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Boo the Hamster · **07-16-2015, 04:27 PM**

(07-16-2015, 04:21 PM)Griffith! Wrote: My item level is only 75. So pretty low, I know. A lot of people have out-geared me, but I have slacked off a lot on my main since I decided to take a break from tanking. It's just not easy to catch up, especially when you're dreading instances.

Yea, my best bet for you is to try out a different role until you can gear up your tank, or get used to the fact that you will not be able to hold aggro.Â Item level 75 is abysmally low, so low that it is impossible for you to hold aggro if anyone is near item level 105 or above.Â That's just reality. If you can find people who are willing to craft tank gear that is around i100 if you want to go back into tanking soon, it will help you a lot. I would suggest getting your relic weapon and upgrading it to zenith. Your weapon is the most important upgrade for holding threat, so it will not be much, but it will help.

As something for you to keep in mind, your goal should be at least one patch behind content. I doubt most people will be able to go through savage alexander, so your goal whenever you hit 60 with your tank should be at least i155ish. It sounds like a lot, but it's doable.

There is one thing to keep in mind though. It is not your fault that you cannot hold aggro, it is your lack of gear. That will be fixed in time if you keep doing what you're doing as a tank, and the ease of play with higher gear will help your stress with tanking.

Arik · **07-16-2015, 11:33 PM**

I absolutely feel your pain on this.Â

While I realize that the *vast majority* of people one will encounter using the Duty Finder will be polite and forgiving (especially if you're open to tips and aren't making the same basic mistakes over and over again), there are those few bad applesÂ that ruin the fun of it. Especially for those of us who have anxiety issues even out of game. The idea of even potentially running into one of those folks is enough to turn us off to PUGs all together. While some people can brush that sort of thing off without it affecting them, not everyone is hardwired the same way.

In my own case, I've see the worst of the worst of the MMO community from working as a customer support rep for one of the major titles for over two years. Often times, at that job, I mostly had to contend with those very people-- the trolls, the ragers, the keyboard-gangsters who, when they're online, will say some of the meanest, nastiest things because they're safe behind a monitor and have themselves convinced they won't be held accountable.

I honestly think it was that work experience, more so than ANY of the bad PUGs I'd actually dealt with, that wound up sapping what little patience I had left for those kind of people in general. These days, I've developed such an aversion to that type of personality that tools like the Duty Finder are all but ruined for me, even though the logical part of my brain is completely aware of the fact that the ARR community is significantly less toxic than the game I used to work for and that it's not likely I'll run into those sorts regularly. Yet every time I think about queueing up for a random, I work myself up like crazy thinking "but what if I get one of *those* sort of groups? What if I make a mistake?" And then, ironically, "What if I'm so stressed out I just suck??" (as I often do, because I've worked myself up so much! It's a vicious cycle.)Â It's positively unnecessary of me, but yet I can't help but do it. D<

In FF, I've just been fortunate in having joined up with a bunch of friends who I can run the content with and who can tolerate my aversions (luckily, I seem to be a decent enough tank that they put up with me and regularly feel the need to vent to me about the awful and/or rude PUG tanks that THEY'VE dealt with via DF, haha). That said, I'm aware of how only playing with one group can mean missing out on some learning opportunities, and I have been trying to wean myself back into randoms for that reason.Â

TL;DR: Hang in there! You're definitely not alone in having these anxieties. For some people, it's super easy to brush off and move on like nothing happened-- but it's okay if you're not one of those people who can naturally do so. We're all hardwired a little differently and all we can do is our best while trying to stay open to ways we can improve.

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Dungeon Anxiety

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes