Finding the right teammates by Sky

Sky has been raiding and pvping on his paladin since season 1. Today he is giving us his advice on how to find like-minded arena partners!

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So the Arena Tournament is in full swing, the forums are abuzz with activity, and your guild just spent 6 more hours wiping to the Eredar Twins. You are frustrated and annoyed, and you zone into the arena to get your 10 games in for the week. You spec MS, of course, because shield slamming the fleeing druid just doesn’t seem that effective, and your team tanks five games in a row before you realize Timmy is casting fireballs. When confronted about the matter, he gets very defensive: why should he pay 100g for just ten games, after all?

It’s a problem a lot of raiders face: you want to PvP more (or at least better), but you feel limited in your options. For one, you raid 4 or 5 times a week, and fitting in games outside of that isn’t easy. For two, you have to respec every time you play, and you don’t feel like doing dailies to cover the cost. And for three, you are constantly disappointed in your teammates, who are all real-life friends or other raiders in your guild. What can you possibly do to improve?

A lot of other raiders I know complain about these problems, and how it really seems to ruin PvP for them. I’m not going to address them all in one post, but I’d like to run a series dedicated to raiders who want to get more into PvP, and things they can do to improve. First, let’s take on one of the basics: the people you play with.

We all know there are many types of players, from Joe Poopsock to Timmy McCasual. If you’ve ever been a raider, you know this is true even within guilds. The guilds that tend to progress the fastest also have players who all share a common goal; namely, defeating content at virtually (sweet pun) any cost. Guilds that splinter and break up are almost always caused by divisions of goals within a guild—one group wants to progress, another wants to socialize, and another wants to just kind of casually play and see what happens.

So what does this have to do with PvP? Well, another trend I have noticed is that many raiders tend to treat PvP as if it is a completely different animal; because it only involves 2-5 people, it is inherently “more casual.” It is something they can just do in their spare time, with their friends and fellow raiders, and get epics slowly. But then they hit a wall and can’t understand why. The short answer is that it is no different than raiding.

If you are a competitive player, you probably don’t want to raid with the guy who insists on being Frost in raids, or the rogue who is Subtlety. You also don’t want to wipe because someone can’t reliably move out of the fucking fire, or because they never show up. For many raiders, this has meant abandoning their more casual, friendly guilds in the name of progression. You made the sacrifice to get ahead. If you want to do well in arena, you are going to have to do the same thing.

People on your team (particularly 5v5, since it has the most logistical hurdles) should share the same basic things:
1) Can you play at the same times, reliably, at least twice a week for an hour or two?
2) Do you have the same ultimate goal (1850 for weapons, Gladiator rank, have some fun, etc)?
3) Are you all willing to do what it takes to get to this goal (respeccing, gear choices, more playtime, videos, whatever)?
4) Are you at (or can you be at) the same playing level?


This may seem incredibly obvious to some people, but from personal experience there are loads of raiders on my server who stop progressing in arena because they refuse to look at it the same way as raiding. If you aren’t willing to make the jump from playing with Bob, your real-life friend who you’ve known since you were three but who doesn’t have viper sting on his bar, to Chris, you can somehow keep you alive while CCing the other team and making love to a pillar, you are eventually going to hit a wall.

For the same reasons, if you just want to arena casually and slowly get gear, you shouldn’t be playing with hyper competitive people, either. Everyone is generally happier when playing with people around their skill and commitment level. This isn’t an insult to casual players; it’s a suggestion to anyone who wants to PvP—find people who want to play just like you do, and you’ll have a much better game experience.

Amera