I know that this thread may come across as sounding quite noobish, but I consider myself to be a skilled player for the most part and I would really like to know what kind of things I can do to improve my PvP skills. Overall I'm in a SW raiding guild on a PvE server, but I PvP on both Rogue and Warlock. My Warlock is in almost full s3 gear and my rogue is in a mix of pvp/pve gear, but moderately well geared all around. My question is thus: I often find myself getting stuck at far lower brackets than I think I should. My guildmates laugh about point-selling at 2100+ ratings while I sometimes can't break 1700 given the comp.

I'm sure that I can't be the only person out there who does decently enough at arenas to get up above 1600-1700 but I guess my question becomes: how do you take it farther?

I've been playing with friends for the most part who are always well geared and whom when I play with them I can't see any glaring issues with their choices for ability usage. Yet we always get stuck somewhere between 1650 and 1800 rating. I recently played 2s Warlock/Rogue (my Warlock) with a guildmate Rogue who is always 2000+ rated and he helped me get to 1850 so that once I get the points I can buy the weapon. I earned it through playing with him, but at the same time, there is that feeling that he carried me.

Are there any general comments, tricks, hints, or maybe questions for me that you'd like to bring to the floor to help me understand the difference between a 1700 team, and a 2000 rated team.

Thanks,

I definitely have already started doing a lot of what you mention. I certainly feel that with my Warlock I learned a ton from my Rogue partner. He did exactly as you suggested and when we lost he would say little things like "don't dot the cc target because it will break my blind when I use it" and little things like that. He was also very good at teaching me CC chains such as sap -> fear -> blind -> fear. He would just call out what CCing he wanted me to do and after a while of course I didn't have to anymore.

Communication was actually a much bigger issue on my Rogue and I picked up an addon called CastYeller from Wowace which lets me spam most of my messages to party/raid/yell. However it's definitely not the addon you're talking about and I need to find that addon because CastYeller won't do my kicks, let alone say what spell I interrupted. But it was a big change for my Rogue (me)/ Mage team for me to start using that addon because I would yell out who I was sapping, gouging, blinding, and my partner would know not to break it.

I definitely already read a ton of arenajunkies and some of their macros were really useful (totem eating macro lol) and some of the guides were moderately helpful. I guess overall it really does come down to practice. I do of course feel however that there is a distinct difference between myself who can pretty comfortably get to 1800 rating with a good partner, or some of my guildmates who seem to be able to pull any old joe up to 1900+ rating without too much effort. I guess it could just be lots of practice and the instinct of knowing what to do in every situation.

If anyone else has any tips please feel free to share.

I've hit 2k on both my Warlock (main) and Druid (alt). In addition to those teams that have hit that rating, I also play on a number of other teams that are in the 17-1800 range (perhaps on both teams that hit 2k I was carried by my partner, but I'd like to think that I can pull my own weight). The main difference I've noticed between players who can hit 2k and those stuck at 1700ish is that the players who are more successful can track all 4/6/10 players and have a decent idea of what they're doing. Tunnel visioning with good gear will get you to about 1700, and you'll need to actually be able to watch the entire field of play to get beyond that point.

I think that's the most important thing to say. However, finding someone to play with, who actually doesn't go "tunnel visioning" isn't easy. Especially as a healer i notice my DDs going to stick to much on something, trying to much to kill that SINLGE ONE target, even forgetting about their own defence/health.

I had a lot of nice games with crap gear and good players and way to much the other way around. And to point it out once again, a good player isn't necessarily the one that just knows about his class, but who knows his class AND at least important things of all classes and most of all who keeps an eye on what's happening around him.

Actually so far I feel that there have been some great responses to my original question and I am certainly not looking for specific Rogue/Lock tips because I have a 70 of every class except Hunter, so I enjoy playing all of them. I just pointed those two out because they are the ones that I have gotten "stuck" in the 1700-1800 range.

I think tunnel visioning is another good point and definitely something else that I work on but often find myself guilty of, especially with fear. It's so easy to fear something and forget it that sometimes I forget that even if fear is on DR on someone you can still use it to break a spell cast.

I know there's no secret that I've been missing or anything of the sort, but I appreciate the feedback thus far guys and will definitely try to pay more attention to these things the next time I arena.

