In between game breaks

drole · 08/19/07, 2:45 PM

I run a SPriest, Mage (frost or fire depending on the day in question) and affliction warlock 3on3 team. Games are as you might imagine incredibly stressfull. This does take its toll over time, especially if you chain queue without breaks. Small breaks when something needs to be dicussed strategywise is ofcourse given but besides this what are peoples experience with breaks in between games?

Short and frequent or long and rare?
After losses or wins?

david0925 · 08/19/07, 3:06 PM

I personally think short breaks (like 30 seconds) are decent regardless of wins and losses since you can always refine your strategy despite winning the match or not.

For losses, its better to go over the flawed strategy as well as poor play so that should you run into the same team again, you can alter your strategy accordingly and have a better shot at winning

caladein · 08/19/07, 5:26 PM

I play 5v5 predominately so after every game is over we'll take a look at Recount and ask "Okay, so what happened here?" I think it's incredibly important to do so after your wins as well as your loses so you have a decent chance at learning from all your games. (Also since I tend to hard on people at times, I make a point of calling out clutch play or just general good execution after the game.)

Outside of discussing the games and teams queuing, we pause for a bit when someone gets a drink, etc. probably every 10 games or so.

If there's nothing serious to discuss, we'll just queue back up and talk about it while waiting/buffing.

subscience · 08/19/07, 5:33 PM

We BS on Vent during wins and discuss opponent vulnerabilities on losses. We take small random breaks if we're constantly queueing against a team we're losing to (so that we might get a different team) or when people want to grab a smoke or take a leak.

KinetiK · 08/20/07, 2:34 AM

You discuss things after/before games? If we lose vent is silent, if we win vent is all He-Man and stuff. My arena ranking is justified after all!

Calantus · 08/20/07, 3:53 AM

In my 3v3 we don't talk much because we know our composition is bad and we only do it to get the shaman points (EDIT: the shaman is also the warrior, so we have shaman+healer+mage or shaman+healer+healer). In my 2v2 it depends on why we lost. Shaman+warrior loss is /shrug /queue /pray, but if we lose something like rogue+X or warlock+X or mage+X we talk about how to do it better next time because chances are we could beat them if we executed or planned better. In 5v5 we hardly talk because we only just started. I want everyone used to the dynamics of 5v5 and their place in it before we knuckle down and talk too much strat.

As for breaks... I always wait for everyone to be out and then another 10 seconds or so then say "queueing" over vent and queue up. If anyone wants a break they just say something before then or cancel their queue and speak up. I don't see a need to have specific breaks, just if someone wants to grab a drink or talk about something then we break as needed.

StreetJustice · 08/20/07, 1:32 PM

I only do 2v2 with a shadow priest, or a frost mage, same guy. If we dominated them we will just re-queue instantly and joke until it pops. If we barely win we will re-queue instantly and discuss the mistakes we made. If we barely lose we instantly re-queue and quickly talk about what mistakes we made and how bad we are going to beat the same team this time, if we play them. If we get totally dominated we will not queue up again until we know why we lost and what we are going to do about it. There is much foul language on vent and cursing of soul link warlocks, resto druids, and shadow resist. Then we spend the queue time looking at their armory profiles.

Tower · 08/20/07, 2:57 PM

Alt+tab and post on whatever official class forum you just lost to, of course!

I'm usually just stalking armory while we talk over strategy of losses and wins. And going, "zomg this guy doesn't have disarm immunity."

Fruit · 08/20/07, 8:58 PM

After noticing a big trend of going up a great deal of points then down half as many in an arena session, we never play for more than about 3 hours at a time in 5's now. Before we would play up to 6 or 7 hours at a time and the pattern was we played really well, then we'd go into zombie mode and start missing counterspells or just plain doing the wrong thing. A lot of our rating we'd gained was lost, and people started getting emo and/or tired.

Only playing a few hours at a time has definitely helped us finally get our rating over 2k. I'm sure not every team would be the same, but small and frequent play sessions really helped us - we're a pure casual/arena guild though, so this may not be possible for raiders.

Dizglan · 08/21/07, 5:16 AM

Just rush through the games as fast as possible. I and my team hate arenas but play the 10 games a week just for the easy epix. Even without any real tactics or ventrilo or such, we are hovering around at 2000 points, on good weeks even getting closer to 2100.

Talorn · 08/21/07, 8:29 AM

Originally Posted by Dizglan

Just rush through the games as fast as possible. I and my team hate arenas but play the 10 games a week just for the easy epix. Even without any real tactics or ventrilo or such, we are hovering around at 2000 points, on good weeks even getting closer to 2100.

yeah i find the same, when playing wow and something else pops up like a phone call or its time to eat or something, then that means its time for arena. I just pick up randoms as you would a pug for an instance and we go in, sometimes undermanned. We don't use vent and its pretty much just random - playing one handed too because I might be eating or on the phone. Week to week I can go from 1800 - 2100, so yeah its all good...???

seriously, no vent or any tactics and you get close to 2100... wow... /whatever

mad-doc · 08/21/07, 8:36 AM

Discuss tactics, talk and annoy other teams in og by playing PoM-Ball - you need: 1 Priest 2+ fires and prayer of mending = fun).

Maynard · 08/21/07, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by Dizglan

Just rush through the games as fast as possible. I and my team hate arenas but play the 10 games a week just for the easy epix. Even without any real tactics or ventrilo or such, we are hovering around at 2000 points, on good weeks even getting closer to 2100.

Might want to update your profile info to something that links to this high-rating rogue, given your current character "Glancy" doesn't exist on any EU server.

Igniter · 08/21/07, 12:33 PM

An "easy" 2k also can depend on your battlegroup. Each one varies, but batlegroups like bloodlust aren't a walk in the park.

Icetro · 08/21/07, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by Igniter

An "easy" 2k also can depend on your battlegroup. Each one varies, but batlegroups like bloodlust aren't a walk in the park.

I was going to bring up the same point. I'm not trying to brag, but it really seems to be the case that there are no true "easy matches" on our battlegroup, or at least they are few and far between.