Hey there.
The game is still really fun. If you enjoyed Heavenward for the story, Shadowbringers is way stronger in that department. I spent a good 35-40 hours doing just the MSQ from all of 5.0 content. It also had a very satisfying end to 5.0, and all the way to 5.3/5.4.
As far as buying a skip potion…If you have already done the ARR and Seventh Astral Era quests, but are wanting to start over…I wouldn’t criticize anyone for wanting to skip that part. But if you are starting now with the intent to play Endwalker, then you’ve got several months to take your time and enjoy the story. They did recently revamp the MSQ, and removed several of the “go here and talk to npc” quests in SAE and ARR specifically.
The only thing is stormblood… It wasn’t my favorite expansion, and it’s generally not liked as much but the community. Is still good, and pacing is way better than ARR/HS.
The beauty of 14 is fantasias are relatively inexpensive and often go on sale, so I don’t think it’s unusual for people to change that race often.
I have all the tanks at 80, and there’s been some changes since HS. There’s no more detriment to using tank stance, so stance dancing isn’t necessary anymore. Also, tank threat is incredibly easy. They all also share a generic defensive toolkit, in addition to job specific tools. In the past they made you choose skills from other jobs, but now all get them all. No more having to level up GLD just to get provoke if you wanted to be a WAR or DRK instead. All tanks have an active mitigation tool they can use one themselves or another, to encourage synergy with off tanking. Damage is good and well balanced among all tanks, so it’s mostly play style that will be the determining factor. Because you don’t have to stance dance anymore, it often really does feel like you’re just doing a dps rotation, which is still quite satisfying.
I’d have to say that WAR feels more like a WoW DK than the DRK does. WAR has “beast guage” which is just your generic secondary resource that every job has now, but unlike the other tanks, some abilities (like the gap closer) require beast gauge, so you can’t charge at the start of the door like all the others. They have some mitigation abilities, but what makes them feel more like wow DKs is a ton of self healing that doesn’t negatively affect dps output compared to the others. They have a self buff they need to maintain, but it’s a pain because it’s a third hit of a single target combo.
DRK on the other hand have a self buff that’s easy to maintain, but costs a lot of mana. Theres a single target and multitarget ogcd ability that maintains this buff. DRK has no more dark arts, so if that’s something you liked about HS DRK, unfortunately that aspect of amping up your abilities is gone. That said, DRK often feels like a mini WAR because both have a burst window where they can do a ton of damage, fitting in 5x spenders in an ability window that makes them free. DRK self healing sucks, but it has the BEST damage mitigation in the form of The Blackest Night, a 25% health damage shiekd that you can cast on anyone.
As far as endgame - there’s normal raids, alliance raids, trials, and level 80 dungeons. None of these offer meaningful gear, they just have glamour’s and tokens for gear that is okay. Most often the gear dropped by these content, and even the token gear, is debatable quality compared to crafted overmeld gear.
The high end end game is limited to EX trials and Savage raids, which are not really “raids” in the sense we see them in wow, but just platform bosses. There’s good gear to be obtained there, but it doesn’t do anything really since once you’re done, that’s it. Unlike in wow where if you truly wanted to, you could keep powering up to try for higher keys.
Housing is like a lottery of campers- because theres limited availability and the method of how houses are released, it’s very difficult. I have a house and so does my wife, but only because we camped them like crazy. I would say your average playing will unlikely to be able to realistically own a house in this game. On top of that, you must maintain an active sub or you lose it since you must enter your house every 30 or 45 days or something.
I can’t speak for crafting personally, because I do not like it. My wife is max 80 on all crafting jobs, but she has voiced get frustrations with it. Still, it’s a million times better than wow.