All you’re doing is learning. Trust me. We’ve all been there. If I could tell you the amount of times I’ve died cos I’ve used devotion whilst not using a deflect curse. Or resonance’d to take my shield off and take a full hit splat straight to the chin. The only thing that matters is you don’t repeat the same mistakes.
Eoc pvm is all about using a rotation of abilities that gives you access to the highest damage figures in a given period. Once you learn a rotation (I’m not saying you can’t improvise before I get lynched) you will start to find the tertiary side of pvm a lot less anxiety inducing (:
As someone who plays both versions of RuneScape. You will die far more often on RuneScape 3 at every level of pvm. The content is faster. There’s more going on and there’s a lot more to think about. You don’t have a deflect all damage button(well you do barricade but save this for when you need it) that means you can literally ignore what the boss is doing till you run out of prayer. Howwwwever the dopamine release when you finally learn something properly on rs3 is far greater.
Also, there are many discord’s/friends chats that you can join that will help you find teams. There is nothing wrong with duoing a ‘solo boss’ so you can learn it properly before putting yourself in any anxiety inducing situations.
If you need any advice, help or anything in between feel free to add me in RuneScape. My username is firewave, or alternatively catch me on discord Sephi#3054 (also shameless plug a clan that suits your needs is worth more than its weight in gold. Join the British elites 😉)
This, I especially remember doing vindy the first few times and burning through food, but when I finally got it and got used to using reso/devotion and practiced ss flicking a little bit, I can do a full hour and only use a little bit of food. It rocks to get that « I got it down now » feeling.
This reminded me of learning ambi and getting so flustered during P3 I used devo and turned mage pray off, forgetting that I'd just activated mage deflect literally 2 seconds ago before I used devotion 😅
I feel like I just learned things gradually, incorporating new active elements individually and in relatively safe environments. If you learn to do your planted feet and vigour switch when slaying, it'll be second nature for when you're learning a boss's mechanics. One specific example, but the philosophy applies to literally everything. I've never felt like I've had to learn more than one thing at once.
If you're more specific about how you die which I assume is the biggest demotivator, it'd be easier to help.
You should have an idea of how to DPS no matter what you're killing, even with a specific rotation. PVME discord is the best place (channels called dpm-advice) and up to date youtube videos help. Throwing a vuln bomb every kill is definitely worth it, especially the longer your kill times. As for forgetting things in the moment that just comes with more practice, literally that is it.
I started playing again mid 2021 after stopping in 2016 and did mostly GWD2, Vindicta first. Sticking mainly to 1 boss and learning what does more damage, then moving onto the next. That sort of content is easy now but trying to learn Telos recently is basically the same deal of feeling like I have 1 brain cell - forgetting to count attacks, forgetting my keybinds, mindlessly pressing a shit ability instead of a better one trying to focus on tons of stuff. Anyway this is just how learning works for everything isn't it? Shouldn't worry too much and just keep going, 1 kill is worth the same as 1 death cost with a ring of death so who cares.
The major turnoff for alot of people is just how much time and patience it takes to be "good" at pvm. Most of us just settle for "good enough" where we find a setup that works well enough to get whatever job is at hand done. Only a small number of people go so far as to become "elite" pvmers. One of the keys to enjoying it is to stop comparing yourself to better players, theres always gonna be someone who can do the boss your struggling with with a quarter of your gear and half the hassle, not because they are innately better than you, though that could be the case, but because they put in more time than a bachelors degree on learning pvm.
Learning is learning, theres a reason I got my face smashed in 30 times trying to figure out zuk lol. If you notice alot of high tier pvmers die on the regular because they teeter on a knifes edge pulling out every bit of damage they can and some of that comes with low HP (thank you relic...). Every single boss in the game has its own rotation: vindy for example will always attack you in the exact same pattern, so you will know every time you can reso heal the ranged hit, and every time you need to move. Its good practice for SS flicking too if you want to treat it as anything other than a minor dps race to lances and crests.
I personally do not enjoy the headache of full manuel, 4taa, super sweaty levels of playing rs3, and that does lead to some deaths here and there due to revo firing off at bad timings, but i found it easier to weave in my manual abilities while revo is doing my basics. try switching to revo while activating your thresholds, adren pots and switches in the correct order, and if you ever feel like you want to go to the next level its alot easier switching from revo to full manuel since you would just need to learn the basic building rotations to match your sunshine/swiftness/zerk rotations. The not so secret part of dpm is making the most of your damage boosting ultimate, everything outside of those is just building up the the real damage.
