Anyone get a chance to try out the arena?Follow

Hey guys, I got off work last night at 6am and headed home to logon for a bit of playing before I caught some z's.

I got on my rogue when my friend whispered me to say that the arenas were up and running. Woot! I immediately logged onto my Shammie and queued up. (For horde I was in Org and the arena master is in the same room as the other battlemasters, look for the goblin)

My friend and I joined as a group and entered a 2vs2 skirmish. (The actual ranking matches only are available to lvl 70's) You can also choose 3vs3 or 5vs 5.

Man what a lot of fun! Even though we got creamed repeatedly, we had a blast. I was full enhancment so I couldn't heal my friend or myself worth a crap. Interuptions were horrible. I immediately cleaned out my bank and scrounged up 40g to respec to full restoration and we're going to try it out again as soon as we can.

A feature I loved about the arena is that all your cooldowns on your abilities are immediately erased so everything is ready to go, even trinkets! Before the match starts, all spells casted (buffs etc) are mana free as to not hinder you at the beginning of the match, another nice feature.

Also, the arena is multiple server as well, so queue times are no longer then 10seconds. Hmm what else...oh ya I was surprised to find that I faced off against some horde as well! I had the pleasure of fighting against a shammie and it was a lot of fun. Initially I thought I'd be fighting against alliance only.

The one thing I didn't like was that many people would leave the match before it started, thus leaving your team gimped. Quite insulting really to have your opponent turn to face you then disappear. What I'm not good enough for you?

I think they should apply the deserter tag to people who ditch out like that in skirmishes and make them wait x minutes before they queue up, just like the other BG's! I mean what's the point of joining up? I'm not in Tier 2 or 3 so you're gonna ditch? No heals for you! (kind of funny though too because someone would ditch from my 2vs2 match, and moments later they'd be on my team again in a 5vs5 match. /point /sigh.

Sorry if this is old news to you guys, just thought I'd share and didn't see any existing threads.

Cheers!

Edited, Dec 9th 2006 11:04pm by Zornov

Edited, Dec 10th 2006 8:09am by Zornov

I did some 5v5 with some guildies and while it was fun, I think before the ranked matches come in the novelty will wear off fast... except maybe for those teams who want to practice a lot before it comes out. There really isn't a point when the matches last less time then it takes to prepare... and you basically don't get rewarded at all for it.

Played a bit on my rogue and pally, I was suprised at how quick the battles were. I'm also used to using prep on my rogue as a reset between fights rather than a piece of the same battle, so I've got to start using it more. Probably won't grind it as a team for the expansion (and I can imagine team rogues will spend a TON on fadeleaf).

Seems like ranged has a pretty big advantage, though healing was pretty tough for my pally because there are a lot of places people go out of line of sight, so perhaps melee can use that to their advantage too.

In none of the matches I played were the teams actually even, once fighting two priests on my rogue, another was a 3v5 matchup. I guess when organized teams start playing they'll be okay, but for skirmish they need to do something about that.