About: Dungeon "anxiety", Being afraid of failing or getting back into the game

[MrKusakabe]

Dear Sirs and Madams,

my name's Mr. Kusakabe, retired Lalafell Blackmage and Scholar.

After defeating the Garlean army in what you Earthlings call "mid-2014" I offered my service to random groups in form of roasting and blowing up enemies with my black magic or taking care of your wounds and getting your dead bodies back onto your feet for a little longer until finally in "early 2015", I put my Stardust and Grimoire in a chest, together with my Evenstar and Daystar set (which are very iconic to me, I love these sets!) and closed it forever. "Wham!" - as the chest fell shut, the dust it blew in my face was an iconic moment. This is it. My subscription contracts with the forces of Eorzea and Grand Company will run out soon and then I am independent. "I made it!". What an adventure that was! From now on, I will enjoy the sweet idleness at the Costa del Sol, sip on some overpriced drinks and watch the feline dancers. This lasted for exactly four years....

Yesterday morning, it was a bit different though! A bit different is an understatement. I felt a will, no, an urge to be at the battlefields again. All the Feugas - this is what we German mages call "Fire III", all the satisfaction when I kept my mates in good shape when they trusted me their lives.. I miss the thrill! After I've met my far and distant relative in Guild Wars 2, my Asura fellow, which I visited often from 2015 'til yesterday I knew I gotta change something. He told me about the lack of progression from one point in his life. He wasn't all too happy. And I understand what he means. I was idling for 4 years. My magical skills are surely starting to slowly degenerate. After secretly casting the most important spells behind the Gridania inn - I would've tried it all alone inside the inn, but I think putting my inn room on fire by accident with all the wooden panels is not covered by my insurance - and boy, my first attempts were poor, which was not the fault of the cheap wand I borrowed. I forgot a lot of my former rotations! But it got a bit better as I kept on trying in a safe environment. Oh, and did I like it!

I could not wait to pay 13€ for game time sign in for new duties and advance! This fresh wind, this power inside me, my burning desire in my heart and soul - I felt it was time to study the art of magic further. Without much thinking involved, and with much euphoria, I almost blindly went to this filthy drinking hole in the desert to meet this cat in red. He showed off his redmage skills - dear god, this could be it! Magic and Melee?? I could follow my blackmage roots, learn something new and keep me physically active.

Can't remember what followed, it might be the beer or the absolute euphoric feeling, but I woke up in my Gridania inn room with a red stone in my bag, those awesome clothes, some paperwork from Mr. Redcat - this guy's actual name, geez! - and my Rapier. Not the best model, but it was free, and surely enough for the first steps of learning! It's also the first time ever my Lalafell hands wield a blade in my entire life! Magic and physical attacks. That is such a change! Even though I am not sure if my middle-aged Lalafell'in body can do that...

So, here I am! I am an apprentice again!

Very unsure if this an upgrade or downgrade - most certainly the former! - but I do not really feel ready! Before I retired, I could go into all duties and pull my weight there. Not being kicked once, never caused mad beef. But now? I try to remember the moves of the Temple of Qarn. I think I have them. What about this place with the ants? Oh...quicksand? Or was it... Dammit!

The fear of failing overcomes me with such a force that I had to sit on my inn's bed and rethink my entire situation. This crippling fear of being absolutely bad and useless almost petrified me. Those four years - everything changed. I can barely figure out the menus as I've never played the game before! All people, even beginners around me, seem to know what to do. They are Level 70 - veterans. And I am at 2.0!
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I played 9 years of League of Legends, 99% of that with random groups. I did not mind that. In fact, it was fun what kind of ret... weird fellas I might get! Like spinning the wheel of idiots! Sometimes, however, you met outright awesome people!

Since I quitted both GW2 and LoL at around the same time while my interest in my Lalafell grew at the same time, I had an empty spot in my video game collection: There are shooters, economy simulations, racing games, stealth games. But no MMO.

So while I am here, basically coming for other players, for you, I also feel very angsty about it! In GW2, I could take care of myself. Running dungeons was not a thing, and surviving on my own was not a problem either.