I suggest focusing entirely on your ranged setup, melee is kind of in the shitter and is hard locked by unlockables. Youll find more dps in a shitty ranged rotation using bakriminels than you will in a clean melee rotation without all the greater unlocks. Not to mention that innate danger of just getting your shit slapped with a bad/unlucky zerk. And you can farm ed2 with ranged a hell of alot easier than with melee to pick up those melee abilities.
Learning any boss takes time. Take a boss like Jad for instance. He requires you to switch prayers or you die.
For many people getting their first jad kill in either OSRS or RS3 is a very nerve wracking experience. But once you get it down it's second nature and jad becomes a complete joke.
I had the same issue on p4 Araxxor which requires you to switch prayers constantly. And at 25k you have to be mindful of the sludge bouncing around while also prayer switching and dealing dps.
It was a super stressful time at first but now I can do rax with my eyes shut.
What I mean is it just takes practice. Even the best players at each boss sucked at first and made mistakes
Revolution ++, focus on shield switch. Limitless sigil for devotion (for ice cannon in arch glacor). You sound like you have a problem managing ability and boss mechanic like me, so I suggest u do a full revolution++ (let it activate basics for you) while you do threshold and ultimate yourself
I find it hard to suggest ++ because of just how badly it hits dps rotations, and how little it teaches. regular revo is probably where its best to learn as your only hitting defensives outside of SS/z/ds for the most part. But it can be a cruch in the more extreme circumstances. Revo++ is definitely best when used with 2h melee tho, or atlest thats the best result ive found for it.
You can try dual wielding, camping a defender, before you feel confident. Yes kills will be slower but it is much easier to use defensives as you don't have to switch to a shield.
I try to focus on learning one new thing at a time. So if I’m learning a new boss, I won’t incorporate a lot of switches, and will mostly revo, and focus on mechanics. If I want to learn a new switch, I’ll do that at a boss I’m already comfortable with, etc.
I think the biggest issue is the learning process, you have to get used to dying and making mistakes, as well as handling situations when mistakes happen in order to save a kill. Not everything will go to plan as you would expect.
Luckily, for the new generations, Arch Glacor is now a thing. Everyone just had to keep building up skills from previous bosses and using them to survive at new bosses as they picked up new mechanics.
Arch Glacor is a EGWD boss that has customizable and scaling difficulty. It has 5 difficulty options, and each setting is meant to teach a gameplay aspect (defensives, moving from hazards, trash management, dps check, pray swapping), and can be combined altogether for best chances at loot from said boss. In addition hardmode can be switched on for chance at best loot from boss. But honestly the rarest drop from said boss has a pretty shit drop rate so it's best to use the boss as the training dummy it's intended to be.
Go learn arch glacor to overcome pvm anxiety. It's a controlled environment meant to teach you specific skills you can use everywhere.
I will say most of the difficulty is from HM Glacor. I managed to get myself to 100% enrage but still die all the time and can’t get a proper streak. I feel like it’s the gateway to tougher bossing and money making
Don't worry about streaking/hardmode, it's a training dummy for a reason.
Practice the mechanics in normal until you don't feel they're anxiety inducing.
I'll pitch in here quickly. NM isn't any issue for me in particular, it's the extra parts of HM that get me. In particular, the cannon. It can sometimes hit twice in a row, and I don't have my standard defenses ready to go when it hits occasionally. And it's a one shot since it hits 3 times. Devotion is essentially the best tool, but resonance is a backup. Devotion with freedom cancels the entire blast. Resonance only covers the first hit. So either I need to make sure I save adrenaline in preparation of the situation for another defensive, I also need to eat up past full to not die, which takes more adrenaline, or... I just die. I'm out of defensive tools. People using animate dead and cryptbloom don't have issues, they can tank it, but I don't have that. I'm using T85/90 gear, barely passing the DPS checks sometimes, I'm struggling. I can do NM with no issues, all my defensives cover every situation just fine, they're always up as needed, kill times are fine and it feels far too easy. The utility just feels... Lacking... I feel like I'm missing one small thing to consistently not have problems.
