The shaking goes away after a couple of spars with someone and then defending/raiding once or twice.

That's what everyone says. I do defend, but defending is different than fighting village revolts. For one thing, when defending, there's always someone who knows what to do there to tell me what to do. I have a job and can focus on that, so the scrolling madness doesn't bother me as much.

In the village revolt, I didn't even know who was attacking me half the time.

And to be honest, the awfulness I feel during and after a spar or a village revolt or whatever is not worth any amount of 'getting used to it' I'd get by subjecting myself to it a lot. People tell me that if I'd just drink more beer, I'd get used to the taste of beer.

Well, no thanks. Why'm I gonna force myself to endure something nasty for the farflung chance that I might get used to it enough not to think it's awful? Forget that. I'll stick to my strawberry frozen margaritas if I feel like drinking, thanks. They're yummny to start with. No 'getting used to it' involved.

Same with fighting, IMO. I defend, cause I actually manage to be semi-useful, but I'm never going to be all "Yippee! A fight!"

But that's cool, cause there's hella lots to do in Lusternia that have nothin to do with fighting and I can enjoy all of them just fine.

Have you considered drinking more beer while sparring? Sort of a killing two birds thing?

If a village revolt is conducted correctly, there should be someone telling you what to do or focus on just like in defending.

Oh, there's a system for that in place. Part of the fact that it didn't do me any good is my fault. For one thing, I'm only just back for a week after having been gone for, like, a thousand years. So, I'm not really up on things. For example, it wasn't until after I died the first time that I realized a good third of my vials had decayed overnight so I didn't have any mending or a bunch of other stuff.

But beyond that, everyone kind of has that 'well-oiled machine' vibe and there I am with that 'chicken who just go her head cut off' vibe. Not really meshing.

And I'm actually pretty good with the regular kind of revolt. The non-violent kind. I manage to avoid getting ego-shattered, I win denizens, I know what to do. But the fighting kind, my brain just goes, goes sort of stupid with the stress or something and I forget the alias to change my target from one person to another and wind up uselessly throwing random attacks at someone who's not even there while someone else kills me.

When in doubt, just sit in a room with a denizen and ct as soon as it shuffles its feet. Even if you get debated out, that's still a totally useful and not stressful thing that's very helpful.

Well, look at it on the bright side. You're already way better than some of us. The only thing I can do in combat is 1v1 vs. a druid in the arena (and that's against a Hartstone. Not even an actual enemy I'd really be fighting. Woo! for practical combat training). I can't even defend, so you're already way better. Whenever I actually tried to fight in the Serenwilde, it was three people all saying three completely different things to do, so nobody has a clue anyway, and everything whips by so fast I can't even see what the effect my last attack was, before it's gone. And I quickly found that attempting to scroll back to read something = instant death. And then on top of that being told afterward every single time, that because I chose Healing, I'll be useless in combat anyway. Yay for encouragement.

Wheeee combat is so not fun.

Healing is so not useless in combat.

Come be a Shadowdancer!

It's true, healing is awesome, especially in groups.

My hands still shake in some fights, so I think I'm in the same boat as you. However, the shaking has diminished a lot. The people who say "a few spars" are wrong -- at least for us, maybe it was that way for them, but it takes a lot more than few. But it also takes more than the spars. My advice:

• For your next fight, pick one simple strategy, not more than two or three moves, to accomplish. Don't try to win, don't even try to survive. (I don't mean, commit suicide; I just mean, set your expectations that you're going to die, so that's all you're aiming for, for now.) Just set the goal that you will do that one combination, once, successfully.
• Set up a few triggers to highlight or echo just the things you need for the one thing you're doing.
• Try doing this a few times at a time of your choosing, like a spar. If you can get someone to cooperate, do it in slow motion the first time. Then move to doing it in defending and in villages.
• When you finally get it, keep doing it a bit. Then move on to something a little more complex that builds on it, and that others can benefit from. Do not let everyone yelling at you to do more complex things, or to win, to get to you. People who take to this stuff naturally can't understand the rest of us, or don't try, so don't listen to them. Just do the one thing until you can do it without your hands shaking.

After you do all this, your hands will shake a lot less. And you can build on that, do more things each time. You will find that sometimes it happens again; don't be discouraged, just go back to the things you know and it'll come back.

Alternately, depending on where your current character is, you could focus on running away from the griefers!

Set macros to move, and work on running away. When you're un-jittery-enough that you can run away from the demigod that has come to kill your harmless little midbie self, you can start actually working on mounting some kind of offense (This is how I first got started in lusternian combat). It took four or five deaths to Urazial in Etherwilde before I could begin to actually run away... The combat, is another matter, but escape has proven one of the more useful first lessons in Lusternian combat.

You both give good advice! I really don't run away very well. I panic and forget where the exits are even when I can see them and if there's something obstructing my sight, then I'm doomed. I was spamming directions over and over trying to run away so often during that fight. It's funny now.

And Lendren, what you're suggesting kind of sounds like what makes defending ok for me. When I defend, in a group, someone usually says, "do this" so I just have to keep an eye out for who to target next and making sure the shaking doesn't mess up my entering the right macros and aliases to accomplish what I've been told to do. It simplifies things and I can shut out most of the crazy spam better.

When I'm on my own though, there's just too much going on. There's too many things to do, too many things being done, too much scrolling and it goes way too fast for me to keep up with even with my system's gagging and highlighting. It seriously freaks me out and I lose the ability to do even simple things. It's like my brain goes try this no try this no try this no hey, you're dying, do something do something do somethingdosomethingdosomethingdosomething but I'm panicking so much that I can't actually get anything done. Plus, when I finally do manage to force an actual idea of what might help out of my brain, my hands are all over the place so I hit the wrong keys. I've said before that combat puts me in a near panic attack state. I actually feel sick afterward.

Maybe I need to try to make fighting on my own more like fighting in a group or something? Your advice sounds like a decent place to start. Now I just need to work up the nerve to try it.

One thing that might help is to give yourself a day to hunt or influence or whatever, to earn experience and mentally "put it in a jar" -- that's your "dying while fighting" experience. Don't count it as really gained, but simply salted and set aside. That way the next time you fight, you'll know you aren't going to lose any real experience, only the extra experience you set aside for that purpose.

It's not really changing anything, but little mental tricks like this have helped me a lot in getting over the shakes, and might help you too.

That might help, as a calming agent, sure. Though, I don't really ever think about experience when I die. Mostly my thoughts just circle around how much I suck and nothing I try works and I didn't accomplish anything what so ever except prove how utterly inept I am. Which is totally pathetic, but true. Lusternia combat is my self esteem poison.

eta: Egh. That does sound pathetic, doesn't it? I'd edit it out, but folks have already read it.

I'm gonna write something fantastic for my org's library now. Cause I can accomplish things! Just, not in fighting.

Come write for our library, we need you!

*is late*

This is how I feel about fighting, Noola, except that not only can I not hit my keys, but I forget every single skill I have, including POINT STAFF. >< Granted, I've managed to get to a point where I can GEOCAST MELD, set up a demesne illusion, and then GEOCAST EARTHQUAKE, but that's only if I know there's a fight coming. Soon as someone shows up, I sit there and go "DDDDD: HOW I MINE FOR FISH?! WHERE I TAKE FLAG?!"

And then I die a few times and hide in my manse.

I gotta say, I'm glad to find out I'm not the only one who has this problem.

I am desperately trying to grasp combat for the first time as my Sentinel Llesvelt, playing mostly noncom characters before that, Llesvelt being another planned noncom. I mostly just try to spam maneuvers to the head.

HOW I MINE FOR FISH?!

I'm stealing this.