First Time in Arena and Preparation
Don’t Just Dive Right In
Most people attempt Arena as soon as they can just to get “points.” This most often applies to alts of people who just want to get geared up. While it’s nice to get 200 arena points with a rating of 1350, the player won’t get a good experience from doing so poorly. It’s very disheartening to go 1-99 (that’s as bad as Glass Joe from the original Punch Out). Simply put, it’s hard to learn when you get two-shot.
Get Prepared
Preparing to enter Arena isn’t difficult. The only guidelines you need to prepare include:
+ Collect enough resillience to protect yourself (300+ is standard)
+ Get Weaponry that’s relevant (Put that Axe away, snag a Sword or a Mace)
+ Spec yourself appropriately (I know you love Prot, but it’s not applicable)
+ Find people that you can tolerate - Yes, I realize this isn’t easy.
+ Get lots and lots of team-practice.
+ Communicate! Ventrilo or something similiar is important.
Where Do I Practice?
Personally, as a Warrior (and this applies to most classes), training in Alterac Valley - while fruitful in honor - is detrimental to practicing PvP. There is too much chaos and too many variables to practice tactics and techinques against other players. On the flip side, dueling might be helpful if you find yourself in a 1v1 situation, but this is typically an unrealistic way to hone your skills for Arena. That leaves EOTS, AB, and WSG. These are all excellent training grounds. I must comment though that it helps to bring your Arena partners with you into the matches so you can start working on synergy (the ability to work together seamlessly).
Last Words Before I Reach Zero HP?
Gear only matters at the entry point. Once you’re rocking a little more than 300 resillience (All PvP Gear - S1 or better), you’ll be in good enough condition to maintain 1600+ rating in any bracket. That said, all the gear in the world won’t save you if you don’t communicate with your team. Many a time our team failed to close someone out because of a lack of communication. When you’re ready to seal the deal, let your team know, and have your procedure in place. The only thing left is to go and do it.
-ERP-
January 12th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
This is some great stuff. I’m having to find a new partner for 2v2 and I think this will help out if not only for warriors but every class so we’re definitely gonna try to get some battleground practice in there. Our battlegroup is being mean and not letting us break 1600 though :( Too many new decked out teams around 1550 and above.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I’d say EotS and AB are even more beneficial than WSG, as both of those BG’s very often force a team of 15 into groups of 2 or 3 to fight other similarly numbered groups, much as one would in Arena.
I’d also say that if you can find someone to play with who knows how to PvP and can correct your actions on a regular basis that you learn even faster.
January 13th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I will add that an arena noob should probably watch a few arena vids from the perspective of someone playing the same class they do. It helps even more if the team setup in the vid is close to theirs. It’s hard to find healing perspective vids, but they’re out there.
Honestly, the arena vids I find most interesting to watch are from the PoV of crowd controllers. They usually have to CC at least two different people, watch for CS (or its equivalent), and DPS throughout, not to mention avoiding damage. It’s usually the CC’ers that win or lose a fight for a team, even though they might not be putting out ’sickcritzlol’.
Also, dueling is actually quite good practice for 2’s. A person can learn much about how their opponent will react based on what spells you’re casting. These reactions carry over to the 2’s bracket fairly well, which makes for better predictions.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I do think playing with your team for more than the ten games per week is a key ingredient. It is alright to make an exception for a certain point level that you have reached but other than that, I think the more practice together the better.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I dunno, I think pretty much all *ahem* teams could benefit by playing more than 10 games a week.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I’d kill for our 5s to be able to play more than just Saturday night …
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