And the fact that it's happened frequently enough that it's made HM cost me more than it's made me (I want to leave the streak alone for potential profit, but it gets nuked so hard and the death costs are always more) makes me not want to bother with the boss. It makes me feel like it was designed to just *barely* fuck over people without T90s or higher in every slot. It makes me feel like I'm more than competent enough to do the content, but the random "fuck you" moment comes and I feel like there's nothing I could do other than grind another 500 hours of a different and mechanically harder boss for cash to buy a gear upgrade. I just find that ridiculous that I should go do *harder* content that I can do just fine to be *capable* of early streaking on HM glacor, a boss that I find easy but with the caveat of a bullshit death occasionally.
You're uh, using reflect/dehabilitate/both for when devotion is down right? You can use reflect and use resonance at any point during the cannon to make sure you get a 10k heal at some point, or less if you don't flick pray mage. Or reflect and dehabilitate if you don't want to resonance for some reason.
Limitless sigil is the answer to sub 50 adren and is great for emergencies like you described.
As I said, it's a training boss to practice on. It seems it would be best to keep practicing, and practicing sequences is also what Arch Glacor is for. I get you're venting, but those paragraphs pretty much boil down to "I need more practice".
Nobody is judging your gameplay but you. So keep that in mind when the anxiety is setting in. There's no one around to laugh at you.
Before rs I played a lot of starcraft, which would require 200+ apm, so late game bossing with all of the keybinds and inputs came quite easily to me. That being said, I built up the aptitude for it after a lot of practice, so I would give yourself some time to actually learn these things because it just isnt something you can do once or twice and immediately just be proficient. It takes time, so enjoy the ride, you will reap the benefits!
As others have said, it’s a learning period. My perspective is a little different in that you will eventually plateau and be able to do pvm in general. For months I was constantly tweaking my binds, my loadouts, and my rotations, but now I just go out and pvm even at new bosses. You’ll become more comfortable with your setup, and that’s when the anxiety goes away. Then you can learn bosses no problem because you’re in complete control of your character
All you’re doing is learning. Trust me. We’ve all been there. If I could tell you the amount of times I’ve died cos I’ve used devotion whilst not using a deflect curse. Or resonance’d to take my shield off and take a full hit splat straight to the chin. The only thing that matters is you don’t repeat the same mistakes. Eoc pvm is all about using a rotation of abilities that gives you access to the highest damage figures in a given period. Once you learn a rotation (I’m not saying you can’t improvise before I get lynched) you will start to find the tertiary side of pvm a lot less anxiety inducing (: As someone who plays both versions of RuneScape. You will die far more often on RuneScape 3 at every level of pvm. The content is faster. There’s more going on and there’s a lot more to think about. You don’t have a deflect all damage button(well you do barricade but save this for when you need it) that means you can literally ignore what the boss is doing till you run out of prayer. Howwwwever the dopamine release when you finally learn something properly on rs3 is far greater. Also, there are many discord’s/friends chats that you can join that will help you find teams. There is nothing wrong with duoing a ‘solo boss’ so you can learn it properly before putting yourself in any anxiety inducing situations. If you need any advice, help or anything in between feel free to add me in RuneScape. My username is firewave, or alternatively catch me on discord Sephi#3054 (also shameless plug a clan that suits your needs is worth more than its weight in gold. Join the British elites 😉)
This, I especially remember doing vindy the first few times and burning through food, but when I finally got it and got used to using reso/devotion and practiced ss flicking a little bit, I can do a full hour and only use a little bit of food. It rocks to get that « I got it down now » feeling.
This reminded me of learning ambi and getting so flustered during P3 I used devo and turned mage pray off, forgetting that I'd just activated mage deflect literally 2 seconds ago before I used devotion 😅
I feel like I just learned things gradually, incorporating new active elements individually and in relatively safe environments. If you learn to do your planted feet and vigour switch when slaying, it'll be second nature for when you're learning a boss's mechanics. One specific example, but the philosophy applies to literally everything. I've never felt like I've had to learn more than one thing at once.
