Q3. "I'm having trouble in the Arena / just starting out, what general tips do you have?"
A. Variants of this question are one I receive frequently, and they are some of the hardest to answer because there is just so MUCH that I could say. Here are a few things:
- Start keybinding, and learn to mouse-turn as soon as you can. I had an incredibly late start in this (I only started midway through season 3), and it has helped me IMMENSELY. Try to learn 2-4 keybinds a week if you can and experiment with them. Force yourself to use them. If you have to: put the spells off your visible actionbars and "hide" them so the only way you can possibly use them is to key-hit them rather than click them. And if you really want to test yourself: play with your UI entirely off so you can see what spells you crave so frequently that they just SHOULD be keybound (for me: the first spells I keybound were my cyclone, root, heals, then my shapeshifting forms, followed by dispells).
- Gear up. If you are just starting out, snag the Reputation-Bought PvP Blues, and/or if you have spare gear laying around, socket for high resil/stamina. Grind those Battlegrounds and be active in Arena each week so you can start getting the top-of-the-line gear as soon as possible. You'll find once you start hitting about 300-400+ resilience, you can start re-gemming for other stats (Mp5, Healing, etc.) rather than pure survival. But first: you have to survive.
- Watch videos, read forums, interact with other users. There are TONS of websites and forums out there to help you (ArenaJunkies.com, for one). Watch good videos, bad videos, and try to pick out the good and the bad to help you better understand not only your pairing of choice, but how OTHER pairings tackle YOUR pairing. Learning to anticipate the other team's strategy is really key the higher up in the arena you go.
- Record your own matches. Even if you rewatch wins and loses, you can inevitably learn areas where you/your teammates might be able to improve, and if you got "ROFLSTOMPED!" (Hey: it happens), you can review the footage to see just how the other team pulled it off, so hopefully you can avoid it in the future, or, better yet: make their tactics your own!
- Use LoS to your advantage. Always be looking for a better spot where you can have the advantage over your opponents. Also: if things are looking grim, don't be afraid to dodge out of LoS and play defensively until you can regain/stabilize yourself/your teammates.
- Look for opportunities to "control" the other team and make them go where YOU want them to go. You might be sick of chasing that druid around and around pillars, but if you move across the map and put a lot of pressure on his warrior, the druid will have to come out to heal him eventally. :)
- PvP as regularly as you can. Unless people are wanting to maintain their rating, or possibly "inch" it up, I do not think 10-15 games a week is helpful. At all. The statistics of such a short session are vastly against a team's favor for various reasons.
You have to hope you get purely lucky with teams that are (entotal) not only generally less geared than yourself (which gets harder as you go up), but less skilled, and with group combos that don't stomp you. If you play only 10 games a week, the odds are against you to inch up the arena ladder past a point simply because your team will lack one crucial ingredient: experience.
10 games a week is not "experience" to me. It's something, like dipping your foot in a pool of water where you get a visceral reaction, but only 10 games means you a missing out on really learning to coordinate as a group, and you learn that from repeatedly refining strategy, and most importantly : failing.
Failing is a huge part of the arena. And I mean HUGE. And I don't mean that in the negative snarky pointy-fingery way either, I mean rather that the more you arena, the more you and your teammates are able to pinpointed exactly what went wrong, and the circumstances that led up to that, and are able to prevent that from happening again (or at least, that's the hope). You have to learn how to control the match.
Whether I'm in 2s, 3s, or 5s, after each match, we talk for a little about what went wrong and what went right, even if we win. People mess up, it happens, and being part of teams where people take personal responsibility and criticism in a good manner is really integral to working together "as a team." Be supportive or your teammates! Compliment great plays/reactions! it helps wonders!
One of the problems I had with 5s during some of S3 is we had 2 or more "Alpha Dogs" that would get angry, raise their voice, etc., and I learned that that sort of environment just isn't for me. I really enjoy myself in arena a lot more when I'm among people that are even-tempered.
Also remember: "balanced" teams and gear do come into play the further up you go. So keep that in mind when you are creating teams. While, for instance, Anirul and I went "ohhh, maybe ShadowPriest+Feral Druid = win..." we found that really didn't seem to be the case. That didn't mean we both were horrible, it just meant that our class/spec talents didn't "mesh" well together against a majority of other pairings.
Anyway, that's a little off-topic, but getting back to topic: I am a firm believer in the more practice the better. Yes: your rating will wobble. It might even wobble within about 100 point margin, but the more you play, the better you will get.
People who get into the "high end" stuff, I've found, are far from perfect. I used to say that in the 1800s, the first person to screw up would inadvertently lead to a loss, but I don't believe that anymore. I believe the best teams are the ones that are the quickest to adapting to situations thrown at them. That level of heightened response can only come from one thing: practice.
