How you can become a Gladiator: Introduction

An epic gem costs about 200 gold. A rare BoE sunwell pattern can go for 10,000 gold. People have paid me from 4,000 to 6,000 gold to get them the rating necessary for a single item. Jimmy McCasual will gladly farm gold on a Chinese gold farmer schedule (or swipe his mom’s credit card to subcontract the work) to get his avatar a 6 DPS upgrade in from of a phallic weapon he can stand around Ironforge with and look cool. Yet no one would pay a fraction of that gold to learn to play.

The fundamental (arena) difference between talented players and scrubs is that scrubs play to better their character while talented players play to better their skills. People don’t understand that the number one reason they lose an arena match is because they are playing bad. I lose at 2500 rating because I made mistakes. That ret paladin / feral druid team at 1300 rating lost because they played like complete shit; because they have no semblance of hand-eye coordination.

Their understanding of gameplay mechanics is likely absent for lack of a better word. And don’t give me the ‘I will play the game whatever way I want, it’s my $15’ bullshit, because if a homeless bum told you that he has the right to live his life the way he wants, would you believe him?

If we asked a 1500 rated team why they lost a match they would complain about gear / class imbalance and whine about how their comp was underpowered. If we asked a vengeful gladiator to watch the same match he would give a list of mistakes longer a GRE.

If we take a rogue in season 1 gear that is stuck in the 1400 bracket and give him warglaives, 4 / 4 Tier 6 / Season 4, etc, he will perhaps move to the 1500 bracket. If I (or any other of the few thousand talented players) log on his undergeared character, we will 1v2 to 1700 rating.

The first step towards improving your ratings is to recognize that you have a lot of room to improve. If you’re comfortable in the ratings you’re at right now, you are beyond hope. However, if you recognize that you can improve as a player, recognize that you could spend many hours grinding gold to get all epic gems and the improvement to your play will be one thousandth as much as spending that time on improving your skills. There’s always room to play better.

In my upcoming series of articles titled ‘How you an become a Gladiator’ I will do my best to list every common wrong thing people do.

Table of contents
I: Introduction
II: Know your character
III: Controlling your character efficiently
IV: Paying attention
V: Communicating
VI: Morale
VII: Class specifics