While there's certainly gains to be made from more efficient pet-micro, crowd-control and so forth, my current major focus is Positioning, if only because it seems to be talked about so rarely.

I've generally found that good players are almost always in the Right Spot at the Right time. It's a bit vague as a description, but I think it summarizes the objective. Where exactly the right spot is at any particular time depends entirely on the million individual factors of a match, but perhaps I can provide some examples.

I can't count the number of terrible druids my lock/rogue team has destroyed when the druid unstealths right in the middle of some barren patch of land and in easy range for fear spam or a hard switch. Or warriors who take just one too many steps around a pillar and line of sight an incoming heal from their healer. Or mages who find themselves completely out of line of sight of any of the fighting. It even applies to people who are fighting melee and such. If you have a warrior on you and your rogue can stun him while you walk around a pillar, that warrior is going to have to slowly walk around after you, great fun.

That sort of thing sounds somewhat basic and perhaps even obvious while you're sitting here reading, but it becomes rather more difficult in the heat of combat. In any case, that's the largest difference I see between say 1800 and 2k. At 2k druids unstealth behind things and warriors rarely get pulled around corners.

Beyond that a lot of it is just pure experience and muscle memory. There's generally not that many variables or options in each fight, especially 2v2 and you can probably learn the vast majority.

I'll note, somewhat parenthetically, that one of my biggest problems playing with a rogue was playing too conservatively to try to allow for sexy blind-sap moments. As awesome as they are, the higher we got, the less frequent they become. A large part of a warlock's power, especially sl/sl, relies on hitting multiple targets with your dots, hitting just one target gimps you severely. I've also found that healers, very especially the healers who actually have to cast heals such as paladins and shamans, but even druids do it, is let themselves get rather low if you get dots on them and apply pressure to their partner. This tends to allow for perfect dps switches to healers at 50% hp.


Of course there are the obvious warlock things, practice with your pet controls, bind spell lock and devour magic, use a focus frame or similar for whatever you want your pet to spell lock, keep track of what every person on a battlefield is doing, things like that. Get used to starting a long cast, like searing pain, and then clicking or looking around to figure out exactly where everyone else is.

Some lock/rogue specifics, vs healer/dps teams we kill the healer, either by pressuring their dps to force the healer out or just jumping the healer straight off. This especially applies to paladins who are going to bubble at some point anyway and you certainly want them to bubble when you have a possibility of surviving to the end of it. Versus double dps generally my rogue waits for the enemy rogue to jump me then jumps him, avoiding those initial stun chains is huge. Either he stays on the rogue or jumps to the other one at that point, it doesn't matter that much. The exception to killing the healer first is vs hunter teams, generally they're squishy enough that they can just be dropped with limited cc on the healer.

A lot of inexperienced players confuse bad positioning and other transparent Arena mechanics with a) Class imbalance and b) Bad luck.

I can't count how many times i've heard people on vent (usually my own guild) whom have low ratings complaining that they "couldn't possibly do anything to avoid losing to that team".

Every successful Arena player will tell you: There is a shitload more going on in the background of a game than meets the eye. If your stuck at 1600 rating and can't figure out why, you need to practice a lot more until you learn the arts of "the hidden game".

Hopefully I can say this without falling into the 'excuses' category, but I think there is something to be said for pvp'ing in BG9 vs some other BGs. I'm not saying this to get flamed, but I genuinely think you will have a harder time on Proudmoore than you will on some of the more quiet BGs. Not to mention lag if you're an Aus player. You are probably alot better than you think (but that doesn't help you get your shoulders/weapons does it?)

In terms of what you can do to get better, well I'm probably not the best person to give advice seeing as I only broke 1850 in S1 / early S2 before imploding and hating arenas. I would say though that it is very important to pick a good partner who you know has some patience and preferably has some priorities outside of arena too. When I was desperately trying to get above 1850 in s3, I had a number of different warriors who would all rage and chuck a hissy fit when things didnt go their way. It nearly always meant that they would jump ship for another druid and leave me having to relearn how another new partner plays - which generally meant that I had a hard time getting better.

