Anxiety over Savage

[Sylvina]

My issue is I have been looking for a raid group since 4.0 and still found nothing lasting so far. I made a static recently which fell apart before we started raiding due to a key member having personal issues. And I'm not dealing with PF. PF groups rarely ever clear, I've maybe seen one clear out of 50 attempts in PF so far :/

[AkashiXI]

My issue is I have been looking for a raid group since 4.0 and still found nothing lasting so far. I made a static recently which fell apart before we started raiding due to a key member having personal issues. And I'm not dealing with PF. PF groups rarely ever clear, I've maybe seen one clear out of 50 attempts in PF so far :/

I’m in a static, but occasionally I’ll pop in a 1 chest to help groups out. Other than God Kefka (I seem to have about a 50% success rate with it), most groups I go with clear within an instance. Considering this is supposed to be the hardest content other than Ultimate, that doesn’t seem so bad to me. Maybe it’d get annoying clearing every week like that, but I guess that’s why you’d join a static. How have you advertised yourself? Are you against using Reddit or Party Finder? Do you use FFLogs like a resume?

[Kakiko]

You all need to get the heck out of my head. Seriously. Especially OP. I have clinically diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder and generalized depressive disorders. Not self-diagnosed. Not "I get a little nervous." These are things that have been diagnosed by several specialists over the years and things I have taken several different medications to control over the years.

I want to do savage. I really do. I know I could be good enough, but I get super anxious when I feel that I am subjectively doing worse than everyone else. Even if I know I'm at the top of the DPS list for the group, I oftentimes feel like I'm just not doing well enough.


I tried O5S with the members of a static in my FC and despite having watched the video about half a dozen times, I somehow blanked out and missed the push ghost right at the beginning and died. At that moment, my anxiety hit the ceiling (because they were calling it out at the same time as well and I don't know how I just didn't do the mechanic correctly). When I died almost immediately after being raised (not sure why I died), and voice chat became very quiet before we wiped, my anxiety went through the roof. Hearing some of the things on voice chat about how the raid leader knew I would die and that's fine, but everyone else needed to get with it, I broke down. I already had my mic muted but by now I was in tears of frustration and had to tell one of my friends in the group to let them know I was backing out. I couldn't even voice it myself. No one contested it vocally although the one friend did tell me privately to keep going but at that point I was a mess. They did say I was doing better than they did on their first run (but my anxiety makes me believe they were saying that to be polite because I quite literally died 10 seconds into the fight). I had told them to find my EB partner as he was better, but they wanted a caster, and I knew this would happen. When I left, I told them to get him and they did. An hour later, they'd cleared it and have continued to clear it and O6S three times a week since. They're working on O7S now.

Every time I consider going back in, I feel my anxiety start to ramp up and my heart rate start to increase.

I practice on the O5S dummy multiple times a day; I research various tips for my class all the time; I watch videos of BLM povs for fights, I read and read the forums and The Balance discord server, and Reddit, for tips about BLM. I work on different melds (I'm in full Eureka gear now and I've melded for just over 1900 spell speed and the rest Crit and Direct). I can kill the O5S dummy usually with about 20 seconds to spare, with an average of around 5500-6100 on the log.

I know I could do the raid but the thought of letting 7 other people down or contributing to wipes because I hold myself to higher standards than I hold other people, absolutely paralyzes me.

Someone suggested there being a practice mode and I would absolutely love that. I know that once I see all the mechanics a few times, I get really really good at working with them. That is something my EB partner has said before: I have zero patience with myself initially, but when I'm forced to continue and eventually see everything for myself (rather than in a video), I do very very well with mechanics. It's getting to that point and not backing out that I have problems with. It took 4 days for me to clear Byakko through PF learning parties and I came thisclose to rage unsubbing over it because I was so annoyed with my inability to avoid mechanics (the balls and the lightning specifically) but now that I have the mechanics down, I know where to stand and who to jump to quickly to get out of the way of things; where to drop leylines and when so I can zip back to them to avoid another mechanic, etc. But having a practice mode beyond "stand still and hit a dummy for 3 minutes" would have been an absolute godsend and probably wouldn't have caused me to get so upset initially.

