I know exactly how you feel. I have been playing since launch and have only ever done 1 dungeon. I had friends I use to run with, but they have left eso leaving me forever alone lol. I don't want to deal with the toxicity of running with (some) pug groups. I was thinking a finding a friendly and patient pve guild to ease my way into veteran content.

Same here, I only run with guildies or friends.
Had quiet a lot of toxic players in random normals/ random vets.

My anxiety with vet content stems more around being teamed with sub-par team mates and taking hours to complete content that could otherwise be done in 20-40 minutes. I make an effort to learn about any vet content that I'm trying to complete, before making my first attempt. Watching a video guide before entering a dungeon so that you know what to expect may alleviate some of your anxiety.

I know how you feel, OP. I have more CP than you and decent gear and I cannot pull more than 12K DPS; therefore, I know I'd get laughed out of any vet dungeon group. Even joining normal ones is very intimidating. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll never see any of them except the ones I was able to duo with my boyfriend (Fungal Grotto and Banished Cells.) Although we completed most of them on Normal.

Ley wrote: »

My anxiety with vet content stems more around being teamed with sub-par team mates and taking hours to complete content that could otherwise be done in 20-40 minutes. I make an effort to learn about any vet content that I'm trying to complete, before making my first attempt. Watching a video guide before entering a dungeon so that you know what to expect may alleviate some of your anxiety.

This is an very good idea, don't go random vet dungeon unless you can do all. watch an video to get some idea that you run into, try dungeon.
Your dps is more than good enough for anything. And tell its your first time on vet, might wait until close to first boss, you has obviously done your share on trash so you are safe.
And you get pugs who is pretty hopeless sometimes, you are free to leave, also vote to kick the other DD if he don't belong in dungeon, or fake healers and tanks.

And yes I have some of it myself for hard content: healing and cp180 inexperienced tank in vCoS on my sorcerer was interesting. Joined because I thought he asked for vault of madness for some reason.

I mean, there is content that cannot be done with 25K dps, like hm maw, asylum, vhof...but dps will go up substantially with practice and proper gear.

Thank you guys so much for the advice so far! I just wanted to update a little because I forgot to add this in my original post: I already watch videos of dungeon tutorials. I do this for even normal. I think that's really good advice for those who want to start doing veteran content though is to watch those videos. They definitely help.

Thank you again to everyone who replied, I'll definitely be reading your comments for advice and inspiration when I start doing veteran content. Continue the discussion though, more advice doesn't hurt and I hope someone who is struggling like me with veteran content due to anxiety will read all of your guys' advice.

The problem is a few bad experiences can really but a damper on moral. I just kept pugging ..the trick for me was to que as quickly as possible after getting kicked.

I have had some of my best experiences in eso pugging vet dungeons. I have met some really great people. Had some really unexpected finishes.

My advise is just keep queing. Soon you will be confident and know more than most.

Llaren_Uvayn wrote: »

It helps if you look up a video for the boss mechanics beforehand. But yeah, the ESO community can be really toxic. Something goes wrong, people immediately reach for the "vote to kick" button or just leave the dungeon before even attempting the first boss.

Unfortunately ZOS had brought them 100% upon themselves. Out of all the content they've made so far (quite alot !!) in the past 4 yours they could have very easily made 3 mini-vma dungeons, 1 per role that serve as a tutorial in order to educate, qualify and verify (earn a title required to enter vet) how good people are at a specific role in order to filter the bad ones out from ruining vet content for other players but they didn't.

Result: after 4 years of terrible players being allowed to ruin pug runs most good/experienced players have adapted and stay clear from pugs and the new players receive zero guidance or education towards obtaining the required skills for vet content.

A quick update: I have been doing a couple of veteran dungeons recently, the most notable being Vet Cradle of Shadows. I once tried doing this dungeon at 300+ CP on my healer, but I bet you can imagine how quickly that can go sour. I did it for the pledge and the fact that Velidreth's monster set is one of the best monster sets my DPS character could use.

