Were you in Grit and were you using cooldowns (defensive abilities on their own cooldown) throughout the pulls and boss fights? Also were you making sure to keep up with equipment as DEF stat matters.
I was in Grit and using cool downs but gear was kind of touch and go en route to 50. Once I hit 50 I had a full poetics set waiting for me but that's already being replaced just my doing Heavensward storyline quests.
Anyone play on Zalera? My FC is slowly dying. I've basically just got one close friend IRL on here but I don't want to start over on another server and he won't transfer because of housing.