It was yesterday when I tried an attempt. Guess what? I signed in for Sastasha. Knowing it would be nothing worth as most of my skills are locked anyways. Before I could even form a full party, I logged off. As a retail worker, I am not an anti-social person at all! For some reason however, I have the pure fear going into random dungeons. As I am not a Linkshell person or a fan of FCs as well, I am basically forced to search for groups. But unlike real life, where you can see other people's faces, you can see their emotions - here, you have a bunch of high level people that expect - rightfully so! - a full party member. But how can I achieve that?

I am stuck in a loop here a bit. I order to get experience, I need to fail first. My cousin - who started with me in September 2013 - also hyped up to buy and install all expansions. So we are two DDs - me with the healer option - that know jack sh@$ about the game. While I even think about doing something we both despise - looking up guides before playing the actual game - he seem to be very optimistic by just jumping in. How can he be so relaxed?

So, what do you think about that?


- Is it really all good?
- Is it me with a wrong view on the whole matter?
- Am I talking about the devil so ehe shows up - but only in my mind while the actual situation ingame is far, far more relaxed?
- What is your threshold of bad play(ers)?
- What would you expect from a freshling like me when we meet in a dungeon?
- How do you handle this / people like me? Or do you have any good advices for a Stormblood owner that is actually right after ARR? I am lost both ingame and stuck with this "fear"!

You can't expect me to dive into a Level 50 content as a fresh Redmage apprentice. I had the chance to learn the professions slowly, now I need some ways to do so - most preferrably with a way to gain EXP on the way, too!

I am open for any advice!

Sincerely,
Zedek Kusakabe

[Ceridwenae]

I'm a nervous person with anxiety and generalised dungeon fears (!), but if you're just running small stuff and need someone to share the trauma, I can tank or heal for you. Tanking may be better, though! We're on the same server, so just look for or message/mogmail Cheeze Toastie and see if I'm available. Just offering to do this is scary for me (!), but I will do my best to get you and your friend through early dungeons so you have a chance to learn stuff at your pace with no harsh judging. You find someone else with a similar outlook for the last spot and it's good.

As for RDM, I just recently started having a look at it myself, and as with any job the best starter advice is to read those tool tips. I also used this Reddit link here and the image it has up as a basic reference chart. You won't have all the skills on there in early dungeons, obviously, but follow the order with what you have and add them as you go. And use Scatter for 3 or more mobs as per standard AoE rules.

[legione]

you silly lala ,everything is a downgrade from playing blm

[Xbob42]

How can he be so relaxed?

Probably because it's only a video game! If you fail, no one really dies, no one loses access to the game. Maybe someone gets slightly irritated, but probably not. Just a quick "Hey, haven't played in a long time, re-learning my class" can go a long way.

But!

Having a bit of confidence first is a good thing.

So I recommend finding a training dummy, and just practicing your rotations against it. Or even Palace of the Dead, which is super easy so it's a great place to get practice in. (Try it solo, and start at level 1, so you can slowly learn the class ability by ability!)

Red Mage is a fairly simple ranged DPS class, so I don't foresee you having too much trouble. If you're really struggling, you can check out a brief Youtube guide on the ideal way to play the class, but I think with a little practice you'll figure it out no problem.

[Kalise]

In all honesty, it's not that bad.

Especially in lower level dungeons.

Basically, everything that isn't level 60+ is pretty easy these days and quite forgiving for new players. If anything, the biggest issue is actually trying to do something before a high level player that is sync'd down decimates everything in like 2 spells (Which, would include yourself as a RDM queuing into Sastasha )

People aren't particularly toxic in dungeons, even if people do mess up. The only notable time this isn't the case, is Reset Tuesday when you get people running duties for Challenge Logs and weekly bonuses where there can sometimes be more salt for bad play...

Though, in general, as long as you do something vaguely resembling your role (Tank stuff as a Tank, Heal stuff as a Healer and explode stuff as a DPS) people are pretty lenient.

If you're REALLY that concerned, you can head on over to Palace of the Dead and queue into Floors 1-10.