Pick a decent partner and stick together. It sounds like you've got a good partner already, so I can only advise you to stick with him at nearly all costs. Learn how each other reacts in different situations. Learn how your rogue likes to play and adapt accordingly. Some of my best games (and most fun) were with an undergeared friend when we were able to take down teams with much higher ratings / better gear. We did this because I *knew* what he was going to do / where he was going to be and vice versa.

There's alot to be said for playing with a different player for a while to see how things are done, but in my opinion playing with a regular team mate and training as a team will be much more helpful Just play more games, try going into BGs and take on 2 v 3/4/5s. Watch how he manages his cooldowns, what targets he likes to CC and what kind of burst he puts out.

Disclaimer: I'm a massive noob and you should not believe anything I say, about anything, ever.

I used to play on BG9, and yes, it IS harder, but most of that is at 2k+ where the fame of BG9 comes from, the "super-saturation" of amazing players doesn't start at 1500. BG9 has an enormous arena population and thus you are just as likely to run into a string of bads and smoothly sail to 2k as you are to meet glad reroll after glad reroll 30 games in a row. The difference is entirely on when you play (don't play tuesdays, people level pointsells then) and how you deal with that. Also, due to the enormous Oceanic population on BG9, you're just as likely to run into merc glads at 5am in the morning as you are at 5pm at night. It's rougher than places like Emberstorm and Retaliation, that's for sure. But the skill-difference in the 1500-1850 bracket between let's say, Vengeance, and Bloodlust is pretty minimal. There may be more teams queueing on BG9 at any given point, but until you hit 2k/2.1k+ it's not that different from other BGs.

In fact, for me it was easier to hit 2k in 2v2 on BG9 than it has been on Rampage. This is mostly an effect of who was queueing and when, and yes, rustiness, but still, the skill level in 2s is really not any different between BGs sub 2k. Other brackets you can probably make that argument but I'm not going to go there.

Lots of good points made, another thing that i would like to suggest, especially when you are playing so many classes is that you single out a couple and then play them first and foremost. The difference between logging on and playing with a character that you played well a month ago, but haven't played since and logging on and playing character that you are playing every day is absolutely huge. The dangerous part of this is that you oftentimes won't notice this yourself. An example:

When i was playing my resto druid actively i would instinctively know at any point in time;
a) How much damage i was propably going to take and thus how much healing i was propably gonna need before i could go bear for mitigation.
b) How much healing my current stack was worth and the duration of it.
c) The likeliness i was to get stunned or otherwise caught in bad situations.
d) The number of outs i had left and an at least semi-clear plan on how to use them.

This made me able to survive some quite outrageus stuff from time to time. However i haven't played that character in way over a month so when i do hop on it and go play i am constantly loosing lifebloom stacks, getting stunned in bad positions/at bad times and forgeting all sorts of small things that when combined make up for a whole lot of a difference. The general point that i am trying to get through here is that over time with practise you are propably going to go from playing rather reactive to playing proactive, witch is where you want to go. This does however fade if you dont play that character and thus your results are gonna be worse.

It clearly depends on how good you actually are but alot of suggestions made already hold alot of truth.

What helped me getting better in arenas actually was 3 things:

a) Duelling. Some may say "Duelling has absolutely nothing to do with an arena match" and this may be true, however, you will learn alot about your own and the other classes while duelling. You will get a feeling for what you are able to pull of and what not and you will see how your opponents will react. Becoming better at duelling will make you become better in arenas.

b) Read. Watch videos. Soke up other players knowledge. There is alot of really good pvp material out there and I don't mean those "roflmao oloo 8k insta pyro crit omfg! I pwn y0u!"-videos but tutorial-like videos (eg. "I suck at ..."-series, siij's Battlecast, etc), arena videos by high ranked arena players (eg. gc, sonny, etc) and good suggestions and stuff in forums like this one.

c) Dont ever whine about loosing. Whining about imbalance, about overpowered classes, too skilled players, unfairness of mechanics or just your unability to beat some player or class will not make you better at it. Ever. If you lose it's most likely your fault. You will need to be aware of this simple fact and start searching for mistakes you propably constantly do while playing. I believe this is a huge step, that most people struggling to break into the upper ratings fail at.