is taking a lot of damage, the healer will probably be occupied by healing until he can find a safe moment to revive you.

[DPS]
The DPS are the damage dealers in a party. Generally they have the least responsibilities in most dungeons, and don't need to look at the other party members that much. A lot of the DPS classes have certain party-buffs, it's a good idea to get familiar with these and ask those players to use their buffs when necessary.

1.1 Party buffs

Scholar (SCH)

Protect: Increases Physical and Magical Defense.
Note: The WHM Protect is better than the SCH version!

Eye for an Eye: 20% chance that when the buffed player is struck, the striker will deal 10% less damage for 20 seconds.
Note: White Mages can also get this through cross-class skills.

Adloquium / Succor shield buff: A magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling the amount of HP restored.​

White Mage (WHM)

Protect: Increases Physical and Magical Defense.
Note: The WHM Protect is better than the SCH version!

Stoneskin: Creates a barrier around target that prevents physical damage totaling 10% of target's maximum HP.
Note: Scholars can also get this through cross-class skills.
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Bard (BRD)

Mage's Ballad: Recovers MP of all nearby party members while lowering the caster's own damage dealt by 20%.

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2. Your class in a party

Gladiator (GLA) / Paladin (PLD)

Marauder (MRD) / Warrior (WAR)

Conjurer (CNJ) / White Mage (WHM)

Scholar (SCH)

A Scholar is a lot about preventive healing. Your Adloquium and Succor can be used as buffs to mitigate damage. It's a good tactic (especially in endgame dungeons) to always re-cast Succor every 30 seconds so your party members are blessed with the shield buff. Use Adloquium to always have the buff on your tank.

If you are struggling with MP, or if your party members already have the shield buff, use Cure. It is less MP-heavy but heals a lot.

Your main healing skills will be Cure and Adloquium. Lustrate should only be used on the tank in emergency situations. It is an instant-cast heal which restores 25% HP. For most classes however, this 25% isn't much more than a Cure would heal. Therefor Lustrate is only really useful on the tank, as the 25% means a lot more. Since it uses an Aetherflow stack for each use, it is best to keep this for emergencies only.

Pets
Under lvl 40, there is not much reason not to use Eos. Eos has more healing capacity so it's best to use her.
At lvl 40+, Selene is usually the best choice, because of her skill/spell speed increase buffs which will improve the DPS of your party. Exceptions are heal-heavy dungeons where you really need the extra healing capacities of Eos.
Under lvl 30, it is usually even possible to have your pet Eos do all of the work, while you are in Cleric Stance and purely DPS. Don't always rely on this though.

DPS
If your party is not losing a lot of HP, and you feel that your pet can handle most of it, you can help DPS. Note that your top priority is and always will be to keep your party alive, so don't get too carried away while attacking!

Stance dancing
If you have put all of your attributes into Mind, Cleric Stance will be pretty much a necessity if you want to do any proper DPS. However if you try to heal while in Cleric Stance, your heals will be puny and be barely useful.
Because of this, if you want to help DPS in a party, it's a good thing to learn how to "Stance dance". This means switching Cleric Stance on/off on the fly to DPS and heal at the same time, so you can bring out your fullest potential on both sides.
Note: activating Cleric Stance during a cast will not make it activate immediately, but after your cast is done. Don't spam-click/activate it.

You can find a more in-depth Scholar guide here.

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[Editor's note: So far I have only played SCH at high lvl myself, so I am lacking a lot of knowledge about the other classes. If you have any additions to this guide or spot any mistakes, do tell!]