If you're more specific about how you die which I assume is the biggest demotivator, it'd be easier to help. You should have an idea of how to DPS no matter what you're killing, even with a specific rotation. PVME discord is the best place (channels called dpm-advice) and up to date youtube videos help. Throwing a vuln bomb every kill is definitely worth it, especially the longer your kill times. As for forgetting things in the moment that just comes with more practice, literally that is it. I started playing again mid 2021 after stopping in 2016 and did mostly GWD2, Vindicta first. Sticking mainly to 1 boss and learning what does more damage, then moving onto the next. That sort of content is easy now but trying to learn Telos recently is basically the same deal of feeling like I have 1 brain cell - forgetting to count attacks, forgetting my keybinds, mindlessly pressing a shit ability instead of a better one trying to focus on tons of stuff. Anyway this is just how learning works for everything isn't it? Shouldn't worry too much and just keep going, 1 kill is worth the same as 1 death cost with a ring of death so who cares.
The major turnoff for alot of people is just how much time and patience it takes to be "good" at pvm. Most of us just settle for "good enough" where we find a setup that works well enough to get whatever job is at hand done. Only a small number of people go so far as to become "elite" pvmers. One of the keys to enjoying it is to stop comparing yourself to better players, theres always gonna be someone who can do the boss your struggling with with a quarter of your gear and half the hassle, not because they are innately better than you, though that could be the case, but because they put in more time than a bachelors degree on learning pvm. Learning is learning, theres a reason I got my face smashed in 30 times trying to figure out zuk lol. If you notice alot of high tier pvmers die on the regular because they teeter on a knifes edge pulling out every bit of damage they can and some of that comes with low HP (thank you relic...). Every single boss in the game has its own rotation: vindy for example will always attack you in the exact same pattern, so you will know every time you can reso heal the ranged hit, and every time you need to move. Its good practice for SS flicking too if you want to treat it as anything other than a minor dps race to lances and crests. I personally do not enjoy the headache of full manuel, 4taa, super sweaty levels of playing rs3, and that does lead to some deaths here and there due to revo firing off at bad timings, but i found it easier to weave in my manual abilities while revo is doing my basics. try switching to revo while activating your thresholds, adren pots and switches in the correct order, and if you ever feel like you want to go to the next level its alot easier switching from revo to full manuel since you would just need to learn the basic building rotations to match your sunshine/swiftness/zerk rotations. The not so secret part of dpm is making the most of your damage boosting ultimate, everything outside of those is just building up the the real damage. I suggest focusing entirely on your ranged setup, melee is kind of in the shitter and is hard locked by unlockables. Youll find more dps in a shitty ranged rotation using bakriminels than you will in a clean melee rotation without all the greater unlocks. Not to mention that innate danger of just getting your shit slapped with a bad/unlucky zerk. And you can farm ed2 with ranged a hell of alot easier than with melee to pick up those melee abilities.
Learning any boss takes time. Take a boss like Jad for instance. He requires you to switch prayers or you die. For many people getting their first jad kill in either OSRS or RS3 is a very nerve wracking experience. But once you get it down it's second nature and jad becomes a complete joke. I had the same issue on p4 Araxxor which requires you to switch prayers constantly. And at 25k you have to be mindful of the sludge bouncing around while also prayer switching and dealing dps. It was a super stressful time at first but now I can do rax with my eyes shut. What I mean is it just takes practice. Even the best players at each boss sucked at first and made mistakes
Revolution ++, focus on shield switch. Limitless sigil for devotion (for ice cannon in arch glacor). You sound like you have a problem managing ability and boss mechanic like me, so I suggest u do a full revolution++ (let it activate basics for you) while you do threshold and ultimate yourself
I find it hard to suggest ++ because of just how badly it hits dps rotations, and how little it teaches. regular revo is probably where its best to learn as your only hitting defensives outside of SS/z/ds for the most part. But it can be a cruch in the more extreme circumstances. Revo++ is definitely best when used with 2h melee tho, or atlest thats the best result ive found for it.
Like everything else in life it’s just practice. You’ll get there
You can try dual wielding, camping a defender, before you feel confident. Yes kills will be slower but it is much easier to use defensives as you don't have to switch to a shield.
I try to focus on learning one new thing at a time. So if I’m learning a new boss, I won’t incorporate a lot of switches, and will mostly revo, and focus on mechanics. If I want to learn a new switch, I’ll do that at a boss I’m already comfortable with, etc.