Since, much like Sastasha, you'll be level gated from your abilities (In this case, you'll start at level 1 and end up ~level 20 by the time you reach the boss on Floor 10) but unlike normal duties, roles are not a concern here, you can get 4x DPS jobs in a party or 4x Healers etc. Literally, any combination of roles you can imagine. Thus, the content is much more lenient and it's more about just going through, hitting some enemies, triggering a bunch of traps that make you feel like an idiot and eventually getting to the boss.

Also, Floors 1-10 are only done in a party by people whom are new to the content (As opposed to Floors 51-60, which can be directly accessed after unlocking instead of starting from Floor 1. Which means these floors get farmed for Experience) and thus, it's guaranteed that you'll be with a bunch of newbs who will be running about trigging a bunch of traps.

[Liam_Harper]

Since you're on my realm I'd be happy to run stuff with you too, pressure free, if you catch me online (ign: Liam Harper)

I can definitely understand dungeon anxiety, having had that plenty myself. I've generally found low level dungeons quite relaxed, most of the time you can just wing it and any preparation you've put in your class is a good bonus. A quick browse over the dungeon tactics online is plenty if you want to be sure.

Other options are a nice FC (I'm part of an FC for players with anxiety which is great for pressure free instances), Discord (the Zodiark/Light discord is very nice with helping players through content), linkshells or simply putting your group in Party Finder and stating you have dungeon anxiety in the description. I've seen a few people do this and they were really friendly groups.

Good luck

[Wynn_Storm]

I never understood why people get so nervous about running dungeons.

I know people clearly have anxiety, but its not a high-stakes scenario.

But honestly when you do dungeons with randoms the worst that can happen is that they will kick you. If they say bad stuff to you, report for harassment.

But i can understand the idea of getting nervous when tanking or healing.

When tanking you have the job of staying alive, while also maintaining aggro. If you die and your healer or SMN/RDM isn't quick enough to rez you it can cause a wipe. And i can understand that being scary since you dying caused this.

With healing its kind of the same deal, keep the tank and group alive. You can't keep tank alive, its a wipe.

But there are more factors to it. Was the tank popping defensives during big pulls? No? Then it was the tank's fault for not doing so.

Was the healer dpsing too much and didn't use oGCD's to help keep the tank alive? Then its the healer's fault.

I think people are too hard on themselves. If your healer is a legit potato then its not your fault if you can't stay alive.

If your tank is using wet paper for armor, then its not your fault you couldn't keep them alive.

[VanityKaiser]

i never understood dungeon anxiety either. maybe its becuz im really alpha and radiate confidence at all times???

[TheMightyMollusk]

And use Scatter for 3 or more mobs as per standard AoE rules.

Scatter spam at 4+. At exactly 3 mobs, use Scatter, then dualcast Verthunder or Veraero, whichever color mana is lower. This builds your mana gauge faster, leading into more Enchanted Moulinet use.

[MrKusakabe]

you silly lala ,everything is a downgrade from playing blm

You are right, I love Blackmage.

But look, my entire life is Black, White ... and red. Here is, for example, my office.

I even painted those lanterns black and white myself, with each a white and black candle in it... You know, stuff like that.

This balance of those clean colours (black/white) with a spot of colour (red) is something that gives me strength. It relaxes me. Reading about RDM using this got me hyped. I know, sounds weird, and it is indeed odd, but meh, that's what floats my boat.


My entire appartment is like that. Even my art, like the portrait of Victoria von Hagen, from the 1952's Vogue magazin to the left, follows this scheme. The only spot of some other colour is the picture to the right.
It was really like I said in my opening post, a thought that I had directly after getting up! As if I dreamed about it, and I really wanted it. Felt like my brain was doing concrete plans and when I woke up, it was: "This is what you do today!!"
I've literally stumbled over a Redmage image and then I realized it's a mix of my personal favourite colours, I got hooked. And then I slept like 2 nights until my subconscious mind formed the plan to advance in the RDM direction.

But else, here is my wallpaper - that I even used when I was already plaing GW2 ^^

Blackmage actually put me away from Bard..