In the end, it went really well! We had 1 full CP tank and a 200 CP healer who did amazing. The other DPS was around my CP level. Everyone was kind to each other, we all made a couple of mistakes, we never wiped, and we all friended each other in the end. I think a major difference from my first experience is that no one made anyone else feel less. Everyone was treated kindly, no one was toxic, etc.

On the other hand, another vet dungeon I did recently was... a bit different, not terrible though. I came into it super late, they were on the final boss of Elden Hollow 2, I think. The tank was having difficulty understanding where to place himself, he was constantly moving and was having the boss sometimes breathe on us, by mistake. My other DPS, who was 200 CP (apparently he had a 720 CP alt account), was constantly belittling this tank and the healer though. He was constantly yelling at them what do to, telling them they sucked, etc. He started whispering to me saying we should kick them, but I had other plans. I started telling the tank what to do so the boss doesn't accidentally breathe on us again. I wanted the tank not to feel terrible because maybe he was trying vet for the first time, like I did earlier. After explaining to him what to do, we had a much better run.

I think one of the major issues that will stick with me and vet, from what I experienced, is definitely the toxicity. I understand getting frustrated at someone for not understanding the mechanics or not doing their job correctly, but that doesn't mean you should belittle them or call them horrendous things. It saddens me that people still act like this over a game. The bad experience I had, as explained above, wasn't even close to the worse from what I've seen (or experienced myself) in Veteran content. In fact, the DPS who was belittling the tank and healer wasn't terrible, he tried explaining things to them, just in a bad way. I definitely think the best way to explain something to someone is to be kind to them and I hope many who read this topic understand how it feels to treat others with toxicity. It doesn't make things better, instead I think it looks worse on you.

SidewalkChalk5 wrote: »

[quote=

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

I know how you feel, OP. I have more CP than you and decent gear and I cannot pull more than 12K DPS; therefore, I know I'd get laughed out of any vet dungeon group.

What do you mean you "cannot"? You can easily pull much more than that. Run the right sets, quality, traits, enchants, mundus, and develop a logical, circular skill rotation. If you don't know how to design your own build to get over 25k+, then copy one from the internet. Alcast is a great source for easy beginner builds.

I'm not a beginner; I know, in theory, what a good build and rotation are. I have decent (not BiS) gear, and even tried asking some time ago for extra advice on the forum and got some good tips which sadly didn't actually work out for me in practice. I sometimes feel that people who claim to pull 25k+ DPS are playing a different game than me. I can only surmise that my rotation, which I think isn't that disastrous,is the issue but I can't seem to improve it.

Yep, I do all that with the exception of having copied Alcast's CP list; I've been playing the game since Beta so I am pretty familiar with the class (Mag Sorc in this case). Gear on my test character was also gold, though the current version is only purple because since I don't do anything beyond overland content at this point I didn't feel like a wasting the improvers.

I don't know what the issue is either; someone in my old thread said I should get 15k DPS, with my build, just by spamming Force Pulse which in my world isn't even close to being true.

I am on PC EU.

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

SidewalkChalk5 wrote: »

[quote=

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

I know how you feel, OP. I have more CP than you and decent gear and I cannot pull more than 12K DPS; therefore, I know I'd get laughed out of any vet dungeon group.

What do you mean you "cannot"? You can easily pull much more than that. Run the right sets, quality, traits, enchants, mundus, and develop a logical, circular skill rotation. If you don't know how to design your own build to get over 25k+, then copy one from the internet. Alcast is a great source for easy beginner builds.

I'm not a beginner; I know, in theory, what a good build and rotation are. I have decent (not BiS) gear, and even tried asking some time ago for extra advice on the forum and got some good tips which sadly didn't actually work out for me in practice. I sometimes feel that people who claim to pull 25k+ DPS are playing a different game than me. I can only surmise that my rotation, which I think isn't that disastrous,is the issue but I can't seem to improve it.

You should get someone who knows your class to literally coach you while you hit the dummy.

Solo, you can record and watch your own parses to try and see where the "hiccups" are and smoothe them out next time.