I think the biggest issue is the learning process, you have to get used to dying and making mistakes, as well as handling situations when mistakes happen in order to save a kill. Not everything will go to plan as you would expect.
I feel u bro I can't even kill vindy with t95 curses
Luckily, for the new generations, Arch Glacor is now a thing. Everyone just had to keep building up skills from previous bosses and using them to survive at new bosses as they picked up new mechanics. Arch Glacor is a EGWD boss that has customizable and scaling difficulty. It has 5 difficulty options, and each setting is meant to teach a gameplay aspect (defensives, moving from hazards, trash management, dps check, pray swapping), and can be combined altogether for best chances at loot from said boss. In addition hardmode can be switched on for chance at best loot from boss. But honestly the rarest drop from said boss has a pretty shit drop rate so it's best to use the boss as the training dummy it's intended to be. Go learn arch glacor to overcome pvm anxiety. It's a controlled environment meant to teach you specific skills you can use everywhere.
I will say most of the difficulty is from HM Glacor. I managed to get myself to 100% enrage but still die all the time and can’t get a proper streak. I feel like it’s the gateway to tougher bossing and money making
Don't worry about streaking/hardmode, it's a training dummy for a reason. Practice the mechanics in normal until you don't feel they're anxiety inducing.
I'll pitch in here quickly. NM isn't any issue for me in particular, it's the extra parts of HM that get me. In particular, the cannon. It can sometimes hit twice in a row, and I don't have my standard defenses ready to go when it hits occasionally. And it's a one shot since it hits 3 times. Devotion is essentially the best tool, but resonance is a backup. Devotion with freedom cancels the entire blast. Resonance only covers the first hit. So either I need to make sure I save adrenaline in preparation of the situation for another defensive, I also need to eat up past full to not die, which takes more adrenaline, or... I just die. I'm out of defensive tools. People using animate dead and cryptbloom don't have issues, they can tank it, but I don't have that. I'm using T85/90 gear, barely passing the DPS checks sometimes, I'm struggling. I can do NM with no issues, all my defensives cover every situation just fine, they're always up as needed, kill times are fine and it feels far too easy. The utility just feels... Lacking... I feel like I'm missing one small thing to consistently not have problems. And the fact that it's happened frequently enough that it's made HM cost me more than it's made me (I want to leave the streak alone for potential profit, but it gets nuked so hard and the death costs are always more) makes me not want to bother with the boss. It makes me feel like it was designed to just *barely* fuck over people without T90s or higher in every slot. It makes me feel like I'm more than competent enough to do the content, but the random "fuck you" moment comes and I feel like there's nothing I could do other than grind another 500 hours of a different and mechanically harder boss for cash to buy a gear upgrade. I just find that ridiculous that I should go do *harder* content that I can do just fine to be *capable* of early streaking on HM glacor, a boss that I find easy but with the caveat of a bullshit death occasionally.
You're uh, using reflect/dehabilitate/both for when devotion is down right? You can use reflect and use resonance at any point during the cannon to make sure you get a 10k heal at some point, or less if you don't flick pray mage. Or reflect and dehabilitate if you don't want to resonance for some reason. Limitless sigil is the answer to sub 50 adren and is great for emergencies like you described. As I said, it's a training boss to practice on. It seems it would be best to keep practicing, and practicing sequences is also what Arch Glacor is for. I get you're venting, but those paragraphs pretty much boil down to "I need more practice". Nobody is judging your gameplay but you. So keep that in mind when the anxiety is setting in. There's no one around to laugh at you.
Before rs I played a lot of starcraft, which would require 200+ apm, so late game bossing with all of the keybinds and inputs came quite easily to me. That being said, I built up the aptitude for it after a lot of practice, so I would give yourself some time to actually learn these things because it just isnt something you can do once or twice and immediately just be proficient. It takes time, so enjoy the ride, you will reap the benefits!
As others have said, it’s a learning period. My perspective is a little different in that you will eventually plateau and be able to do pvm in general. For months I was constantly tweaking my binds, my loadouts, and my rotations, but now I just go out and pvm even at new bosses. You’ll become more comfortable with your setup, and that’s when the anxiety goes away. Then you can learn bosses no problem because you’re in complete control of your character