To give you an extreme example of "practice" when Anirul and I first started arenaing together, it was for fun in 2s. We ran 120+ games in ONE DAY, and then another 100-200 that week, I believe. And in the end: we were still in the 1600s, but I learned a hell of a lot from it.
When I started running with my lock, I also had a two week period where I was on a horrible connection. As in: every 1/3 games I would DC, thus tanking our rating. He and I ended up laughing about it, and we preferred to get the experience working together for those 2/3 games, and I don't regret a bit of it. It certainly wasn't IDEAL, but we got to practice coordinating ourselves and working together with out worrying "Omg but my rating!? NUUUUUU!"
I also prefer not to play once a week. Not only do things come up, but people can be tired/out of it/busy with RL. I think it's much nicer having fun in arena a few times throughout the week. Some days you will find your "groove" easily, and sometimes you will end up going "you know, we are 1 for 7, why don't we try again tomorrow? The same warrior + druid is point-farming us... :( " More times a week is also more practice.
Far as AVERAGE numbers go, I would say that when I'm not locked down by work, I probably run 20-40 2s a day, about 3-4 times a week (some days there are multiple sessions). 3s, it is probably about 20-30 a day, about 2-3 times a week. 5s was twice a week for 20-30 games as well. On top of that, I do Arena skirmishes for fun, variety, and to work on new keybindings about 15 times a day about 3-4 times a week. In addition, of course: countless BattleGrounds. I would guess about 5-15+ a day if I'm online/bored.
So, you're looking at a combined total of well over 200+ rated and unrated games most weeks for me. Considering the queue times, it's really not that time-intensive either (maybe a couple of hours a day a few times a week).
I don't have alts. PvP is what I've thrown myself into headfirst, so if I'm not raiding, that's what I'm usually up to, and I've been really blessed to have found compatriots that are tolerant not only of my schedule, but are interested in playing a lot, communicating, helping each other, and just... well... doing all they can.
Question - "I'm thinking one of the reasons so many of us can't break out past 1600 and keep climbing is that we play 10 games once a week and then quit. Or maybe 15 and we're up a couple of games and call it quits."
I agree. I also think that starting out, I remember at least for me I was so worried about points I didn't want to "risk" losing, so I'd kinda hover around some nice-sounding number (say 1600), and not want to keep playing if I dared drop lower. But really: if you are a solidish, say, 1550-1650 player, you won't dip THAT far. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt and keep playing if you feel you are still on top of your game, and win or lose: learn something. Trying to walk away from every match MORE knowledgeable. That knowledge right there is more invaluable than any point loss. You will see so many different combos, and many playstyles. Watching videos, reading strats, and recording your own glories and failures also helps as well (I learned one of my moves from a video I reviewed where a team with a druid slaughtered me and I wanted to know how the heck that HAPPENED.... and now I do it myself!)
Over 1800, my partners and I have had some incredible "dips." One night, we went from 2000 back down to the 1800s, and we decided to take a couple hour break and then come back. Within about 2 days, we were back over 2000 again. It sucked to drop like that, but it happens. The investment for time might not have been ideal, but we learned along the way. Especially when there are counters for nearly every team out there.
Question - "On the other hand, last time I put in 20 games in a row we lost the last two due to stupid mistakes because I was just plain tired and losing focus. How do you prevent that or recognize it before it ruins your rating?"
You can't really prevent it. Honestly. Mistakes happen, even if you are alert, or if you are playing a 2+ hour match (oh god no more of those please!). For myself, at least, I try to figure out if the mistake was just a boo boo or miscall in judgment, or if it's exhaustion setting in. If I have 2x exhaustion-suspected errors, I'll usually ask for a break. At least for me, I can tell the difference just because of the nature of the mistake, if that makes any sense. Luckily too: the more you play, the more you learn how to instinctually recover from mistakes. It's that instinct you are fostering more of when you play more frequently. The arena isn't about points, or "welfare epics," it's about improving your reaction time, situational awareness, instinct, communication, coordination against living, breathing, foes. It's not a scripted counter, which is why I'll forever be more breathless for PvP than PvE. They are vastly different beasts.
I also will say this: the more you do Arena, the higher your stamina seems to get. Just like raiding (at least for me), when I started way back, I remember going: "Two HOURS doing ONE thing?!" but now it isn't so bad at all. :) Just try to feel yourself out. If you had a long/stressful day, maybe Arena isn't the best idea on a certain night. On the other hand: maybe it's just what you need to relax (I find it soothing because I love that "in the zone" feel). Don't push yourself so hard that you aren't enjoying yourself, and certainly don't look at ratings as an and-all gauge. They will work themselves out over time.
Enjoy the experience. That's really the bottom line. :)
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