Short of that solo practice suggestion, getting a party finder together as a true learning, step-by-step, party would be great but I don't think a lot of people want that. Even in learning parties for other fights, people expect to clear within 1-3 pulls.

I'm on the same data center as OP. OP, if you ever want to team up and do a step-by-step learning party, let me know. Even if we put a limit on how far we go "learn to X mechanic" and then take a break. Let's do it

[BluexBird]

-snippy-

Man this breaks my heart. D: No one should have to feel like this because of raiding...

If you ever need a tanky to help clear any of the raids, lemme know. I'm bored most of the time when I'm on, so I try to help out 0-chest groups get their clear.

Same goes to you, OP.

[Alleo]

You all need to get the heck out of my head. Seriously. Especially OP. I have clinically diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder and generalized depressive disorders. Not self-diagnosed. Not "I get a little nervous." These are things that have been diagnosed by several specialists over the years and things I have taken several different medications to control over the years.

I want to do savage. I really do. I know I could be good enough, but I get super anxious when I feel that I am subjectively doing worse than everyone else. Even if I know I'm at the top of the DPS list for the group, I oftentimes feel like I'm just not doing well enough.

That could be me. I have a generalized anxiety disorder too and even if it does not impact me that much in games I can fully understand the OP. I do feel off when doing things with randoms and I put myself down quite harshly when I am doing some stupid mistakes in a fight. I would never try to do recent savage content or most of the recent extreme fights but thats more because I simply dont have enough people that will do that with me and I dont want to do it with randoms. And I kinda dont want to tank dungeons ever and even being a healer is way too stressfull..(Okay maybe it does impact the game a bit..)

OP if you have a team of nice players that will help you along the way then you can do it. Just try to accept that mistakes will happen and that those dont mean the end of your own life. (Anxiety does love to tell you that this is bad for your health and life) If you dont have such understanding friends than maybe its just truly better to not do it. If you do this in a good envoirement then this might help your anxiety but I am not sure if its that good for you if you have a lot of negative experiences and maybe even horrible people. This could maybe even make your condition worse and I am not sure if a game is important enough to risk that.

Ok great so you can't do savage because because this and that blah blah blah but I highly doubt people would hate you over this something so small like you seems to claim. If you happen to run into these "jerks" all the time then I'd like to think that the problem lies with you.

That really can only come from someone who never suffered from deep anxiety. For those who suffer under it, its not about it being real but the mind telling us that it might be that way. Its a constant battle against your own mind telling you certain things. Its not easy to not just care about the stuff others said. When you for the first time truly suffer from an anxiety attack where your mind tells you that you are dieing even though you only hurt because of your back and not the heart then you might understand it. But I would never wish something like that on others. The constant fear of an attack itself and the feeling that you are dieing because your mind tells you things. Its not pleasant and its not just explained easily and its definetly far away from rational.

[Gugnir]

Find seven other people who are fun to be around, and wont crucify you for making mistakes during prog and don't buy into the raid scene epeen contest. You're just psyching yourself out. If you want to raid, then do it. If you fail, good but learn from your mistakes and grow. You might have some fun. Unless you're doing week one progression where there is little or no guides out, there are tons of resources for you to pour over and learn from. You'll find when you raid long enough it becomes muscle memory and the timings just come like clockwork.

When you join a group that's functional and farming content you can form some very strong, lasting friendships for years and have a sense of belonging, but also have sense of pride and accomplishment for your peers, like when your healer manages gold for the first time or the nerd screams when you finally beat a boss that's been kicking you in the teeth. There are a lot of positive aspects to raiding you can take home with, like discipline, critical thinking and peer bonding. Every one in my group helps to stock up on consumables for weeklies, and crafts gear for their mains at the start of a patch. Granted the raiding experience can be limited when you pug, and frustrating but that's why finding a static you mesh with and can grow together with is so very important. It takes time, and sometimes feels a bit like a job interview but when you find one that's right for you it can help to curve the anxiety because you're also making progress with people who are important to you. Though if you honestly feel its wrong for you, that's okay too there are plenty of things to do in game besides savage content.